Evolution Worlds

"It could have been better!"

After owning a Gamecube for a while now I was anticipating a nice RPG release other than the Legend of Zelda. Well I came across Evolution Worlds, it may have temporarily ended the drought for RPGs on the system but it never did quench my thirst. After reading a little more into Evolution Worlds I come to find out its a port from the now deceased Dreamcast system. This should have been my first indication that it may not be very good. Another indication is the only RPG on Dreamcast that had people ramping and raving about was Skies of Arcadia. After 30 hours of Evolution Worlds I've finally accept the fact that Evolutions Worlds is a good example of what NOT to do with an RPG.

It all begins in the Pannam town, you play the hero Mag Launcher. Who is a descendant from the famous Launcher family who is renowned for its famous adventurers. Mag's father disappeared on an adventure three years ago in search of Evolutia, the legendary Cyframe. The only remaining trace of him is a mysterious girl who shows up at Mags doorstep with a letter from his father that reads ''Mag, Protect Linear''. Mag heads off on adventures with Linear in hopes of finding Evolutia and hopefully his father. Gre, Mag's butler who has been taking care of the Launcher family for years becomes concerned about Mags behavior. Since the disappearance of Mags father the estate of Launcher family has fallen into ruins and money trouble. The Society Museum offers help and gets Mag some adventures that helps with repaying his debt. With the help from a friend named Chain, Mag, Linear, and Gre set off in hope of restoring the Launcher name, estate, and debts.

The only decent thing about the graphics are the characters and monsters. The character models are highly detailed and very well crafted and have a cartoony feel to them. The monsters are also very original, have plenty of detail, and lots of frames of animation. Which adds to the atmosphere of the game but does not significantly affect the overall impact upon the player. The environments make me think of ....... Dark Cloud for the PS2, since most dungeons are randomly generated floors. Don't get this twisted because Evolution Worlds does not have enough detail to it! There is basically nothing other than walls and every once in a while the programmers will throw in a pillar here or there. The dungeon environments have about four different designs and pretty much stick with those and just change the color for the next dungeon. The special attacks don't really have any pizzazz to them and are down right crappy. Their animations are extremely short and are too childish for its own good, I mean you can only crush someone with a hammer in so many ways before you run out of ways to smash someone with a hammer.

The gameplay is atrocious! The gameplay is like the A-bomb over Hiroshima. First off it should have never been done, secondly it was devastating. The load times on this game will make you want to tear your hair out! Every battle, especially the first one takes anywhere between two to five seconds to load. An event takes place, hold onto your seat because you will get another load time. After finishing a battle prepare yourself to have another two to three second load time. The battle system is that of a typical turned based RPG. You get your regular attacks, your special moves, and that about covers this mediocre battle system. Secondly this game is a dungeon crawl. There are plenty of dungeons to be explored and some have as many as fifty floors. In all honesty I have nothing against a dungeon crawl its just that when slapped together with bad environments, horrible load times, and a mediocre battle system it really makes this game is a stinker.

There is very little music in the game and most of the tunes are right on the mark. They present a nice feel and help keep the up beat atmosphere of a town or dungeon. There really is no tune that will stick with you after you turn the game off but at least it isn't an earsore to listen to. The voice overs are pretty good and help keep the fun childish atmosphere to it. Most of the voices seem like they keep using the same person over and over except they sound like a they come from a different background.

There is very little replayability to this game. That is if you really would want to play this game ever again. Once you finish this game it unlocks a new game+. The main objective of it is to pay off Mags debt of 300,000 dinales. Which means the Society Museum has you running errands for them left and right. Which means YAY, more dungeon crawl and you thought you had enough.

My advice is if there is another game on your list, look into that game. Evolution Worlds is a bad game that didn't sell well on the Dreamcast system and tried its hand at making a few dollars on the Gamecube console. If you can steer clear of this game and buy yourself a greatest hits or at least something you know is good.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 01/22/04