Seventh Cross Evolution

"I couldn't recommend it to everyone, but it's one of my all-time favorites."

Seventh Cross: Evolution is a weird, weird game. It's not an RPG and it's not quite a sim. It's not an action or an adventure game, either. I don't know what you'd even call it, but if you're the kind of gamer who has odd favorites, or can be hooked by a game with a big focus on collecting, you may really like it.

There isn't much of a story to start out with. At the beginning of the game, you design a pattern. This somehow affects the way you earn parts later on, but it's not something you can pinpoint. The DNA grids seem without rhyme or reason.

At the beginning of the game you start in a pond, and you're a blob. After moving around eating things, you become more of a fish-like creature, and eventually after knocking off a few crabs you evolve beyond that to the starting point for all of your future evolutions. After you've killed enough crabs and found a few parts, time to head to the ocean.

As for parts, you take the experience points you earn from killing and eating things, and you use them at the monolith-like save points. You place different colored dots on a grid, and it randomly gives you a part. There are 30 parts each for the head, body, legs and arms, so the possibilities of different body types are virtually endless.

Now, when earning new parts you may unlock something that you aren't evolved enough to use. And trying to earn something specific make take a long while, but eventually you'll end up with quite a few cool parts to use. Also, many parts give you bonuses if used with all other parts of a like kind.

Combat in Seventh Cross is rather clunky. It's not really turned based, but you don't free roam around an enemy, you just freeze and target. After you level up past a certain point, however, combat becomes a breeze, and the creatures of particular areas can't even scratch you.

Graphically Seventh Cross looks very much like the first generation Dreamcast title that it is, though some of the levels are pretty large. There is some crippling slowdown in the underwater levels, for some reason. Overall not much that detracts from gameplay, though, since the game itself is pretty slow paced.

The music in the game is very subtle, mostly ambient techno with animal sound effects. It seems fitting for the areas, however. There is a particularly odd techno number which plays on the DNA screen.

If you play Seventh Cross all of the way through, the quest is pretty lengthy, it probably took me 25+ hours. There are a few separate endings you can get, as well as a few hidden bosses to fight throughout the game. Also, it will take you quite some time to acquire every body part, as you will be spending loads of time killing creatures until your experience points max out, and then heading off to the DNA screen to input sequences.

If any of the above sounds appealing, give Seventh Cross a try. It can most likely be found for about 9.99, if not less. It's quirky and original, and worth a look.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/27/03