Dark Rift

"Don't make my mistake"

Let me kick off this review with a story you will probably find amusing - when it first came out, I convinced my parents to buy me this game despite it being forty pounds, saying "all the reviews I've seen say this is great!" As soon as I got home, I ran upstairs, shoved the cartridge in and prepared to be blown away. Around a quarter of an hour later, I took it out and put it on the shelf, where it stayed for most of it's life. Even as young as I was, I still recognised when a game absolutely stunk. Let's go through the areas.

Graphics - This is the one area I will admit it was good, even in the warm glow and comfy chair of hindsight. The backgrounds were excellently defined, the moves were well animated and the characters were great, particularly Morphix - down to being made of fire or ice, depending on which "costume" you chose for him - and Aaron, the soldier. I wouldn't have minded some interactivity with the arenas, or even movement going on in the background, but those concepts were still a while off, I admit. Compared to some games like Mario 64 or Pilotwings, the graphics don't look particularly special, but they're not half bad. 7/10.

Sound - Speaking of bad, meet the sound. The music, both in the menus and during fights, is generic at best while the sound effects are just poor. You should hear the swing of a giant axe clashing against the shield and sword, but in reality all you get is a badly-recorded clanking sound. I can't honestly give this an average score, but it's not bad enough to warrant something really low. 3/10

Gameplay - Absolutely shocking is the best way to describe this. The characters would probably get overtaken by a tortoise because they shuffle a couple of inches every second with the control pad held fully down, and using the C Buttons exclusively for the attacks and blocks is just strange. Worse, having an unbreakable throw on the B Button makes no sense at all, and may well be the cause of some tantrums if you ever feel evil enough to force your friends to play this game with you (warning: they may well not be your friends for long after this). 1/10, and I wish I could give it less.

Replay Value - You get Tournament, Training and Versus mode. You will likely play through Tournament once or twice and never again, and Versus very few times. I think I'e said all I need to here. 1/10.

Overall - Since the N64 is long past it's time in the sun, it's unlikely you'll play this ever unless you bought it once and decided to play it again to see if it was really as bad as you remember. For that, you can thank someone or something somewhere for that, as it is not something I would willingly play unless someone put a gun to my head and forced me to choose between this or Superman 64. 2/10, unless you like your games to be terrible, then make that 9/10.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 07/10/06