“this (plus nine more) will be your final battle!”
I’ve been spending the last few months banging at Rogue Galaxy, a game that many consider the final great Japanese RPG for the Playstation 2 system. I agree, it’s pretty cool overall; applying all the classic tropes without feeling like a complete retread. It’s well put together, engaging (in the sense that level grinding doesn’t feel like grinding), and has, thus far, kept my interest, and, thankfully, plays without problems on my “last of the backwards compatible” Playstation 3 (I was even able to copy over my game save from the PS2 memory card).
This weekend, I carried the story on to the “final save point”, after which you get through the final boss fight and see the story resolved.
Sadly, I haven’t seen the story resolved yet; since the end is one of the longest, most unforgiving end sequences I’ve encountered: 10 “final battles” without a save, and the last one doesn’t even let you use all the bad-ass abilities you’ve racked up during the previous 65 game hours.
No amount of levelling is going to save you; it’s all a matter of managing healing items, finding the pattern, and swinging your grossly oversized sword. If you’re off by a fraction of a second at the wrong time, it’s game over, and you go back to the beginning, having to fight the whole ten-battle sequence over again.
I’ve taken two passes at it so far, and had my butt kicked twice in the final minutes. Let’s hope the third time is the charm.
