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Rogue Galaxy

Rogue Galaxy is an action RPG developed by Level-5 for the PlayStation 2. It was released in Japan in 2005, and elsewhere in 2007. It was also re-released as a downloadable title for the PS4 in 2015 through the PlayStation Store. Has been described by many as Dark Cloud meets Skies of Arcadia IN SPACE.

The story follows Jaster Rogue, a young man born and raised on the desert planet of Rosa. Due to an ongoing conflict between the Longardian Federation and their rival, the Draxian Empire, the resource-rish Rosa has been closed off and enslaved by the former. Jaster however, longs for a time to leave the planet and explore the vast ocean of space, with the goal of becoming a space pirate.

Then monsters start appearing in Jaster's hometown.

Jaster draws his blade, but is quickly outnumbered. In the nick of time, a mysterious man comes to the rescue, and the two repelled the monsters in town until the man suddenly decides to leave Jaster, but not before giving his sword to him. It was then that a crew of famous space pirates mistook Jaster for the man (who turns out to be the legendary bounty hunter Desert Claw), and invites him aboard their ship. And thus, Jaster's adventure in space has begun...

Rogue Galaxy was Sony's answer to the growing RPG market for PS2. It was released to positive critical acclaim, with many praising its then-superb graphics and several unique technical decisions (although some has criticized the weak writing and balance issues). Its popularity spurred the release of a Director's Cut, which was released as the normal version of both the North American and European releases, subverting the usual situation of updates like this.

This game contains examples of:[]

  • And Your Reward Is Clothes: The unlockable outfits. Downplayed in that they manage to avoid Cosmetic Award by providing defensive bonus.
  • Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Three.
  • Are We There Yet?: Some of the party member quips. Jupis actually spouts the phrase.
  • Artificial Stupidity:
    • Block, for God's sake!
    • Johnny is spinning, run quick— Goddammit...
    • Thankfully averted for the Advice mechanic, since the AI knows which Items and Skills might be better for a situation, but it does get tedious after a while.
  • Awesome but Impractical The Burning Strike skills. Yes, they're exceptionally powerful, but none of them can be used on any bosses, and even if you managed to use them, they might be difficult to use due to the way they handle the command segment. Your best bet is to use them on the Mimics, but they're kinda rare.
  • Badass Longcoat
  • Bare Your Midriff: Lilika is more Stripperific than midriffic, but Kisala's default clothing is. Jaster too, in one of his armors.
  • Beehive Barrier: The invincibility Barrier possessed by certain enemies, with Jupis' fight being the introduction.
  • Better Than a Bare Bulb: Several of the worst RPG cliches are lampshaded by the cast, such as Gladius Towers status as That One Level or your inability to run from Boss and Mimic battles.
  • BFS: You can't miss the weapon used to defeat the True Final Boss. Literally.
  • Block Puzzle: The gate to Eden is presented in FMV cutscenes as a massive puzzle of giant, floating, glowing blocks. The player is never actually tasked with solving it; the Big Bad engineered an artificial lifeform to do so, complete with Ominous Latin Chanting as the blocks go whirling all into place. What do you mean, it's not awesome?
    • Of course, all the awesomeness is rendered moot when it turns out that he can't solve it. Though that arguably just makes it more awesome when Star King Jaster solves it on the first try.
  • Bonus Dungeon: The Ghost Ship, a large dungeon with several bosses. After completing it, the player can participate in a Pop Quiz for access to the "extreme" version, which is a 100 floors of randomly-generated dungeon crawling.
  • Bonus Boss: No self-respecting Bonus Dungeon would be caught without one.
    • And, to a lesser extent, some of the game's Quarries are more difficult beasts than others.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: If Kisala is in the active party, she may comment about how long the player has been playing, or how long it's been since they used the Save Point.
  • Camera Lock On
  • Captain Obvious: If you talk to Steve upon returning to Zerard for the Towers, he will comment that Jupis joined the party on that planet.
  • Cel Shading
  • Chest Monster: If a treasure chest appears to have a lock on it, better put your affairs in order before trying to open it; Level-5 has always loved their Mimics, but these are so Nintendo Hard they're almost Boss in Mook Clothing. We're not kidding; these things will eat you alive if you aren't prepared.
  • City Planet: Zerard.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Jupis.
  • Combination Attack: Every character can learn at least one.
  • Continue Your Mission, Dammit!: Your party members will sometimes quip about this when you take to much time running around or restocking in a dungeon.
  • Contractual Boss Immunity:
  • Cool Ship The Dorgenark is pretty cool, being a traditional pirate ship that flies through space and has THE BIG GUNs.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Valkog
  • Cosmic Keystone: Literally.
  • Copy and Paste Environments: All of them dungeons have repeated evironment layouts.
  • Disc One Nuke:
    • Jaster's Level 2 "Desert Wind" attack packs enough wallop to One-Hit Kill just about every last random encounter up through Chapter Six. The only thing that prevent it from becoming outright Game Breaker are the Shield and Barrier mechanics, and that it costs 20 SP to cast, meaning you can't just spam it indefinitely.
    • A few of the Level 3 skills can one-shot enemies in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
  • Doomed Hometown Okay, it's never completely destroyed, but it does come under attack twice, and there are always more Random Encounters popping up all over town.
  • Drowning My Sorrows : Deego.
  • Duel Boss: Lots of 'em. Including: Gale, Zegram, Seed, Johanna, and, annoyingly, the Battleship Raid on the final boss.
  • Earthshattering Kaboom: The animation of Jaster's combination attack "Supernova".
  • Eldritch Abomination: Mother and the Demon Ship.
  • Endgame Plus: The Bonus Dungeon appears on the Galaxy Map after defeating the Final Boss.
  • Expy: A major antagonist named Mother, who is insect-like, her first form being similar to a cocoon, and who considers herself as a supreme being, with World Eater tendencies... I could swear I saw something like that elsewhere...
  • Facial Markings Jaster's birthmark the mark of the Star King)
  • Friendly Fireproof: Unless they're confused.
  • Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: After defeating Mother, an evil alien that's very tenuously connected to the first two thirds of the game ... Valkog arrives in his new ship out of the blue, and the evil Rune energy takes hold of their ship and transforms it into a hideous monster.
  • Guns Are Worthless: Downplayed. While some of them do pack decent attack power, almost all of them run out of ammunition if the battle starts lasting long enough. However, you always start a battle with a full clip and that their firepower are usually enough to decimate some random encounters relative ease and safety.
  • Hidden Elf Village:
    • Burkaqua has most of the usual traits.
    • Johannasburg the Illusory Oasis is a more traditional example.
    • There's also the lost planet Eden.
  • Hot Amazon: Lilika
  • Hopeless Boss Fight / Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Any battle against the masked man, Jaster vs. Zegram in Chapter 9, or young Dorgengoa in the Bonus Dungeon. The game cuts the battles short after a few minutes, assuming you aren't dead by then.
  • Idol Singer: MIO.
  • Improbable Weapon User:
    • While the characters' equipped weapons are fairly logical, Jupis's arsenal of special attacks includes eating hot peppers, really bad karaoke, breakdancing, and more.
    • Simon has a few as well, including landing a big fish, and his Combination Attack where Jupis fires him out of a cannon.
  • Infinity+1 Sword: Multiple, in fact.
  • Interspecies Romance Deego is a bulldog-man. Angela is a not-really-an-elf. They're an item.
  • Item Crafting: Toady will eat and combine weapons to make new ones, but insists that they are "seasoned" by being levelled-up first. There is also the Factory, which allows the player to create new weapons and items for purchase in the shops.
  • I Was Quite a Looker: That handsome young space pirate you frequently met in the post-game Bonus Dungeon? He's DORGENGOA from many years ago!
  • Large and In Charge: Captain Dorgengoa, almost played for laughs with the big build up.
  • Lazy Backup: The game clearly warns you in Chapter 2 that if your three party members fall it's a Game Over, but the Lazy Backup doesn't manifest until Chapter 7 when you get the ability to switch out party members at any time, even during battle.
  • Leaked Experience: Experience is divided equally between all party members, with reserve members receiving about 2/3's a share as the active members.
  • Level Grinding: Not so much for the character levels as for the weapons and monster data (you get... new clothes for Kisala for collecting all). In some places it's a good trick to just fix the DualShock analog sticks in place with a rubber band and let the characters do the grinding themselves.
  • Limit Break: The Burning Strikes.
  • Limited Wardrobe: While there are five costumes for each character, they are hard to find.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: Genre Savvy players will anticipate this one all the way from Chapter 1.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: Simon, wielding a rocket launcher, does this with some attacks; Deego calls in a helicopter assault that uses a barrage of lasers to the same effect, not quite Beam Spam.
  • Mass Monster Slaughter Sidequest: You have to kill a certain number of almost every enemy to get a particular achievement/prize/what have you.
  • Mini Game:
    • Insectron, a combination of chess and Pokémon. It actually requires quite a bit more skill than the main quest (and most likely a guide to find the best insects).
    • The Factory, in which you have to arrange conveyors and engines to produce materials. Again, it requires quite a bit of skill.
  • Money for Nothing: Averted; with no spells to heal your wounds, so you will be constantly purchasing recovery items at shops.
  • Mons: The Insectron tournament in Zerard.
  • Now Where Was I Going Again?: The game recaps recent events while loading a save file and sometimes hints at what the protagonists are supposed to do next.
  • Only Smart People May Pass Occurs as a plot device, sorta, and again in the Bonus Dungeon, of all places, in order to access the extreme version of the Bonus Dungeon.
  • Our Dwarves Are All the Same Simon might as well be one, he has the stature, the accent, and almost the attitude, there's already people with pointy elf ears so why not? there's even a dark elf, silver hair, dual-wielding, seriously.
  • Petting Zoo People: Quite a few, such as the bulldog Deego, and all the fish/dolphin/shark people of Altaria.
  • Pirate / Space Pirate
  • Plot Coupon: A good collection of items are used to solve exactly one puzzle, then forgotten about. This includes the Power Glove the player acquires early in Juraika, which supposedly grants greath physical strength to the wearer. Too bad they never speak of it again...
  • Rain of Arrows: Lilika's "Wild Thing" attack.
  • Random Encounters: But without the Fight Woosh. A simple "Warning!" flashes on-screen, then enemies drop into the field.
  • Recurring Traveller Burton the obligatory hyperactive archaeologist; and Miyoko and Chie, both of which turn up in dangerous places.
  • Ridiculously-Human Robots M10
  • Save Point: The Teleporter. It actually does a lot of things, including free healings, teleportation to other Save Points, and access to item storage. Sounds too good? Wll, trust us— you'll need them.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Steve looks similar to the robot in Hayao Miyazaki's Laputa, as well as The Iron Giant. He sounds a lot like C3PO in the English dub. Additionally, the name Steve is a Shout-Out to various other Level-5 games, particularly the Dark Cloud series: in Dark Cloud, Steve is a talking slingshot, and in Dark Chronicle, Steve is a steampunk robot.
    • The Jupis Robot (aka "Johnny") is essentially Gigantor. In the English dub, Jupis shouts "Heeeere's Johnny!" when he activates it.
    • Dr. Poccachio has the same giant schnozz as Dr. Ochanomizu.
  • Single Biome Planet: All of them.
  • Solo Character Run: When you run out of Revives and there's no Save Point in sight. Actually happens a lot if the AI feels dumb that day...
  • Sorting Algorithm of Weapon Effectiveness: Averted with Jaster's "Seven-Star Sword" the Desert Seeker, which you get at the very beginning of the game and which stays far more powerful than anything except the Infinity Plus One Swords provided you upgrade it through crafting every once in a while. Averted further since you can also search for the other Seven-Star Swords, but they're at most as powerful as the Desert Seeker, making them only marginally useful unless you're going for 100% Completion.
  • Space Is an Ocean: One of the main themes.
  • Space Sailing
  • Standard Status Effects: And they're fairly effective on enemies too. The Mimics would be a whole lot easier to defeat with them. The bosses are generally immune to them, though...
  • Stop Helping Me!: Party members frequently suggest courses of action during battle, in the form of a pop-up menu. They're smart enough to prioritize Revives and Healing Potions when HP is low, but it can still get tiresome...
  • Stripperific: Most of Kisala's and all of Lilika's outfits.
  • Super Mode Jaster's alter ego, being a descendant of the Star King, but it doesn't offer any in-game bonuses other than looking vaguely cool and maxing out his HP...which comes out to a 150-200 point increase at most at the point of the game it's initially triggered.
    • And his sword acts like a long-range attack whenever he's facing the final boss.
  • Sword Beam: Jaster's "Illusion Sword" skill creates this. The skill doesn't cost much either, but it wears off quickly compared to his other skills.
  • Talking Animal The Dorgenark's first mate is a talking cat.
  • Those Two Guys: Henry and Robert, a pair of bumbling guards who are also creepy members of MIO's fanclub
  • Troperiffic: A lot of JRPG story cliches aside, the game's actually pretty stuffed.
  • True Final Boss: After a climactic, two-phase Sequential Boss, Valkog arrives in his battleship and tries to collect the Rune Energy. Instead, it sucks up him and the entire battleship, creating a gigantic, demonic monstrosity. The party must then split up and perform a Battleship Raid against the True Final Boss.
  • Turns Red / Super Mode: The boss of Chapter 5, the Jupis Robot DX, is more powerful than its standard form, bears red armor, and Jaster's first comment is "Does he think turning red is going to help?"
  • Useless Useful Spell: Downplayed with the Monography Shot. It is a gun that creates platforms to stand on, but is used only against the game's Warmup Boss, the first stage of the final boss, and to climb the waterfall on Juraika after freezing it. Additionally, you can also use it to step on some enemies for Scratch Damage and some laughs.
  • Valley Girl: MIO in the US version.
  • Wake Up Call Boss: The Mark VIII Salamander.
  • Warp Whistle: Teleportation between Save Points. The thing is, you can also use them to return to town and restock immediately during most situations.
  • Wave Motion Gun "THE BIG GUNs" is not an exaggeration, too bad they're only used once...
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human? (Seed, as well as Steve, a sentient robot who struggles with the notion of being his creator's "son" while simultaneously serving as an avatar for the creator's actual son who is actually dead.)
  • You All Look Familiar: NPCs, of course, have limited models, but at least most of them have their own unique names in the English localization.
  • Your Princess Is in Another Castle
  • Zettai Ryouiki: Kisala and MIO.
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