Review #284: Megaman X 8

 Almost but not quite.

 Megaman X hasn't been quite the same since X4. X5 was alright, X6 was a disaster and X7 was a mess. Instead of building upon X7, they decided to begin anew with X8, axing the 3D/2D segments(as well as crouching!) and opting instead for classic Megaman X 2D action, albeit with 3D graphics(2.5D if you will). It goes a little further, characters have been redesigned and streamlined, so no more silly stubby legs, and look better than ever.

 It's the eight time around, so you know the gist of it: Defeat the 8 Mavericks then tackle Sigma, yadda yadda. The three heroes have been further differentiated this time around, X is a long-distance power house, however, charging his Mega Buster takes a while, Axl can't charge his shots, but he fires rapidly in any direction(Although it roots him to the ground) and is the only character that can hover, while Zero is the only character with a double jump and specializes in close combat. And just as it was on X7, you can take two characters with you, and a new 'Team-up' attack has been introduced, which is fairly unimpressive but deals decent damage.

 X5 introduced the Reploid saving mechanic, which I never cared for, but after X6 they got tied to upgrades. Not this time, now you have to find their chips and then buy them. Yes, Megaman X8 introduces a shop system and I love it. You can purchase a few basic upgrades, like more health or one-time use health items, and once you find a life tank, extra charges, at the outset, but the really juicy stuff must be found. I absolutely love this new system, much, much more than having to rescue Reploids. And on New Game plus, you can unlock new armors for the three main characters(Or, y'know, use a cheat code and get them on your first playthrough) as well as three female characters, which behave as nerfed versions of their male counterparts, but hey, new characters! Kinda. And you can cheat codes to unlock them early as well.

 The game's difficulty is a bit higher than what we've gotten used to, more reminiscent of X3 than anything. And it's mostly fair. Mostly. All fairness goes out the window once you hit the last levels, filled to the brim with cheap deaths and stuff you can't see coming the first time through. And the last boss, if you take too long to figure out how to off him, he automatically kills you, no matter how much health you've got left, because that's fun, isn't it? At least Megaman X4 through X7 offered unlimited continues and generous checkpoints, this time around, continues must be bought and they are a one-time use only, so unless you've got the cash, you are stuck with the default two continues. There's also an Easy mode, but they don't let you fight the true boss and get the true ending, not cool. There's also two horrible, horrible vehicle stages. The least said about them the better.

 When all is said and done, while not as good as the SNES games, this is the best Megaman X game since X4. Level design is, mostly, fair, the weapons are fun to use, all three characters are completely different from each other, there's a bunch of fun unlockables as well. It's a fine game all around, that lacks some refinement, but the X series had finally gotten on the right track again. Not that it matters, since Capcom basically did away with the series.
 7.0 out of 10

Review #283: Megaman X 7

 At least it's not Megaman X 6.

 Took long enough, but Megaman X, a series that worked wonders as 2D action games, finally took the plunge and went 3D. Kinda. It actually mixes 2D and 3D areas for... interesting results. I'm gonna cut straight to the point here, Megaman X 7 isn't very good, but at least it ain't X 6.

 The story... well, you should know by now, a villain who is totally not being manipulated by Sigma, must be stopped, there's 8 robot masters to defeat, yadda yadda yadda. New to the series is Axl, a hero who can copy normal enemies's forms for a little while. He isn't too bad, but his voice actor is terrible and doesn't fit him very well... something that stands true for the rest of the cast. Something that irked many a player was the fact that X must be unlocked, either by saving 64 reploids or defeating the 8 Mavericks, but I don't mind. Series evolve, you don't need to play as the same characters all the time. That said, between the plot being centered around Axl, who is a very stereotypical rash teenager, is a bit annoying. Not that you should play these games for their stories anyhow...

 As with previous games, there's 8 Mavericks to defeat, which you can tackle in any order, and they leave a weapon that is extra effective against another Maverick... kinda. Just as with Megaman X 5, even the 'effective' weapons don't deal that much damage, as soon as you unlock X, you'll find out that his charged Mega Buster is the most effective weapon in the entire game. Speaking of characters, now you can bring along any two characters between Axl, X and Zero, which a lot of people like, but strikes me as odd. It's only three characters, so I found it a bit dumb to only let you take two characters. Either let me bring all three of'em, or only one. Zero is a hard hitting, close-range fighter that can double jump... but sans boss-fights, he is gonna have a hard time connecting with his sword. Axl can shoot from afar and glide and X is Axl but with the added benefit of a Charge Shot. Oh, and Axl can turn into enemies defeat by the copy shot... which you'll never use, since transformations are useless(Except for rescuing a few reploids) and dealing the killing shot with the copy shot is pure guesswork against enemies that can receive a ton of punishment.

 Strewn throughout each level are 16 Reploids which you can rescue... or if you fail to get to them before an enemy hits them, they die. Forever. These reploids reward you with upgrades, life and weapon energy upgrades or... nothing, but you never know who has what. This offers a bit of a predicament when it comes to X, y'see, in order to access to him early you need to rescue 64 reploids, which if you are particularly good, can achieve in 4 levels, but it took me 5. This means that a ton of upgrades are gonna be going Axl and Zero's way, since you have to use them the moment you get them. Sure, you could also try to finish all 8 Mavericks without rescuing these Reploids, but remember, they can die, and it can cost you an upgrade. That said, after I finished the 5th level and unlocked X, I used him the remainder of the game, and once I managed to catch him up with the other two, became the best character in the game.

 Controls are also a bit of an issue, but I think it has to do with the game mechanics rather than the controls themselves. It's hard to explain, but wall jumping can be pretty finicky, since it seems that characters have troubles clinging to certain walls or objects. It was also fairly stupid to make Axl's hover work by holding the jump button, since in this game, depending on how hard you press said button it alters the height of your jump, so if you want to get maximum air out of your jump, you might accidentally trigger the hovering and screw yourself out of the air-dash, plummeting to your death. And hilariously enough, X's hovering works by tapping jump again, so if you are using both characters(Like I was!) prepare to have your muscle memory trick you.  The game also has auto-targeting, which loses its target very easily if you move around, and you toggle targets by tapping R2, although the reticule has a mind of its own when it comes to multiple moving targets, so it might make you waste that charged shot when the boss unleashes projectiles. Goddamn. This also means that when targeting, the camera doesn't follow the target, so bosses like the Kangaroo are a pain in the neck, as you hold Square, to charge your shot, tap circle to avoid its lounge attack while holding R1 to spin the camera and see where the hell the boss is, you'll be a hand gymnast in no time.

 That said, level design is.... OKish. Something tells me that the same team behind the terrible MMX6 was behind this one as well, since leaps of faith abound. The game physics are a bit wonky as well, standing over moving objects will jerk your character around sometimes(The Hyena boss battle, one of the moving planes in the planes stage.) and just try jumping over an object that moves vertically, it will mess with your jump. As for the 3D sections of the levels, they are not as terrible as people make them out to be, but for some reason, the game will only let you spin the camera on CERTAIN sections of this kind. Which is hilarious, because the sections with fixed camera angles are all kinds of terrible, like in the Flying ships stage, even parts throughout which you are supposed to go through will have walls obstructing your view. Genius. I could handpick a few other terrible pieces of the other levels, but I think that's enough to prove my point: Levels can be pretty bad. But, if its worth anything, it doesn't get as bad as X6.

 Megaman X 7 can be a tiny bit fun at times, when its working properly For as poorly designed as they are, the ideas behind some levels are pretty cool, and not something that they could've done in 2D, so they tried to take advantage of this new, third dimension. Not that they succeeded, but they tried. But the mediocre levels, the wonky controls and bad design choices all conspire against it. Megaman X 7 is amongst the worst Megaman X games, but sadly, the series has seen worse.
 4.5 out of 10

Review #282: Megaman X Collection

 A bit more inconsistent than Megaman Classic...

 Remember that little blue guy that would steal his enemies' weapons? Well, now imagine if that little guy was a bonafide badass and you'd get Megaman X. The game's basics remain the same, jump and shoot your way through 8 different bosses, obtaining a weapon from each that is extra effective against another specific boss, until you defeat them all and then you are ready to tackle the last gauntlet of stages before the last boss. But besides being darker and edgier, Megaman X is much faster than its predecessor series, the 'dash' mechanic becoming a core move that you'll need to use in order to deal with the new obstacles and enemy patterns. X, the hero, can also cling to walls and jump off them for extra verticality when it comes to stages. This is a whole 'nother beast, and when it's at its best, its even better than classic Megaman.

 Megaman X 1: The first entry in the series is downright fantastic. The difficulty is just right, and everything works just right. There's a ton of stuff to find on the 8 levels, from different armor pieces, health upgrades and extra sub-tanks(Rechargeable health packs). They got everything right on their first iteration. 9.0

 Megaman X 2: Almost as good as the first one. My biggest gripe is that some of the bosses are a bit of a drag, as you have to wait for them to become vulnerable to attack, which leads to a lot of waiting. 8.0

 Megaman X 3: The game I liked the least on the SNES, not that that is a bad thing, as I only prefer X2 slightly more than this one. This version is the PS1 port, which means it includes anime cutscenes, which if you ask me, feel a bit out of place. This game is noticeably harder than the other two, but don't worry, if you got through the other two, you are well prepared to tackle this one. This time around, there are multiple endings, and you can even play, in a very limited form, as Zero, at the cost of one life. There's a new type of hidden collectible, to add to the armor pieces, health upgrades and sub-tanks: Rider Armors. I felt like these added nothing to the game, as you only get to ride these on some sections of only some stages, which translates to busy work. And you will need to collect these if you plan on collecting the other upgrades, since some require the rider armors. 8.0

 Megaman X 4: The first entry on the PS1, it looks fantastic. Like, really, really good, bosses have never looked this cool, and they have some of the most interesting movesets in the series. It also features some of the most memorable stages as well. You also get to play as either Zero or X, both have different storylines, and while they fight most of the same bosses, their play styles are completely different. 9.0

 Megaman X 5: Now you can play as both X and Zero, picking who before each stage. They also, finally, added the option to crouch! There's new equippable parts to customize your characters. This one is a bit of a misstep. They added this arbitrary 'time limit', until you beat the eight robot masters, that while it isn't very strict, it's annoying. The Boss Rematch at the end of the game is a pain in the butt, as enemies take ages to die, luckily, if you are savvy enough and collected the Ultimate Armor in the previous stage, you can cheese them to death with unlimited Giga Strikes. There's also a lot of handholding, Allia, your navigator, will interrupt you mid-stage to tell you the most obvious things she can. Things like 'HEy, break that door in front of you to continue', goddammit, I'm not playing on easy, I'm not stupid, I just want to play. Not gotta lie, this game made me want to play the SNES originals again... 6.0

 Megaman X 6: An absolute joke of a Megaman X game. Level design is absolutely atrocious. Leaps of faith, damage that looks unavoidable and, as a matter of fact, one area has RANDOM rooms, and some house upgrades, so you might have to replay that one level multiple times. So. Much. Fun. There was also that junk compressor stage, turns out if you manage to avoid it, and stop holding down to crouch, it will kill you anyways. And even if only X's toe stretches into the hitbox, he dies. There're also parts that can't be cleared without the right 'optional' parts, some which can, potentially, be lost forever on a playthrough. There's also that terrible avalanche stage.... it seems as if stages were purposely designed to annoy players. And while I don't care about graphics, it's hard not to notice how poorly animated the new sprites are. This is a sad way to finish this collection. 4.0

 Megaman Battle and Chase: But hey, maybe you finished X1, X2 and X3, which unlocks Megaman Battle and Chase, a PS1 kart racer that never made it out of Japan before! And... it's terribly average. It has a few original ideas, like collecting kart parts from defeated enemies, but it's not very fun. It also doesn't look very good, which in a racing game, where you need to see what's coming and what's in-front of you is quite vital. 5.0

 Alright, so this collection's quality isn't as consistent as Megaman Anniversary Collection, but I'd say that X1, X2, X3 and X4 are absolutely worth it and are even better than anything Megaman Classic can offer. And even then, you are left with an above average platformer in X5 and Battle and Chase which justifies itself as a fun little curiosity. X6 is best left alone.
 9.0 out of 10

Review #281: Mega Man Anniversary Collection

 Basically, what the upcoming Megaman Collection should've been...

 This game nets you the original Megaman games on the NES, which means 1 to 6, Megaman SNES(7) and Megaman PS1(8), plus, the bizarrely entertaining pseudo arcade fighters, for a total of 10 games.

 The games' premises are, basically, all the same and pretty simple to boot. Dr. Light is the good scientist who created Megaman, the robot who must stop Dr. Wily's evil Robot Masters. Even if it looks like it isn't Wily, it IS Wily. With that out of the way, all these games are 2D action-platform games, and tough as nails to boot. They require observation, patience for pattern recognition, as well as good reflexes to deal with the obnoxious enemy placement, deal with hazards that you'll only know about once you get hit or killed by them. As a matter of fact, all of the 8 main games have at least one obstacle that's unavoidable until you know about it. Whether it's the Dragon that pops up below you in Megaman 2, or the inverse-U mine-trap when the water rises in Megaman 7, somewhere, somehow, the games will get you. Cheaply. Oh, and a few of the games have sections that are just unbeatable without ammo, so if you run out of ammo,  you've got to either killing yourself until you can use a continue(And get your ammo refilled) or grinding enemies for minutes on end until you get the ammo. The latter is not always possible, like with the final Boss in Megaman 2 or one of Wily's stages in Megaman 3.

 All that said, the games are usually pretty fair, hard, but fair. Usually. Besides the issues mentioned above, Megaman 1 and 2 have a couple of spots where it's practically impossible to avoid getting damages, even if you know it's coming. These games are from another era, when games had to be tough in order to incite sales and not have the games returned after a quick rental.... luckily, if you don't have the skill, or the time, this collection lets you up the starting lives to 5 and choose an 'Easy' difficulty, which removes some obstacles, ups your damage and reduces the damage you receive on all 8 platformers. These options makes this collection the ideal way to experience these games, making it accessible for everyone, without sacrificing the oldschool challenge for purists.

 Another addition to this collection is letting you switch between powers with the shoulder buttons. On paper it sounds great, but in practice you'll find out that going into the menus can be faster and more useful(Since you have to remember what each color-swap corresponds to which weapon) which makes it more efficient than this new functionality. One thing that has been kept intact, for better or for worse, and I vie towards the latter, is sprite flickering. Basically, when the NES got taxed, graphically, sprites would flicker, which can make it hard to keep track of what's going on, luckily, it only applies to the NES games. Megaman 7 suffers from occasional slowdown, which I don't know if it was present in the SNES original. Oh! And from Megaman 1 to 7, picking up health restores pauses the action, which can really throw you off and ruin your platforming.

 All the games follow the same formula, pick a stage from any of the starting 8(6 for Megaman 1, and 7 and 8 are divided in two sets of four), beat the boss, obtain its weapon until you clear all 8, which then takes you onto 'Wily's Castle' which is made up of four(Later games add a second Castle, for a total of 8) new stages, in which you must use all the powers you've acquired to clear new obstacles, defeat new bosses, defeat all previous bosses and finally defeat the final boss. The game's main gimmick is that every boss is weak to another boss' weapon, which can turn their battles into a cakewalk.

 Megaman 1 was the first game in the series, and it's very rough around the edges. The difficulty is through the roof(I'd say even harder than Castlevania 1), for whatever odd reason Megaman slides when you stop moving, which can make you fall to your death. And it's the only game with only 6 robot masters.

 Megaman 2 is Megaman 1 times ten. There's 8 robot masters, new sub-weapons to facilitate going through stages, energy tanks to refill your health. The soundtrack is fantastic, but it still suffers from a few of Megaman 1 issues, like Megaman's slippery stops and some sections being downright unfair. Honestly, I'm pretty sure the reason most people consider it one of the best is due to nostalgia, since subsequent games would fix most of what this game did wrong. Not to say that the game is bad, just that the next games are even better. Except, maybe, 5.

 Megaman 3 is my favorite of the bunch. Now Megaman can slide by holding down and pressing jump, which adds a whole slew of new obstacles. But even better, when you stop moving, Megaman no longer slides, making movement a whole lot more precise. Rush, Megaman's robot dog is introduced, who serves as your 'sub-weapons' to traverse level, as a jet, a spring or a submarine.

 Megaman 4, another one of my favorites, second only to Megaman 3. Now you get the ability to charge your Mega Buster(Basic attack). This game has my favorite bosses in the series. It's hard to explain just why I like it so much, but in a few words, it's because it polishes everything the previous games did to a shine, and with the addition of the charge shot and the slide, the game just became so much more fun.

 Megaman 5 is... strangely one of the games I liked the least. It has to do with how forgettable it is, as a matter of fact, I finished the game today and I don't remember anything about it. Strange, because it's basically Megaman 4 but with new bosses... but stages aren't very remarkable. Again, it's not a bad game(I think the only game I would say is 'bad' is the first one), but the other games have more personality, more charm than this one. This is just filler.

 Megaman 6 now lets Megaman fuse with Rush intro Power mode or Jet mode. Power mode is fairly situational, the range is too short, even if, technically, it's stronger than your mega buster, so you'll probably just use it to open up secret areas. Jet mode is much more fun and useful, letting you hover for a short while. While it sounds gimmicky, it's fairly fun to use these new forms. The stages and bosses are fairly memorable, bosses in particular are particularly badass, as opposed to the cutesy look they were going for before. It's fairly fun, third spot on my favorites no doubt.

 Megaman 7 was the first, and only, classic Megaman on the SNES. Something that may throw you off at first is that Megaman now looks huge, and takes up more space on the screen, but you'll get used to it fairly quickly. This game has a ton of extras and secrets to find, which makes this game particularly fun to play. It also introduces a shop-system, so it's easier to stock on Energy Tanks.

 Megaman 8, the one on Playstation. Graphically it looks fantastic, even if it's a bit too colorful and cheery for my taste. It adds the ability to shoot your basic mega buster while using the other weapons. You can no longer carry Energy tanks, and the shop has been revised, so that there's a limited amount of 'money' to be found, but the upgrades you can buy are much more useful and actually affect the way you play. When it's at it's best, it's great, but it has a couple of stages that can be fairly frustrating... particularly the auto-scrolling skate stages, like Wily Castle's 1...

 Megaman The Power Battle and The Power Fighters are the two arcade games. They are basically boss rushes and can be played with another player. They are fairly fun distractions.

 Megaman games can be pretty inaccessible to some people, which makes the ability to adjust the difficulty on this collection a great way to ease new players into the franchise. You also get every Megaman game that was released up to the date of its release on one disc(Except 'Megaman and Bass', but at the time, it had only been release on Japan, for what its worth).... and you get more games than you would on the upcoming collection, which makes this a way better deal.
 8.0 out of 10.

Month Overview: January 2016

 Tally:
Silent Hill 3                                                      8.0
Dragon Ball Z Extreme Butoden                     5.5
Castlevania Chronicles                                    7.0
Batman Arkham Origins - Blackgate              5.5
Chrono Trigger                                                10
Spy Fiction                                                       7.5
Super Mario Land(Virtual Console)                2.0
Rogue Galaxy                                                 7.5
 Last exam-free month, dammit. I surely made the most of it, although I also decided to start Rogue Galaxy and Monster Hunter Tri Ultimate, which proved to be huge time-sinks, hopefully my studies don't suffer during February. All in all, a decent way to start 2016.



 January's favorite:

 Man, I had forgotten how badass Chrono Trigger's OST was, certainly one of my favorite soundtracks ever. EVER. And the game itself doesn't fall behind the music's level of quality, this is a timeless classic no doubt.
 As a side-note, it's weird to notice how little Square used to care about graphics. Final Fantasy I-III were decent, as for Final Fantasy IV- VI they were pretty lackluster. Bosses were detailed, but lacked animation, playable characters used only the very least required frames. And Chrono Trigger? While the exclusive animations for critical hits are a nice touch, and novel at the time, most animations lack frames. It's not unusual to see enemies move, space-wise, without moving their feet, and the character's walking and running cycles look very odd. Final Fantasy VII was fairly minimalist when it came to graphics as well. Then we got into Final Fantasy VIII, and it's all been graphics, graphics and graphics with Square. Culminating with XIII which is pretty to look at but not much else.
 Square, bring back games like this. Graphics are overrated.

 Runner-up:

 Aaaaand I still don't understand why Silent Hill 4 gets so much flak. Because it's different from previous games? So what? It's still fantastic. Silent Hill 3 is really good, although not quite as good, as well.
 I didn't find it as scary as Silent Hill 4, or as inventive, or as believable, but it was a fun romp. Good enough to make me kinda want to play the rest of the series. And I know that I keep bringing SH 4 whenever I talk about SH 4, but I just can't stand all the hate it gets just because it's different. They changed the controls, so what? It controls better than SH 3. They changed the monsters, where are the Zombie-like nurses? Who needs them?! Silent Hill 4 is awesome, goddammit.

Review #280: Rogue Galaxy

 On a galaxy, far, far away...

 Rogue Galaxy is a JRPG that takes place in outer space. Kinda. From what I can gather, Sony expected the game to sell well and become a franchise, but, probably, due to the time of its release, it didn't manage to sell very well. But hey, it's getting a second chance on PS4!

 Meet Jaster Rogue, the hero of the story. An every-day hunter-for-hire on the Desert planet Rosa. Then meet Simon and Steve, two robots searching for the legendary hunter, Desert Claw. Long story short, these two mistake Jaster for Desert Claw and take him on Dorgengoa's Space Pirate Ship, on an adventure through the stars. Kinda. See, the game is set on the future, with space-travel and what-not... but besides lasers and a few robots here and there, most of the game feels fairly... medieval. You'll visit jungles and its ancient ruins, you'll visit a fairly run-of-the-mill city and its non-futuristic mines and then go through its... underwater ruins. Then there's Zedran, the most futuristic city in the game, and you'll get to go to a robot factory in there, and then the... fairly non-futuristic prison and it's... non futuristic ruins. Basically, it's a non-futuristic game set in the future. With a lot of swords, magic, golems, and what not. Even the 'aliens' are unimpressive for the simple reason that... most aliens in the game are anthropomorphic animals like sharks or dogs! Still, only four party members are human, there's also two robots, a lizard-looking alien and an anthropomorphic dog-alien which make for quite the colorful cast. All in all, the plot isn't too bad, but I wasn't impressed or particularly invested on it. You'll see every plot twist coming before the fact! Every member in the cast gets his or her chance to shine, and while none are particularly original or deep, you'll grow fond of them.

 Once you get into the Dorgenark, Dorgengoa's ship, you'll be able to travel to different planets. One of the game's most impressive feats is how well it hides loading times, so that every planet, which hold 2-3 dungeons each, features no loading screens or 'separated areas'. That means that each planet offers a ton of areas to explore, and as you go along you'll find Save Spots which double as 'teleporters', which can teleport you to any other teleporter on the planet, making backtracking a cinch. One thing that may grate your ears is that party members don't shut up as you explore, and they'll repeat the same lines over and over again. Ok, Deego, I get it, you want to rest, whatever the hell that means on a game like this. And Kisala, shut up, this is the ONLY route towards the objective, so there's no possible way that this route is wrong, so shut the hell up.... Yeah, it's fairly annoying. And since I'm at it, this may be a nitpick, but usually when you go into an RPG's menu, you expect to see the status of your party, as well as your money. Not here. Wanna see your levels, and how your HP is doing? Gotta go into the 'Allies' sub menu. Want to see your money? Gotta go into the 'items' sub menu. And after you reach the arbitrary maximum of a certain item, but you find more in a chest or after a battle, the game takes a second to load the menu and force you into the 'Items' sub menu to choose what to do. Would've been much better to just let you choose what to do with the item on the 'results' screen. But hey! Planets look beautiful, and there's a bunch of treasure chests everywhere, so exploration is always encouraged.

 Meet Jaster Rogue, the hero of the story. An every-day hunter-for-hire on the Desert planet Rosa. Then meet Simon and Steve, two robots searching for the legendary hunter, Desert Claw. Long story short, these two mistake Jaster for Desert Claw and take him on Dorgengoa's Space Pirate Ship, on an adventure through the stars. Kinda. See, the game is set on the future, with space-travel and what-not... but besides lasers and a few robots here and there, most of the game feels fairly... medieval. You'll visit jungles and its ancient ruins, you'll visit a fairly run-of-the-mill city and its non-futuristic mines and then go through its... underwater ruins. Then there's Zedran, the most futuristic city in the game, and you'll get to go to a robot factory in there, and then the... fairly non-futuristic prison and it's... non futuristic ruins. Basically, it's a non-futuristic game set in the future. With a lot of swords, magic, golems, and what not. Even the 'aliens' are unimpressive for the simple reason that... most aliens in the game are anthropomorphic animals like sharks or dogs! Still, only four party members are human, there's also two robots, a lizard-looking alien and an anthropomorphic dog-alien which make for quite the colorful cast. All in all, the plot isn't too bad, but I wasn't impressed or particularly invested on it. Every member in the cast gets his or her chance to shine, and while none are particularly original or deep, you'll grow fond of them.

 And then comes the combat system, where it's easily where the game squanders most of its potential. Battles come out of random encounters, but they take place in real time, you take control of one party member and the AI takes control of the other two. Each character comes equipped with their own unique main weapon and sub weapon, assigned to X and Square, respectively, there's also a charge attack by holding X, jumping with circle and R1 to block. You can also use spells or items or change your equipment by pressing triangle, which pauses the action while you do your stuff. Funnily enough, items don't have 'use animations', so you can use as many items as your stamina allows! Ah! Yes, what you can do is governed by a stamina bar, and after it runs out, either wait a while or block one enemy attack in order to instantly refill it. And you can also pick up enemies(Or objects) and throw them, if you are so inclined. So far, so good.

 But the devs realized that the combat was fairly shallow. It was fine, but shallow. So they introduced different enemy types. Some come with shields that must be broken with a charge attack. Fine. A select few(One enemy type and its recolors) need to be jumped on before you can hurt them. Ok, whatevs. Then come 'huge enemies' that can only be damaged by attacking them while jumping. Firstly, these make no sense since you can basically shoot at their 'weak spots', but nope, it has to be a jumping attack. But the issue comes with how jumping attacks work, these are very limited and these enemies may just attack through your attacks or fall midway through your aerial three hit combo, making them a bore to deal with. And early in the game you are also introduced to 'barrier' enemies. These barriers can only be dispatched by one specific gun that only Jaster can use. These enemies are not frequent enough as to justify equipping the useless Barrier-breaking gun for the entirety of the game, but are frequent enough to make it a chore to switch your sub-weapon mid-battle just to deal with these enemies, so if you see that the dungeon has this type of enemy, just keep it equipped. Oh, and to make matters worse, this gun has one of the worst cooldown counters in the entire game, so if you run out of energy, you have to dance around these enemies, pray your AI buddies don't die(HA!) until it refills. And I haven't even gotten into the technical aspects of the combat. There's another type of attack, the 'downward stab', done near downed enemies. This is a very slow attack, that leaves you open to attacks and takes a long time to get out of... and your character will attempt it every time he is close to a downed enemy, EVEN if you are not targeting them. As a matter of fact, I'm fairly sure my character tried to do it to standing enemies. It's an annoying, useless attack that I never, EVER wanted to do and ended up with me receiving unwanted damage. Oh, and the targeting system? The camera doesn't track the enemy, that, you have to do yourself, but hey, at least you know that even if the enemy is off-camera, you are aiming at it, and that's always nice to know, right...?

 Speaking of the AI, it's atrocious, your allies don't know how to block or dodge attack, so expect them to die. All. The. Time. Hilariously enough, when it comes to 'jumping attack' enemies, sometimes they will go straight for their heads, and others they will try futile normal or distance attacks. I also came to at least two instances of an enemy and an AI partner doing staring contests. Hilarious. And for whatever reason, the AI also adores picking up and throwing enemies, are you too good to use your normal attacks, my dear, stupid AI buddy? And, by the by, you can somewhat give them 'general strategies' to follow during combat, but none of them are very specific. Either 'Attack the same enemy' or 'attack different enemies', stuff like that. And they can't use items or spells by themselves(And seeing how dumb they are, good riddance), but they may suggest use of their skills or items during battle, which you answer with L1, L2 or L3 to ignore them. Listen, buddies, if I wanted you to use a spell or item, I would've told you so, so stop insisting! Another thing that needs to be said, is that the game isn't particularly hard, technically, but normal enemies deal a ton of damage, and most of the time, their most damaging moves are unblockable, so carry a lot of healing and reviving items, all the time. You will need them.

 To the game's credit, the 'crafting' system is fantastic. Any weapon can be combined with any other weapon of its same type. No combination offers no result, and in the case the combination will offer a weaker weapon(Which happens when you try to mix, say, a level 20 weapon with a level 45), the game will warn you. There's dozens of weapons, and different colored variations of each, which encourages you to keep combining weapons and see what you can get. It also means that you can craft some very powerful weapons early on in the game, but seeing how much damage enemies can dish out, its only fair. Each character also has a 'Revelation chart', in which you use items to clear and learn new spells or passive skills, which is also fairly engaging.

 There's quite a bit of sidequests to fulfill as well, from gathering all the Legendary Swords, finding the 'rare items'(For bragging rights only!), challenging the bonus bosses and the... Hunting subquest. The 'hunting' subquest is a chore, basically you have to defeat 20-30 of each and every enemy in the game. Considering that some enemies only appear on 'rare encounters', and each of these may come with 1-2 of this rare enemy, this will take a while. If you decide to do this quest as it comes up, which I did(At least until I got into the #1 spot on the ranking, which nets you arguably the best alternate costume for Jaster) you will end up horribly over-leveled. By chapter 6 I was level 40 and sporting the strongest weapon in the game. And I wasn't grinding intentionally, it just happened as I tried to fill this quest's log. But, once again, enemies can deal so much damage, that it doesn't quite 'break the game'. And look, I'm not one to complain about optional stuff, but this sidequest is a drag and you'd be insane to fully complete it(And for what? An extra costume for Kisala?), I spent more time than I'd like to admit doing it in order to get enough points for Jaster's costume, and at times, I got sick of so much 'grinding'. It's a chore, it's not fun!

 Look, Rogue Galaxy is a fine game, but I don't think that the end result quite matches with the scope of the game's ambition. It was a great attempt, and it has a ton of great ideas, like the huge non-segmented planets, the weapon crafting and the Revelations charts. The combat system too was a great idea, but marred with poor design choices.
 7.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Rogue Galaxy

 In a Galaxy far, far away...

 Rogue Galaxy is a game I was never really interested in, really. But the RPG bug bit me this year, and since this was a JRPG on the PS2 I hadn't even played before, I decided to give it a chance.

 It's quite good, and the 'Star Wars mixed with RPG' a lot of people grant it is well deserved. You start on a Desert Planet, and two 'roids team up with him pretty early on. It's a bit more complex than that, both Androids are bounty hunters, for instance, and Jaster wields a one-of-seven legendary swords, as opposed to a beam saber.

 Battles seem to borrow a lot from the Tales series, albeit not quite as good. When approaching downed enemies, Jaster uses a slow as molasses downward stab that leaves him open for attacks. Sometimes he'll use it even after an enemy stood up, and heck, sometimes even WHILE targeting a different enemy, if a downed enemy is in the way... he'll use the annoying stab. And targeting? Targeting is a joke, the camera doesn't follow the enemy, just your attacks, so either you turn it manually or use R2 to snap it onto the enemy. And the Ally AI? Downright useless, they don't know how to block or dodge. And maybe it's only because I'm early in the game, but enemy AI seems just as bad. And as overly critical as I am being, I'm actually enjoying the game!