Rogue Galaxy (DoubleJump Official Game Guide)

List Price: $19.99 Discount Price: $59.99

Customer Reviews:

Solidly Helpful, But Occasionally Misleading [Posted on 2007-05-22]
This being about the eight millionth Strategy Guide I've used, it suddenly occured to me that I should be a bit more methodical about reviewing them. After all, no one reads a Strategy Guide from cover to cover. Instead, they glance at it a bit and then start playing. It's not until you run into a tricky situation that you will grab for the guide. At that point organization and access to information are critical.

Take this guide. The walkthrough is actually only about a third of the book. It is terse, but sufficient. The maps are a bit crude but adequate for the most part. The weakness is in access to information. Don't get me wrong, the information is there, and mostly accurate. But it is arranged so that you may have to visit several different charts to piece together the answer to a question. This is irritating when what you are trying to do is accumulate enough kills to meet a particular monster quota or create a better weapon from those currently available.

Another key question is whether the guide actually enhances the game. This can be important, especially in this day and age where sidequests and special contests are squirrelled away so that the average player armed with the usual skinny game manual will miss them, even after several plays. This quide comes through here, providing information that will nearly double play time. Rogue Galaxy is a game with a wealth of extras in it and the guide will get you to them.

Oddly enough the big extra in this Strategy Guide is that it actually devotes some time to strategy. Rogue Galaxy can be played several ways, everything from hack and slash, run for the conclusion to my style that compulsively seeks to work through every nook of the game code. The guide takes the time to cover these options in a game where overall goals will effect game play.

So this guide could have been better, but is good enough to significantly improve the game experience. There are a couple of errors, as another reviewer has noted, but nothing fatal. In other words, if you follow the Guide you will win the game and enjoy doing so.

Rogue galaxy [Posted on 2007-06-13]
This guide is full of tips and hints on the gameplay. Most of the information is quite detailed and very useful. However, the Factory diagrams are a bit confusing and the Frog Log is a bit overwhelming. But overall, the guide does a good job of leading you through the game for a thorough gaming experience.

Very useful [Posted on 2008-01-02]
This is a very thourogh guide that covers everything in the game. It even covers all the new features only found in the american release of the game. If you appreciate a guide that can help you find absolutely everything there is to find in a game then this is the guide you need.

Good Guide. [Posted on 2008-01-08]
The Guide is informative, if nothing else, it can help in a few key spot's, though, like many official guides, tends to miss out on varying strategies for bosses or dungeon's.

I only wish picture's included were more informative than most guides provide.

Another thing I would like to see recommended more often is included levels/skills and thing's, which, this guide has though it does not go in too deep as to why they are so useful.

And another, mayhaps it is better suited as a strategy if the writer's went through the game at lower levels, giving challenge to each strategy and thusly really giving meat to the guide.

Still, it is a great guide for what it is and very helpful when needed.

A Great But Flawed Guide [Posted on 2008-01-19]
As a Doublejump strategy guide you expect the best walkthroughs and the most in depth charts and guides and maybe some extras (artwork, interviews etc.) and you get that for the most part. At almost 400 pages (with only about 100 dedicated to the walkthrough)this guide is huge and the best part about it is that all of the pages include pertinent and relevant information, absolutely no fluff and the charts are colorful, easy to read and in the case of the weapon fusion guide fun to wade through. The walkthrough is spoiler free and the maps are large and each item is clearly marked. The layout on each page is very colorful with beautiful artwork throughout and the design of the sections (a general layout of the game, the walkthrough, optional quests, sidequests and weapon, monster and items charts at the end) allows you to stay the course and at the same time jump the gun if you want to do that. However there are two major flaws with the guide:

1. The weapon fusion/optimal weapon chart is not always correct (you'll have to go online to find the correct ones, try Gamefaqs). Early in the game this is a big annoyance because it makes it difficult to get the desired weapon, later on as you get the more powerful weapons it won't matter as much because all the different combinations of fusing eventually lead to a single powerful weapon.

2. The other big flaw in the game is the factory chart is printed in reverse! From a top down view all of the northern parts should be on the south and vice-versa. I was banging my head against the wall trying to figure out why my factory wouldn't work till I finally solved the problem.

If you can overlook those two problems then get this guide. For a game as deep as this one is the strategy guide is a necessity for anyone RPGer who is a completist.

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