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Publisher: Agetec
Developer: From Software
Genre: RPG
Origin: Japan
Number of Players: 1
Dual Shock: Yes
Peripherals:Memory Card

Eternal Ring doesn't set the PS2 on fire, but it has its finer points.

Gameplay

Eternal Ring is a first-person RPG, patterned after the King's Field series that From Software produced in the early years of the PlayStation. This particular branch of the RPG genre may be home to some all-time classics on the PC, but it's never been done well on a console. Technical troubles are obviously part of it, the difficulties involved in getting a decent first-person-view 3D environment to work on a console, but more than that, the more simplified interface is a stumbling block. If you're going to have a movement system as complex as a first-person game requires, that's going to take up an awful lot of real estate on your control pad, leaving little room to assign buttons to other functions.

Eternal Ring comes up with a couple of solutions to this problem - some satisfactory, some less so. The good news is that it hits on the right answer some way into the game and sticks with it until the end. This is a slow-developing game in a number of ways - starting out, you're armed with nothing but a knife, with little to do except wander around caves whacking beetles and mutant fish-men. The control scheme in this instance works because there aren't many functions to be taken care of - you just move, strafe a little, and time your attacks with quick darting movements in and out of your opponent's range.

Later on, however, the game hits upon the system that gives it its name, and also most of its appeal as far as gameplay is concerned. Your chief weapons, once you pick up a few of them to replace that wimpy knife, are magic rings, created by combining basic rings with elemental stones. There are over a hundred of these, each creating a different spell effect, and you can equip more than one at any given time. The gameplay system is still simple in the immediate sense, with ring activation comprising most of your actions, but since you can swap so many rings in and out of the active spots, the array of spells and skills available to you doesn't grow old.

Graphics

On the whole, Eternal Ring isn't the best-looking of PS2 games. The backgrounds and character models are often fairly simple, and the character animation isn't much to write home about. On occasion, though, you come across a detail that catches your eye. From Software stated early in the game's development that their aim was to create very realistic environmental effects, and you can tell they focused much of their time and effort on that sort of thing. Fire and water both look and move quite well - waterfalls splash over rocks and into pools, while torches flicker and cast shadows on the walls. The fiery breath of dragons doesn't look half bad either. Eternal Ring also happens to be an excellent lesson in what a difference framerate makes. King's Field moved slowly enough to be practically unplayable, although curiously, that didn't stop From Software from running through the formula again in two more sequels (not to mention Shadow Tower - Japan will pay money for the strangest things). Eternal Ring, on the other hand, employs essentially the same control system, but thanks to the fact that it moves at a constant 60FPS, it manages to be reasonably nimble for a first-person game with no analog control (I think we can safely say that From is refusing to believe that the Dual Shock's analog sticks exist). The pace of the game is still a little bit slow, but at least it runs smoothly.

Sound

Hand in hand with the environmental detail in Eternal Ring's graphics are some nice, quiet sound effects accompanying those occasional visual highlights. Running throughout the game, though, is an excellent orchestral soundtrack - the music is very finely crafted, and it meshes well with the medieval setting. This is game music, but it doesn't sound like game music (whereas even the best scores from most Square RPGs still show their PCM roots every so often), and I welcome it as I do any well-done shift from the norm. Agetec has also decided to actually add spoken dialogue to the game, which was absent from the Japanese version. This means that I can't exactly curse them for dubbing the game, but I wouldn't really need to even if they had replaced original Japanese voices - while I still like Armored Core 2 a fair bit better, the voices in Eternal Ring aren't half bad. You'll encounter the occasional cartoonish groaner lines, but the overall level of quality is surprisingly high.