Galerians: Ash

"Better than the first....."

Galerians was one of the playstation's best games(in my opinion). the very eerie atmosphere was truly exhilarating. It was really a nice alternative from the resident evil zombie feast. it really offered a lot of new elements in the ''survival horror'' genre.

This game ''Galerians:Ash'' continues the story of the first game. it precisely starts on where the last game left off.

GAMEPLAY-7
like Resident evil, you'll be solving puzzles to progress through the game. Puzzles are quite hard to figure out, REALLY THEY ARE! They took out that Scan power that Rion had in the first game. The Scan power gives you clues by showing the location of the item that you need, or the location that you're supposed to be in. Now you'll just blindly looking for items, while running around looking for clues. They really shouldn't took that skill off, because it made solving puzzles a lot more harder than the first game. you'll definitely be needing a walkthrough magazine or the faqs walkthrough.

BATTLES-9
The battles have improved very well. For the newbie of the series, here's how the battles goes. Rion has no weapons or armors, he only has powers that he can get from PPEC's(drugs). by holding down the square button, rion can charge up his abilities and fry or send enemies to their doom. but, as he get damaged or repeated use of his power causes him to short(a bar level shows you this). And when he does he becomes invulnerable to attacks, meaning enemies can't attack you, because if they get close to him they explode. But, shorting also causes his HP to go down, so in order to stop this you need to take a drug to calm rion down. It's a lot more easier and less frustrating than the first game.

In the first game, to level up your powers you use a drug called skip. but it was not permanent, whenever your hp goes down the skip's effect's were off. which was really frustrating. Now the skip effects are permanent. So rion's abilities grow every time you find one. there's a lock on feature that helps you more in battles(by pressing R2), and Rion can dodge more efficiently. Rion's abilities are still there, nalcon, D-flon, Red, and two new abilities. The animation hasn't change that drastically, but it did improve a little. all in all, the battles have improved.

STORY-9
the story is about stopping the last galerian which is Ash. (it's really hard to tell the story without spoiling it). well...if you didn't played the first game, it won't matter, since they give you a brief story of the first. It's about a super computer named dorothy that plans to be the new god by creating the Galerians. the story is quite impressive and quite deep.

GRAPHICS/AUDIO-8
The graphics are okay, some locations are really good to look at. there's really nothing wrong with the graphics very standard Ps2. but they could have done a lot more detail with the character's model though. the music is pretty atmospheric, very fitting for the game. The voice acting are average. they do fit their respective character.

REPLAYABILITY-7
There's three mode, easy, normal and hard. you get to unlock a mode where you start with all of rion's abilities max. there's also a movie gallery and picture gallery to unlock. I finish the game under the easy mode in about ten hours. so it really depends on the person.

RENT? or Buy?
This game is a rent. even the forty dollars price tag is too much for this game. if you can find a cheap used one then it's a buy. don't get me wrong I love gallerians, but you'll surely be done with this game in a day or two. so I suggest you rent.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/19/03, Updated 05/19/03