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I'm glad to see game reviews on here, but I think that this one might not be an entirely "fair" review. I've been playing RPGs for over 10 years and giving small reviews for them as well, and though the review posted here for Rogue Galaxy points out what fun Rogue Galaxy has to offer, it seems to completely ignore most of the flaws that it has.

I'm 64 hours into the game myself (chapter 9) and the thing is a roller coaster-ride of pain. As soon as you leave the first town, the game gets boring - story and gameplay-wise due to overly-long dungeons and a planet-sized fetch quest. Around 42 hours, things started to pick up as I stopped doing the Hunter Ranking Quests (killing 30x of each monster) and just speeding through areas - it is near impossible to finish these quests since enemies seem to pop up in random groups (a rarer enemy means HOURS or running in circles) - it was at this point the story started getting interesting again, but it quickly killed the joy when it dropped a TWELVE HOUR-LONG dungeon on me - I RAN through this place actually skipping as many enemies as I could and it STILL took that long to walk through the thing - I'm a big fan of long dungeons, but when I start at 44 hours and end at 56, it feels more like torture than fun.

From 56 hours to the 64th hour mark I am currently at, the game has been bouncing between "interesting story" and "long, bland, and meaningless dungeon-crawling". I do think that Rogue Galaxy is worth playing, but it sure as heck isn't worth the $40 you need to pay for it.

Crazy-long dungeons, useless and repetitive character abilities, a battle system that mainly consists of blindly hammering the "X" button (regardless of what the review says, battles have no depth to them other than making sure your gun match enemy's defenses), partner NPC AI that isn't even near what FFXII has to offer, bland dungeons (NO interactivity at all - just run from point A to point B), and a story that could have been much better had it not gotten lost in the weird gameplay problems.

In conclusion, this is NOT of the level of quality past Level 5 games were - it falls short in quite a few areas. In the end, I'd give it a 7.5/10 instead of what I'm assuming equates to a 9.5 that this ANN review gave it.

If you want to see an example what I'm trying to point out, hop over to g4tv.com, run a search on "Rogue Galaxy", and watch the Rogue Galaxy review from Xplay - I'm not a fan of their style either, but they nail most of what I covered here on the head in terms of problems. Remember, an informed buyer is a smart one!

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Square's behemoth Final Fantasy XII. It's easy to try and compare the two as they share a great deal of similarities. They both feature real-time RPG combat,

I'm fairly certain FFXII's battle system was ripped right out of XI's, and from the look of it it's more KotOR(Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for people that care) styled than real-time. As in, it's turn based but you feel like it's real time.

I wasn't interested in this game. The name and character designs didn't seem to click with me, the general idea of the story didn't click, seeing it compared to FFXII scares me away from it, the review praised it to high heaven so I'm skeptical, and the final nail in the coffin was LinkTSwordmaster's post.

EDIT: And why do people feel the need to compare games to Final Fantasy? Sure, it used to be king-of-the-ring, but now it's just another RPG series. Nothing special about it anymore.(Aside from the metrosexual character designs and having top-of-the-line graphics to view said metrosexual characters)

I, too, am very glad that game reviews are going to start popping up on this site. I'll probably care as much about the final scores as I do other sites (Read: None), but still, it's good to have.

I happen to disagree very strongly with this review, though. Heck, I think the 7.5 in the first post is quite generous, but different strokes for different folks, I guess.

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It's great to see how the characters you journey with react to each scenario, and how they grow and develop over the course of the game's dozen chapters.

This line did make me laugh, though. I can't even begin to imagine thinking of RG's character development as great, but oh well. Jupis is one of the least developed characters in video game history, as is the last boss.

What drove me to order this game is all the praise I kept hearing from people that hated that overrated piece of garbage FFXII and that it had a similar feeling to Skies of Arcadia -which I'm still praying its sequel will see the light of the day someday Crying or Very sad

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This line did make me laugh, though. I can't even begin to imagine thinking of RG's character development as great, but oh well. Jupis is one of the least developed characters in video game history, as is the last boss.

I too kept hearing in GameFaq about the lack of character development -which is mentioned by some gamers that it was made up for by the charm and interaction between the characters. I'll play it once I finish Tales of the Abyss.

DekarMaximGuy wrote:

Heck, I think the 7.5 in the first post is quite generous, but different strokes for different folks, I guess.

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It's great to see how the characters you journey with react to each scenario, and how they grow and develop over the course of the game's dozen chapters.

This line did make me laugh, though. I can't even begin to imagine thinking of RG's character development as great, but oh well. Jupis is one of the least developed characters in video game history, as is the last boss.

That 7.5 is coming from a patient fan of RPGs, I'd probably have rated it closer to 6.5 - 7.0, but I was happy with the fact that most of the voice acting was "good" compared to other games, and a lot of the moments where there is a cutscene felt more like watching an anime than a game - character's body and mouth movements never looked awkward enough to wake me up to reality.

As far as the character development quote, I agree, there is almost none of it up to where I'm at in the game that is worth paying attention to. If you try to compare any character in RG to Cloud from FFVII or Fei from Xenogears, you wind up seeing where the story starts to disappoint - more story, less dungeon would have really helped the game out. (Not to mention, most NPC dialog isn't even worth reading...I usually try to read it all in other RPGs, RG's is pointless)

LinkTSwordmaster wrote:

I'm glad to see game reviews on here, but I think that this one might be more of a push to get people to buy the game

Disagree with the review all you like but none of our editorial content is designed to "get people to buy" anything. If I found out one of my writers was doing that they'd be fired.

Andrew just liked it more than you, I guess. I haven't played it myself but I loved Dark Cloud 2 and Dragon Quest 8 so I'm curious to try this one, although it's disheartening to hear it isn't up to par with Level 5's previous work.

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I too kept hearing in GameFaq about the lack of character development -which is mentioned by some gamers that it was made up for by the charm and interaction between the characters.

Character interaction? Unfortunately, there wasn't hardly any interaction at all, from what I remember. And to make matters worse, most of what is said could be said by anyone. There really wasn't a whole lot separating one character from another as far as what they would say. Lots of very generic responses, that most of the NPCs could have said and you'd have been none the wiser. Speaking of NPCs, the character with the most individuality in the game is a NPC. MIO has more personality than the rest of the cast, combined.

Not to mention that the game virtually forgets Jupis and Deego after chapter 7. I almost completely forgot Jupis was on my team until he showed up in the final dungeon to shout "Yeah!", or something along those lines of generic.

Also, I want to note that the game doesn't begin this bad. The first 6 chapters, aside from some annoying moments, are all fine and good. If the game could have continued on its upswing after Vedan, it would have been great. Unfortunately, after that point, there is a slow, but steadily increasing, downward spiral right into the last 3 chapters, where it all goes to balogna.

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Andrew just liked it more than you, I guess. I haven't played it myself but I loved Dark Cloud 2 and Dragon Quest 8 so I'm curious to try this one, although it's disheartening to hear it isn't up to par with Level 5's previous work.

Unfortunately, I don't think it is anywhere near Level 5's previous works. Especially DC2. The customizing just isn't anywhere near where it should be. And none of the mini-games are nearly as entertaining, or complicated, as creating towns.

Zac wrote:

Disagree with the review all you like but none of our editorial content is designed to "get people to buy" anything. If I found out one of my writers was doing that they'd be fired.

Andrew just liked it more than you, I guess. I haven't played it myself but I loved Dark Cloud 2 and Dragon Quest 8 so I'm curious to try this one, although it's disheartening to hear it isn't up to par with Level 5's previous work.

Good to know then, I'll remove that little comment from my first paragraph.

I played Dragon Quest 8 and Dark Cloud 2 to death - DQ8 might be one of the best RPGs I've played on the PS2, and Dark Cloud 2 was rather entertaining. I feel that Rogue Galaxy did fall short of both of those by a lot.

In the end, a review is only an opinion posted in an effort to inform players about the games they may buy. Though I probably didn't like Rogue Galaxy as much as Andrew, I still think a few of the issues I pointed out in my fourth paragraph are quite valid.

I like this game alot due to the characters and battle system. There are also some funny moments in the game and I love it when games arent 100% serious. Thats kinda why I got bored with FFXII. The story was too serious for me. It didn't focus on the characters and I guess thats what bugged me.

My only complaints are that the dungeons are far too large. They are like Shin Megami Tensei large. If you dont know that series I suggest you check it out because it is a really unique and fun rpg series despite the large dungeons. Shin Megami Tensei : Digital Devil Saga is a good start.

Pinkwings wrote:

Thats kinda why I got bored with FFXII. The story was too serious for me. It didn't focus on the characters and I guess thats what bugged me.

Wow, FFXII had a story? it was just a bunch of disjointed, boring cut-scenes..sorry for the sarcasm, couldn't resist since I just read the latest issue of EGM and FFXII received the award for the "best narrative" which I thought it should've been reserved for Xenosaga III. I hate it when stuff win just because they are from some popular franchise

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My only complaints are that the dungeons are far too large. They are like Shin Megami Tensei large. If you don't know that series I suggest you check it out because it is a really unique and fun rpg series despite the large dungeons. Shin Megami Tensei : Digital Devil Saga is a good start.

This is one of the reasons why the MegaTen series isn't one of my favorite games to replay, though I love the stories and the battle system; the dungeons are just painfully long to go through again.

Lack of character development combined with long dungeons -I'm begining to get discouraged to even try out this game.

Pinkwings wrote:

My only complaints are that the dungeons are far too large. They are like Shin Megami Tensei large. If you don't know that series I suggest you check it out because it is a really unique and fun rpg series despite the large dungeons. Shin Megami Tensei : Digital Devil Saga is a good start.

I recall the Megaten games on the SNES being long too, but regardless of how long something is, if the story is worth following or the gameplay is just that good, then I'd even continue play the game for months if it lasted that long(but not replay from the beginning). Unfortunately, I think I'm going to be trading in RG for another game once I see its ending since it doesn't look like it will be worth keeping.

(BTW - Persona 3 should be out this year for PS2! Very Happy

)

A good review. I'm currently about 60 hours into my own copy, and still have a ways to go in the game. I find it to be fun as hell, gorgeous, and a great way to waste a few man-days of time.

I think it's worth pointing out that this is a much harder game than the average RPG, and not really in a good way. It's more in the "enemies tend to deal 50%+ damage PER HIT unles you level yourself well above them, and you can often go from having the enemey on the ropes to a complete party wipe in seconds, and the defensive options are rather limited (aside from the manual "block" button).

Also, while the variety in the enemies is fun the first few times, I (and others) have found it extremely tedious as the game progresses. "Oh, it's another spaen of enemies with barriers, time to switch to the barrier gun, ping, ping, ping, ping, ok, time to switch back so my Apollon Shooter levels up while I beat these guys up." "oh, another giant brick wall guy, Illusion Sword, jump, slash slash slash, repeat.". Once you know HOW to do it, the question becomes "do you WANT" to do it?", which is often "no" in my case. Wink

I still enjoy the game, even the combat aspects, but I could do without the "barriered" enemies, "have to Charge atttack (or used enhancement Revs)" enemies, and "have to jump to hit" enemies, or at least have late-game options for quickly disabling them with less fiddling.

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I think it's worth pointing out that this is a much harder game than the average RPG, and not really in a good way. It's more in the "enemies tend to deal 50%+ damage PER HIT unles you level yourself well above them, and you can often go from having the enemey on the ropes to a complete party wipe in seconds, and the defensive options are rather limited (aside from the manual "block" button).

Speaking of the block button, it easily takes the game from almost-kinda hard to unbearably easy when used correctly. Seriously, it has to be one of the most over-powered guard in the history of video games. It instant-cancels your combo, it takes effect immediately upon pressing, and it reduces damage from almost everything to next-to nothing. There is very little reason to ever take an un-guarded hit, unless surrounded.

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...but I could do without the "barriered" enemies, "have to Charge atttack (or used enhancement Revs)" enemies, and "have to jump to hit" enemies, or at least have late-game options for quickly disabling them with less fiddling.

Have you been to the last dungeon yet? I can't remember more than 2 or 3 of the dungeons 9-10 enemies that DIDN'T have some crappy shield/height advantge. These things could have been good if implemented better, but as they are, they are more of a pain than a plus. I fought a grand total of 3 battles in the final dungeon, everything else I ran from.

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Speaking of the block button, it easily takes the game from almost-kinda hard to unbearably easy when used correctly. Seriously, it has to be one of the most over-powered guard in the history of video games. It instant-cancels your combo, it takes effect immediately upon pressing, and it reduces damage from almost everything to next-to nothing. There is very little reason to ever take an un-guarded hit, unless surrounded.

Or airborne. There's no air-blocking and plenty of enemies that require you to jump to hit them.

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Have you been to the last dungeon yet?

Not yet, I just cleared Chapter 10. I have heard about that though. Makes me kinda annoyed that I snetso much time making an Arc Scorpion when they're just going to have me anti-barriering all the time. They really should have either had a one-button "swap to barrier gun/swap back" solution of some kind, or just allowed normal attacks to break barriers somehow at higher levels (like a "Barrier Breaker" Revelation akin to the "Fire Up" and "Daze Resist" ones).

Likewise, it'd be great having it so that L2 special attacks broke through blocking enemies, and L3 specials hit giants (but maybe deal 1/2 and 1/3 damage respectively), or something along those lines so that as you progress you wouldn't have to deal with as much of that..

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I fought a grand total of 3 battles in the final dungeon, everything else I ran from.

Yeah, the running mechanic is kinda funny. If you set the AI on "don't fight" and just continue to book it, you can just keep going with only minor annoyance. I don't use it too often though, mainly I used it against Jellymen on Vedan (barriers).

Oh, and

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Not to mention that the game virtually forgets Jupis and Deego after chapter 7. I almost completely forgot Jupis was on my team until he showed up in the final dungeon to shout "Yeah!", or something along those lines of generic.

I have still yet to play with Jupis on my team AT ALL (well, I subbed him in for the one Quarry on Rosa that requires you to have him in the party, but I immediately swapped him back out).

Wow talk about a positive review. Another site gave this game such a bad review. Some friends of mine were playing the game. So is it true that the game talks to you if you're playing for a long time? Or were they imagine it?

For anyone to spend 4 hours straight in a game it must be pretty good.

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