Galleon: Islands of Mystery

"Galleon...headed the way of Beyond Good and Evil?"

Galleon is a game that had been in development so long, gamers abandoned hope on the piratey adventure...but then, Captain Rhama exploded his way onto the XBox for some much loved and long overdue Piracy!

Now, the developers wanted something fresh...original...innovative! They re-vamped everything they could of think of. Graphics, level-design, but the best and most important one is the movement. Even though it's your traditional platform fighter, it's all made somewhat crazier by Rhama's abilities to scale walls, climb ropes and leap and bound great distances. It's hard too explain with words, but if you saw it, you'd know what I mean. Instead of moving Rhama directly, you control the camera. Sound weird? It is, but it works incredibly well! There's the nice abilities as well, such as cautious mode, where Rhama, if moving slowly, is 'locked' onto the path he's walking and won't fall. If he's going fast than the Energizer Bunny, then you're in trouble, as he can easily lose his footing and fall, but it sure is the only way to jump across that large gap and clifftop.

Rhama's not too cautious, though, as a simple nudge sends Rhama forward in a burst of speed, sometimes off cliffs and mountains. Believe me, that is just "oh-so" tedious since Rhama's more springy than a trampoline.

Okay, enough of the controls. Story? Well, a strange and mysterious ship found it's way to the shores of an island, where the Governor of said island hid it away until a famous pirate (that's you) comes and identify it. It's discovered that a magical healing property is found on board which is so rare that is was thought to be extinct. But if these magical plant leaves were to fall into the wrong hands, great evil will surface!

This piratey adventures sees you travelling all over the Caribbean, across a multiple of levels spanning 7 awe inspiring islands. Did I say levels? Well, forget that. It's pretty much open-ended, allowing you to travel all over the islands before doing a task or mission, but in some cases, you'd need to that anyway, since the scale of the level design is so vast and might just confuse you about where you need to go next. There's a nice blend to the game, mixing platforming, fighting and puzzle solving into one very enjoyable experience. The puzzles are the typical "Pull the level there, and the door will open over there" kind of deal, but at least they're not brain-taxing.

Combat is slightly poor. Granted, there is the nice feeling of you kicking pirate scum butt (highly satisfactionary), but it's held together by an auto-target. What's bad about that? Well, you can only focus on one enemy at a time, so whilst you've got your eyes on Baldy McGoldtooth, one of his friends are behind you about to kick you over a cliff. :/

Overall, Galleon does hold water and is highly worthy of being apart of your XBox Crew, but you might just get slightly annoyed by its antics after a while at sea together.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/11/05