"This game is tedious. Tedious, but fun."

So you are looking around your favorite rental store, uncertain of what you want to rental. Then, your eyes are fixed upon a game called Evolution Worlds. Is it worth the rental? Well, yeah. It is. But just the rental.

Story: 5/10
In the beginning, the story is not very compelling at all and the character development suffers greatly.

The game begins in a period where your current civilization is finding old, valuable relics from the prehistoric civilization (you find advanced stuff from long ago). Among these treasures are Cyframes, this game’s form of weapons and abilities. The prehistoric civilization was far more advanced than the current one, so anything you can find that is still in working order is considered a great find. Thusly, a museum created the Society to get adventurers to give up all their relics in exchange for cash. Adventuring is a profession, as well. Using a Cyframe (prehistoric machine that is still in working order), these adventurers scour ruins, searching high and low for anything of worth so that they may sell it to the Society.

You are Mag Launcher, an adventurer from Pannam Town. It turns out that the Launcher family owes a lot of money and it is your job (through adventuring) to remedy the debt. Meh, it’s enough to get you started. Along the way, you’ll find out your father accumulated his debt by trying to find the legendary Cyframe, Evolutia. However, seeing as your father isn’t around, you’ll start trying to find Evolutia as well. Another ‘you’ve got to the find the kickass relic before the evil empire does’ story. Mag is full of energy and enthusiasm and wonderful stuff like that. Typical main character and leader, he is willing to take on anything with confidence, but suffers from being the naïve pacifist and overall complete dummy, otherwise known as Ash Ketchum syndrome. Still, they could have done a lot worse.

Thankfully, there’s Linear. Linear Cannon (yes, these kinds of names are present throughout the entire game) is the only character with decent character development. She starts off as a timid girl of few words. Very few words. However, she does not pull the silent protagonist bit in the whole game. She turned up on the Launcher family’s doorstep three years ago and, after a while, grew quite accustomed to Mag and she now follows him everywhere. Linear is the most enthralling character of the bunch.

Gre Nade is the Launchers’ butler. He acts very butler-like throughout the game and is mostly interested in clearing the Launcher debt. He basically has no character development, but Ubi did well on giving Gre the role as butler.

Chain Gun is a hotheaded adventurer. She enters the game by stealing the treasure Mag and Linear were about to claim. She seems to have feelings for Mag. And she’s hot tempered. Yeah, I never used her much.

Pepper Box fills the role of over-cocky blonde slut woman. Who carries a big gun. And sounds exactly like Mai from Yu-Gi-Oh. Yep… I mean, I bet she does have some sort of background, but when you rent games you generally don’t get an instruction booklet.

Carcano is the last of your little band of go-getters. You’ll meet him as a bandit. However, he turns a new leaf in your second meeting. Carcano is the second character to get character development, albeit, it is not much at all.

Graphics: 6/10
Apparently, this game is a compilation of two other DC games. I wouldn’t know for sure. Anyway, the graphics are… I don’t know… decent I guess. I mean, they are not breath-taking by any means, but they don’t suck either. Character-wise, they are well done. They are bright and quite detailed. The ruins and mazes, however, are not. They are drab, bland, and repetitive. Add the fact that some levels have 20+ floors and you’ll want to shoot yourself in the foot.

Monsters are not as good as you would wish, either. They are all relatively simply drawn and about half are color changes from other enemies. Bosses are massive, yet, they too, are quite plain in comparison to other bosses in RPGs. The last boss is more ugly than intimidating. That being said, it could have been a lot worse. A lot.

Special effects, however, do not suck. They are extremely well done and there are a lot of them. The first couple moves are simple punch-punch combos, but later ones (such as Mag’s last few Hammer and Fist abilities) are extremely satisfying to watch over and over again.

Towns have the necessary town-feel, with boxes and barrels strewn about clutteredly. One thing I really hated, though, is healing out of battle. A four second glow fills the screen with each recovery. Bleh. The closest thing to a world map in this game is downright ugly. You don’t use it often though, so it’s no biggie. A nice thing is that Mag and company’s mouths actually move when they’re talking. And it’s done well, too. The FMVs aren’t all that impressive to me. Aside from the main ones (you’ll know which ones), they aren’t really that interesting. But that is looking a gift horse in the teeth- they are done well. I also liked the camera angles and the close-up view. The biggest thing that hurt this score, though, are the dungeon textures, simply because they make up so much of the game.

Control: 9.5/10
Nothing much to write here. The controls are quick and responsive. You can use either the Stick or the Pad. Navigating menus is also easy. Point and click basically. It lost a point because in towns, some places are seemingly open, but an invisible is there. Annoying to say the least.

Gameplay: 8/10
It is your basic turn based RPG with some added effects to make it stand out. First off, Cyframe users have no set abilities- they all come from the slots you find, with each different slot having a unique set of abilities. Non-Cyframe users have a fixed set of five different groups of abilities. Confusing? Slightly. You’ll get used to it. Now comes the effort of learning your abilities. After every battle, you’ll gain TP, which is what you’ll use to ‘buy’ your abilities. Simple, no? You can even learn your moves during battle.

In most RPGs you’ll have a casting time before your special move will be executed. Not in Evolution Worlds. See, there’s a little bar showing which fighter will get to move next and if your Agility is high enough, you’ll go twice before a monster can even move. However, if you use your special move, you’ll lose some agility and the monster might get multiple attacks on you.

There’s also ‘Talents’ which are also character specific. For example, Linear’s can make a weak enemy run away in combat and Pepper’s is an all or nothing heavy damage attack on one enemy. They aren’t real useful, though, since you can only use them once per battle and they need to ‘regenerate,’ meaning you can’t use them for a certain amount of battles. Bleh.

Overall, it all boils down to your basic turn based system, but it really does not feel like it. At times of extended play, it will get tedious and you will start dreading battles. You will start getting frustrated with the game after you reach the 11th floor and still no boss. This is normal.

Challenge: 4/10
Yep, hardly any. The only times you’ll have trouble is when you are under leveled in the final floors of the last dungeon and the last two bosses. Simple leveling will solve that. Aside from that, the game is pretty easy. I mean, you could easily save your TP to place into one skill such as Fist and get the All enemy attack with does 3000 to all. And given that your FP (equal to MP in FFs) regenerates, you won’t need to worry about running out.

Buy or Rent?: Rent
Oh, rent it. By far. Aside from beating the game in 20 hours, you could try to get every appraisal item, but that is hardly worth your effort. Only required for perfectionists. But that does not mean you shouldn’t pick it up; it is a very fun game, much like Lost Kingdoms. However, its length plagues it. It is just too short. But it is definitely worth renting.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/18/03, Updated 01/18/03