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Galerians: wonderful addition to the survival horror mold.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 27 / 28
Date: April 01, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Once in awhile there are games that come along that don't really offer anything new to a genre, yet somehow are so addicting and so compelling to play, that its "sleeper hit" label seems irrelavent. Galerians is one of those games. Though not contributing anything ground breaking(not to mention having the unfortunate luck of being released on the same day as the latest installment to the insanely popular RE series, Code:Veronica), Galerians keeps the gamer on their toes from start to finish of its 3-disc span. Think as Galerians as a lively meshing of Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and a little bit of Bladerunner/Akira thrown in for spice. Anyone familiar with Resident Evil's interface (the control set up, 3D "scenes", etc)will feel right at home. Those that enjoyed Silent Hill's twisted and just down right weird storyline will no doubt dig Galerians' own odd and perverse plot. And the Bladerunner/Akira feel of Galerians comes from the whole "futrustic, boy injected with top-secret corporate chemicals" aspect of those two fine movies. Taking place in a dark, futuristic setting, the game's main protagonist, Rion, is on a self-driven mission to find out who he is, who his parents are, and what exactly has happened to him due to cruel expierementations. Obviously, the first thing one would notice about Galerians, as is with any game, are the graphics. The dark, moody settings and character designs suit the game's theme well, though the overall feel seems a bit sketchy. The graphics could have used a few touch ups here and there, but in the grand scheme of things, Galerians is visually satisfying. The user-friendly controls of Galerians is another plus. The controls are quite familiar to the survival horror genre, and the item system is a breeze to use, making injecting drugs and other chemicals into Rion a cinch. The story is really where Galerians shines. It's an emotional journey to hell and back in the boots of a 14-year old boy, whose struggling to find himself and deal with the unfortunate side effects of the dozens of chemicals pumped into him. It's told extremely well through beautiful FMV. Also included are voice-overs, and while it may not be perfection, they are conveyed with lots of emotion and suit each character well (especially Rion). And finally, the most unique aspect of Galerians is the fact that instead of attacking with your standard aray of guns or bombs, Rion uses psychic abilities to ward off his enemies. By taking PPECs and various other pills, Rion has the ability to ignite his pursuing antagonists on fire, send them flying with shockwaves or encasing them in gravity globes. Very interesting indeed. Lastly, one can't go wrong with purchasing Galerians. It' just a great game, simple as that; a game thats strength lies in its ability to captivate gamers without hype or over promotion.

Very Good Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 19 / 19
Date: March 28, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This is a Very Good Game! From Crave, the people who came out with Jade Cacoon and the less known Mort the Chicken, plan to release Galerians to the USA on March 29, this next Wednesday. Playing it on a Japanese mod chip was great but now everyone can finally play it in English.

You are Rion, a fourteen year old boy who wakes up one day in chair with doctors probing needles into his neck and rest of his body. Not knowing who these people or himself are, the confused Rion wakes up again later in his cell. He appears to be in a hospital. This is where the quest begins.

This game has Rion's weapon being the power of his mind not. Instead of guns he has powerful psychic blasts that can knock an enemy down, burn him, or incinerate him.His items and ammunition are drugs that he is addicted to. Nalcon, Red, & D-Felon are the types of drugs he uses for power. This game plays like a survival horror with very Resident Evil-style controls. The biggest difference between this and Resident Evil is that instead of fighting hordes of zombies, the Galerians (a human sub-species hoping to take over the world and can only be stopped by our pal Rion) are fought. Gameplay is very fun, a psychic blast is charged and released to kill these enemies. There are drugs that can "skip" or make you become more powerful for certain amount of time. This temporary level system makes it feel a bit like Parasite Eve or other RPG's but especially like Parasite Eve. Other interesting features is the ability to "short" when Rion's AP (Addiction Points) reaches a max, he must take a ceratin drugs or else when he tries to attack, all the enemies in the range will how their heads and then their heads will explode. This is good for the first boss and a ton of bad guys but it causes your HP (Hit Points) to go down as well as your speed (unable to run is similar to dnager status in Resident Evil). THere is also a drug that will cause you to automaticaly short in case you need it.

Controls are good. Hold R1 to charge a blast, Square to release it. Holding X and moving on the D-Pad makes Rion run and when without holding X he walks. These are the main controls. The only complaint is that it does not support analog mode (even though I don't like analog others like it).

The atmosphere is amazing. The futuristic world is depicted very well with spooky environments with stunning pre-rendered backrounds. The graphics are so amazing in game play and FMV's that it could make the atmosphere perfect on its own.

Sound is good. Its soundtrack offers spooky background music and relaistic sound effects. The sound team was allowed to use their imagination in making the psychic blast sounds and other sounds. The sound sets the mood very well like in Silent Hill (spooky, onminous tones) and Ridge Racer Type 4 (techno).

In conlusion this game simply is awesome!

Gameplay:5 Controls:4.5 Atmosphere:5 Sound:5 Fun Factor:5 Overall:5

excellent

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 16
Date: April 10, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game is all around extremely good. The graphics are smooth, the voice overs are very well acted, and the gameplay is simple and easy to learn. Rion is a convincing character who you grow to care about. His psychic powers are escellently animated, judging by how much you charge them. Using the scan ability to figure out puzzles is great, because the visions that you sometimes recieve show the area you need to go to to find the next item or step of the predicament. The pre rendered backgrounds are beautiful and well detailed, and they are 100% original. The fact that you can look at your movies again whenever you want is cool, because they are all exciting and well animated, making the game all around more fun. The only flaw is that Rion constantly gains anger points, and when you cant find the medicine to reduce them, he shorts out and starts gradually losing HP. The only cool part about it is that it blows up the oppositions head when you get close to it. But it's even better that this doesnt happen very often because when you short out, the enemy stays away from you.

This is a great game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: June 14, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Though getting some bad reviews, Galerians is a game that won't disappoint anyone who is wanting a game that offers a facinating plot, cinemas that start every five minutes, and a game that doesn't rely on you blowing up everything in site.

Starting out in a lab, young Rion wakes to find himself enpowered with psychic abilities. Not remembering much of his past, Rion strikes out to find out who he is, why he has been subjected to experiaments, and to help an old friend, Lilia, who is calling to him.

Galerians does not contribute anything really new to the sirvival horror genre in terms of gameplay. While the psychic powers are enough to set this game marginally apart from other sirvival horror games, it's the plot and atmosphere which really give this game it's edge.

There are some slight problems with Galerians, but nothing that should keep you from buying it. The voice overs could have used some help. The controls are ackward, with a huge leaning curve. But the main problem is the games easiness and shortness. Dispite the huge three disk attire, Galerians only has four areas which shouldn't take you that long to beat. However, like I said, none of these problems are major, and this is definately a game to recomend.

Hmmm... Me think good...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: November 04, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Galerians is interesting from the start: you play Rion, a 14 year old who wakes in a hospital with no memory of the past. You discover you have phycic powers which, properly used, can fire a shockwave, levitate people and smash them into the ground, or simply set them on fire. If you are sick to death of all the shoot em ups out there, this will be refreshing. The story is quite strange: set in the future, Rion travels to his house, contantly having phychic visions of the madness that transpired there- in the house it does get a bit creepy. While some of the boss's are extremely difficult, and the play controls lanky from time to time, it is a small price to pay for the overall quality. I really enjoyed this game- it had a fresh twist on things, and kept me entertained till the end, which is something you certainly can't say about all games. There are 3 discs and hours of gameplay that presents a good challenge to those who want one. .... Honestly, it's a good game. :)

An enjoyable survival sci-fi game with some flaws

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: September 12, 2002
Author: Amazon User

First, let me start out the review by saying that the "over 50 hours of gameplay" claim on the back of the CD case is an outright lie. I beat it in under 6 hours my first (and only) time through. From what I've heard and read, 5-10 hours is average. In other words, don't expect the weeks of entertainment the packaging promises...

So, onto the basic premise of the game. You're a young boy named Rion. You wake up in a lab with no memories and an array of psychic abilities, apparently received while you were the unwilling subject for some sort of experimentation. You begin the game by escaping your restraints and trying to win your freedom. As you progress through the game's 4 areas, the story unfolds through character interactions and beautiful movies and images usually triggered by some sort of psychic flashback or intuition related to various objects and locations.

The gameplay basically involves battles (that are usually few and far between) and puzzle solving (mostly of the "find items and keys and figure out where to use them" variety). Your main weapons in battle are your psychic abilities, enhanced by chemicals called PPECs. You start out with 2 offensive abilities. Nalcon allows you to send sort of an attack wave ... You'll get a 3rd ability (albeit a fairly useless one) halfway through the game. So, you're basically left with 2 fairly weak main attacks, each taking more than one hit at full power to take out all but the simplest of enemies.

The game's weapon and healing systems all rely on drugs. You have certain amounts of offensive drugs in your system. When they run low, you have to inject yourself with more. When your health runs low, pop a pill. You also have "anger points" that rise just from walking around and rise more rapidly when you use psychic powers. This is due to the interaction of drugs in your system, and when the AP meter gets to high, you "short", which is basically a psychic overdose that leaves you walking around with a big migraine. The plus side: Every enemy you go near while shorting will die violently. The negative side: Your health will go south rather quickly until you stop the shorting by taking a pill called delmetor.

Enemy battles are usually easy, except for a handful of very difficult end bosses that take a while to defeat and a few instances where enemies attack you 3 at a time, leaving you frustratingly unable to fight back. Strategy is limited, usually involving running around in circles until you have enough time to charge your powers and attack.

As for the graphics and sound, they're both excellent for the Playstation. The general game graphics are nice, sharp, and detailed. The movies (which are the reason the game spans 3 discs) are also quite impressive. The sound is excellent, from eerie music down to the footsteps that let you know an enemy is pacing around the corner...

The controls..well..they're annoying. If you've never played a survival horror game, the stiff controls will prove to be a great annoyance. If you're a survival horror veteran, they'll be a familiar annoyance. Having to charge up your psychic powers in order to attack with any effectiveness adds to the frustration as it's sometimes hard to target fast moving enemies while charging, leading you to miss often and waste your PPECs..

Overall, I'd say don't buy this game, rent it. It's a rather enjoyable game with a great storyline and entertaining puzzles. However, as I stated earlier, it will only last you a couple nights, and since the main thrill of the game is following the storyline and figuring out the puzzles, it has practically no replay value.

A truly mixed bag, but worth a look.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: January 13, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Galerians is a decent game. However, it's not for everyone. Imagine a more flawed Resident Evil, with awkward controls and relatively bland gameplay, at times. You control Rion, a teenager who awakens in a strange lab to find himself with incredible psychic abilities. As he makes his way around what appears to be a laboratory of some sort, there will be all sorts of enemies roaming around, trying to stop him. In order to stop them, he must inject himself with psychic power enhancing drugs, so that he has the juice to take them down. Too much [illegal drugs] and he goes berserk, losing life rapidly, but blowing away everyone in his path. Not enough, and he won't have what it takes to defeat the opposition. Little by little, you'll uncover more and more of Rion's past and exactly why he's there.

The gameplay has some blaring faults, mainly in the sense that the fighting is hard to control, and somewhat poorly designed. The whole drug idea is a cool one, in terms of storyline, but when it comes to actually playing out that idea, it can be annoying. You'll be constantly running around, searching for drugs to either heal you, protect you against "shorting out", or help you kill the bad guys. Other items are strewn across the game, such as keys and what not, to add a bit of puzzle-play to the game, but all it really does is slows the game down.

When it comes down to it, the gameplay is very sub-par. But, the storyline, graphics, sound and overall atmosphere make up for it. The entire game is filled with chilling cinemas to depict the game's downright creepy sci-fi storyline. All of the environments are very imaginative and drip with style. This game isn't blatantly jump-out-of-your-seat scary like Resident Evil. It's closer to the subtle, psychological and atmospheric horror found in Silent Hill--but in a sci-fi setting. The game has a sinister air about it everywhere you go; you'll feel for Rion straight from the beginning, while being disturbed by the violent acts he commits, almost unknowingly. I would recommend this game to someone that is willing to sacrifice good gameplay for a unique, chilling plot, and superbly executed sound and graphics. But if you demand a game that focuses more on gameplay than ambience and aesthetics, steer absolutely clear of Galerians.

The Best Game of All Time

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 17
Date: March 08, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game exceeds the high standards I was expecting for in a Crave Game and in a Survival Horror game. I am pleased to know that such quality products are being released because this is the BEST GAME EVER!

Galerians is awsome!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: September 07, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Galerians is a great game, and surprisingly gory. The main character is Rion and he is so cool because he is psychic, but he has to take psychic power enhancement chemicals to use his powers. This game is very original and clever. Although other reviews said it wasn't very good and took to long to load, they were wrong. The loading was not bad and is nothing to complaim about or even worry about. It took me a while to figure out how to use his powers with the drugs, but that was because I had no instruction book. Once I figured it out though, it was amazing. Running around and using his psychic powers to kill the bad guys was so much fun! This game has a great plot and is NOT just some Resident Evil rip-off.

Worth the Wait

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: March 31, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I first read about this game in Incite magazine about 3 months ago and feel that this game was everything I expected it to be. It is well worth the money. Something that is quite rare these days lol. Even though the Resident Evil engine has been just about juiced out I think that this game may bring back some originality to the genre. Though I dont compare it to the Resident Evil series I do believe that this game stands alone and holds its own ground. Expect sequels. Buy it.

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