A very pleasant surprise.
At the beginning this game seems kind of typical with the exception of combat. In fact the story could be ripped straight outta Star Wars. A young man orphaned on a desert planet is desperately looking for a way out and excitement. Blah, blah, blah. Within the first hour however you meet some of your first party members and begin to see the fun personality Level 5 games are known for. Once you get offworld of course, your adventure truly begins.
You will meet a fun eclectic cast of characters as you progress through the game. Each character having their own oddness similar to most anime. From the talking cat, the warrior dog, the amazon warrior woman, or the elusive Desert Claw these guys are all unique and fun characters that add plenty of fun to this story.
The story is the only weak point to the game. While certainly not a bad story in any way, it is a bit lacking in the dept department. You will always know what's going on in this game, but you might not always care. The majority of the story does not take away from the overall enjoyment of the game, but it would have certainly been nice to get a deeper story and history to this strange universe you're flying around in.
Graphically Rogue sets a good mark on the PS2. Characters have a nice cell shaded look that never seems too cartoony. In fact the graphic style seems much more comic book like than cartoon like. Environments are done quite nicely, but level design can take away from the great visuals. All cut scenes are done with the in game engine so you never have that awkward cutscene shift that other rpgs often have.
Perhaps my favorite part of the game is the weapon customization. Not that it's very deep or anything, but it's fun to fuse two of your powerful weapons together and make a sickeningly more powerful one. Nothing like having diligence pay off.
There's also plenty of sidequests and minigames to occupy your time. There's the insectron tournament that let's you capture and train bugs to fight pokemon style; the factory that let's you produce new weapons, items and whatnot; and a slew of other small things that'll keep you interested for hours to come.
All in all you can't go wrong with this game. Especially since it's below 20$ at most gameshops used now. If you're like me and still use the heck out of your PS2 you should definitely pick this one up.