Galerians

"Claire Redfield, take a hike!"

Galerians: The next Resident Evil, or the new face of the Survival Horror genre? This is the question that swam through my mind, hour after hour, until I was finally able to test drive Galerians. After the first hour of gameplay, I could already tell what the answer was. Galerians: The new face of the Survival Horror genre.

Your two main characters are Rion and Lilia. Rion is a 14 year old male who awakes to find himself on a hospital restraining bed, with no recolection of his past. He is injected with PPECs (Psychic Power Enhancement Chemicals) on the bed, and uses them to bust out of the hospital. Rion refills his PPEC gauges, regains health, and keeps his mental stability under control by popping pills and shooting up. This is a more disturbing part of gameplay. Rion is called by Lilia through telepathic communication throughout the length of the game. Lilia is the daughter of Dr. Pascalle, who jointly developed Dorothy, the mother computer of Michelangelo City, with Dr. Albert Steiner, Rion's father. Rion must find Lilia on his long journey for truth.

This game is all around fun. With a gripping storyline and characters that would shame any Resident Evil hero, this is the ultimate Survival Horror game. There are plot twists that would blow William Shakespeare's mind. Although at times the game gets dreary and frightening, you'll find it hard to put the controller down once you have jumped into the game. There is never a boring moment while playing, and the storyline keeps your mind running a mile a minute trying to figure out what happens next.

Galerians can be somewhat disturbing at times. I don't suggest this game to anyone with any types of moral values. Not only does Rion become a bit of an addict, you find your loved ones' corpses falling out of closets. At one point in the game, Rion is spotted by a pill pusher, and the peddler says to him he can tell he is an addict, his face is wasted. This is an all around adult entertainment game. Don't give your wired 10 year olds this game, for they will find it either boring or it will give them nightmares.

Battling is a bit of a nuisance in this game. The sluggish controls are a bit of a drawback, but you should be able to manage if you use your brain. This game isn't for trigger happy, Duke Nukem types. If you run in blasting everywhere at random, you will die everytime, guaranteed. This is a more strategic game. Need time to strategize? Pause the game.

The one thing that really tops this game over the RE series is that it isn't so monotonous. The Resident Evil series is quite repetetive of itself in gameplay. You have to run back and forth constantly. Now Galerians has its fair share of running back and forth, but it isn't so bad that it gets ridiculous. In RE, you will be in some corridor way the f*** down the road, then you'll find something that REQUIRES you to run all the way back to near the beginning. Galerians makes you run back and forth a bit, but not that much.

The one question that crosses everyone's mind while playing a game like Galerians is, ''What if I die? Then I'll have to start all over again! >.<!'' An answer to this question is to (God forbid) get a Gameshark. There is something you should know about the Gameshark and Galerians though. The Gameshark is designed to mess with the coding of a game to enhance your experience, right? The Gameshark does all of this for Galerians, only it also makes the game think that some things have already been done which haven't. An example would be on ''Stage B: Your House.'' If you are using a Gameshark, you can get this far, but once you get your Mother's Ring and insert it into the Jewelry Box to get your Father's Ring, your Mother's Ring will be eternally stuck in the Jewelry Box. I don't know if this glitch constitues all codes for the Gameshark, but you are better off not using it.

All in all, I gave Galerians a 10 for its Storyline, Characters, and overall disturbing personality. I suggest this game to anyone mature enough to handle drugs, murder, and child abuse.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/04/02, Updated 08/04/02