Evolution 2

"A simple RPG with a Diablo feeling"

I just bought this game some days ago, I think its fun, so, now I am here contributing with my own review. Oh, BTW, I havent played the first Evolution game,so dont expect me to compare Evolution 2 to the first in this review.

Sound : 9

I have ear many people saying the music of this game is great, i dont consider it a great thing tough. The music is just good enough,not bad,not excellent,just good enough.
Now, then why give it a 9? I would give it an 8,but, Evolution 2 has a very good point, specially for anime fans : Most of the important dialogues are spoken, and in japanese. Also, you will hear lots of japanese voices during the battles, when your characters attack, get hit, use a special skill, etc. All the japanese voices sound cool and properly for each character, the only problem is maybe Chain's voice when she gets hurt, her yellings are kinda annoying,other than that, the japanese voices are pretty good,and thats the best part of the sound in Evolution 2.

Controls : 10

Its a RPG, what do you expect? Controls arent very important, after all,all you do is walk and select commands. Even so, Evolution 2 controls are good enough, you can move freely in the 3D dungeons (you can even jump), you can rotate the camera and you can even switch betwen 2 camera modes (3rd person and top view)

Game Play : 9

The game play,rather than that of an RPG,seems more like a Diablo like gameplay.
Basically,you're assigned by some society to gather treasures from many ruins around the world. These ruins are full of monsters,traps and have many floors.
Before adventuring into these ruins,you can wander around in your usual town, which is casually filled with convenient stores where you can buy new equipment,buy items or upgrade your cyframe. Basically,you go into these ruins and your goal is to reach the top floor to battle the boss and get the treasure, the ruins can be very long sometimes,fortunately,you can use an item called ''escape insence'',which will take you to the town,where you can restore your status,buy some items,and then return to the ruin (dont worry,you'll still be in the same floor you were) Of course,to get to the top,you will had to deal with lots of battles. Fortunately,this isnt so tedious like in other RPGs, why? because you can actually see your enemies,they dont appear just randomly. This can be useful, for example,normally,when you get near an enemy,he will react (a ''!'' will appear over his head) and chase you,then,when he touchs you,a normal battle begins. But if you manage to touch the enemy fron behind and he doesnt react to your presence,then when you enter battle, you'll go first and have more advantage at your enemies. But be careful,the enemies can catch you by surprise too.
You can carry up to 3 party members, unfortunately, you can switch just 1 of them, the other 2 are always the same. There are a total of 3 character you can switch place in your party,plus the other 2 that will always be in your party.

Now on to the Battle System,perhaps,one of the most important parts of an RPG.
The battle sys is nothing exceptional, you have 2 kinds of characters : The cyframe wearers and the non-wearers.
A cyframe is some sort of mechanical thing that some character use as a weapon (3 out of 5 character use the cyframe). Cyframe wearers can upgrade their cyframes, so they can learn new skills. You may also find extra cyframe parts during your adventure, you can equip your characters with these,but you will had to add another cyframe slot in order to equip them. On the other hand, non-cyframe wearers will just use normal weapons,these cant be upgraded,but you can buy newer weapons on the local shop.
In battle, cyframe weares have special skills based on their cyframes, on the other hand, non-cyframe weares have skills of their own,which generally are for support rather than attack.
Of course,the use of this skills consume FP (? think of it as MP). You can restore FP with items,but you will also recover a litle amount of FP every time you attack,use an item or defend.
Aside from the skills,every character has special habilities,called ''talents'', this vary from character to character, and they dont consume FP,but after you use them 1 time,it will take some time before you can use them again.

Story : 9

Normally story is a very importan part when reviewing a RPG,but since this is a very simple RPG,i dont care very much about the story. Basically,you control Mag (a young adventurer), Linear (Mag's friend,cute litle girl) and Gre (Mag's family butler), later on you'll meet some other characters like Chain (you wont believe it,but she's a girl) and Pepper (some adventurer gal). Mag gets a call from a group called ''the society'' from the Museville town, they called Mag because they needed the most famous adventurer to venture into the dangerous ruins and get some treasures that the Society's President is searching for,with some unknon purpose wich hads to do something with other character named Yurka, a young boy that seems like Linear's counter-part. I wont spoil you much about the story,since its very small. But like i said,since this is a simple game,i dont care too much about the story,thats because i gave it a 9.

Replay Value : 8

This is one of those games that you finish, and then throw away,but you pick it up months later and play it again,just because its fun.

Buy Or Rent :

This game takes at least 20 hours to beat, so it may be a bit pressive to play it with a time limit, but if you just want to bash some dungeon monster for a while in a RPG Battle fashion, you should rent it. On the other hand,if you're collecting the few existant DC RPGs , you may want to pick up this game if you found it cheap in some store. But dont expect something big like Grandia II or Skies Of Arcadia,has i have told before, this is a simple, very simple game.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/28/01, Updated 12/28/01