Sword of Vermilion

"Middle of the road RPG"

Anticipation for Sega's RPG ''The Sword of Vermillion'' was high following the sucess of Phantasy Star 2. When it first came out, it carried a hefty price tag of $79.99 but people were willing to pay that kind of money for a game as great as PS 2. The only problem was SOV fell short of being a great RPG.

Graphics=8.7 SOV had very sharp looking graphics, from the detailed medievel villages to the huge, grusome boss monsters. These graphics were the pre-cursor of those to be used in Phantasy Star 3 ( which did not fair well either.) A visually impressive title at the time.

Gameplay=6.8 This is where SOV floundered. It was much slower than PS 2 and the battle system was one of real-time action combat. You only controlled one character, which is fine in concept, but he grew very slowly. As with most RPG's you get better armor, weapons, and the like.

Sound=6.0 Nothing really special about it. The sounds were your staple slash and hack, cling and clang. In retrospect, they are better than many Sega Genesis games.

Challenge=7.4 The packaged hint book may have made the game a little bit too easy, as it was more of a walkthrough than anythign else. Even still, the game play is pretty linear and straight forward, with not too many challenging variations from normal RPG themes.

Overall=6.4 Sov was a decent game, but with the HUGE price tag on it, it was a bit of a foolish investment. If you can pick it up at Funcoland with the book, it is a good game to add to your collection.

Sega seemed to rush both Sword of Vermillion and Phantasy Star 3 to fill in the gap of missing RPG's for the Genesis. In general, sports and wrestling games will keep a steady income of come-and-go fans, but RPG's and adventure games nail down the core audience of more dedicated gamers. At the time people were willing to put down the big bucks because they expected a lot from the new systems, and while the games were ok, they couldn't hold a candle to the Final Fantasy series or the Breath of Fire games on the NES.-
SOV is worth checking out though-

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/01/00, Updated 02/01/00