Rogue Galaxy had alot of hype, it meets most of that hype, but could have been better, yet its still a solid RPG.
Rogue Galaxy stars Jaster Rogue who lives on the desert planet of Rosa, who one day is given the legendary Desert Seeker sword by the #1 hunter in the galaxy, Desert Claw. Shortly thereafter, a group of space pirates arrive on Rosa looking for the legendary Desert Claw, and seeing Jaster with the sword of Desert Claw, believe he is the legendary hunter. From there the adventure takes off, with Jaster joining the space pirates in the effort to locate the legendary planet of Eden, and the treasures it holds. Of course the adventure proves larger than originally thought and you eventually have to save the galaxy, but I will not go into details. Rogue Galaxy has been compared to an anime Star Wars, and the comparison is valid in quite a few ways. There is no Darth Vader-type character in Rogue Galaxy, but there is the mystery of Eden, an evil empire, and a mysterious force that lives in one of your party members. I'll get back to the story later, because first I want to touch upon the gameplay.
If you played Dark Cloud or its sequel Dark Cloud 2, you should be very familiar with the basic gameplay of Rogue Galaxy. Each party member, 8 in all, has a primary and secondary weapon, and can also pick up small objects to throw at enemies, just like in DC2. However in RG, the weapons are a tad more interesting than in DC2. In DC2, you had two characters who wielded a wrench & gun, and sword & magic armband. Here in RG you have alot more variety. Lead character Jaster wields the traditional 2-handed sword and gun, while other combinations include: dagger + boots, 1-handed sword + shuriken, flamethrower type gun + rocket launcher, bow/arrow + hatchet, spear + box that tosses discs, and axe + wrist mounted machine gun. In the case of most of those combinations, your primary attack is a melee attack and your secondary is a ranged attack. However, a few of the combinations are different, like the boots give you a second melee attack (kicking stuff), and the bow/arrow is your primary weapon for one character while the hatchet is secondary. The Left Analog stick moves your character around (obviously), and the Right Analog stick handles the camera (also obviously), and the R2 button centers the camera behind you. Attacking is simple, the X button does a primary attack, which can be combo'd by continuing to press it. The Square button does your secondary attack, and can be combo'd as well. The O button jumps (yes you can jump now). The Triangle button will bring up your quick action menu where you can use items, change weapons, and even abilities (yes abilities which I'll get too shortly). R1 blocks, R1 + X picks up objects, including smaller enemies. R1 + Square does a very powerful combination attack called Burning Strikes, which I'll explain along with the abilities. Also during combat, it's not just Jaster that you have, two AI controlled party members will also fight with you, and occasionally during combat, they will ask you for a suggestion, to use either an item or ability. Outside combat, the X button interacts with objects, NPCs, and save points, the O button still jumps, and the Triangle button still brings up the menu. Alright, enough about the basic controls, how about we get to the abilities I mentioned.
Unlike the Dark Cloud games, RG has abilities each character can learn, and these can be passive, like HP or Attack up, or weapon enhancements, like adding an ice or fire attack to a melee weapon, or actual spell-like abilities that can damage any character on screen. These abilities are learned from what's called the Revelation Flow, which is very reminiscent of Final Fantasy X's sphere grid. Each character has his/her own Revelation Flow and starting point. From there, you use various items purchased from shops or earned in battle to learn more abilities. Each character has access to basic passive abilities, like the HP & Attack ups I mentioned, but also Defense up and resistances to various elements and status effects. Also each character has their own weapon enhancement ability, like adding an ice or fire attack to their weapon, or simply boosting the attack power of the party. And like I said, they each have access to damaging spells, not to mention access to some combination damage spells that make use of 2 or 3 characters, so long as they are in the party together. Finally there are the Burning Strike abilities, which each character has access to, and there are 3 levels of Burning Strike attacks. Picking up blue orbs in combat, which are randomly dropped by enemies, fills your Burning Strike gauge, when it reaches a certain level, 5, 7 or 9, you can trigger a Burning Strike attack against most enemies (not bosses sadly). The actual Burning Strike attack is done via a combination cutscene, ala FF summon attacks, and timed button presses that are shown on screen. So with all this said, how does combat fair?
Battles take place randomly during exploration, but the way the battles work is enemies just appear in the area you are exploring and you fight them in real time, like in the Dark Cloud or Star Ocean games. You can set a basic strategy for your partners, to either fight different enemies or the same enemy, or to 'Go All Out' which allows the AI to make item/ability uses on their own. The AI is smart enough to ask for heals or status removing items when it needs them, or use them if you use the go all out strategy. Post battle you do see a victory screen dealing out experience, money, items, etc, but also weapon experience. Your weapons gain battle experience in RG, and you can combine maxed weapons to create new more powerful weapons, sort of like in DC2. The variety of enemies you fight is pretty varied, and you don't just fight enemies you smash, sometimes you have to fight them a certain way to be able to defeat them. Some enemies can only be damaged by jumping and attacking their 'head'. Some have a barrier you have to break first before you can damage them. This plays an interesting role in combat and does keep you on your toes, although honestly it can get annoying later on in the game, but its still neat.
Graphically, everything does look very nice, even if it is a PS2 game and the PS2 is very old. All the main characters look very good, particularly because throughout the game you find a few different outfits your party members can change to, and each of these look very cool. Also, just like in DQ8, you do see the weapons your party members use on them at all times, even during exploration, which I always like. And of course the weapons you use all look pretty cool, even if they are all fairly standard weapons. The different planets you travel to all have a distinct look to them, and they do look very nice. The NPCs that mill around do look pretty standard, but when do they not. There are some FMVs during the game and these look amazing. The quality of these sequences are just fantastic. What is also very cool graphically is when you move planets, you see the whole planet as you travel from planet to planet, which looks really cool. In combat, when you use an ability, you see a cutscene of that character using that ability, which in a few cases look really good, while in battle, you just see some effects from the ability, which works. For a PS2 game, RG still looks nice, even if we are starting to see the power of the next gen consoles.
As far as the sound, the music of RG is pretty good, nothing truly incredible, but nothing awful, just solid music all around. There is a theme for just about everywhere you go, from your pirate ship, to each planet, to shops, etc. Like I said, the music is good. The voice acting is good as well, with a few voices you may have heard from before. Jaster is voiced by Will Friedle, who was in Boy Meets World, but was also the voice of Terry McGinnis, the new Batman of Batman Beyond. Pirate Zegram is voiced by Steven Jay Blum, who also provided the voice of Wolverine in the X-Men Legends and Marvel Ultimate Alliance games, among other titles. You can check out IMDB.com to see who provided their voice talents to the game, and also see what else they have done. Overall, a solid voice cast though, and they did a fine job.
Rogue Galaxy, like most RPGs, will take you sometime to complete, probably at least 40 hours, and there are also a number of side quests as well to keep you playing for awhile. Myself, I logged almost 60 hours of play, and there was still a decent amount of side quests I did not finish. You have quarries (like the hunts in FF XII), the Insectron tournament (like chess with insects, but I didn't start that one), finishing everyone's revelation flow, completing the Battle Record by defeating certain amounts of every enemy, achieving #1 on the Hunter Rankings (by defeating quarries and completing the battle record), creating items in a factory, discovering rare items, and even creating new weapons. There is even a bonus dungeon that gets unlocked once you finish the game, which then unlocks an even bigger bonus dungeon once you finished the first bonus dungeon. So there is alot for you to do in RG, as you do get your money's worth. As for the story, it can be pretty good, but it was a tad disappointing at times, sadly the end of the game is one of those times. In all it was a pretty good story, it just had a few rough stretches.
No game review is complete without addressing some faults with the game, these reviews can't be all sunshine. And like all games, RG does have some faults. First off the combat may get repetitive for some people, especially if they did not like the Dark Cloud games. The ending of the game left alot to be desired because it built up some tension leading to the final bosses, and then, for me at least, the final bosses were not hard at all. That was very disappointing to me, but I still enjoyed the game regardless. I can remember many flaws mentioned in the forums around the time RG was released, January of this year, but the only one I remember is that there could've been more planets. Still, even with the flaws, there is enough here to enjoy.
Overall, Rogue Galaxy could have been a huge game. As it stands, it is a very good game, with plenty of things to do and a fairly lengthy story to play through. While I was disappointed with how it ended, I still enjoyed the ride and had alot of fun.