Rogue Galaxy

Rogue Galaxy
Developer(s)	Level-5
Publisher(s)	Sony Computer Entertainment
Released	HK December 8, 2005 JP December 8, 2005 NA January 30, 2007 UK September 7, 2007 EU September 5, 2007 AU September 20, 2007
Genre	Sci-Fi RPG
Mode(s)	Single Player
Ratings	CERO: A (All Ages) ESRB: T (Teen) PEGI: 12+ OFLC (AU): PG
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2
Media	1 × Single Layer DVD-ROM (original release) 1 × Dual Layer DVD-ROM (Director's Cut)

Rogue Galaxy (ローグギャラクシー, Rōgu Gyarakushī^?) is a science fiction console role-playing game developed by Level-5 and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2. The game was first released in Japan on December 8th, 2005, and later in North America on January 30th, 2007. The European release was initially expected in 2006 but after a series of postponements it was released in most European countries on 5 September 2007. Release in the UK and some other countries followed on 7 September 2007. A Director's Cut version of the game was also released in Japan on March 15, 2007. The Director's Cut included all the added features and improvements of the North American and European localizations.^[1] Rogue Galaxy enjoyed immense critical success upon its initial release in Japan, scoring a 36/40 in Famitsu and an 85 average in Dengeki, two of Japan's most popular gaming magazines. Sales were also very strong for an original IP RPG in Japan, with sales totaling over 350,000 units in just three months.

Contents 1 Plot and setting 1.1 Story 2 Gameplay 2.1 Combat 2.2 Dungeon exploration 2.3 Insectron Tournament 2.4 The Factory 2.5 Weapon synthesis 3 Audio 3.1 Soundtrack 3.1.1 Disc one 3.1.2 Disc two 3.2 English voice cast 3.3 Japanese voice cast 4 Development credits 5 Localization improvements 6 References 7 External links

Plot and setting

Story

Rogue Galaxy begins on the planet Rosa with the title hero, Jaster Rogue, a young man with avid dreams of exploring the galaxy. Unfortunately for him, Rosa, despite being a planet on the outskirts of the galaxy, is rife with highly contested natural resources. As a result, the planet has been placed under occupation by the Longardia Commonwealth in order to ostensibly defend it against the Draxian Empire. Its citizens live under their oppressive control and are forbidden from leaving the planet. However, thanks to a few misunderstandings and a series of fortunate events, Jaster is recruited by a gang of space pirates who mistook him for the legendary hunter, Desert Claw, and he joins the crew of the pirate ship Dorgenark along with her captain, Dorgengoa, as they leave Rosa. He will eventually find himself taking part in a galaxy-wide search with the crew for a legendary planet said to hold the secrets of a highly advanced and vanished civilization along with possessing enough wealth to buy the galaxy. But what begins as a simple hunt for the greatest treasure ever known soon turns into much more as the Daytron Corporation and its devious president, Valkog Drazer, join the hunt for the mysterious and much desired planet.

Gameplay

The game's engine features a continuous environment with no load time and battles taking place in the overworld in real time. The graphics bear a resemblance to other Level-5 RPGs, most notably Dragon Quest VIII and Dark Chronicle (Dark Cloud 2). Similar to Dark Chronicle, the upgrade system consists of synthesizing new weapons by combining older ones to make new ones.

Combat

Combat is done much like that of Kingdom Hearts II, Final Fantasy XII, and Phantasy Star Universe, in which the player fights enemies on the same playing field, thus having transitionless battles. Some of the Combat's features are as follows;

Tech Attacks

These are team based attacks in which two or more team members combine their abilities into one devastating attack. They are unlocked on the Revelation Flow for each character and are unique for each one with various requirements for who must be present within the active party to be enabled in combat (á la Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross).

Burning Strike

In the Japanese release, these special attacks would occur at random, but this was changed in the U.S. release so that the player may activate them manually by collecting enough Burning Chips dropped by foes during combat to fill a special gauge. Once filled, the player may activate this ability at which point they must follow a series of prompts onscreen to string together attacks in order to generate a great deal of damage to a targeted enemy.

Throwing Enemies

The player can throw an enemy into another enemy to cause damage. Various obstacles and items also appear within the combat area for the player to use in like fashion in most instances.

Special Conditions

Several enemies are immune to damage unless made vulnerable through various means; some must first have their barriers destroyed by one of Jaster's guns. Others can only be harmed at very specific points to deliver any damage. Others must be jumped on to lower their guard. Still others must have their guard broken through the use of a strong attack. Players must be aware of this, as such enemies are invulnerable to even the strongest attacks in the game until made otherwise.

Dungeon exploration

Keeping in tradition with Level-5's Dark Cloud/Dark Chronicle series, some areas contain puzzles. These can range from the mundane fetching of a key that matches the lock to more exotic ones, such as freezing a waterfall and then using created platforms in order to climb it. Many of the puzzles encountered involve "Thinking Circles" - areas with a question mark where the player directs the characters, is informed of a situation there, and then attempts to select the right item from the inventory to address the situation. Doing so unlocks other parts of the dungeon, summons important bosses, and soforth. Dungeons in Rogue Galaxy are notably long affairs, and may have odd and specialized enemies in them requiring the player to determine the best way to deal with them.

Insectron Tournament

The Insectron Tournament is a completely optional mini-game where the player pits up a team of his collected and trained bugs against opponents in a chess-like board, turn-based combat. Bugs can be acquired in each of the worlds by setting up traps and using food items as bait. Some are more powerful than others.

The Factory

At a certain point early in the game, the player's characters get access to a reconfigurable factory. They then are able to find blueprints by talking to others in the game (who have orange or blue icons over their heads). Using the blueprints, the player can set up factory equipment and raw materials to make new items. Upon completion of the item, the party gets a "sample" and the item will be available in some stores in the game. The factory layout is essentially a 2D flow-puzzle where the player lays out equipment and conveyor belts, hooks up power cables, and attempts to make sure the right materials are processed properly, and combined at the right time in the manufacturing process. Consideration of the materials used, how they are processed, and the time it takes is required for success.

Weapon synthesis

Also following Level-5's tradition, Weapon Synthesis is the main course for acquiring powerful and effective weapons. All weapons gain EXP from battles until they reach a level where they are "Maxed" and can be synthesized along with another similarly-developed weapon to create an even stronger one. This is accomplished by the use of "Toady", a strange froglike creature whose exposure to the mysterious substance Rune has given him the ability to swallow weapons and regurgitate a more advanced one. Toady can also analyze weapons and make suggestions for combinations, and will helpfully warn if a combination he's attempting to digest will give useless or negative results. He can only combine two weapons of the same kind. After a weapon is "Maxed" on its experience, it continues to gain additional damage in specific "elemental" categories - fire, ice, wind, lightning, and holy. These can improve to a limited degree. When the experience and the elemental damage is at maximum, a weapon is considered "Mastered" and cannot be improved further. Improving these stats can mean a more powerful weapon is produced when Toady is used. All playable characters possess two weapons: primary and secondary. Melee characters will have a close-range weapon set as primary, while long-range weapons will be their secondary. The opposite is true for Lilika. Combining weapons is no different among characters.

Audio

Soundtrack

Composed by Level-5's chief composer, Tomohito Nishiura, Rogue Galaxy's OST is reminiscent of games such as Skies of Arcadia and Star Ocean. The title's ending vocal track, "Dreaming My Way Home", is composed by Nishiura and written, arranged and performed by Barbara Kessler. A 10-track arrangement album entitled Rogue Galaxy Premium Arrange was also released in early 2006, and featured contributions from quite a few popular video game composers including Yasunori Mitsuda, Kenji Ito, Yoko Shimomura, Motoi Sakuraba and Noriyuki Iwadare.

Disc one

1. The Theme of Rogue Galaxy
2. The Sandy Town
3. The Omen
4. The Crisis
5. The Church
6. Brave Heart
7. A Hasty Man
8. Hazardous Desert
9. Timeless Town
10. Severe Voyage
11. The Jungle of Jyuraika
12. Burkaqua Village
13. The Ruined Castle
14. A Road to the Ruined Castle
15. Shadow of the Sun
16. Swinging
17. Planet Zerard
18. Two Horns
19. Sweet Memories
20. The Galaxy Public Corporation
21. Factory (In Editing)
22. Factory (In Production)
23. A Peaceful Moment
24. A Hidden Insanity
25. The Prison
26. The Lost Gene
27. Exploder1
28. A Childhood Memory
29. Starship Factory
30. Open the World
31. Varkogu's Theme

Disc two

1. The King of Legend
2. A Masked Man
3. Exploder2
4. The Misty Town
5. The Bar "Angela"
6. Overcome the Sorrow
7. The Cave of a Mine
8. Insectron (Strategy)
9. Insectron (Battle)
10. The Watery Relic
11. Wandering Way
12. Strain
13. The Labyrinth
14. Le Marie Glennecia
15. Enormous Threat
16. The Castle in the Air
17. The Battle Within
18. The Mystery Forest
19. History Tells
20. The Holy Valley
21. Blue Tears
22. The Valley of the Evil Lava
23. The Mother
24. The Relic's Song
25. The Beast Battleship
26. A Wish For Tomorrow
27. The Ghost Ship
28. Escape to The Victory
29. Dreaming My Way Home ~ Ending Theme
30. Dreaming My Way Home ~ Unrecorded Version <Bonus Track>

Development credits

Rogue Galaxy was developed by many of the same Level-5 staff who previously worked on Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King. The chief development staff consisted of:

• Game Producers: Akihiro Hino, Yasuhide Kobayashi
• Director/Lead Designer/Scenario: Akihiro Hino
• Assistant Producer: Kentaro Motomura
• Event Director/CG Movie Supervisor: Yoshiaki Kusuda
• CG Movie Director: Naotsugu Zushi
• Planning Designer/Scenario: Koji Hori
• Art Director: Takeshi Majima
• Character Art Directors: Akiyuki Tomita, Takashi Akasaka
• Map Art Directors: Hidenobu Sasaki, Takayuki Sameshima
• Character Illustration Director: Keiji Nagao
• Effect Animation Director: Yoshiaki Koya
• Character Designers: Keiji Nagao, Jiro Morinaga
• Music Composer/Sound Director: Tomohito Nishiura

Localization improvements

Due to its success in Japan, Level-5 opted not only to localize Rogue Galaxy for North America and Europe, but to add a significant amount of new features and content, and address any complaints concerning the original version. These improvements, which feature in both the North American and European versions of the game, and the Japanese Director's Cut, include:^[2]

• The game now uses a dual-layer 8.5GB DVD to play instead of a standard 4.7GB DVD the Japanese version used. This allowed smoother, better looking graphics and additional data to be added into the game.
• A fifth planet, the water world of Alistia; while separate from the main story arc, it includes its own sidequests and special items, and helps flesh out some of the characters. This world, however, is only available after obtaining a key item in Chapter 8.
• Toady's Analysis of weapons has been changed. It became much simpler to use.
• The Burning Strike system; players now collect Burning Chips during battle, allows them to store power and execute their Burning Strike when they wish to execute it.
• The layout and visual design of several dungeons and planets has been altered and improved, making it more visually appealing. Rosencaster Prison, the Gladius Towers, the Daytron factory, Rosa's desert town, and Rosa's Labyrinth are all affected.
• Additional content within the Insectron Tournament sidequest. Main difference is that two species of Insectrons, the Bomber Snail and the Spidan, have been added, each with 8 types of Insectrons per species.
• More items have been added.
• Each character (except Jaster) has two new types of weapons, thus increasing the number of weapons in the game by 140.
• Each character has 5 bonus costumes, except for Kisala and Simon, who get 6. The difference in defense is small, but each character's clothing changes according to the costume they wear, even in cutscenes and in battle (except during the pre-rendered cinematics, and oddly enough, walking around the Dorgenark).
• Improved and expanded battle animations.
• Over 2000 lines of additional voiced dialogue.
• It's easier to damage enemies, as the formula for attacking has been modified.
• Every character gets three extra abilities to their Revelation Flow, except for Lilika, who has 4. Lilika and Kisala have an extra combination ability called "Star-Linked Venus", and Jupis and Steve get a combination ability called "Black Hole".

References

1. ^ Winkler, Chris (Jan. 10, 2007). Rogue Galaxy Director's Cut Announced. RPGFan.
2. ^ Vore, Bryan (Oct. 16, 2006). U.S. Version Of Rogue Galaxy To Include Loads Of New Content. Game Informer.

External links

• Official website (Japanese)
• Official website (English)
• Official PAL region website (English)
• Rogue Galaxy at PlayStation.com
• Rogue Galaxy Reviews at Metacritic
• Level-5 club on 1up.com
• GameSpot page
• IGN page
• eToychest Review of Rogue Galaxy
• Total Gamer Zone's review of Rogue Galaxy
• PGNX Media's review of Rogue Galaxy
• Rogue Galaxy Premium Arrange at MusicBrainz
• Rogue Galaxy at MobyGames
• Rogue Galaxy guide at StrategyWiki

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