The life of Space Pirates

Author's Rating:

Pros: Long game, skill system, great replay value

Cons: Too much walking, repetitive enemies, item factory

The Bottom Line: 
This is a must buy game for the PlayStation 2. A few flaws doesn't hurt the game much.

Author's Review
The gaming industry is full of role-playing games, so it's hard to decide on the right one. Rogue Galaxy is simply a step above many of them, with various unique aspects and it's great length.

Note- This review is about the United States version of the game.

Plot

You play as Jaster, a young man that lives on a desert world . He gets mistaken for the famed hunter Desert Claw, by a pair of Space Pirates. Jaster agrees to join them, but doesn’t tell them the truth. Along the way, Jaster befriends other people that will help you along the way. Each with their own personality, set of weapon and backstory. This group of space pirates visit various planets, looking for treasure.

The plot in the game is well done, however there is a few predictable moments.

Gameplay

Rogue Galaxy is an action role-playing game. You walk around and encounter enemies through random battles. You wont see the enemy before the fight, so it takes you by surprise. This is a good feature for roleplaying games, however it gets repetitive at times, due to the lack of save points. At times, there is a long ways to walk before you can save (or do anything else for that matter). While in battle, you have two weapons for each character: a main weapon and a sub weapon. The main weapon is more powerful, while the sub weapon is weaker and sometimes needed to do a certain thing in battle. Some enemies require a shot of a sub weapon before you can damage them.

Besides weapons, there is a large variety of items to use. It’s your standard items (seen in many games): healing, attack increase, defense increase and so on. However, many of these items can be used to help characters learn new skills. Learning new skills is very interesting in the game. There is a chart that has only one spot available at the start for each person. Once they get the correct item for the spot, they learn their first skill. Then other spots open up, with clues to what is needed. This is a good management system, as many items are limited. So you have to think: do I want this power or do I want to save the item for something else? The chart is full of many skills to learn for each character. It takes nearly the whole game to unlock all skills, so this isn't simply a short part of the game.

Another fun aspect of the game is the hunter log. Every enemy you encounter is recorded in a log. When you defeat enough of them, you earn points. The more points you get, the higher your hunter ranking gets. Once your ranking gets high enough, you earn bonus items.

Besides battles, you visit various cities in the game. In these cities, you can talk to people, buy items, advance the story, as well as save. Talking to people isn’t needed much. Many people say useless things, and it’s not worth your time usually. There is special dots above people with useful information, which is a nice feature.

Like most role-playing games, there is many side-quests and optional things to do. In this game, there is plenty of that to keep you busy. There is the Insectron tournament, which is a breeding simulation and fighting game (similar to Pokemon), plus there is all the weapon merging you can do. Nearly every weapon can be merged with another (as long as both have enough experience in battle), to form a new weapon. Sometimes the weapon will be better, and other times it will be worse. In-game advice tells you what the new weapon will be, so you don't have to worry about losing good weapons to get a bad one. However, if you want to complete the weapon list you might have to make some bad ones.


While the game is very fun, there is some big flaws in it as well.

A big flaw with the game involves all the walking around you need to do. There is many random battles to keep you busy, but it does get repetitive. Save points aren’t always around, so you are stuck doing battle after battle, until you finally get to a save point. By the time that happens, you’ll want to save and quit usually. There is a few exceptions to this, but not nearly enough.

Another flaw is the complex item factory. Partway through the game, you can make your own items. Sounds fun, right? While it would be, if the process wasn’t so complex and made some sense. You have a factory, where you need to combine several items. To do this, you must lay down all the proper things to make the machine first. There is tutorial after tutorial on the various machine items. They aren’t all on the same screen though, so you must go through each of them to find the correct things you need. The item factory isn’t required, so it’s certainly something you should avoid unless you want 100 percent in the game.

Graphics and sound

The graphics are clear and very well done. Rogue Galaxy features a great variety of backgrounds for levels. In one level, it’s a jungle with great details on the plants. While in another, it’s a big city with numerous buildings. However, enemy graphics seem a little repetitive at times. Many enemies re-appear in areas with a different color and name. This game features many in-game movies that are very well done. At times, the movies are long though. You can skip a majority of them, but you might miss important plot details.

The sound is decent as well. Each area has a fitting music that will play while you are walking around. Each character has a unique voice that suits them. A minor complaint I have, is the characters chat almost non-stop while you are just walking. You can turn off this chat though, so you aren't stuck with it.


Replay Value

The replay value in the game is very good. There is various sections you can get 100 percent in: the item factory, hunter logs and a few more. If you want to get everything in the game, it will take at least 60 hours or more.