Rion's World: Galerians
A Spoiler-Free Fansite from Grifter Hans
May 14-15, 2003.
What is Galerians?
Galerians is a game for Sony's Playstation 1. It was released really late in the PS1 cycle, and I never saw a copy in person until last winter, when I first got wind of it and extended some "feelers" to see if I could get hold of a copy. Happily, I didn't have to reach very far; my local game-supply shop "Music-CD/Game Exchange" happened to have it at one of their nonlocal branches. It took several days for it to arrive, but I eventually bought it for $10. And this is probably the best $10 I ever spent on a Playstation game, (besides when I got The Legend of Dragoon for $10 at the same shop) since I actually managed to finish it (the third time I started the game over, I have to admit).
How does the game work?
The game is a lot like Resident Evil in the way the main character is controlled. You push the arrow keys to move, the "X" button to interact, and the right trigger to get ready to attack. The main difference in the game is how the levels and story are set up.
The Boss Fights
This is one of those games where you have a lot of somewhat easy fighting, followed by a semi-impossible boss fight. I'm not very good at videogames (only holding two world records; in ZANAC (Compile, NES, early 1990s) and N2O (Fox Games, PS1, late 1990s)). I haven't even finished many games myself (less than 45). Fortunately, this game was pretty forgiving, letting you choose "RETRY" on the hardest of the battles as many times as you would like. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't save before entering a boss fight, though. Sometimes, if you don't have enough HP, it's a good idea to go looking for medicine before you start a boss attack. (NOTE: Last level--Try to fight the monsters without using the medicine. If you run out, then you have to fight THE LAST BOSS with no medicine! [seriously not cool!] But I did it! YEAH !!!)
Length of the Game
I finished the game in 5hrs,48min,50sec, although I was using my EMU, which glitched a lot whenever the main character tried to talk to people, costing me over half an hour. On a real Playstation, (and knowing what to do) it is probably possible to complete it in just under three hours, maybe. The box claims that the game can take 50hrs to finish. I'm not sure how this could be possible, unless you had to retry each level a few times to save up enough medicine to fight the kinda hard end-bosses.
Cutscenes?
This game is definitely the kingpin of cutscenes. After playing The Legend of Dragoon: Disc 1, switching to Galerians was like upgrading from a cassette deck to a 5 CD changer--there was a BIG difference in the number of cutscenes.
The programmer for the cutscenes was the Polygon Magic company. They did cutscenes for a lot of games, including Dead or Alive: eXtreme Beach Volleyball on XBOX and some other ones that I don't remember. They are a decent company. The graphics quality is sparse, but clean. I only noticed one graphics glitch in all of the ones I unlocked (890)
This game has a cutscene every 5-10 minutes of game play (there are a couple places where the cutscenes are a little farther apart, but only a couple).
Voiceacting
Absolutely horrid. None of the characters pronounce Rion's name the same way. Some are like "Reeeaaawn," some "Rayon," "RaiON..." "... ReiONeeeh!?" It is a little confusing to watch. Also, the people reading the script sometimes had problems with the length of the cutscenes. I think it must take longer to say things in the Japanese version, 'cause there are really odd pauses in some of the conversations that were probably not there in the original. Fortunately, they all talk clearly, so you can understand everything that they say well enough. Most of the time the diction is off, though. This seems to happen a lot in import overdubs... *sighs*
I looked at a bunch of reviews of the Japanese version, and they are generally more positive towards the cutscene acting. I'm going to try to get hold of a copy of the game from Japan so I can compare them myself.
Graphics
Normal Play
This game is one of the prerendered-background games. The character models are relatively nice; they are not quite as intricate as the ones in Final Fantasy VIII, but this game isn't from Squaresoft, so ...
A lot of people either complained or complimented the metal look. I say "Whatever gets the job done... gets it done. Ohyeah."
Battle Mode
The game is nice in that it doesn't use up all the cool special effects in the first battles. The best of the graphics, both cutscene and in-game, are saved for last. I can't really say much about the battle mode without revealing something, so I'll have to say it's pretty much continuously integrated into the normal gameplay.
Content
The game is rated "M" for Mature, and for good reason. The plot... is strange. Also, there are some characters who aren't wearing much in the way of clothing. It's not as gratuitous as the intro-FMV to Xenogears (How did they sneak THAT past the ESRB??), but definitely not suitable for "T" Teen audiences. Personally, I don't mind having a lot of blood and gore in videogames, as long as it's tasteful.
Credits:
- The picture of Rion at the top of the page (rion1.jpg) is from Sammy's official website for Galerians: Ash, the PS2 sequel to the original PS1 Galerians game. Note: Sammy's site has trailers that contain SPOILERS for the first game!
- The picture of Rion under Cutscenes (rion2.jpg) is from one of Crave's official press releases. I don't remember where I got the image (I'll have to check my Browser History.)
Useful Websites
- http://www.cravegames.com/games/ps1/galerians/index.htm
- http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/psx/data/24407.html
Galerians: Ash
- http://www.whatthefun.net/galerians/ash/screens.html
- http://www.moonreading.lunarpages.com/galerians/galechara.html
- http://www.aestheticism.com/visitors/gaming/galerians_ash/index.htm
- http://www.sammy-zone.com/games/gash/
- http://www.sammystudios.com/games/gash/
Pop up a level to a higher index.
Hey. Remember when I said there were no spoilers..? I lied ;).