The game follows the adventures of Jaster Rogue, a young agricultural worker living on an isolated planet, who becomes involved in a galactic conflict, and learns the fate of the entire galaxy lies in his hands.

At the time of its release, Rogue Galaxy was the largest game Level-5 had ever developed, both in terms of the number of staff working on it and the length of production (over three years).

Both Level-5 and Sony had strong expectations for the game, hoping it would challenge the RPG market dominance of the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest franchises.

Rogue Galaxy is an action role-playing game played from a third-person perspective in which the player moves through a continuous environment, with no load time between overworld exploration and combat.

Battles occur as random encounters, a la traditional role-playing video games such as Square's Final Fantasy X or Level-5's own Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, but unlike such games, which feature turn-based combat, Rogue Galaxy uses a real-time hack and slash combat system in which the player fights with a party of three characters.

After a weapon is maxed, it continues to gain additional experience in specific elemental categories - fire, ice, lightning, wind, and holy.

[22] The game also features a completion chart, which records the player's progress through various aspects of gameplay: "Hunter Ranking" (the goal is to top the league of hunters), "Rare Items" (collect all nine rare items in the game), "Quarries" (successfully defeat all available quarries), "Hunting Record" (attain maximum hunter points by killing all of the specified enemies), "Insectron" (win the highest tournament rank), "Revelation Flow" (complete every character's Revelation Flow), "Frog Log" (have Toady analyze at least one-hundred weapons and produce at least fifty), and "Factory" (produce all forty items available in the factory).

Voiced by: Aya Ueto (Japanese); Natalie Lander (English) The adopted daughter of Dorgengoa (Fred Tatasciore), captain of the Dorgenark.

Voiced by: Kazuhiro Yamaji (Japanese); Steve Blum (English) A former bounty hunter who joined the Dorgenark's crew several years prior to the beginning of the game.

Voiced by: Hideyuki Umezu (Japanese); Yuri Lowenthal (English) An android created by Dr. Pocacchio (Marc Graue), he is the navigator of the Dorgenark.

Voiced by: Kikuko Inoue (Japanese); Kari Wahlgren (English) A warrior from the planet Juraika, Lilika joins the Dorgenark's crew shortly after Jaster.

Voiced by: Unshō Ishizuka (Japanese); David Sobolov (English) A former elite soldier for the Longardian army, he has a robotic arm, and yearns for peace in the galaxy.

As Jaster returns, he complains to his adopted father, Raul, about the presence of the Longardian Federation on the planet, who are ostensibly there to protect it from the Draxian Empire.

While passing the Rose Nebula on their way to Zerard,[28] the Dorgenark is attacked by beasts and crashes on the jungle planet Juraika,[29] where they meet Lilika, a member of the local Burkaqua tribe,[30] who joins the crew.

Meanwhile, Daytron president Valkog Drazer (David Lodge) and his assistant, Norma Kissleigh (Michelle Ruff), arrive with Seed (Jason Spisak), a masked servant, who engages the crew in battle.

The party manages to acquire the three Key Pieces, and Jaster places them on the pedestals, transforming the Tablet into a massive three-dimensional puzzle structure.

Freidias then tells the story of Mariglenn; tens of thousands of years ago, the planet was attacked by evil energy known as Rune, which possesses the power to turn living beings into beasts.

He reveals Mother as being a sorceress named Ilzarbella (Wendee Lee) who served the Star King until she was seduced by the power of Rune.

The game ends with a narration saying the crew made off with their "ultimate treasure" in what was their last heist, implying that they succeeded in getting Kisala, but are on the run from Mariglenn.

In an August interview with Famitsu, Hino explained the gameplay involves the player travelling the galaxy and visiting various planets, each of which has its own unique visual theme.

He revealed a major selling point of the game to be no loading times between exploration and combat, or when moving from one location to another, something which had never before been accomplished on a disc-based RPG, and something which had been a long-time personal goal of his.

IGN's Anoop Gantayat was impressed with the "seamless" gameplay, and the absence of load times, although he did note the frame rate was lower than Dragon Quest VIII.

He was also impressed with the graphics: "The game doesn't hide the vastness of its world, with plenty of distant views as you explore the complicated landscapes.

IGN's Gantayat again praised the absence of loading times, arguing "the technical feats this game pulls off with the grey and limping PS2 hardware are impressive".

[62] Although Eurogamer's Simon Parkin praised the graphics and range of mini-games and side-quests, he felt the game's release after Final Fantasy XII placed an unrealizable burden of expectation upon it, saying that Rogue Galaxy did not put new conventions to the genre compared to the former.

[63] Game Revolution's Tim Tackett was critical of the plot and characters, but praised the range of side-quests, the battle system, the graphics and the Revelation Flow, which he found superior to the License Board of Final Fantasy XII.

[65] GameTrailers was also critical of the plot, but praised the gameplay and variety of side-quests, and said that the fans of RPG genre will find something addictive and worthwhile in Rogue Galaxy.

[66] IGN's Jeremy Dunham praised the graphics, the battle system, the range of side quests and mini-games, but was somewhat critical of teammate AI and story.

[69] GameSpy's Patrick Joynt's main criticism concerned the lack of character development, but he praised the range of mini-games and side-quests, graphics, combat system, and the overall size of the game.

[67] Prior to the release of the game, Sony Computer Entertainment corporate executive Masatsuka Saeki had hoped it would sell a million units.