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So Rogue Galaxy dropped this week for the PS2. Reviews across the board have been middling at best. Many of the reviews mention things like "Level 5 did such great work on Dragon Quest VIII that Rogue Galaxy simply pales in comparison." Bullshit. Dragon Quest VIII, while expertly constructed, was terribly slow and boring. You ran too slow, the game progressed too slowly, fights took too long, unlocking everything took way too long (goddamn metal BS), and it looked like Dragon Ball. Ok, that last part is a bit of a copout on my part. I can't be bothered to think very hard right now. But I've put a few hours into Rogue Galaxy and I can honestly say that I'm enjoying it.

Loot. There's a hell of a lot. I like loot, I mean, who doesn't? Eight million people can't be wrong. As far as I'm concerned, short of Diablo, Rogue Galaxy does loot right. Also, you're a fucking space pirate. You hunt monsters, get treasure, and fly around space. That's pretty awesome, right? Yea, it is. But I'll tell you, there's something that really eats at me. Double Jump did the strategy guide. At first I was stoked because I'm a big Disgaea fan. But Rogue Galaxy is nothing like Disgaea. And yet, it still seems to have an unbelievable amount of "content." That's in quotes since there's more optional content than real storyline content. That doesn't really bother me. What bothers me is what I've looked at thus far in the book. If you're like me, you read strategy guides an area back. After you finish an area and move away from it, you read it for what you might have missed. Well, in the first area, it looks like I have to come back and farm the shit out of it later in my quest to 100% the game. Ugh. I'll do it, the combat is actually pretty fun (I like it more than say, Devil Summoner), but I can't say I'll enjoy it. However! There's no question that the sum of the game will be better than it's parts (especially the part I just mentioned). It's very well constructed and the pacing, thus far, seems spot on.

The other thing I feel compelled to mention is the revelation flow chart. It seems Level 5 wanted to create a skill system that was the bastard child of Final Fantasy XII and Digital Devil Saga. The biggest difference is each character has it's own set of skills and the entire thing is based around gathering items. I can't complain about this, I knew going in that Level 5 made Dark Cloud 2 and it's fairly obvious that they're obsessed with collection games. Anyway, you get items and place them into this big flow chart and each time you fill in a little section you unlock a new skill. It's actually a really cool system, short of the fact it's a total timesink. There's no doubt going to be a need to farm enemies all throughout the game to get rare drops to fill up the better skillsets. Being obsessive about treasure hunting in video games, I'll have no problem with this, but for some it could be a major turnoff. Proceed with caution, YMMV, etc.

I don't feel comfortable reviewing this yet simply because I haven't played nearly enough of the main storyline, the minigames, or optional content. But thus far it's grabbed me by the balls pretty good. Which is a shame, since I was well on my way to 100 hours in Disgaea 2. Ok, I'm done now, and I'm pretty sure I've said a lot of nothing. I feel pretty compelled to say that if you like traveling around exotic worlds gathering treasures, slaying named monsters, meeting a new version of C-3PO and R2-D2, and like Space Pirates that you really can't go wrong. Or at least, that's what I think thus far.

Explaine the minigames more if you can. After FF12, I'm really missing something like that.

Also, are the pirates as cool as this guy?

(http://www.manga-distribution.fr/images/nos_offres/figurines/fg_harlock/Harlock-03g.jpg)

(http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2006/235/929240_20060824_screen015.jpg)

Harlock? Yes. But there's a cat too.

Umm...what kind of game is this (for those of us too lazy to look it up)?

Action RPG.

Ya know if this and FF were PS3 titles I'd likely buy one. As it is I'm seriously considering buying a PS2 since mine's long gone.

My avatar and your avatar are about to fight out on the playground.

3 o'clock behind the portables! Mine has a skull!!!

But yours has blood. Tough call. I beat Oscar De Lahoya once - does that count? (my 360 died shortly after and is still in shipping...)

best anime evah.

This looks interesting. However, considering I enjoyed the hell out of Dragon Quest VIII and you didn't, I'm worried I'll be more like those reviewers than you. Still...space pirates.

Ok, I read the IGN and Gamespot reviews and it sounds like a fun game. I think some of the character design sounds almost too quirky for my tastes but I still think it sounds fun. (yes, I know, I'm one of those American consumers who just doesn't "get" quirky stuff. Sorry.)

Sounds pretty good to me.  Thanks for the note!

Put more time in them yet, Schild? :)

I'm kind of curious about weapon fusion in particular.


Anyways, I never finished either Dark Cloud 1 or 2 (and am still sitting on them), but I have to give this a chance. I'm looking forward to White Knight as well, but I can't say whether I'm really a Factor 5 fan or not yet (I just don't know). From all the descriptions though, it seems to be a checklist of every feature I'd want out of an rpg (space pirates, obscene amout content and minigames, KH like combat).

I'm at work. I'm gonna play the fuck outta this tonight.

I'm fine with quirky, but childish is something I have a lot of difficulty with. Not in the "X game is a kiddie game", but in the story. Dark Cloud 2 nearly killed me all the way through because it was obviously a story made for 4 year olds (and DID kill me when I beat the last boss, jesus). It's not like that is it?

No. This, thus far, is a story about mistaken identity. Guy on planet has sword. Robot pirates mistake him for famous pirate. Famous pirate joins pirate crew on GIANT space ship. Pirate falls in love with girl. Pirate somehow saves world (hey, it's a video game). That's how I see it at least. The R2 and C3 stuff grates on me the most obviously, but for the most part, it's more than passable as far as stories go.

First impressions: So far this game is pretty neat. I might be getting ahead of myself, but this seems like a better action rpg blend than anything I've played before it. And yet, it doesn't sacrifice depth in doing it.

Think a better Kingdom Hearts + some similarity to their artwork and scripting in DQVIII + Space Pirates

Funny writing so far too.

I just arrived at the first planet, and so far I'm loving the game.  Very nicely done.  The revelation system will take a bit getting used to, though. 

So how actiony is it? I never played Kingdom Hearts, so umm..is it say, Zelda type action?

Short of being a full blown beat em up (it resembles one at first glance). Even has an homage to Devil May Cry, with the reckless gun firing (well...not exactly as reckless as DMC. There's an "Action Point"/Mana type system in place).

And yeah, more action like than Zelda (not necessarily better mind you...just faster, and with more enemies).

If you haven't played Kingdom Hearts, then the next comparison I'd make is the X-Men/UA games, but with more traditional beat em up mechanics (like jump attacks and the like). It's also deeper than that game. It's not shallow by any means -- in that respect, it resembles DQ8.

Hell, even the first boss isn't a traditional "stack shitloads of HP" RPG type of boss. It's more like something out of a SotC or God of War (as much as an RPG can be at least). There's even a little platforming involved.

fuck you schild and fuck you stray. I'm going to have to stop on my way home and pick this bitch up. I hope you two are happy! I was trying to resist but you battered my weak defenses down. You're the PK to my willpower's carebear.

I hate them too.  The more they write, the more I'm willing to overlook the girlish graphics and buy this.  Schild is getting good at making me buy things... damnit.

I'm waiting for him to make someone buy a transvestite hooker. He almost made Morgan do it.

So. Difficulty Curve. Kinda broken. Not game-breakingly though.

Sounds like fun, too bad it's on PS2 only.

Edit: bad umm words

So, basically, if I'm a sucker for action RPGs in general, I should avoid this until AFTER all of my obligations for the month are taken care of?

It's a mega long game, so even if you did get it now, you shouldn't or couldn't or wouldn't want to rush through it anyways. The box says 100 hours, which may be a bit of a stretch...But still, that should indicate something.

[EDIT]

"A lot of guys get messed up in the Insectron....Takes over their lives."

Heh.


This game is just ridiculously solid. And varied. I don't expect that much these days. The only thing it's missing is a full color 80 page manual.

From someone who played every INCH of Dragon Quest VIII, and enjoyed it for the most part, this game looks to be ten times the fun from a pacing standpoint alone.  I actually went out and bought it before I finished the other game I was working on.  And has anyone mentioned how fantastic the art is yet?

Stray: There IS a good 300-400 page full color strat guide from Double Jump/Hardcore Gamer Magazine. Worth every penny for the art alone.. OK, and the spreadsheets in the back.

Yeah, I might get it. Though my main point was more pointing to how good the game is: The main thing it's lacking is a good manual (I don't have DQ anymore, but recall it being generous in that dept.). I'm not finding much to be disappointed about (well....there's the cameras, I guess) :-P

Strat guide would be pretty helpful for more info on the fusion stuff though (also, best intro to a crafting mechanic ever).

Oh, hell yea, frog log in the hizzouse. The strat guide is worth every penny just for the factory layout. I don't want to say more, but you'll thank me if you get it. Double Jump can be masters of efficiency when they try.

For the PAL version:


Hmmmmm... at first I thought it must surely be March (in Aus we do DD/MM/YYYY, which is logical if you think about it, the only more logical format is YYYY/MM/DD) because a September release is surely rediculous. But then I checked an Australian site and nope... it releases in September for PAL territories. That's fucking disgusting, and I'm soo tired of being a second class citizen. Just going to order a PS2, FFXII, and RG from gamestop since I've heard you guys talk about it a fair bit. There's other games I've wanted for a while that will never hit PAL, but that'll do for a start.

Or not because gamestop wont take my order. /sigh I'll get back to this when I'm not as mad.

Buy an American PS3. You can play the American PS2 games and any PS3 games. Probably the best way to go.

Yeah I could do that, if I had a place that accepted my details. :P

Any recommendations? Just any place that sells USA games/hardware online and will ship overseas. I know gamestop/EB Games and Amazon, but one wont take my details and the other wont ship NTSC items outside of the USA.

Don't you have to have a NTSC TV as well?

Must suck.

But I do have an Idea. You wire me money, I send you things. Hell, I can even use my store discount on the software.

Nah you can buy converters for it (as well as a power adaptor because you guys use different plugs apparently), and many of the newer TVs here support NTSC natively I believe.

I'd be willing to go through somebody for games because if they don't get to me I can take the loss without having a fit. Not so for the price of a PS3 (and I'm not talking about honesty even, it could just get lost in the post). :P

Well, I bought it and played it. I haven't tried the insectron thing yet. I have no idea where a good place to put the bug cages is so I'm holding off. I'm on the planet right after the jungle planet. Zerard I think. I love the game, and so far only have 2 beefs:

1) Linear. So far the game is very, very linear. Fight, cutscene to advance the plot, more fighting.
2) WTF is up with the difficulty? Some fights I finish in <10 seconds without breaking a sweat, other fights use almost every potion I have and I barely win.

Yeah, the difficulty is weird. But at least it's difficult at all, if somewhat spotty ;). Bosses can definitely be a bitch.

Though I did unlock Desert Wind lvl 2 by the time I got to the Prison. Minions go down like flies (it's like a 1300 AoE [edit] I think? ... All I know is that it one shots everything on screen, including the spiders). You just have to waste a lot of AP to do it.

Couldn't tell you about Insectron yet. I dropped a trap right where that little kid gave one to me. It picked up a little pincher beetle. I'll be sending him off to battle soon. Lol.

Now I'm really tempted to get the strat guide for the factory....But I don't want ruin it for myself. It's kind of fun.

Heh. The strat guide has a layout in it that involves minimum work later. The 7 pages that cover the factory and the location of a few super ridiculously hidden chests make it worth the price of admission.

Edit: Oh, and if you don't get a certain key at a bar the first time through Myna, you can get it again later. So, if you miss something (I never look at walkthroughs until after I've actually done an area), it seems the game just punishes you for a few hours for not totally exploring.

I have that skill too. I suppose I'll be using it. What seems to kick my parties ass is fights that have 2-3 of those rolling beetle/aardvark looking monsters. I'm also wondering if this is a game I should be spending time doing nothing but leveling in. My hero is level um...17 I think in the prison, I'm not sure if that is enough.

One hour and twenty-something minutes in.  It's nice.  Good art, better than halfass voiceover.  Glad to see the Dark Cloud 2 item icon style again, and of course the item design.  It's fancy but not so chibi as Dark Cloud 2, and I like fancy when done right.  I have not gotten to the first boss due to fucking around trying to figure out the spawn mechanism so I can fight some more of those cactus things... for the hunter points, of course.  All this collecting makes me happy in my pants.

I have figured out at this point (just by reading the manual, no less) that the insects are exactly like the fish in DC2.  My wife has already done a Homer-Simpsonesque "There'd better not be any fishing in this game... because if there IS...!", so I think I can get a nice chuckle out of this one.

The art, I have to mention this specifically, is - and I mean it this time - cel shading done right.  I know I have said that before about some game that I can't remember, but I was a filthy liar.

The combat.  I like turn-based, but this is what the kids are playing these days.  It is at least not terrible like the combat in Star Ocean 3 or Tales of Symphonia; specifically, my allies don't act like delirious mongoloids... so far.

No widescreen or progressive-scan options.  Double-you tee eff.  This is two double-aught seven, unclefuckers, where's the damned prog-scan?  Or 16:9!  Is 16:9 so hard?

Reminds me of Star Wars for some reason.  Or Trigun.  Maybe it's more like the guy from Fire Emblem but blond with H.E.L.P.E.R. and the fat guy from DQVIII in his party, I don't know.  At least it's not Toriyama.  I either need more or less wine.

Alright, I bought the strat guide (something I never do these days, I go to gamefaqs instead.) I may need it for this flippin' factory. Nothing like getting completely lost in a big ass dungeon to make you start eyeing a strat guide. I haven't used it yet other than looking up some weapon combos out of curiousity and reading about each characters strengths and weaknesses. I may break down and use it for this effing factory though. Seriously.

Oh, and I hate mimics. With a purple passion.

Thanks for mentioning Desert Wind 2 Stray. I had it but wasn't using it much. I have this weird "save my magic for bosses/extremely hard fights" type of mental block in alot of JRPGs I need to get past.

Fights become trivial if you unlock Earthshaker and Supernova in Chapter 7/8 (the last level of the desert sword for Jaster and one of his abilities).

No widescreen?

Upsetting is an understatement.

Heh, I've been playing it at 752x480 and haven't really noticed. To confirm there's no widescreen, reboot once holding down square, an option might pop up. Do the same if it doesn't, holding down circle.

Those keypresses don't do anything for me; I did not try it in the PS2 but it's not important enough for that.  It's not really a big deal that my circles look like ovals either.  I'm used to it, but in 2007 it nevertheless becomes a point-subtraction even for a PS2 game.  Maybe they did it for some sort of combat reason, thinking people would be irritated if widescreen-owners could see more of the battlefield.  Also, if either widescreen or prog-scan was enableable via arcane button combos rather than a menu option, and not mentioned on the box, that would garner another set of subtractions for unnecessary asshattery.

Just to restate, I think this game is totally awesome.

I'm on the boss fight for Chapter 6 right now. I have Desert Seeker III I think it is called for the swords. I seem to be a bit behind on my unlocking since I'm not at Supernova yet.

My Vanguard thread started with a panel and less than a sentence is more popular than this one.

I'd like to suggest that many of us might fail as gamers. Yea, I went there.

-

At the end of the game.

IF the dungeons were just one hour shorter a piece, this game would be above FF6 on my top RPG list.

Seriously.

I swoon.

Many of "them", you mean. Not "us".

Yeah, I went there ;)


Anyways, I took a small break from it the last few days (will probably finish the main storyline soon though), but yeah I think it's pretty damn good. Kind of a best of both worlds thing.....Though I'd prefer a more modern, fully loaded rpg world (i.e. no random encounters). Coupled with this sort of combat system, it'd be great.

Not only that, but I want more of the wandering about and encounters to be scripted (even minion encounters). I don't want to fight things just because "they're in the way". I want even the smallest battles to feel at least slightly tied to the narrative.

If that demo video is any indication, perhaps White Knight Story may be just that.

I haven't bought it yet.  But I will.  SOON.

Finished it.

Pretty much awesome. Clocked in at like 40hrs and 1 minute.

I'm in Chapter 8 and just got Supernova. I like it, though I don't like using Mr Eyepatch. I tend not to use characters I know are backstabbing me. I do like using Lilika and Kisala in the same party with that dancing combo attack they have.

Finished bonus content and such.

40 bucks, 50 hours. Not bad.

In fact, DAMN FINE.

Since I'm at 12+ hours and my three are at lv24, and I'm just now running around the jungle at night in Chapter 3, I will probably end up with a bit more than 50 hours played before it's all wrapped up.

Sounds like you're doing alot of the sidequests to me.

Doing EVERYTHING (Frog Log, Insector, monster hunts) probably takes closer to 60 or 70 hours.  That's a lot of grinding to literally complete the game.

Just bought it.  Liking it a lot so far, except that I haven't really gotten the hang of the combat yet.  IE, I get jacked up quite a bit and have to potion a lot.   

First boss fight was rather easy though.    Perfect pacing for the first "tutorial" part of the game; clocked in at just under an hour.

Very stylish.  Great voice acting.  I can see myself enjoying this game quite a bit.

Monster hunts, if you do them at chapter 12, take 2 hours for ALL of them if you have the items. Insector would probably be 30-40 hours and is completely unnecessary (takes an hour + of wandering away from the little thingy to get some of them).

Insector is a cool idea, but for a minigame, they've cockblocked it a bit too much. Setting trap, wandering away...Plus, you can't even compete unless you have several insects to begin with.

When I say monster hunts, I mean killing 30 or so of everything.  And with Insector, the idea is that you drop the trap near a save point and complete the dungeon.  While you're doing that, eventually you catch some bugs and can level them up while you're finishing the dungeon.  If you take care of things during the course of the regular game, you can have some pretty good insectors before you know it.

I guess if you call that stuff sidequests, then yes.  The actual combat is surprisingly tolerable, even when I have two SMT, FFXII and Okami in the rotation.  The minigame that I am spending the most time with is leveling up weapons.  I was railroaded off of Juraika and that sort of dampened the weaponry thing a bit since I was forced to switch up to the good equipment by the horrible fauna in the prison.  Now I'm thinking I might want to advance a bit more with the idea that I will eventually be able to revisit areas and can resume my minigame.

Get your PS2 chipped, then the games are cake. Any decent TV from the last decade or so will support NTSC and PAL60hz, so that should really be a non-issue. Then there's plenty of sources for the games, even eBay sellers as many of them are US-based game stores.

This game seriously needs a damn manual.  The leaflet they stuck in the box leaves giant swaths of the game untouched, fails to explain giant piles of kinda important information, and the in-game help info isn't any better.  I hate it when the strategy guide doubles as a $20 instruction manual.

I thought the in-game help was pretty amazing all things considered. They had pictures. Pictures! Generally though, it's best to get the strategy guide if it's made by Double Jump. Not because the manual will suck but because Double Jump making a guide means that the game has more shit in it than can fit in just a manual.

I suppose that there are two major possibilities here.  A: I managed to figure most of it out without a guide, or 2: I only think I know what is going on and am missing out on things.

Well, for example: I have no idea what the elemental stats on a weapon do.  When a battle ends, sometimes it says 'Player Bonus!' on the reward screen, I don't know what that means or how to accomplish it.  I know zilch about the insect fighting.  I'm fine with the factory stuff, but I've always been decent with numbers and know a lot of people just can't seem to grasp how it works.  I can't find where I turn in the hunter tokens for rewards; the help text said the Galaxy Corporation but nobody there mentioned anything about it.

Details like that, utterly absent from being mentioned in the manual.

Turn in the hunter stuff to MIO.

I am still stuck in the prison, and I had assumed some things will be revealed as I go; experience has shown this to be true.  Recent trends in game design are to have complex games revealed gradually, so I have a relaxed attitude toward hunter coins, for example.  This was how things worked in Dark Cloud 2, with new game mechanics being introduced well past the beginning areas.

As for the elemental bars, I figured out how to increase them pretty easily.  I don't know what they do for a fact, but I assume that they key into elemental damage types, and of course more is better.  I seem to get better results from MASTERED weapons when combining, but so far the basic power number seems to be the one to pay attention to.  Of course, I don't have any way to determine a monster's elemental weakness, and I am only assuming that they have them.

The Insectron doesn't seem terribly complicated, but I've only played one match with five insectors that I forgot to feed beforehand.