A pirate's life for me

There's something especially rousing and liberating about playing a pirate, and Rhama Sabrier is the epitome of the type. Captain of a capable band of brigands, your main character is summoned to the isle of Akbah by its governor and given the task of finding the source of a potent magical herb. When the governor is murdered by his duplicitous assistant, Jabez, your search turns into a frenetic race to prevent Jabez from taking the herb source for himself - and cutting you out of profits from the herb trade.

The game world is vast. There are seven enormous levels (save the third, a short underwater interlude), each with many different sections and puzzles to overcome. What makes Galleon's levels so special is the enormous potential for interaction offered by Rhama's outstanding physical abilities. Rhama can run at lighting speeds and jump over fifty-foot chasms. He can run up cliffs and maneuver across rock ceilings. And he can plumb the depths of lakes and oceans in search of booty. In other 3D games, most of the game world is window dressing. If you see an ocean you can't usually swim or dive into it, and you can't climb that mountain or rock wall in the distance. With few exceptions, if you see it in Galleon, you can scale it (or dive into it, swim it, jump it, etc.). To solve a puzzle in one room, you might have to jump across platforms hundreds of feet apart, scale a wall from one side to another, dive into a lake to retrieve a key, or perform some combination of all three. As a consequence of this freedom, the game feels less contrived, less artificial, and more like a simulated playground of puzzles.

Wherever you look, there you are

Galleon's other great innovation is its camera. Via the left thumbstick, the player exerts total control over the camera, and in turn Rhama's movement. This holds true whether he is on the ground or climbing up a rocky face: by pushing up, pointing the camera in the direction of a scalable rock wall, and pressing the R trigger once you hit the wall, you can reach the wall and climb it with nary a menu switch, button swap, or awkward camera hiccup. Rhama will even amble his way automatically over small obstacles like rocks, ledges, and logs. It's a very PC-like control experience, with the left thumbstick acting as a pseudo mouse look, and it works splendidly.

Combat is the game's weakest aspect - a disappointment considering how potentially cool the engine is. Rhama is a martial arts master, and his kung fu is as strong as the great Shaolin masters'. By stringing powerful attacks together (hitting multiple foes with one blow or combo string, or knocking one foe into another) more powerful techniques are unlocked, culminating in an attack that produces a Chi explosion that can kill just about everyone onscreen. You can also fight with swords and pistols, but the former is much more limited in terms of available moves, and the latter, while powerful, is sharply limited by the scarcity of ammo. The combat system works well enough when fighting large groups, but breaks down when you are forced to fight a single strong enemy. Bosses often have several powerful, difficult-to-block close range attacks, making combo attacks a losing proposition.

However, the unique camera and control scheme make boss encounters a pleasure. Though the method to beat most of them is simple - a few sword blows to the head usually does the trick - the means to the end provides the real challenge. Often you'll have to use the surroundings to your advantage by scaling cliffs and dropping from ceilings. In one memorable encounter, you face off against two giant animated statues of Neptune. To damage them you can resort to the head-clubbing method or use the surrounding cannon emplacements to fill them with lead.

A Heartbreakingly Flawed Work of Staggering Genius

The mouse-look-inspired controls work great when moving Rhama, but not quite as well in other areas. The B button allows you to look freely using the left thumbstick without moving and also allows you to lock on to a target for movement and interaction purposes. Things get sticky when using the lock-on to direct your companions to do something. First you have to focus on the object, then call up the desired party member from the inventory menu (controlled with the right thumbstick), and then select what you want them to do. Easy enough when there's no action going on, but a real pain in the butt when you want Faith to heal you in the midst of a battle.

I've purposely reserved discussion of the game's production values for last since they have been the subject of much controversy - too much, in my view. Galleon began production seven years ago, and it doesn't hide its age. Judging by still shots, it looks like a first-gen Dreamcast title: the textures are poor and the color uninspired. But this gives little credit to the superb animation and design of the characters. Rhama moves smoothly and realistically even over rough terrain. The support characters also look great, particularly Faith and Mihoko. The elongated, small-waisted character design favors women, and these two look great even when wearing DC-era textures. Sound is a mixed bag: the voice acting is excellent, featuring dub veterans such as Cam Clarke of Robotech and Metal Gear Solid fame, but the music is repetitive and generally subpar. There are even some hollow floors, transparent walls, and other bugs that were somehow never ironed out during the game's extended development cycle.

Thankfully for us, the mires of development hell did not entirely destroy Galleon. The game made it with most of its genre-breaking ideas intact, even reaching heights of true greatness on occasion. But these occasions are far too few considering how fantastic these ideas are. Toby Gard is on to something in Galleon, and it's worth a rental to see just how good his next game will be.

· · · Eric Manch