Galerians

by Crave

Product Features

• Horror Action Adventure

Product Details

• ASIN: B00004LN2V
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,499 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Editorial Review

Borrowing heavily from Japanese sci-fi animation films like Akira, Galerians is a survival horror game with a twist. As Rion, a 14-year-old boy with powerful psychic abilities but no memories, players must explore a hostile cyberpunk world to unearth clues about Rion's mysterious past.

While gameplay mostly consists of exploration, combat, and puzzle solving, Rion's powers add an inspired--although somewhat disturbing--gameplay twist. In order to perform psychic attacks, Rion must inject himself with various chemicals. However, excessive use of his powers have an adverse effect on his health, which forces our adolescent junkie to ingest pills to counter the side effects.

Although Galerians's stylized, computer-generated cut scenes give the game a cinematic feel, there's an odd sense of discontinuity in this game. This is mostly caused by an annoying pause that occurs when your character moves between fixed camera viewpoints. In addition, there is a total lack of transitional graphics during the disc load times, which occur when Rion is opening doors and such. --Joe Hon

Pros:

• Intriguing storyline
• Inspired--although somewhat disturbing--gameplay twist

Cons:

• Annoying pause when moving between fixed camera viewpoints
• Lack of transitional graphics during load times between areas

GameSpot Review

A casual skim through most Japanese animated movies or comic fare will unearth characters who can hurl people through walls, make them burst into flames, or cause their heads to explode simply by using the power of their minds. Crave's Galerians sees the advent of such empowered folk in a near-future society but with one crucial difference: These people must charge their psychic abilities through the use of injections and pills. You take on the role of Rion, a 14-year-old boy who wakes up in a hospital shortly after having been part of an experiment that gave him psychic powers but robbed him of his memory. Throughout the rest of this three-disc game you must work through your amnesia and foil the intentions of a group that wishes to change the world for the worse, in addition to staying alive. But maintaining your psychic abilities isn't a walk in the park by far. Beyond merely having to find replenished supplies of the drugs that provide you with your mental booms and zaps, you're constantly on guard for an episodic short that tends to occur in your brain. Shorts build up over time whether you use your powers or not, but they can be countered through the use of a pill called Delcon. When a short overcomes you, a simple thought from you will cause nearby enemies to explode - a nice enough trick but for the reality that you're also unable to travel faster than a forced walk, and your health takes a quick, downward spiral during these episodes. Beyond using your more showy powers, you can also "sense," which enables you to recall events that had happened in the past within a certain area, or, more practically, it can help you locate objects, such as a key to unlock a door that is right in front of you. The positive side of this is that sensing is a great device for advancing the plot. There are many instances where sensing, say, a hunk of machinery will initiate a CG sequence that helps explain your past. Its drawback is that it lends a very linear "go here now do this" sort of feel to the proceedings and makes it very clear that there's a great deal of backtracking you need to go through in the game. If there weren't so much fetching to be done, Galerians' pace would be much more upbeat. Otherwise, the game's interface and feel should be very familiar, as it mirrors many other games bearing the "survival horror" genre name made popular by Capcom's Resident Evil series. The backgrounds are made up of rendered stills, and although they're very clean, it is sometimes hard to tell which way your character is facing when the camera perspective is pulled way back. Since this happens most often during boss encounters, "death by camera angle" can occur. This and the fact that doors sometimes blend in too well with their surroundings are the only real visual gripes. Otherwise, Galerians is a pretty handsome example of what can be done in the later days of the PlayStation. The audio effects and soundtrack mirror this as well. In terms of how it stands against other games in its genre, Galerians turns out to be more impressive than Jaleco's Carrier, but it doesn't quite live up to Konami's Silent Hill. While hard-core aficionados of the genre should find it entertaining enough, more casual fans would be better off looking to Eidos' Fear Effect or Capcom's Resident Evil 3 Nemesis. The enemy battles and storylines found in those games are more fun, with less to go back and collect before you move forward. --Joe Fielder
--Copyright ©1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Good Game, March 27, 2000

By A Customer

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Galerians (Video Game)

This is a Very Good Game! From Crave, the people who came out with Jade Cacoon and the less known Mort the Chicken, plan to release Galerians to the USA on March 29, this next Wednesday. Playing it on a Japanese mod chip was great but now everyone can finally play it in English.

You are Rion, a fourteen year old boy who wakes up one day in chair with doctors probing needles into his neck and rest of his body. Not knowing who these people or himself are, the confused Rion wakes up again later in his cell. He appears to be in a hospital. This is where the quest begins.

This game has Rion's weapon being the power of his mind not. Instead of guns he has powerful psychic blasts that can knock an enemy down, burn him, or incinerate him.His items and ammunition are drugs that he is addicted to. Nalcon, Red, & D-Felon are the types of drugs he uses for power. This game plays like a survival horror with very Resident Evil-style controls. The biggest difference between this and Resident Evil is that instead of fighting hordes of zombies, the Galerians (a human sub-species hoping to take over the world and can only be stopped by our pal Rion) are fought. Gameplay is very fun, a psychic blast is charged and released to kill these enemies. There are drugs that can "skip" or make you become more powerful for certain amount of time. This temporary level system makes it feel a bit like Parasite Eve or other RPG's but especially like Parasite Eve. Other interesting features is the ability to "short" when Rion's AP (Addiction Points) reaches a max, he must take a ceratin drugs or else when he tries to attack, all the enemies in the range will how their heads and then their heads will explode. This is good for the first boss and a ton of bad guys but it causes your HP (Hit Points) to go down as well as your speed (unable to run is similar to dnager status in Resident Evil). THere is also a drug that will cause you to automaticaly short in case you need it.

Controls are good. Hold R1 to charge a blast, Square to release it. Holding X and moving on the D-Pad makes Rion run and when without holding X he walks. These are the main controls. The only complaint is that it does not support analog mode (even though I don't like analog others like it).

The atmosphere is amazing. The futuristic world is depicted very well with spooky environments with stunning pre-rendered backrounds. The graphics are so amazing in game play and FMV's that it could make the atmosphere perfect on its own.

Sound is good. Its soundtrack offers spooky background music and relaistic sound effects. The sound team was allowed to use their imagination in making the psychic blast sounds and other sounds. The sound sets the mood very well like in Silent Hill (spooky, onminous tones) and Ridge Racer Type 4 (techno).

In conlusion this game simply is awesome!

Gameplay:5 Controls:4.5 Atmosphere:5 Sound:5 Fun Factor:5 Overall:5

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent, April 9, 2000

By A Customer

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Galerians (Video Game)

This game is all around extremely good. The graphics are smooth, the voice overs are very well acted, and the gameplay is simple and easy to learn. Rion is a convincing character who you grow to care about. His psychic powers are escellently animated, judging by how much you charge them. Using the scan ability to figure out puzzles is great, because the visions that you sometimes recieve show the area you need to go to to find the next item or step of the predicament. The pre rendered backgrounds are beautiful and well detailed, and they are 100% original. The fact that you can look at your movies again whenever you want is cool, because they are all exciting and well animated, making the game all around more fun. The only flaw is that Rion constantly gains anger points, and when you cant find the medicine to reduce them, he shorts out and starts gradually losing HP. The only cool part about it is that it blows up the oppositions head when you get close to it. But it's even better that this doesnt happen very often because when you short out, the enemy stays away from you.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This is a great game, June 13, 2000

By A Customer

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Galerians (Video Game)

Though getting some bad reviews, Galerians is a game that won't disappoint anyone who is wanting a game that offers a facinating plot, cinemas that start every five minutes, and a game that doesn't rely on you blowing up everything in site.

Starting out in a lab, young Rion wakes to find himself enpowered with psychic abilities. Not remembering much of his past, Rion strikes out to find out who he is, why he has been subjected to experiaments, and to help an old friend, Lilia, who is calling to him.

Galerians does not contribute anything really new to the sirvival horror genre in terms of gameplay. While the psychic powers are enough to set this game marginally apart from other sirvival horror games, it's the plot and atmosphere which really give this game it's edge.

There are some slight problems with Galerians, but nothing that should keep you from buying it. The voice overs could have used some help. The controls are ackward, with a huge leaning curve. But the main problem is the games easiness and shortness. Dispite the huge three disk attire, Galerians only has four areas which shouldn't take you that long to beat. However, like I said, none of these problems are major, and this is definately a game to recomend.