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Resembles Disney's Treasure Planet and Star Wars

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 12 / 17
Date: February 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Updated Review on 2-9-2007

Not sure if the developers from Level-5 worked with the authors who have created the animation called Treasure Planet from Disney back in 2002. The pirate space ship just have almost the same kind of design as the Treasure Planet with ship contains sails look like 1700s and funny looking aliens. May be because Treasure Planet wasn't popular so they have to remake it into a video game? Anyone notice that?

This game is also very similar to Star Wars in many ways. The character settings, planets, and storyline. With the main character named Jester Rogue from a desert planet called Rosa resembling Luke Skywalker, an orphan, being raised in the planet of Tatooine. The first planet you start to visit after an accident crash is a jungle planet called Jariaka. I think that is almost the same as Kashyyyk, where Wookiees from but with human looking natives though, you will encounter hot chicks too! There is even a character similar to Yoda, very short, and wears a rope!

The battle system is in real time action. It is sometimes very intense where you are always at low health. So you better prepare a lot of healing potions and revival kits. Similar to FFXII's Gambit System, there is a convenient suggestion system which will ask for your advise to heal, revive or perform special attacks for the other characters or do healing/reviving automatically, though this system is not as detail as FFXII, it serves the basic needs.

The music score really suits the environment, though it is very different from Star Wars that uses serious classical orchestra. The music are usually pretty epic, relaxing, joyful, sometimes with some classical flavours. If you want to know more about the soundtrack, you can expect the music similar to Chrono Cross, Xenogears, and Xenosaga 1. Why? Because we got Yasunori Mitsuda for making the theme song! We also get verious composers including Yoko Shimomura who made Kingdom Hearts 2. Moto Sakurab from Star Ocean, Valkyrie Profile, and Tales of Series.
Wait, I think I'm mentioning about the Rogue Galaxy Premium Tracks! Haha!
The original soundtrack is mostly composed by Tomohito Nishiura who did Dark Cloud. Yayoi Ono for vocals, and Barbara Kessler for the ending theme song.

For gameplay, you will see something similar to Final Fantasy 10 and 12 system to upgrade your character's special abilities. There is something like a checkerboard and you have to use items to unlock new abilities called Revelation. Also, unlike FF12, when you pick up new armors, they will be shown on the screen.

When upgrading weapons, there is this very cute looking frog that can fuse two weapons with maximum level together.

There are some mini games like Insectron which you have to set traps to capture insects and raise them like Digimon for battle!

The item creation is pretty interesting too. After certain point in the story, you will have a factory to invent and produce new products varies from items, materials and weapons. You can then purchase these items from shops around the galaxy.

Also later in the story, you can purchase hunting locations to defeat the beasts to gain certain rare item and hunter points.

There are some dissapointment, your character cannot use another character's weapon. For example Jester can only use a sword and gun, but you cannot use Lilika's Bow and dagger. There is one level where you need to fight in two huge towers, that dungeon is very annoying and you might need to spend more than 6 hours in the dungeon with almost identical environment for each floor.

I haven't played through the whole game yet, but it has already given me the impression of Star Wars environment. If you like Star Wars, Digimon, Pockemon, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest or Japanese RPG, I'm sure you will definitely love this game. Moreover, there aren't good PS3 games yet, so I play the Rogue Galaxy on my PS3 as a substitute.

The Last Great PS2 RPG!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 15
Date: February 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I first read about this game about two years ago in "Game Informer" and since then I had been waiting immpatiently for this game to be released. Well now it has, and it doesnt disappoint on any level....NOT EVEN THE VOICE ACTING!

I figured I would rent this game first just incase ut ended up being terrible. No less than 30 minutes into the game I found myself utterly enthralled and captivated by the game. The gameplay is not hard at all, the concept is extremely fun, and the characters keep you interested as well.

I highly recommend this game to anyone who is trying to restore use back into that PS2 that is collecting some dust, or to anyone with a PS3 that wants to play an excellent role-playing game.

Exploring a Galaxy Never Felt So Good

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 46 / 48
Date: February 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The Playstation 2 has tons of RPGs. When a new one marches forth most RPGers can usually say "Yep" or "Nope." Rogue Galaxy is definitely a "Yep." It's easy to grasp, yet difficult to master. It's shorthanded in some key areas which keep it from being perfect, but it's still one of the best RPGs to come around in a while.

Rogue Galaxy follows the story of Jaster. Jaster dreams of exploring the galaxy someday. He more than gets his chance after having a run in with a Bounty Hunter, and then being mistaken for said bounty hunter. In all honesty, Rogue Galaxy doesn't have a great storyline. It's certainly not horrible, but it's standard. It's also full of predictable plot points, and it actually lacks a little in the character development. These two aspects of any RPG are crucial. Whether you want to accept it or not, story and character development are important, and Rogue Galaxy lacks both. It's sad because you'll meet a lot of characters who are interesting. The problem is that you just don't learn enough about them.

Luckily, the game is saved by the sheer fun factor that comes with the battle system. Unlike other RPGs, Rogue Galaxy doesn't have you running around and then there's a transition into a random battle. Rather, enemies just pop up and you take a battle stance right in the area you're exploring. It's very similar to Kingdom Hearts in that regard. When in battle you'll be able to jump around, slash as your enemies and switch between primary and secondary weapons. Your primary weapon is usually a melee weapon, while your secondary is a projectile. Battling is fast paced and fun. It deviates away from the menu based combat that has dominated RPGs over the past couple of decades.

Battling isn't entirely simple, though. The game is quite a challenge in many regards. First, there's the emphasis on strategy. This is more than just you smacking an enemy until it dies. Some enemies you'll have to expose their weakness in some way before you can start dealing damage to them. Some only take damage from certain weapons. There is a definite emphasis on strategy. Your characters will often give you hints on what to do as well.

You only control one character in combat. The others are controlled by AI. Unfortunately this is another aspect where Rogue Galaxy falls short. Your allies are hardly aggressive. There will be plenty of moments where you'll have to revive your AI controlled characters. There are moments where the game's difficulty is so high that reviving and healing characters becomes a constant chore. This is mostly apparent in boss battles. Which brings up another factor that can make or break the experience of Rogue Galaxy. Leveling up also feels like a chore sometimes. It takes a lot of battling to level up. It's fun, thank goodness, but much like Dragon Quest VIII there are times when you'll spend more time level grinding than progressing through the game. Some RPGers will love this challenge, but others may not be patient enough to do so much level building. The game is long as it is, and so much more of it requires the player to be dedicated to level grinding. For the most part, though, it's still a fun game to play, and the battle system is so much more involving than other RPGs out there.

Another factor to aid the battle system and peak the interest of any RPGer is the weapon fusion. As you go through the game, your weapons also level up. They can be be fused with other weapons to make more powerful weapons. So much of Rogue Galaxy isn't so much dependent on your defense as much as it is your offense. So it's a good idea to fuse some good weapons. However, weapon fusing isn't completely fun and games. There's no way for you to become a God right from the get go with weapons. Factors such as the weapon type, weapon level, your characters skill with the weapon etc. play a pivotal role. So even if you created a really powerful weapon early on, your character may not be skilled enough to wield it. This works very well, because it keeps the game from becoming too easy too fast.

Rogue Galaxy also offers a complex ability system called "Revelations." Each character has a Revelations Flow Chart. By buying certain items and placing them in the Revelations Flow Chart, your characters will learn abilities, and other parts of the Flow Chart will open up for them. Like a lot of the game, it's actually pretty simple to learn. This is what's nice about Rogue Galaxy. It's easy to pick up and play.

There are some pretty cool optional quests that you can do throughout the game. You can collect bugs that can be used in a stadium (very similar to Pokemon), go on bounty missions, explore other planets. Rogue Galaxy is a pretty big game all on its own. The main quest is big enough, but some of the secrets and extras are enough to rival the Final Fantasy games.

Visually, Rogue Galaxy is one of the most artistic and beautiful looking games out there. It has a beautiful cel-shaded look very similar to Dragon Quest VIII. The environments are detailed and pretty. The fact of how exploration is done is also fantastic. Instead of just roaming around you'll have to jump up platforms and such as well. There are better looking games, but the style of this one is what makes the graphics stand out. Load times also feel non-existent. Since battles take place in exploration, and the game's cutscenes don't have to load (because there are no flashy FMVs), there's not much the game really has to load.

Speaking of which, the sound and audio quality is really good. There are times when the soundtrack feels like it isn't big enough, but you'll enjoy what you get from it, regardless. The voice acting is also done really well, even if a lot of dubbing is off more so than other RPGs.

The point is simple: With video games moving on to newer systems, it's nice to see that the Playstation 2 hasn't been left in the dust, and that Rogue Galaxy really is a high quality RPG. It may not have the best story in the world, or the best characters, but it's a huge game, with tons of things to do. The sheer amount of fun you'll have with this game is a testament to it's good quality.

Pros:

+Beautiful Looking Game
+Great soundtrack
+Good voice acting
+Tons of sidequests and optional things to do
+Very engaging battle system
+Load times feel non-existent
+The game is a good overall challenge
+Weapon fusion is deeper than most RPGs that try to do the same thing

Cons:

-Predictable storyline
-Not enough character development
-AI controlled characters don't do enough
-Some boss battles are unreasonably challenging
-A huge emphasis on level grinding, but you won't get enough experience from most of these enemies

OMG OMG OMG A SWEET GAME FLAT OUT-end of story

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 9
Date: February 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

When i first heard about it I wanted it so bad. when it was my birthday i bought it. And i was like WOW. The graphics in it are AWSOME. The gameplay is SWEET. And the game is really long so it will keep you busy until the cows come home. The first world isnt long. But the second is so long it took 3 days just to finish it. NOW THATS LONG! I bought it for $[...] I think its worth every penny. If you dont have it run to the nearest store and buy it quickly. HURRY!!!

Glaring oversights, incredibly frustrating

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 24
Date: February 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I rented this game last week...and after putting four hours of my time into it, I discovered that I put the controller down in a worse mood than when I picked it up.

This game is a waste of time. It looks great, but just isn't playable.

The AI isn't capable enough to handle combat...at all. Your party members just walk into the enemy, swing, and die. Blocking is very effective...but your AI party members never do it. You spend over half the time in combat stopping to bring up the menu to heal or revive your allies.

I died three times in the second area of the game as well. Dispersed among the levels are absolutely terrible monsters that will can easily kill your party. The treasure chests attack you. And they annihilate you. They're by far the most difficult enemy in an RPG's early game that I've seen. One hit from them takes off most a character's HP, it can hit multiple characters, and can sometimes attack more than once per animation. The game also scales them up in levels to always be vastly stronger than you, and to top it all off, the game explicitly prevents you from running away from them (the run menu is greyed out when they attack you...) This is completely against the general exploration theme of RPG's...you're supposed to find and open treasure chests, not wonder if the chest contains an item or a practically guaranteed Game Over.

The game also froze once when I was playing it. Interestingly enough, it was when I opened a treasure box...the screen flickered, and just stopped.

Don't pay $30 for this game, it's not worth the frustration or the money.

Another bad, formulaic action RPG...A waste of time, coal and uranium.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 18
Date: February 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Why do people like this game so much? Most of the characters are the same as almost every other RPG you've ever played: the young man who wants to travel, the nice girl who likes him, the tough girl who's half dressed (my personal favorite), the old experienced guy who is a prick, and the ex-soldier who (awww) wants to redeem himself. These aren't spoilers; if you played any two RPGs in your life, you will see this stuff a mile away. The other three characters are slightly more interesting, but who cares? There is barely any storyline, and I played for 40 hours, so I know.

The gameplay is more boring and choppy than the story, which is a first for me. Usually games with bland stories are still fun to play *cough*Star Ocean*cough*. Your party (which the main character is a part of, always) walks around, and suddenly, monsters hop in front of you, for no reason, right there on the screen! Pretty rude if you ask me. Then your buddies proceed to die. I leave 'em dead, I can handle the rude boys myself, but is the purpose of bringing people with you to help if they're just gonna die? They have abilities that usually kill all the normal enemies on the screen, but they need your permission first. The boss fights were okay, though. Nothing spectacular. The game itself is pretty (yes, PRETTY), but battle frame rates drop when there are lots of enemies (<4) on the screen. A lot of the elements of this game seem too similar to other games, especially the Burning Strike, it looks like VP2 (but better looking). There's not a lot of pirating in this game neither, nor a lot of places to go. You would think a galaxy would have at least a couple more planets than a solar system.

The extras are the best part of this game, but they suck! Do you remember the weapon upgrade system from DC2? Not here! Instead, some loser frog eats two of your weapons (must be same type; Jaster's swords only combine with Jaster's swords, for example) and spits out one. There are a lot of palette-swaped weapons, and special attributes don't carry over to new weapons. There aren't any really good ones anyway (stuff like poison, freeze, burn, stun; no healing, theft and such like DC2). The frog suggests stuff, and you can guess what it will be, sort of. Hunting was fun, but got old quickly (who has hours to run around in circles killing bison anyway? Not me, no sirree). My rank was 23, right before I sold it (the game, not the rank). Meh. The factory is cool. You get to build a puzzle-like factory with which to build weapons and items. Pretty creative, Level-5. I never got play Insectron, too busy hunting human-sized stuff. Might be good though.

Overall, the main game sucks, you've probably played it before a hundred times. Weapon upgrading was a chore, hunting took forever, and of course, boobage. Elf lady boobage, jungle lady boobage. Hey, if you like boobies, play this, it's boobs all in there. Yep. Boobs. Oh, when I say "boobs," I mean morons, like that Tidus-looking nincompoop.

Level-5 should have just made another Dark Cloud game.

Grow up final fantasy fanboys!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 15
Date: March 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Yup,another bulk of reviews that completely trash a cool game because they swear final fantasy is just soooooo much better!Look we all know that you worship final fantasy and that to you no other game will ever come close to the "incredible storyline","breakthrough combat system" or
"amazing graphics" of final fantasy....

Yadda yadda yadda Go out and start a final fantasy cult if you want,but quit short changing excellent games that developers put ALOT of effort into creating and that ALOT of people enjoy.

You know I think I'm getting a serious case of deja vu here.Remember when FF 10 first came out?It was at the same time that a little known RPG gem was released called Shadow Hearts.The same thing happened because of the FF zealots;everybody said that Shadow Hearts was a total waste of time and so completely terrible when it was in fact a breakthrough RPG.

Look I said it once and I'll say it again;if you love playing final fantasy SO much,then play final fantasy!But don't get all whiney with other people because they are growing tired of a series that has been run into the ground.People like to try NEW,ORIGINAL games.

The plot to FF12(as well as the recent FFs) takes itself so seriously that it's incredibly terrible.And how many times do we have to see those annoying moogles and chocobos?

Me?I'd rather sail the galaxy with a group of space pirates and fight alongside a robot,an irish accented alien,and a scantily clad tribal chick to name a few.

Collecting bounties,visiting different planets,creating weapons,an easy to learn skill building system,cool soundtrack,funny voiceovers... Sorry final fantasy worshippers,but you're missing out.

I plan to completely play through this game (as well as a few other cool stand alone RPGs)before I decide to delve into the humdrum tedium of FF12

Not half bad.....

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: March 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

We recently bought this game to kill time on our new PS2 and I have to say this game is the most time consuming game I've ever played. It takes a lot of traveling to get to some points in the story and the battles are extremely hard at some points. It's much easier to get defeated in this game than others. The enemies seem to suddenly jump levels above your character which is irritating, but also make it quite fun to take as a challenge. There is a lot of time put into leveling up if you want to avoid getting defeated too many times.

Overall, this game is very interesting. My brothers and I have not gotten very far but it's different from the narrow selection of games we've played so far. The graphics are beautiful, the little details make the overall image pretty. The annoying aspect was the enemy encounter rate as well as the suggestion system during battle. There's little warning when you will engage in battle and the characters you aren't controlling often need to be healed and revived. It's a little difficult to grasp onto the suggestion system because when you're focusing on attacking the enemy, figuring which item or ability to approve and which button to press to approve it can sometimes be a challenge. But you get the hang of it after a while.

I'd say this game is a definite yes for the RPG lovers since it does give hours upong hours of gameplay. The battling system is also quite interesting to try and master.

RPG Video Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 18
Date: March 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The product I received was as described! New condition,and unused. I received the item in a timley manner.

A severe disappointment.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 13
Date: March 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

When I quit, I'd played over seven hours and had made it to the third planet. To this point the game is totally linear...no side quests or puzzles at all. Simply go *here* and accomplish *this* task, so you can then go *there* and accomplish *that* task, followed by a boss fight. To this point you can't choose your own destination or even your own party; it's preselected and unchangeable. This isn't an RPG, it's a rail shooter with an inventory system.

What this game reminds me of is La Pucelle: Tactics' inventory/combining system, grafted onto the Taris portion of Knights of the Old Republic. Only, take out everything that made KotOR interesting. No good/evil choices, no lightsabers, no optional adventures, just a lot of running around trying to get offplanet.

The graphics are great and very stylish. The hero, Jaster, is a fairly typical example of the "Young SciFi Hero"; hand him a lightsaber and you wouldn't know him from Luke Skywalker. Some of the other characters are irritating (I have a low tolerance for that auld Scottish brogue, laddie), but Kisala makes up for that with some of the best lines in the game.

It has some nice graphics, good characters, and an interesting inventory mechanic. If only somebody had written a fun RPG to go with it.

EDIT: Rereading my own review, I guess I wasn't clear about the linearity of the game. My point is that there's no role-playing here; calling Rogue Galaxy a RPG is a misnomer. There's no choice of route, of party composition, of character progression, or even of DIALOGUE. Yes, the "Revelation Flow" is an interesting mechanic, but progression through it depends more on treasure drops than on any role-playing. This is more like Shadow of the Colossus or Onimusha than KotOR or Disgaea. It's an action/adventure game, it's NOT an RPG.

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