Look, Sony, I’m not asking for much, but if you could do it again Rogue galaxy, it would be swell. I would even settle for a real remaster.
PlayStation 2 turns 20 this month, and we’re celebrating some of the best games on PS2. It turns out that one of them is a disappointment. How can a game be disappointing? Simple: bad timing.
Rogue galaxy was released in January 2007, just a month after the release of PlayStation 3. Localization in Europe and North America had taken longer than expected (the game was originally released in Japan in 2005), which caused Rogue galaxy to go out at the same time as the new generation console. Despite Rogue galaxy being one of the prettiest, content-rich and technically ambitious games in PlayStation 2, sales have been kept to a minimum. The game has never been shaken fairly, which is a shame.
However, it really rocked me. At the time of Rogue galaxywhen I was released, I was sick as a dog and I couldn’t even leave the house to go to school. My boyfriend at the time took pity on me and offered me a game to make the house more bearable. With a lot of time and no PlayStation 3 to play (I won’t get that until next Christmas), I stuck my teeth Rogue galaxy enthusiastically and did not let go for months.
At the time, nothing looked or played better than Rogue galaxy. For the time, the graphics were crisp, fluid and dazzlingly beautiful. The amount and quality of voice was at an unknown level in other PS2 games, and the volume of content contained in a single DVD was absurd.
Bad timing, but great game
If you really wanted to get through Rogue galaxy, you could probably do it in about 40 hours, but you would easily miss half the game. There are side quests, collecting insects (then fighting insects), collecting weapons and armor, hunting monsters and crafts, and all of them are tracked in a handy table that displays clearly your progress.
Which is not to strike the main story, but if there is something about Rogue galaxy you could criticize is the plot. If you’ve ever played a Japanese ARPG, you already know the structure: the dreamer on his luck wants to see the stars, finally arrives through a gang of space pirates and against his path on board, a series of incidents arrives them on various planets picking up more playable characters along the way until finally one of them turns out to be the princess of an ancient civilization who struggles against an unspeakable evil which threatens to destroy the galaxy and c it’s your job to defeat it.
A tale as old as time, really. I didn’t care – the fight was fun, fluid and dynamic, with characters screaming for encouragement for a moment and calls for retirement the next day. Each world was a new adventure filled with unique sights and sounds, with pre-rendered epic cutscenes fusing perfectly with the exciting gameplay.
Running in this colorful world filled with even more colorful characters collecting bugs and guns and objects was just the right thing for my sick brain at the time. It turns out that I was not alone.
Remaster or bust
Although Rogue galaxy did not reach the expected sales of a million units (about 160,000 approximately), there are many people like me who remember Rogue galaxy for the jewel it is. IGN and Game Spy awarded him the coveted publisher’s award, and Metacritic has 83%.
If Sony had released Rogue galaxy before the release of the PS3, sales would undoubtedly have been better. The game deserves a second chance. He deserves a remaster.
Sony at least aware enough to republish Rogue galaxy on PS4 via an emulator, and it’s certainly an improvement over the original with scaled graphics and even shorter loading screens, but it’s not enough. Yes Spyro and MediEvil can get wonderful remasters and then Rogue galaxy should too.
Or at the very least, a PC remaster that gives it an appropriate 16: 9 aspect ratio.