I have been playing a lot of Rogue Galaxy lately. If you haven't picked this game up you really should. It's a pretty entertaining action RPG from Level 5, the developers of the Dark Cloud series. In the game you play as Jaster Rogue, a Luke Skywalker-esque young man from a Desert Planet who, in a classic case of mistaken identity, gets swept up into a great big ole adventure with space Pirates and eventually gets tangled into a massive interplanetary conflict.
The tone of the game is quite happy go lucky, very Saturday morning cartoon like(despite the occasional usage of DAMN and HELL and BITCH through out the game). The characters are all colorful and designed in fantastic archetypal anime fashion. Jaster is a typical young hero with bright blue eyes and a blonde mop on top. Zegram is your typical gravely dark haired, eye patch-ed, goatee-ed bad ass motherfucker in a trench coat, Simon and Steve are the resident R2D2 and C-3PO, Kisala is your totally cute love interest in a miniskirt, and Lilika is the battle worn amazonian warrior goddess who is seemingly allergic to proper battle attire. The world is filled with tons of this wacky character design. Talking cats, giant piles of sludge, morbidly obese pirates, elf creatures, and my personal favorite, a 7 foot tall half-bulldog-half-man-creature-dude-guy with a huge battle axe and a gun arm are all roaming around the solar system of this game. The characters for the most part are all charming, to go along with the very charming (yet practically non existent) story that drives the adventure.
If you are looking for a big ole bucket of super serious events and hyper melodrama found in other popular RPG's like Final Fantasy, you ain't getting it here. The events that unfold don't particularly serve any real emotional purpose and for the most part just occur so that you will know why your airship is suddenly taking on more and more rag tag warriors. If anything this game plays out like the best Saturday morning cartoon that never existed. The good guys are really good, the bad guys are really bad, and its up to the good guys to stick pointy objects into the bad guys so they wont be so bad anymore.
The game play is where the game really shines. Level 5 has got the whole action RPG thing down to a T. Battles (though random..a minor peeve of mine) play out fast and furiously in real time. There is no attack selection outside of potions and special abilities. The X button is your primary attack, and the square button is your secondary attack. You have a limited amount of attacks you can do before you have to recharge your attack meter, which forces you to put a little bit of thought into your attacks to make sure that each blow counts. You also only have direct control of one character at a time out of your party of three. In a real time environment this could be a potential disaster since your party members could be off getting killed while you focus on a completely different enemy. This is remedied by two things, a command preset that basically tells your party what to do in a battle (for example "Attack The Same Target")and a quick decision type of system where a character yells out the party leaders name and two actions pop up on the screen. Usually It's a choice between a special attack and a potion or something similar. This system works pretty fantastically, in that you are constantly on your toes and aware of what your party members are doing at all times. However at times It could turn very annoying when your half dead Kisala kindly asks your permission before using a health potion.
I could continue on for pages and pages about the really simple yet complex crafting systems and the bug battling mini game side quest things and such but you would probably be much better off just looking at an official review or a FAQ for all that kind of stuff. Long story short, Rogue Galaxy is a solid action RPG for those who are looking for a light hearted 40 or so hour romp through the galaxy.
This game is Dauragon approved.
-Dauragon
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