Evolution Worlds

Evolution Worlds was a hard game to get through. Even though it was really short and simple to play, trying to finish the Tower of Despair was a complete chore. It could easily take up 10-12 hours if you fought every monster there, that's half the game. The repetitive nature of the game was hard to swallow. It seems like a rushed RPG to appear on the Dreamcast as early as possible, and this port was a chopped up version of a rushed game, not a good combination. The only redeeming values was the voice overs and the generic battle system.

I would only recommend this game for novices in RPG's and children between the ages of 8 and 14 looking to get into RPGs. The battle system is very simple to learn and the goals are all clear to understand, so it shouldn't be hard for anything to get into this.

There's plenty of Appraisals to collect in the game. Collecting Appraisals and walking the Tower of Despair are the only sidequests in the game and neither are satisfying after you do them.

Battle System:
The Battle System is a Final Fantasy clone. It's very simple to understand, so this would be perfect for RPG beginners, but for experienced fans of J-RPGs then you should know what to expect. When a battle starts everyone is in the middle, if you move them up front they have more powerful attacks / weaker defense, but if you move them back they have weaker attacks / stronger defense. The same applies for the enemies, which can appear 4 at a time.

Everyone can equip their own personal weapons and Cyframes. The Cyframes will give you new abilities to learn and use. The people that can't equip a Cyframe get their own weapons, Gre gets a shotgun, while Linear gets a stereotypical weak female frying pan. Adding more Cyframes make you stronger, but in the end most of them are useless compared to your original starting Cyframe.

You can only have 3 people in your party at a time. Mag and Linear are your 2 main characters, although at the end of the first half and the second half she leaves for a bit. You can get a third party member by asking the 4 other characters in the game to help out with your assignment. Each time you beat a dungeon you get prize money, Gre is the only one that doesn't want a cut in it but he is the weakest character, so choose wisely.

The dungeons feature traps, treasure chests, enemies and sometimes hidden rooms. The traps usually put poison you, put you to sleep, takes away HP or it can sometimes give you HP or FP. The enemies are not random, you can see them on your screen before a battle, you can skip them if you please aswell. You don't get money by defeating an enemy. Money is only gained by finding appraisal items and selling them, or getting a money prize after beating a dungeon by the Society.

You can't run in the game, but you can jump. I'm pretty certain the only reason jumping is enabled in the game is to jump over traps, but you could easliy walk around them as they're painfully visible 90% of the time. There is only 3 times when you actually have to jump on a platform in the game. There is only 2 times when you can change characters to get to another part of the map. Both of those instances happen at the very very end of the game.

Characters / Story:
I like the characters, Mag Launcher has an interesting backstory and Linear has a great twist to her, but she gets really bland on the second half of the game. The supporting cast is pretty interesting as well, Gre is the Launcher family servant, who is an avid hunter, Chain is a competitive adventurer, Pepper is a adventurer for hire / flusy and Carcano is a thug with the heart of gold. Even the lesser characters within the town are interesting to listen to.

The story in the first half of the game is severely rushed. After you beat a dungeon you get a piece of story, then get your next assignment, finish it and get another piece of story, rinse, wash, repeat. I think they cut out 2 or 3 dungeons on Evolution Worlds from the first Evolution game for the Dreamcast, but they kept the stories after each dungeon, so the game seems oddly paced. The second half is better paced, but has the exact formula as the first, so it gets repetitive like you won't believe.

The story reminds me of those Saturday morning anime cartoons on the WB. There is only one twist in the game and you can see it a mile away. This is a very kid friendly game, although they do say "ass" and "hell" twice. Both stories in the game are almost identical, they end exactly the same. There's really no threat of world destruction until the second to last cut scene in the game before the final boss.

Graphics:
The characters and enemies look nice, just a little pixilated at times. When they talk their mouths move with the words, so that’s a nice touch. There’s not a whole lot of enemies within this game though, and they re-do them over and over again with different levels and color, a lazy RPG tactic. The enemies look really cutesy as well, that might turn off a lot of people.

Pannam Town is a good looking town and interesting to walk through, but Museville is just a cube with similar looking houses. Pineville is just a block-stone town, nothing outstanding.

All the dungeons look exactly the same, except for the 8th Imperial Army Ship, which looks like the inside of a ship. Every other dungeon follows this exact same path: you map a floor that follows a hallway into a various rooms, then eventually links into a square, then go up a set of stairs for the next floor to map until you get to the top or bottom of your objective. After of an average of 10 stories, you fight a boss and warp back to town. The dungeons are sometimes randomly made too, just to prove how generic this can get.

Voice Overs / Music:
The best thing about the game is the voice overs. My guess is 95% of every text within the game is voiced over. The voices fit the characters almost perfectly. Even all the towns people are voiced over and say different things all the time. I'm amazed this game fit on one disc with all that data. The only flaw is Yurka and Prof. Whitehead, they sound really condensed and low compared to the other characters.

The music is pretty generic through out the game. The only music in the game worth mentioning is the battle music. The battle music has 3 modes, when you're attacked from behind, a normal front battle and a surprise attack. All three have a different tune to them so you'll know what type of battle to expect. After the battle you get a Final Fantasy-ish victory music.

World Map:
There is no world map on the first half of the game. The only world map is on the second half of the game. You do not adventure in this game, no walking, flying, sailing, anything, although for storyline purposes you fly to your destinations, but no cinemas or detail go into it, other than when you're flying to the warship at the end of the first half. The second half starts off in a train, so for a game about 'adventurers' this is pathetic, the only "adventuring" done in the game is purely in the storyline, nothing you actually do yourself. The world map on the second half is just a plain simple map that points to your next location. You still don't walk or fly to them.

Overall there is 3 towns in the game. Pannam Town is in the first half of the game. This town is rather small, it just features your mansion, a bar you can't enter, The Society, and a couple shops that are almost worthless. The second town is Museville. This is a large town considering how small Pannam Town is. There’s plenty of houses, shops and people to visit. Pine Village is the third, but you don't get to it until the end, and it's mostly a dungeon.

Time to Complete Game (First run through):
27:22:43

I finished the sidequest in the game, the Tower of Despair, but didn't get all the Appraisal Items. The reward for beating this game is to restart and unlock Top Hunter Mode, which is suppose to be similar to the Tower of Despair. That sounds more like a punishment than a reward. I have no plans of doing that.

This is my final ranking:

Apprasial Items: 123 / 200 - Rank B
No. of Battles: 1023 - Rank E
No. of Rescues: 0 - Rank S
Clear Level: 63 - Rank B
Clear Time: 27:22:43 - Rank A

Overall - Rank C - Adventurer