Rogue Galaxy seems almost a vision of Lucas - this game will make you wish you could travel the vast ocean of stars.
STORY === 9.5/10
Rogue Galaxy is a somewhat lengthy RPG that starts out quite slow story-wise. You begin the game as Jaster Rogue, the archetypal young hero who has no idea of any importance he might have and who simply wants to travel the vast space above him. Throughout the first few hours of the game, you may feel like you are pointlessly wandering from place to place without any true purpose. Just as you might be giving up on any type of enveloping storyline, the first tidbits of it emerge. From this point on, the game will slowly reveal more to you that has to do with the main storyline, as well as some information and hints about your fellow companions that you meet. The storyline will build up and keep you entertained throughout the entirety of the game. The pivotal moment of this game is the last 10-15 hour sprawl of story, where all of a sudden the story EXPLODES, and it seems as if each chapter the game becomes more and more complex and leaves a lot of what you thought you knew behind. This is truly what makes this game stand out from many other RPGs; a simple story is built up and first, and almost seems childish at points, but ends up being a powerful and nerve-wracking story. There are a few minor blemishes throughout the story, but by the end of the game you will feel a connection with the friends you have met through the game and will be sad to see the final cutscenes unfold. Overall, the story is outstanding and is what makes this game worthy of Superb.
GAMEPLAY === 8.5/10
If you play lots of RPGs, expect to make a few changes for this game. It can come across as extremely challenging at first. Early monsters that you come into contact with will quickly wipe out your entire party if you aren't careful. If you are used to being conservative with health and mana restoration items, throw those beliefs out the window. Rogue Galaxy healing items heal by % and you will find yourself using the same healing items throughout the entire game. Early on, it will seem expensive to stockpile these healing items to the fullest extent at every vendor, but eventually becomes commonplace. By mid-game you will easily have enough money to max out your supply of healing items and be ready for anything that comes at you.
A big feature of this game is the fact that it loads seamlessly. After the initial load off of your memory card, the entire world loads by itself, there are never any load times and battles work seamlessly with the environment. When you enter a battle, a warning pops up and the monsters appear. This means you are free to use the entire landscape you happen to be in to fight the enemies in question.
The game features a non-turn based action type system where you run around and actually attack the enemies. It gets quite fun, but may seem at times to be a bit on the button mashing side but is very fun nonetheless. The game also features a variety of different enemies, some of which require special tactics to be taken down. For example, some enemies must be jumped on before attacked, others have shields that must be broken by special abilities or guns, and some are so large that you are forced to jump and attack their heads. These are great ideas and add some variation to gameplay for most of the game. However, you might find it rather annoying to be in the later huge dungeons of the game and having to fight time-consuming battles with enemies that aren't exactly simple to take down. I caught myself being lazy more than a few times throughout the game and spamming super-powerful abilities to kill everything and not worrying about fighting the enemies.
You will find yourself mostly on the offense due to the fact that there is no real good defensive equipment in the game. You can block certain attacks, but it is a lot more effective to spend most of your time beating down on the enemies. Luckily, the game has a nice Revelation system, in which your characters can learn new abilities and increase their attack power by placing items you find along your journey into their Revelation Chart.
Overall, certain areas of the gameplay can prove to test your liking for the game and become repetitive and needlessly tedious, but the gameplay is still entertaining for the majority of the journey and usually a strong point of the game.
GRAPHICS/CONSTRUCTION === 9/10
The graphics in this game are very well-done. The game is cell-shaded and looks appealing to the eye the majority of the game. The environments are usually lush with color and the fact that this world all seamlessly loads adds even more to its graphical value. This game features many, many short cutscenes that are similar to gameplay-level graphics and are generated in real time, displaying the armor and weapons that your characters actually have, not pre-rendered looks; I appreciated this, but don't fear - the game does have beautiful looking cinematics in it as well.
Though it may not seem so for the majority of the game, you will eventually become acquainted with some beautiful pre-rendered sequences that truly show off the artistic work that went into this game. There are some awesome, lengthy sequences that make you want to play the game more and more. The overall graphical value of this game is outstanding, and the mere fact that the PS2 can create this experience seamlessly without any load times is an incredible achievement for a last-gen game.
Though most of the cities were designed well, there are some areas that seem to get repetitive and look incredibly similar throughout...so similar that you might feel as if you are going around in circles at times. This isn't a major problems, but can add some monotony to some dungeons late in the game - there are a few dungeons that are ridiculously large and don't seem to change floor-plan at all throughout them.
SOUND/MUSIC === 9/10
The sounds and music of this game are both excellent. The voice-acting is generally good and immerses you in the game a great deal. Late in the game, when you start to feel connections with your characters, the voice-acting really helps to further the realism of everything.
The music, while maybe not on par with some of the Final Fantasy game features some excellent songs. The main-screen Rogue Galaxy song is one of the most memorable songs that I have heard in a while, and one I particularly enjoy - during crucial parts in the game it would come on and make you feel the importance of the event at hand. There are also some other good dungeon-crawling songs and cinematic songs late in the game that are also very well done.
There are only two downsides to the sound/music. At times, the music can begin to become repetitive and you might kill yourself wanting to listen to another tone in an extremely long zone. I found this only to be an annoyance on the second planet you visit, most of the other music is either satisfactory or very good. The only other issue is that your fellow allies constantly make a stream of comments when you are exploring each area. At times, this is good because it in some ways eliminates a feeling of loneliness and makes you feel like you actually have people traveling with you, but can also get very annoying. The characters tend to repeat the same things a lot, and say things out of context a lot. You will find your characters constantly asking you if you are going the right way, which may cause you to question your chosen path even though it is correct in the first place. Overall, this is not a big issue and just takes a little away from the great music and voice-acting.
VALUE === 9/10
This may not be a game that you will feel like playing completely through again, but the main story should easily take over 35 hours unless you rush it. On top of this, there are a plethora of optional quests - factory work, hunts, 3 optional areas, insectron and more. This game can easily bring 100 or more hours of solid gameplay if you don't rush it and give yourself time to play everything through.
BOTTOM LINE === 9/10
This game is a great game and an excellent RPG. It proves that even in our next-gen days, there are still PS2 games that are more than worth a playthrough, and I highly encourage you to pick up this game if you are a fan of RPGs, or just looking for something fun to play.