Galerians: Ash Review

Oh man, where do I even start with this one?  Well, I picked up Galerians: Ash (or "The Last Galerians Ash” if you read the manual.  Some consistency would be nice guys.) for two reasons.  One, I was intrigued by the art style, which is fairly unique for the PS2, and two, it was only $3.99.  As such the art style was enough to convince me to get this game.  After all, what was four bucks to try a game you’ve never heard of before?  In retrospect though that was four bucks I could have spent on tacos, or Robotech: Battlecry, or invested in my future.  Instead I got one of the most mediocre action RPGs I’ve ever played: and that’s saying something.

 The game in question.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  Looking at the part of the game that drew me to it in the first place, the art style, I really can’t complain.  The graphics were certainly nice enough for a PS2 title, and the animation in the various cut scenes certainly lived up to my expectations.  There is little doubt that the graphical aspect of the game is certainly its best feature, promoting an atmosphere unlike most of what I’ve experienced in video games.  Add in a decent, if unmemorable, musical score and ambient noises and you have a game that has a solid background in which for the player to experiment with.  Unfortunately, this is then put to waste with sluggish controls, poor level design, and dull frustrating game play that will make you curse the fool who created the charge attack!

Well, at least it looks nice.

Not that there’s anything wrong with charge attacks if they’re done properly.  Hell, one of the best features of games like Megaman X was the ability to charge up your attack for massive damage.  The problem is when you make the charge attack into the only attack option in the entire game you begin to run into some issues.  For instance, high-speed enemies become a source of tremendous hatred and frustration, as by the time you’re able to get off enough attacks to kill them all you’ve probably lost a good chunk of health simply because you can’t get an attack off quickly enough.  This wouldn’t be so bad if you weren’t immobile while charging, meaning that there is no way for you to dodge incoming attacks if you want to attack yourself.  On top of this enemies continuously respawn when you kill them, making every room into a test of patience.  You could, of course, skip these waves of enemies, but they are not actually infinite and for every enemy you kill you get orbs that boost your energy for attacks and health (hence the RPG aspect of the game), meaning that there is no reason for you not to farm the enemies as they spawn.  This adds a level of tedium to an already painful combat system, leaving one to wonder why they should bother fighting at all.

Now hold still so I can hit you!

On top of this, some aspects of this game are just so thoroughly unbelievable that it disrupts any chance of true immersion the game might have had.  Like why are there endlessly pivoting flamethrowers guarding the main lobby to a nuclear facility?  Does that seem like a bad idea to anybody else?  Or how about the stupid key card system that you rewrite with the special machines that let you name them after different planets (one at a time I might add!) so you can open different planet doors?  But don’t worry; you only need to unlock each door once and its unlocked forever!  Does that seem horribly convoluted and inefficient to anyone else?  Now I know video games have a history of this sort of thing, and there have been stranger key card systems in supposedly realistic games, but it really takes away from what is otherwise supposed to be a fairly realistic game setup.  It makes it difficult to take the game seriously.

Visually intriguing, rationally confounding.

The final nail in the coffin of this game, so to speak, is the story.  The problem here is that the game is a direct sequel to the original Galerians, meaning that if you haven’t already played the first game you are going to have no idea who these characters are or what the hell is going on.  I was fortunate enough to have the manual for the game, which has an eight page prologue describing the events of the first game for the player's convenience.  This is not good story telling guys!  And god help you if you don’t have the manual, as I was confused enough by what was happening even after I bothered to sit down and read the whole thing.  All this does is serve to alienate players who haven’t already beaten the first game, which I would guess was most of their target audience.

All in all, I really can’t recommend this game to anyone other than fans of the original Galerians game for the PSO.  Clunky game play combined with a confusing story and unbelievable set pieces just render the game, at least for me, unplayable and almost completely unenjoyable.  If you really want to play an action rpg then I’d have to suggest Monster Hunter Freedom Unite for the PSP.  Sure you can’t upgrade your stats by farming bullshit enemies like in Galerians: Ash, but trust me when I say there is nothing more enjoyable than slaying a giant Wyvern with nothing but your own skill and a bit of practice.  Anyway, that’s it for me.  I hope you enjoyed this review and get ready for next time, when we look into the oft overlooked Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil.