Yesterday I had the chance to try out one of the games I had been eagerly waiting for, Rogue Galaxy. As a Sci-Fi and One Piece (a funny pirate action Anime) fan, I couldn’t help but to have high expectations for a game that blended the two things. The trailers also helped rise my expectations 
Story-wise, the start of Rogue Galaxy didn’t impress me very much. But it seems that Rogue Galaxy imitates a lot of famous Sci-Fi stories. The first planet where you start off is a desert-like planet which is governated by a tyrannical government. A young bounty-hunter lives there and is mistaken by a legendary hunter. Sounds familiar? Yeah, I thought so too.
Graphics-wise, the games is as good as it gets in terms of cell-shading graphics, and I was very impressed with it in that aspect. The second world, more than the first, shows you the real “power” of the engine they used, and in some parts of the game, I felt that the graphics were even superior to those of Zelda: Twilight Princess (although some people might contest that opinion).
In terms of playability, when the battles start, they are a mix between Final Fantasy XII, Kingdom Hearts and Devil May Cry. But it’s easier than it sounds! Let me explain…
The battles are all done in real-time, you attack in real time, and move around and jump like in Kingdom Hearts. You have a main, and a secondary weapon, being the first a sword, and the second a pistol. There is a limit to how many times you can fire your secondary weapon, and a limit to how many times you can strike with your sword, after which there is a period in which you can’t attack.
Unlike Final Fantasy XII, in which you can only do one attack and then wait for the next turn, this method makes the gameplay more exciting without making it unbalanced, unlike what happens in Kingdom Hearts near the end of the game.
The difficulty of the game is also surprisingly high. If you’re not carefull, even in normal encounters you can bite the dust. Although that might seem a bit frustrating in the beginning, when you start to grasp the gameplay better it becomes much less of a nuissance. And it’s nice to play a roleplaying game in which you are an over-powered hero all of the time.
So far, I’ve only reached the second planet, and I reckon that I’m a third of the way through it, therefore I don’t know that much about the game. But I definitely enjoyed what I saw so far. If you already finished Final Fantasy XII, and want another RPG to hack-and-slash at, then I think that Rogue Galaxy is an ideal choice.