Rogue Galaxy

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Space harlots!

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000CFWPOW.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

I dig the ship thing. Like Captain Harlock or sumpthin'.

add a coupla thrusters, stick it into orbit, and there ya go.

http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200610/N06.1016.1451.06380.htm

Amazon says March, but 1up says January. Hm.

how did everyone get on with this? i'm looking for a new rpg

marmotwolof played it and sez it was just a little less awesome than DQ8 which means basically awesome as hell

I am not letting myself pick it up until I beat or get completely stuck in DC2

yeah I am very near the end of this but am way into Odin Sphere at the moment.

I hope they give you the option to change dude's name. A robot named Steve and a furrified Boxer named Deego I can stand, but Jaster, that's awful.

NOPE. And you better get used to it too, because your allies will shout out "Jaster!" at least five times every battle unless you select someone else to control, then they'll shout "Deego!" or whatever. You can't swap Jaster out completely.

That "space harlot" kingfish posted is Lilika, the native chick from the Jungle planet. She's one of the strongest characters towards the end, along with Jupis the lizard. Deego kind of sucks in my game, but then I haven't tried making his best weapons yet. Same with Steve. There's also Kisala, who is kind of Jaster's love interest and the pirate captain's daughter (there's more to it than that, but I won't spoil), Simon, a fat alien with a Scottish accent and Zegram, your basic amoral scoundrel/mercenary.

this game is really bad. i also really like the idea of odin sphere but the cutscenes are incredibly terrible. anime ruins everything.

adam you basically liked DQ8 though right?

pretty well. i lost interest after 25 hrs but that prob had more to do with going back to new orleans than with the game itself. i like turn-based menu combat more than the button mashing quasi-real-time rogue galaxy/star ocean/etc style. odin sphere and its completely insane gameplay are a whole different story.

i also appreciated dq8's completely half-assed story.

Odin Sphere's cut scenes are bearable if you put it in Japanese. Rogue Galaxy's are indeed terrible, but if I was playing this shit for the stories I'd fucking kill myself.

(fwiw those Rogue Galaxy cutscenes are Citizen Kane compared to the bullshit they make you sit through in Dark Cloud 2)

hahaha good

I feel like after subjecting myself to 2 hours each of Front Mission 4 and XenoSaga I can deal with just about anything, as long as it's not that

wait hang on a minute adam didn't you say you really liked Disgaea?!? I couldn't even start to play that game for the cutscenes!!!

Tom, you said you like doing random shit for new items. Well, in Rogue you have to feed combinations of two weapons to a fucking toad and he chews them out and spits up new ones. Plus, a little ways into the game you get this completely ridiculous factory flow-puzzle minigame where you have to set up all these conveyor belts and shit exactly right and coordinate smelters and such to get all the material processed and into the machine at the same exact time to get new stuff. Even if you get it perfect you might have to rearrange just to get everything plugged into an electrical socket. It's great. There's also a Pokemon/DQ monster arena style minigame where you catch bugs and make them fight in tournaments but I haven't fucked with that yet.

Combat is basically DC2 but you have three characters at a time that you can switch at will and they all have (skippable) FF style cutscene magic spells and "Burning Strikes" where you have to put in a button combo in time with what it shows on screen for massive damage. The biggest difference is that you have a little meter that runs out every so often and you have to either block an attack or wait for it to fill up before you can attack again.

disgaea has the worst cutscenes ever. all those nippon ichi games do. it's kind of insulting that they assume cause i like completely broken powerleveling strategy rpgs i also like creepy pedophile hentai.

Somehow I own this, but I'm opting to focus on (neglected for guitar hero which i finally burnt out on) Zelda Wii, which wrote me a letter to say it missed me. Finally beat the lava world!

the lava dungeon is the toughest one by far. fuck lava, srsly.

anyway rogue galaxy's cutscenes aren't really that bad, though I feel like the game is going by too fast/too easily - I haven't had to grind at all yet and I'm on the fourth planet (the mines) already?!? I thought this was supposed to be like a 40+ hour game, wtf dudes.

The similarities to dark cloud 2 are a little off-putting at times - level 5 needs a new in-house composer to match their graphics engines, or at least go develop a better sample library. Urk.

oh and yeah I didn't even bother finishing dc2, I got to the bit where you have the time travel train and just stopped caring.

It is pretty easy. I haven't played in weeks but I'm on the next to last chapter. The mines are waaaaay back there for me, though. Don't worry, the chapters get longer and you'll soon have to go back and forth between planets, there really aren't that many.

haha well I got the keys and just had to deal with all the seed shit happening to me or whatever's supposed to be going on there and I HAVE TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN because I basically walked right into that whole sequence direct from the last key dungeon and didn't think to save before stepping on the ship. Of course after staying on point and keeping myself alive through the endless sequence of plotted inescapable battles I get killed during what I assume is that last one. ARGH FU JAPAN

point being this game is basically only a little less fun than DQ8 and I am very happy with that.

Told you. Now if you would only trust me on FFXII being the best one since the SNES.

Agreed re: FFXII marmot. I would consider XII to be a "good" game. If, somehow, they had made it an online or even a one-screen co-op game (and really, it seems perfect for it), it would be incredible.

no way is it better than ffvii

haha cosplayer

If, somehow, they had made it an online

it's based on the FFXI engine isn't it?

haha yeah I have to say this is really making me consider picking up FFXII.

also the addition of the component adapter makes the scenery in RG look FOOKIN AMAZIN

(i have repeatedly stopped and switched to first-person view just walking around Zerard and Vedan to admire the backdrops)

Really, if the Gambit thing is keeping you from playing FFXII, you can just turn that off completely. It's not an auto fight thing like people think though, you actually have to program that shit (and it's not merely "Fight Separately" "Go All Out" stuff) with a bunch of "if this, then that" parameters if you don't want to get your ass kicked, and still constantly make adjustments during boss battles. It's really just saving you from the tedious "press X for 100 hours" type game play, since on minor enemies you're mor or less using the same strategy ever time, so you can automate it.

If it's the cut-scenes, they're all skippable, but they're also 100000000 times better than anything in a Level-5 game. The opening airship battle should be enough to convince you.

If it's the Rabbit Stripper bitch, she's really a relatively minor character compared to your other party members, and when she does speak it's a monotone Scandinavian thing, not a cutesy furry bullshit.

If it's fear of a lame ass emo storyline, it's easily the least emo Final Fantasy ever.

(well FF1 is probably less emo by virtue of not having much of a story)

and jeez, I typed that too fast, bear with me

Okay - I just picked this up during lunch. I've never really played this style of game before, but I feel like it's time to try some different stuff.

I think I can beat this today. I turned it on last night for the first time in weeks and it looks like I can't be more than an hour or two from the final boss, unless they throw another unforeseen quest at me. Will report back.

marmotwolof - are you done? about how long did it take you to play through most of the game? That the packaging says 100 hours is a bit scary! But I like what I've seen so far - I just started tho (only had time for about thirty minutes). My only real problem was that the last game I was playing a bunch of, pressing the triangle was the main attack button, so on here I kept stupidly opening the items menu when I wanted to be swinging my sword.

I am still about 30-40 hours into the game, I hit a hard part and ended up putting it down as I got a new game at the same time. I'm reasonably close to the end-- but it does take a while, Jeff. However, aside from occasional weekend binges, I mostly picked it up for an hour here or there over a month or so to get there... as long as you aren't lining up another game to play in a week or something, you'll be fine.

Yeah, I finished it last night but forgot to post. About 52 1/2 hours, but I spent some time dicking around in the factory and making good weapons. Didn't even play Insectron or whatever.

Here's a tip for everyone. Make sure EVERY character has the best weapons they can get before the final battle, not just the ones you keep active, and have a full supply of every type of heal potion. You'll see.

Here's the guide to best weapons:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/929240/46872

Also, the last two chapters really suck. Jesus. Chapter 12 basically makes you do the same thing 7 times in a row. Beyond tedious, but not particularly difficult.

haha ok I guess I can stop fussing about leveling any more swords then!

you actually get a sword in the last dungeon that you have to use for the end boss, so yeah, just wait for that and then level it

I beat the game with that Zeo Sychros X (the best version of the sword you get there) but only Jupis and Lilika had their best weapons, because they were so much stronger than the other characters at the end strength stat-wise that I ended up using them all the time. So the last battle could have been even easier on me if I had known.

I'm not even using jupis at all! should I be rotating everybody then?

you dudes are still leveling even on standby, but trust me Jupis and Lilika will be tanks by the end. what you really want to do for now is just use whoever has the most attack power at the moment with the best weapons you can get. I'd be interested to know if it works out the same every time and those two characters will always end up the strongest.

what the fuck kind of game makes you use triangle for attack

Triangle is the powerful attack in Ninja Gaiden Sigma (square for slightly less powerful attacks, combined with the left joystick - an extremely punishing game). Rouge Galaxy so far is a nice change of pace.

I've beaten Ninja Gaiden Black, and I've got a PS3 on the way from Amazon with Sigma, Resistance and MotorStorm, so I finished this just in time.

Also, hey Tombot:
http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51CQ79ZIDFL._AA280_.jpg
Supposedly the best Gundam game ever made (some would say the first good one), August 28. I'm stoked.

I heard it tanked, read some horrible reviews early on.

Sure you're not thinking of Gundam: Crossfire? That one's not only the worst reviewed Gundam game, it's the worst reviewed mech game of all time. I'm not sure where you could have read any reviews of this yet that weren't Play, Hardcore Gamer or Famitsu, which were all pretty favorable for a Gundam game. 8/10, 3.25/5, 33/40 respectively.

anyway back on topic I have now put in some quality time with jupis in my party and while I don't know if he's much of a tank, really, but as it turns out I basically think of him as the space alien Jon Will1amz which makes everything much more awesome/hilarious.

Hahaha he's totally JW, I didn't think of that. He becomes tankish towards the end, but Lilika should be the strongest until you get Jasper's final dungeon sword and upgrade it.

it doesn't really matter whether she's the strongest at this point, she's got the "star traveller's outfit" wink wink nudge nudge "star traveller"

Picked this up on clearance on friday night. Am enjoying this. In terms of purely genre preference, i always prefer the blasters to the swords & elves n' shit. Of course, in either genre, your hero winds up sleeping with chicks w/ pointed ears, so what are you gunna do.

I hope that i don't burn out on this like i did on DC2.

It gets really easy towards the end.

Basic RPGS: try Suikoden V, Final Fantasy IX, or Eternal Sonata

I heard Jade Empire: Special Edition is a great action-rpg

yeah one problem I had with this was that until you get Jasper's final dungeon sword and upgrade it happened to me about halfway through the game, if you just keep buffing the sword desert claw gives you in the very beginning you can end up maxing out his main weapon a lot earlier than I think they intended, making pretty much every other sword you pick up sort of a waste of time.

Still own it. Still haven't played it.

I have had that problem with swords IRL. None of them matter to me anymore.

This is the only game on my 'I wish I had that video game' list.

Man, this game has massive pacing problems. Dragging thru the two towers section sucked, as the chapter length was way too long. Then, once you wander about in the Kuje desert, you get into three massive "here, let's have another 30 minutes of exposition" while they pour out all this backstory which would have been better served being strung out more evenly.

It's like watching a 20-odd ep anime series where the writers suddenly remember they have all this shit they have to work thru, so everything gets dragged to a halt around ep 15.

Haven't built up the sword since Desert Claw III. Checking the faq, i see that i actually have to find random idiots to talk to first. Hmph.

I didn't level up the Desert Claw at all, the Level 3 attack magics are much better than any weapons.

I agree that the later dungeons are way too long.

I find myself paying far more attention to the costuming/outfits than usual, and I usually never do this, except to scorn the usual shit designs done by Amano or DBZ dude(Toriyama?).

http://www.gameplaysource.com/Rogue_Galaxy/Outfits.html

Some I quite like, some are horrid.