Galerians: Ash

Galerians: Ash Review

Galerians was a screwy sci-fi/horror adventure where telekinetic powers take place of guns as your defense. The game was far from perfect, but offered a unique battle system and intriguing story. The game finally sees a sequel in Galerians: Ash, and with all sorts of new features, fans of the first game will be pleased.

Six years after Rion defeated Dorothy in Michelangelo City, a new Galerian has arisen. He is the ultimate Galerian, whose soul mission is to resurrect Dorothy upon her death. Rion has been discovered to still exist within the backup data of the family program, and Lilia reunites his mind and body. Now, Rion is mankind’s last hope, and if Ash is not stopped, all will be lost. The story has a lot of interesting twists, and in a lot of ways reminds me of the Matrix. The game will have you struggling to decipher between fantasy and reality, and at times, will even have you questioning what reality is! Story is easily the best part of the Galerians series, and if you can put up with a little bit of sloppy gameplay, the story is sure to please.

Rion is a different type of main character. He’s not the usual tough guy who runs around with rocket launchers blowing up zombies. After years of experimentation by the super computer Dorothy, Rion is equipped with all sorts of telekinetic powers. He’s a bit of a pretty boy, but not nearly as annoying as everyone’s least favorite pretty boy, Tidus. The villain Ash is an interesting character, and as the game unfolds you’ll find out a lot about all of the characters and you’ll discover a very interesting story.

Gameplay is like Resident Evil (much like the original Galerians), but take away the guns and add some telekinetic powers. Rion’s equipped with quite a few new abilities this time and can even do a dodge roll (this comes in really handy…would’ve been nice in the first game too!). A huge correction over the first game is the ability to lock onto your targets, which makes combat much easier. Nalcon is your basic ability, which pounds your enemies with a telekinetic blast, and Red is another ability that causes your enemies to burst into flames. There are multiple abilities and Rion injects drugs to restore these powers. As you run around killing enemies you’ll get stat upgrades that will increase your HP, AP, Max Red, Max Nalcon and others. Your AP bar will slowly increase whenever you use your powers or when you’re in dangerous territory. If your AP bar fills up, Rion freaks out and rapidly begins to lose life. On the positive side, any enemy around when this happens explodes. In the previous game, the AP bar increased at all times, but in this game you’re allowed to do a lot more exploration.

Throughout the game you’ll also collect Skip, which you can use to level up your abilities. Being able to raise your stats through combat and level up your abilities adds a lot more depth to this game than the previous, and gives it a very RPG-like feel. Enemies sometimes respawn, and you can run around killing baddies all day to upgrade your stats through the roof. Nearly every battle yields a stat upgrade, but every now and then they’ll drop an item, such as a vile of Nalcon or a recovery capsule. Combat is vastly improved, and when each battle can increase your stats, spending hours killing enemies doesn’t seem like a chore.

The game is really tough, though. If you’re sadistic, you may enjoy this, but if you’re a wimp like me, you’ll get pretty frustrated. Abilities, like Nalcon and Red, have to be charged up before you can fire, and this makes you vulnerable to enemy attacks. It can often be difficult to get an attack off without getting swarmed by bad guys, and getting hit while charging an attack often cancels the attack. You can’t dodge or block at all while you’re charging or performing an attack. The camera isn’t always cooperative either (although, the lock-on mode helps), so combat can be tough. Fortunately, there are two levels of difficulty: Normal (which is really hard) and Easy (which is still pretty difficult). In either mode the game is far from easy, and the bad guys you run into will surely provide a challenge. The bosses are especially difficult and you’ll likely have to fight them over and over. The game is nice enough to provide a decent amount of healing items and save points, though.

Aside from the difficulty, the game’s other glaring problem is the fact that you never really seem to know what’s going on. You’ll spend a lot of time wandering around in hopes of progressing the story. Walking around the same building for hours can be pretty annoying, and don’t be surprised if you have to consult an FAQ somewhere through the game.

Galerians: Ash is a mixed bag in the graphics department. The environments are generally detailed and interesting, but on occasion you’ll see some repetitive, metallic backgrounds that will bore you. Character designs are interesting, but the movements are really odd and unrealistic. Rion has the oddest stance when he walks… The cutscenes are nice, though, and there’s a pretty good amount of them. Overall, Ash doesn’t have graphics that will awe you, but for the most part the game looks pretty nice.

The sound is also a mixed bag. The music and sounds are all of pretty good quality, but there isn’t a whole lot of it. The music sounds pretty creepy at times, but often all you’ll hear is emptiness, which takes a lot of the horror out of a survival horror game. The cinemas are fully voice acted, but the lines aren’t always the best and voices seem to lack emotion at times. The sound is pretty average.

Most people won’t be able to appreciate Galerians: Ash. The battle system is sloppy, but is still improved over the original, with a lot of interesting RPG depth. For those who liked the first game, this is definitely worth playing. Even if you didn’t care for the original, the improvements in Ash may be to your liking. It’s a solid rental, and worth buying if you liked the first game.

Final Grade: 78%

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