The Revelation stream is the game's primary ability upgrade system, letting you take items like resurrection potions or fire extinguishers (used when a fire attack sets you or a party member on fire, naturally) and use them to unlock abilities instead. Early abilities might only require a bracelet or a single fiery potion, but the higher level abilities require more and more items of various types. Different characters will be in competition for the same resources here, which makes it even more satisfying to pick characters and explore their abilities than it would be by default. If you want to focus on three specific characters, you can still end up with a very different party than someone who focused on the same three party members. Weapon skills are based on use as well, so swapping different primary and secondary weapons can create characters with very different skill sets.

Despite the beautiful presentation -- especially the high quality of the cutscenes -- the story is my initial concern for Level-5 fans. Your starting character is a young man with big dreams on an isolated desert planet -- a planet that's been taken over by the white-armored soldiers of an interplanetary power, no less. It's not a bad start, and the fact that he was left there as an orphan baby means his mysterious past will doubtlessly be fun to dig into, but if you've ever seen Star Wars, it seems awfully familiar. I hope that Level-5 has a compelling story here, but I'm afraid that it might have been left behind while trying to create an old-school RPG with some new gameplay twists.


After spending several hours with Rogue Galaxy, my only real concern is that casual RPG fans -- or people who don't generally enjoy the genre -- will be turned off by the unoriginal introduction or a deep distaste for random battles. If that's you, plan on giving it a try anyways, because it's shaping up to be a heck of a game. For traditional RPG fans, this should be a slam dunk.