Review #478: Galerians - Ash

 Pretty Psychic Boys return, now with more Aliens and less Friday the 13th.

Now with more sci-fi and less horror.

 Remember Galerians? You probably don't, it was this obscure PS1 survival horror game featuring kids with psychic powers. But that's OK, the game uses footage from the movie, Galerians - Rion, to provide a lengthy recap... or you could read the game's instruction booklet for an even lengthier recap. The game spoils the original, so I will do so as well.

 Six years have passed since Rion gave up his life in order to stop the evil super computer Dorothy, however, Rion, being an AI, got stuck in a loop fighting her inside the data world. Lillia accesses the data world and managed to pluck Rion right out of it and download his conscience into his body, which she preserved after that faithful fight. Everything would be honky-dory, but the last remaining humans are now trapped in a building as the Last Galerians are making their way up, and guess what, only Rion can stop them. Remember how creepily eerie the first game could be? That's done, Galerians - Ash went towards the sci-fi route, specifically, Aliens. You're still fighting psychic loons and the such, but the ambiance and setting have much less horror in them, and it's more about surviving alongside the group of soldiers that distrust Rion. As for the plot itself... try not to think too hard about it.

Even the monsters lack a je ne se quoi that made the menagerie so much more creepy in the first game.

 Much has changed, but much also remains the same. Let's go over combat first: Rion now has 180 degrees of freedom when it comes to fighting, tank controls are gone, you can lock-on enemies, strafe around them, dodge around them(Circle button) and even guard by holding R1. Whereas in the previous game you had different levels of charge for your attacks, in here you have to charge the entire gauge before attacking, Nalcon being the only power that can be used with a single tap(But it's better if you charge), which takes a while getting used to if you come directly after finishing Galerians. Nalcon, Red and D-Felon, you psychic powers, return, but there're two new drugs, Bustanor, homing energy boomerangs of sorts, and Breakaron, devastating lightning. Bustanor is incredibly useful and Breakaron is incredibly powerful but you'll rarely get to use them since they come in very small supply. Also, I think you can accidentally skip them if you don't talk to the right NPC when they become available. Speaking of skipping, the Skip drug returns and now it can permanently boost any five of your powers and your shield, up to level 3, you usually get them after finishing a boss, but there's four hidden ones.

 The combat is much more fun than before, that's for sure. Each power takes a different time to charge, and you get rooted to your place when charging, but you can cancel it at any time by dodging. It's faster, and you gotta consider that every enemy is particularly susceptible to different powers: Bio-Plants fall faster to Red, human-like enemies get wrecked by D-Felon and robots can't do a thing about Bustaron(But you'd better save it up for the final bosses), and while Nalcon isn't particularly effective against anything, a few enemies resist it rather well, a tradeoff for being so plentiful I guess. There're RPG elements in place here too, every single enemy you defeat will drop a supply item or a permanent upgrade, either to your HP, AP or your maximum capacity for every drug, which means that the more you kill, the more each drug refill will last you and the more damage you'll be able to resist. Nalcon, Red and D-Felon are plentiful enough so that you can take a break to grind for stat upgrades or hope for recovery items and don't be too concerned about running out of ammo, just don't take it for granted. And the game sorta wants you to do it, enemies will respawn for a long, long while before stopping, heck, one of the hidden Skips requires defeating 600 enemies in a particular room. Yes, this means that the game went Resident Evil 4(Focusing on Action, and making ammo more plentiful) before Resident Evil 4, fancy that eh!

And you thought the Arabesques from the first game were tough!

 The AP gauge returns, for the uninitiated, AP is a gauge that once full will make Rion go berserk('Short'), he becomes invincible and every non-boss enemy dies by just looking at him funny... but it constantly saps your HP, you're reduced to a very slow walk and can only get out of it by taking a Delmetor or getting to one of the very rare, only two in the entire game, 'glowing lights' that restore your HP and AP. The system has changed a bit, for instance, you AP threshold can be extended by defeating enemies and how fast your AP rises depends on the 'radiation' of the zone you're in, other factors that make it rise higher is taking or receiving damage, shielding and dodging. While you'd think that Shorting would be beneficial for grinding, enemies defeated while Shorted drop smaller stat buffs.

 By now you probably think that the game is a banger, since the combat system is so much better. But it's not. The exploration aspect of the game is absolutely horrid. Let me tell you how the game works: You're stuck inside the top floors of a building, you are briefed at the top of the building(Floor 4) and must now find your way to floor 1(Lots o' walking and loading screens) to do whatever you need to do, many times you'll have to travel between floors doing busywork before being allowed into floor 1, afterwards you complete the mission and... must go all the way back to floor 4 and be told of some new development which has you... going down to floor 1 again, but probably taking a new route since the previous one is now blocked because reasons. That's the entire game. Well, there's another area, the Uranium Depository which must be visited twice, and the Data World which must be visited three times, and you have to repeat the same puzzles all three times because you're interrupted the previous two. But of course, you have to reach the place that you were at during your last visit and then do some more busywork. LAME. It's incredible how the got away with that one.

You make their head spin right round and round like a record baby, ro....

 Not that the puzzles are any good either, let me show you how the first 'big' puzzle in the game goes. You start off on floor 4(of course) and must get to a Warehouse. You try to open the door and it's a no go, of course, so you need to turn on the Power Generator. The next thing you have to figure out is that you have to interact with a door's button and not the door itself, otherwise it will appear as 'locked' in the map and you won't be able to open it. Fun. Now you are in floor 1, and there's no explanation as to why. Well, maybe you came across a certain key when you first came here, but since you didn't need it the game didn't let you pick it up, so hopefully you remember where it was. Alright, whatever, you're a psychic so you figure out that you need a key and that the key is here. you fetch it and go back to Floor 2, which isn't as simple as climbing a stair, you have to go from floor 1 to Laboratory 2 to Floor 3 to Floor 2. Fun times, I tell ya. Alright, you get to the generator, you enter the Start menu go to the Item label and use the key. You think you're done so you go back to the warehouse and... still no power. You go all the way back to the generator, but now you spot a broken cable. Maybe you came across a spare cable that the game didn't let you pick up because you didn't need it back then, but you remember where it was, somehow, so you go fetch it and... nothing. You actually have to examine the goddamn broken cable, because even though you aren't blind, Rion is, so unless you interacted with the broken cable you can't pick up the new spare cable. Alright, you interacted with it, got the spare cable and now you go into the menu and.... you can't use it. You have to turn off the generator, use the cable and then turn it on. You think you are done, you really think so, but... nope, now someone is standing in your way towards lab 2. So now you have to figure out that you have to talk to the dude guarding the stairs to floor 1 because NOW he feels like letting you in. I wouldn't blame you if you gave up during this entire waste of time.

 The game is very obtuse in telling you where it wants you to go next, or how to get there, so if you want to use a guide feel free to, the game loves to waste your time, be it having you retread old ground in the Data World, having you go up and down the same four floors or having incredibly annoying puzzles. Scratch that, use a guide and don't waste your time.... which is not to say that the game is devoid of fun ideas, there's a very fun mindscrew 3/4ths into the game, and it features a very WTF ending, although, all things considered, the ending is rather unfulfilling. And don't try to think too hard about some of the things that happen, or you'll find out that they make no sense or aren't properly explained. And as an added note, the game loves to be cheeky, so items only appear when you get annoyingly close to them, forcing you to comb areas if you want to find supplies.

These psychic-plants reminded me of REvil 2's zombie-plants.

 Galerians - Ash is a bit of a mess, but a mess I liked. Kinda liked? Sorta-somewhat liked at times. I liked having a bunch of new Galerians to fight and I somewhat liked a few of the characters, like Cas and grown-up Rion. Combat was fun too, thanks to the audiovisual feedback, it feels so good to shoot giant waves of fire, or have your enemies spinning up on the air. That said, Galerians Ash is for hardcore fans of the original only, and even then I'm sure that the it won't satisfy everyone, a lot of the horror elements are entirely gone, and the plot will be very hit or miss depending on your sensibilities(Yaoi fangirls rejoice), finishing the game I was left feeling unfulfilled, and the more I thought about the plot... the less I liked it.
 4.5 out of 10