Galerians is an Action-Adventure with Survival Horror elements, developed by Polygon Magic and published by ASCII Corporation / ASCII Soft, released in 1999.
Waking up in an unfamiliar place can be an unsettling event. It's more so when you wake up alone and Strapped to an Operating Table. Especially when you've mysteriously gained both psychic powers and amnesia.
That's the situation that the protagonist, 14-year-old Rion Steiner, finds himself in. When Rion hears a girl's voice calling to him for help inside his mind, he psychokinetically frees himself and sets about trying to find his way to her. Little does he know that the attempt will pit him against a whole army of guards and robots, several other psychics known as Galerians, and Dorothy, a very angry supercomputer with a god complex.
Unique to the game is that instead of guns or melee weapons, Rion relies on chemicals known as PPEC, which allow him to do various psychic powers. They are also very limited in supply and continuous absorption will cause Rion to have a splitting headache, known as "shorting", that can harm non-psychic beings around him but rapidly drains his health the longer it's active.
The second game, Galerians: Ash, was released in 2002 for PS2, it updates the presentation into a full polygonal third person action adventure, and involves the characters of the future reviving Rion from the dead in order to fight a new group of Galerians whose intent is to restore Dorothy at all costs. It has one of the strangest endings ever seen in a survival horror game.
There is also a CG-based movie, Galerians: Rion, which retells the first game, part of which is used in the "recap" sequence of the second game.
As with OverBlood and Blue Stinger, there's a good chance (but not always) you know of this game from Game Informer's Super Replay. The first Galerians was also the subject of a Retsupurae "Wrongpurae".
This game series provides examples of:
- Abstract Apotheosis: Based on his claim in Galerians: Ash, Rion became the embodiment of the Virus Program after being brought back from the dead.
- Abusive Parents: Supercomputers with god complexes not withstanding, embedding your failsafe program in your child's brain is a little... questionable.
- Aerith and Bob: 'Birdman,' 'Rainheart,' and...'Rita.' Okay.
- Age Lift: The North American and European versions of the first game change Rion's age to sixteen according to the computer in Stage-A, despite claiming to be 14 in the manuals.
- The Aggressive Drug Dealer: Joule in the Babylon Hotel.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: To make her subservient, her creator taught Dorothy that humans served God as their creator and she must serve them as hers. The response? The Family Project. Dorothy decides to make her own super-powered children who will be subservient to her and wipe out her own creators. Ash is also a computer program, not a Galerian.
- Alas, Poor Villain: Rainheart, Rita, Spider, Nitro, Ash... Indeed, almost all the Galerians.
- Amnesiac Hero: Rion spends the first game trying to recover his identity.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Not a terrifically dramatic example, but Lilia says that she loves Rion right before the radiation poisoning gets her in Galerians: Ash.
- Anti-Frustration Features: Sensing abilities allow you to gather clues on how to proceed, apart from environmental narrative.
- Arachnid Appearance and Attire: Spider has a black and yellow costume theme reminiscent of orb weaver spiders
. - Asshole Victim: The majority of the Babylon Hotel lodgers are unsavory characters, and they all end up dead, with the exception of the plumber, who's probably the most helpful character in the building.
- Ax-Crazy: Birdman in the first game and Parano in the sequel.
- Back from the Dead: Rion in the sequel. It also is a case of Fish out of Temporal Water.
- Bandaged Face: The first generation Rabbits have this, for whatever reason.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: Rion is depicted in various states undress, and tends to lack certain...features. Except in the official art. Even when he shows up completely nude in Galerians: Ash, this trope is still in play.
- Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Ash manifested his multiple personalities after the equivalent of thousands of years of torment and isolation at the hands of his creator.
- Bittersweet Ending: The first Galerians ends with Dorothy being destroyed by the virus encoded within Rion's DNA, but at the cost of his life. Galerians: ASH ends with the threat of ASH being thwarted, but it once again costs Rion's life (seemingly for real this time) as ASH was a part of him. On the plus side, he'll have the chance to reunite with those who are already dead.
- Bizarrchitecture: Gigantic iron globe balanced on an absurdly long metal toothpick aside, whoever put the Mushroom Tower's elevator systems together is completely insane.
- Blessed with Suck: PPECs (Psychic Power Enhancement Chemicals) grant psychic abilities such as pyrokinesis and telekinesis. The downside is that they're highly addictive, dangerous and overuse can result in a condition known as 'shorting', where the victim psychically destroys everything nearby instantly by literally blowing their minds - themselves included. There is a drug to stop it, but the question is whether the victim - or someone nearby - is able to inject it/shoot them with it in time.
- Body in a Breadbox: In Act 2, Rion goes home and finds that his parents have been killed. His dad is dead in the closet, while his mom has been literally Stuffed in the Fridge.
- Bowdlerization:
- The term PPEC (Psychic Power Enhancement Chemical) only exists in the English version, evidently to avoid calling the drugs what they are.
- In the European versions, enemies that die while shorting use the same death animation while being killed by Nalcon.
- Body Horror: Dorothy, you've got something in your mouth...
- Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Sure, Rion, you may have defeated Dorothy, but you also just succeeded in killing yourself, plunging the whole city into darkness, and waking up Ash.
- Brought to You by the Letter "S": Ash has his initial written on his chest for some reason.
- The Burlesque of Venus: A monumental statue referencing Botticceli's Birth of Venus features prominently in Stage A of the first game. The statue is labeled "New Master of Creation", referring to Dorothy.
- Cain and Abel: Rion and, uh... Cain.
- Captain Oblivious: Crovic, the plumber of the Babylon Hotel, does not notice that every single resident, including the guy at the front desk, has been horribly killed by Rainheart.
- City Noir: Michelangelo City is an ideal example, complete with dismal rain and Apathetic Citizens galore.
- The Computer Is Your Friend: Dorothy was originally intended to just maintain the city. She ends up plotting to destroy humanity.
- Computer Virus: Once Dr. Steiner and Dr. Pascalle realized Dorothy was out of control, they developed a failsafe program to destroy her — the Virus Program. They wrote the Virus Program into the brain of Lilia, Dr. Pascalle's daughter. Rion has a program to activate the Virus Program in his head, so the two must be united in order to destroy Dorothy.
- Contractual Boss Immunity: Galerians are immune to instadeath from another Galerian shorting out, and most of the bosses are Galerians. Averted with the first boss of the first game, however; Dr. Lem is not a Galerian, and will die instantly if you short out during his boss fight.
- Cover Version: Within the first game's first few minutes of actual gameplay, an instrumental remix of Nine Inch Nails' Terrible Lie can be heard.
- Creepy Child: Rainheart, and to a lesser extent Rion.
- Deadly Upgrade: One of the drugs causes you to Short instantly. Seems like a Press X to Die, right? Not if you need to kill a lot of mooks really, really fast and have Delmetor on hand...
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: Rion dies as Lilia holds him. Galerians: ASH reverses the roles, with Lilia dying in Rion's arms.
- Disposable Sex Worker: Rainheart's rather gruesome murder of the prostitute Susan in the Babylon Hotel.
- Distressed Damsel: Lilia, for nearly all of the first game and chunks of the second.
- Dub Name Change: In the French version of the first game, Rion's first name was changed to Ryan. In the German dub, this only affects the pronunciation, however.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Birdman, full stop, being voiced by Takehito Koyasu doesn't hurt either.
- Epic Instrumental Opener: Release me, I wanna be free.
- Emergency Weapon: While Shorting might look like this, it drains your health, so it just kills you faster. And it doesn't work on any bosses after the first, so it can't help you if you're completely out of drugs anyway. In short, if you run out of drugs (there's a finite supply and Respawning Enemies), you're dead.
- Empty Room Psych: The bathrooms seem like great places for shock horror, but the game never goes for it.
- Evil Matriarch: Dorothy is this for all of the Galerians, particularly Ash and Rainheart.
- Evilutionary Biologist: Dorothy... kind of. It seems that she wants to eliminate humans and replace them with her more "advanced" children. In reality, her goal is more selfish - she just wants to be superior to humans herself, and the Galerians are mere tools to reach that end.
- Fake Ultimate Hero: Romero, who also happens to be a fine case of Dirty Coward.
- Fangs Are Evil: Every single tooth in Parano's mouth is filed to a point.
- Fashions Never Change: The year is 2522, and yet people are still dressing like it's the 90s.
- Flashback Cut: In the first game, Stage B is chock full of them.
- For Science!: Dr. Steiner and Dr. Pascalle only realized that developing an artificial intelligence that could expand itself indefinitely was a bad idea once it slipped its leash. It was lucky for them that it was only almost too late by the time they figured it out.
- Fun with Acronyms: Ash's entire name is an acronym for the three fractured pieces of his personality: Anger, Sadness, and Hate.
- Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: Our villains: a group of genetically engineered superhumans designed to supplant the human race.
- Godhood Seeker: The true purpose of Dorothy's Family Project is to deify herself; she operates under the understanding that any life she creates is subservient to her. Likewise, Ash operates under the same idea after he gets rid of Dorothy.
- Goggles Do Nothing: Pat wears goggles, evidently just for pilot chic.
- Go Out with a Smile: Rion in both games after defeating the villain at the cost of his life.
- Guinea Pig Family: Dr. Steiner and Dr. Pascalle see no alternative for combating Dorothy besides implanting dangerous viruses in their children's brains.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Cain, whose green eyes are the main characteristic distinguishing him from Rion, ironically.
- Hint System: Rion's ability to see psychic impressions on objects is used both in-story and out as one of these. When used on a puzzle object or locked door, it shows an image related to it (for example, used on a locked door, it might show a glimpse of where the key is). However, this feature is absent in Ash.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: Rita, for whatever reason, is unable to kill herself, and thus relies on Rion to do the job for her.
- The Idealist: Pat, in the secret ending. He seems to represent all of humanity in that — saying that they are "looking towards a brighter future."
- Identity Amnesia: Rion has no memories of his life before waking up in the hospital. He wouldn't know his own name if other people hadn't told him. The twist he's not really an amnesiac, but rather a blank slate who spends the game "becoming Rion."
- I'm a Humanitarian: In the movie, it is subtly implied that Rainheart is a cannibal.
- Immediate Sequel: Even better; Ash starts a few rooms before the first game ends and even includes the final boss as the tutorial enemy.
- Inside a Computer System: A large portion of the second game is set inside the remnants of the Mushroom Tower computer system.
- Kid Hero: It's easy to forget that Rion is fourteen (or sixteen in the international versions) during the first game.
- Kill It with Fire: Red, the aptly named pyrokinetic drug. Also, this trope is Rainheart's preferred method of fighting. Using Red against him is not wise.
- Kiss of Death: Let the
Ho Yay commence! Ash ingests uranium and transfers it to Rion by mouth. Later, Rion returns the favor by transferring a deletion program to Ash by mouth. - Kung-Fu Wizard: Ash and his completely ridiculous karate chops.
- Licking the Blade: In Galerians: Ash, Parano does this as a part of his knife shtick.
- Limit Break: The Shorting mechanic. Rion's AP gauge slowly ticks up, based on damage taken, exertion, and Rion's level of tension. Once full, Rion's powers will go berserk the next time he tries to use them, instakilling any nearby mooks.
- Loads and Loads of Loading: Not an egregious case, but it does occur every time you walk through a door. galerians... galerians... galerians... galerians... galerians...
- MacGuffin Super-Person: Lilia mostly just stands around in the first game. Her plot significance comes from the fact that she carries the Virus Program.
- Mad Doctor: Dr. Lem is completely sold on Dorothy's plan to become the "New Master of Creation," and his contribution to the cause involves lots of human experimentation.
- Make Me Wanna Shout: Nalcon creates a sonic boom.
- Mental World: Appears many times in both games. In the first game, it showed up during the deaths of Rainheart and Rita when Rion pulls their psyche into his own mind for a few moments in their last minutes of life, but most prevalent in the sequel when it is revealed that Rion has been in a digital world during all of his encounters with the Last Galerians.
- Missing Mom: Lilia's mother is never heard from or even spoken of at any point.
- Mr. Exposition: Dr. Albert Steiner pretty much dumps the entire plot of the game into the player's lap in a four minute long pre-recorded monologue and then vanishes from the plot. That's justifiable since he's dead.
- My Beloved Smother: Dorothy to all of her children, though arguably the most to Ash.
- Name of Cain: Uh, Cain.
- Non-Dubbed Grunts: While the rest of the first game's FMV cutscenes were dubbed into English for the international versions, the intro FMV retains Rion's Japanese grunts and screams.
- Nostalgia Level: The tutorial of Galerians: ASH has you playing two loops of the final chapter of the first Galerians.
- Not Distracted by the Sexy: In the sequel, nobody seems to notice or care that Nitro is headlighting through an iron breastplate or that Dr. Lilia's dress shows off her underthings.
- Offing the Offspring: Dorothy seems to have no problem with sending her own creations to their doom, if creating Cain for the sole purpose of killing her other child Rion is any indicator.
- Ominous Latin Chanting: "Memina Tui" from the sequel. It's a little bit jarring next to the electro-industrial noise that comprises most of the rest of the soundtrack.
- Only I Can Kill Him: According to Rion, only a Child of Dorothy can kill another Child of Dorothy. Considering the opposition is psychic, non-corporeal, and/or hangs out in a radiation-riddled derelict power plant, he's probably right.
- Orderlies are Creeps: The staff of Michelangelo Hospital. The ones that are often shown on screen are always doctors playing experiments for their paycheck; later on in the Babylon Hotel, you'll come across a drug dealer who is selling the same PPE Cs smuggled out by some of the staff.
- Overdrawn at the Blood Bank: The impressive fountains of blood generated by victims of Rion's head-popping mode.
- Overlord Jr.: Ash is Dorothy's progeny and takes her place as Big Bad in Galerians: Ash.
- Pedophile Priest: The priest in the Babylon Hotel claims to just want donations, but he's a little too touchy-feely around Rion for comfort.
- Poor Communication Kills: Why didn't Rita or Rainheart just tell Birdman that they had Lilia trapped in the Babylon Hotel?
- In that same vein, why didn't 'anyone' tell Rion about what he really is?
- Psychic Link: Lilia and Rion, to the extent that whenever Rion feels pain, Lilia feels it as well.
- Psychic Nosebleed: Occurs frequently when a lot of mental exertion is going on. Sometimes coupled with Tears of Blood.
- Psychic Powers: Oh, so much...
- In the first game alone, we have the drugs D-Felon (telekinesis), Red (pyrokinesis), and Nalcon (sonic waves generated through the mind). Rion is also permanently under the effect of a drug that gives him telepathy and the ability to read psychic impressions on objects.
- Psycho Electro: Parano's main abilities, aside from cutting and spinning around nonstop, involve electricity.
- Shapeshifting: Nitro disguises herself as Lilia.
- Squishy Wizard: Lilia, the carrier of the virus program and a girl with the ability to stop Galerians from using their powers. Her greatest weakness is being hit in the face with tables.
- Stripperiffic: Characters in this series tend not to be heavily dressed, and midriffs are bared rampantly. Naturally, the bad guys are more stripperiffic; Rita (Cleavage Window, Zettai Ryouiki) and Nitro (Vapor Wear, Showgirl Skirt) are the prime examples. Birdman wears overalls...and that's about it.
- Incorruptibly pure Lilia clearly sports a Black Bra and Panties in Galerians: Ash...and at least black panties in the first game.
- Averted with the military personnel in Galerians: Ash, who wear convincing fatigues and body armor.
- Really 700 Years Old: According to the sequel's logic, time in a computer passes infinitely slower than time in the real world. With that in mind, Ash has been stuck in isolation in the computer for what would be equivalent to thousands of years. No wonder he went crazy.
- Replay Mode: In both games, you can rewatch cutscenes you've seen once in the Movie Preview, or the Movie Viewer in Ash.
- Same Content, Different Rating: The original game was rated Mature. The PlayStation 2 sequel, Ash, was rated Teen, despite having a Content Warning in the beginning.
- Selective Condemnation: Despite having just killed dozens upon dozens of hospital employee NPCs without even blinking during his escape, Rion inexplicably feels bad about killing Birdman.
- SkeleBot 9000: Ties in with a rather unexpected Robotic Reveal. In the middle of the first bossfight, Clinic Chief Lem suddenly sheds his skin and turns into the Terminator.
- Snow Means Death: Seen in Rita's Mental World after the Boss Battle with her.
- So Last Season: The drug Skip changes functions from the first game to the second. In the first game, Skip is a temporary Power-Up that boosts Rion's psychic power level until his health goes critical. In Galerians: Ash, a Skip tablet is Rare Candy — it raises the power level of one of Rion's abilities permanently. They're often given out as reward for defeating a boss.
- Sole Survivor: Out of both games, Pat is the only named character to survive.
- Split Personality: Parano, Spider, and Nitro are actually all fragments of Ash's personality. Also, Rainheart seems to suffer from an alternate personality, one that is brought out into the open by the PPECs.
- The Starscream: Ash plans to kill Dorothy instead of resurrecting her and take all remaining power for himself.
- Strapped to an Operating Table: Rion, at the beginning of the game.
- Super-Power Meltdown: Happens to the player as part of the game's mechanics whenever they overuse their psychic powers and short out.
- Also, the second half of the final Ash Boss Fight when he and his multiple personalities all just start freaking out.
- Super Serum: PPECs (Psychic Power Enhancement Chemicals) allow Rion and others to use psychic powers.
- Tomato in the Mirror: This trope is the Galerians series' big twist of choice.
- In Galerians, Rion isn't the real Rion. The real Rion is dead, and the protagonist is a Galerian clone of Rion Steiner created to lure Lilia out of hiding.
- In Galerians: Ash, Ash is the only Last Galerian. The other three are split personalities Ash manifested due to Dorothy's abuse and neglect.
- Tyke-Bomb: The Galerians are a group of Designer Babies who live in fear of their "mother", and will do anything she orders.
- Unexplained Accent: Parano rolls his 'R's very faintly. This may be an echo of Parano's Japanese VA, who rolls his 'R's with impunity because it sounds tough in that language. However, in English it just becomes a head-scratcher.
- Unwinnable by Design: All drugs in the game are finite - including Delmetor, the drug that lets you stop a Short. When you Short, you take damage steadily until you take Delmetor or die. Since the meter that makes you Short goes up slowly over time (and more rapidly if you attack or take damage), if you've used up all the available Delmetor in a stage and end up Shorting, you're doomed. Similarly, running out of offensive drugs before you beat a level's boss will usually make the game unwinnable - the first game's first boss can be killed by Shorting, but none of the others can.
- Uterine Replicator: In Mushroom Tower, Rion finds the devices in which the Galerians were created. Including one for himself.
- Vasquez Always Dies: Cas is a Vasquez expy. Guess what happens to her?
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: Not only does the first act have you popping and setting fire to dozens of (relatively) innocent scientists, but you can kill them while they're on the ground trying to perform CPR on their fallen colleagues.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: Lilia serves as remote mission control to Rion in Galerians: Ash.
- White Hair, Black Heart: Ash is a pretty classic pretty boy baddie.
- Whole Costume Reference: The second generation Rabbits are all dressed exactly like the Strangers.
- You Are the Translated Foreign Word: Somewhat averted in that it's never explicitly mentioned in-game and the term itself is more of a vague prisoner metaphor, but the term 'Galerian' seems to be a corruption of the French word 'galérien,' which translates to 'galley slave,' a criminal or prisoner of war forced to row in galleys.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Parano repeatedly loses to Rion, so Ash shoots him in the head. When Parano re-manifests before the final boss fight, he returns the favor to Ash.
- You Shall Not Pass!: In a moment of considerable badassery, Cas uses explosives to take out a bunch of Ash's forces and close a security breach, but sacrifices herself in the process.
- You Wake Up in a Room: How it all begins. The player knows exactly as much about Rion as Rion knows about himself — which is nothing.
- Your Head Asplode: When Rion loses control of his powers, his brainwaves will pop the heads of any mooks in his vicinity. The caveat is that Rion's health slowly drains away in this state.
- Xenomorph Xerox: The Arabesques enemies are Alienesque with a coat of Resident Evil.
