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:: Evolution Worlds for GCN Review |
Here’s something that almost slipped past me. I was wandering the aisles at Blockbuster, disgruntled they still didn’t have Skies of Arcadia Legends, and desperately craving an RPG. Then I saw something I vaguely remembered reading about in a Nintendo Power article I skimmed over: Evolution Worlds. I was a bit reluctant to pick it up at first, but ever since the second I popped it into my cube, I was glad I rented it.
Okay, so this game is… bad. The graphics are horrible (still look a lot like the Dreamcast version), the music is uninteresting, and the gameplay is notably repetitive. Dungeons in the game are mostly generated randomly, making the game just about wandering around, looking for items, and killing stuff. However, I enjoyed this game, I spent almost my entire three day weekend playing it, just because it is entertaining. The game sort of feels like a Saturday morning anime show, and the character design and art style reflect this. The dialogue is a bit corny, but still enjoyable. The voice acting is done with emotion, and adds to the anime feel of the game.
Onto the technical flaws: The game has to load every time you go to a new game screen, and the loading takes around 3 seconds. You confront an enemy, the screen goes black and starts loading, you start a battle, you finish it, the game loads again, you return to exploring. Also, the camera angle can be a bit annoying, making the game really confusing at first. The battles involve using your Cyframe (weapons in the game) to pull off different attacks, which are either aimed to hit a single enemy, a row of enemies, or a special deisgn (Ws, Vs, circles, triangles, etc.). There are plenty of weapons and other accessories to discover, and many of the dungeons are randomly generated, so it’s different every time you play it.
The story is as follows: You play the role of Mag Launcher, the youngest of a long line of famous adventurers. Mag’s parents disappeared while searching for the legendary Cyframe named Evolutia. Three years ago, a young girl named Linear showed up at Mag’s door with a note from his father telling him to protect her. The game basically follows Mag’s quest to prove that he can be a great adventurer, like the rest of his family. The story becomes more and more complex as the game goes, and the first problem shows up. During the first part of the game (originally Evolution, for Dreamcast), the gameplay has very little to do with the game’s plot. The story is incongruent with the gameplay of wandering through dungeons to get money and find treasure. This section of the game seems more like an introduction to the world of the Evolution Games, getting all the necessary explanations out of the way. Once you finish “Evolution”, you move onto “Evolution 2”, which makes a lot more sense.
I am helplessly addicted to this game, and I think it is mostly due to how easy this game is. Usually, I decide to stop playing a game whenever I die, and if I die repeatedly, I’ll store it away for days at a time without looking at it, but I haven’t died a single time while playing Evolution Worlds. It’s really entertaining, and is especially great if you’re bored. It’s definitely not for anyone, so I recommend it to RPG and/or Anime fans. I don’t think I’m gonna put a rating on this game, mainly because I’ve grown really attached to it, even though deep down I know it’s not that great.
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| Reviewed by Shoshi Eggshell ::
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