Evolution

"A great game that RPG players who love to explore won't want to miss!"

Play as Mag Launcher, young adventurer in a family famous for adventuring, and resident of Pannam Town. Explore randomly generated ruins along with the help of Linear Cannon and another ally (Gre Nade, Chain Gun, or Pepper Box), avoiding traps, collecting items, and fighting monsters along the way.

The graphics are good, and the animation is smooth. They could have added a bit more color and detail to the ruins, but other than that the graphics are good.

The music, on the contrary to what some others may think, I believe is actually pretty good. There are some tunes that I found myself whistling (the battle themes (three), Mag's house, etc.) while others were kind of boring, and didn't catch my attention so much.

The gameplay is great for those who love exploring. You have to explore various randomly generated ruins, which get longer and longer as you progress into the game. I also thought the battle system was rather interesting. While not entirely unique, each character has several categories of their own unique skills; also, there are three 'ranks' in battle (where your character stands.) While I know you can move forward and back on a lot of RPGs, in Evolution it's sometimes important which rank your characters are on, as some bosses have powerful attacks saved just for people standing on a certain rank!

The replay value is very good, since the ruins are randomly generated. On your second time through, you will find a lot of different treasures in each area than you did on your first time. I doubt if you'll want to play it a third time, however..

Overall, Evolution is a great game and is worthy of the title of first RPG for the Dreamcast.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/18/00, Updated 01/18/00