Sin and Punishment: Successor of the Earth

"Shine as a gem from all shooting game in N64..."

As everyone might know..., in its short lifetime N64 have many kinds of shooting games like Duke Nukem, Doom, Perfect Dark (and some whole bunch which are not even worth to be mentioned). Creatively & innovative put, Treasure decided to develop another shooting game for N64 in its closing year.

Treasure is presumably know for its unique, yet fun gameplay in the past before N64 console (notably Gunstar Heroes), and it is no different for this game. In a brief description, this game is a Rail Gun 3rd Person Shooter where you control the main character in the screen albeit limited to moving left/right, and a total control on the firing target.

Gameplay: 10
This is where the game have its gold....
You gain control of the firing target with the analog stick on the whole screen, while you also control your character dodging whatever enemies might throw at you with the C-buttons.

In addition, the others button are to shoot and alternatively (when close) to slash and deflect enemies projectiles for large damage, jump (press extra for double jump), and lock-on (press to release again).

Although it is a little bit hard to master all the control at first, for N64 player the control will be easily mastered in no time (especially those who were of Doom fans).

Graphic: 9
The graphic used for the stage it not too shabby compared to all others existing 3D games while it is not the best either (as treasure rarely make 3D games...), the character design itself is all on 3D with nice effort as Treasure themselves rarely made a 3D style game.

Story: 9
The story is given out in somewhat complex style more or less..., in the future Japan where humanity prosperous, some researcher did some experiment for humanity benefit, but the experiment went wrong and produced mutated beast called "Ruffians". Confused and covered in fear, civilian seek government help and raise many riots throughout the country.

To counter this, the government formed a group to surpass all the Ruffians called "Armed Volunteers", and also along with the humanity who rebel against the government.

Those who oppose the government's way rebelled, formed a group called themselves "Saviour Group" led by a holy woman Achi.

The main characters, Saki & Airen from the Saviour Group itself, will be the one player controlled throughout the game. Facing both Ruffians and Armed Volunteers, and eventually the enemy that seek to destroy the earth.

Sound: 9
The game is just so fun that I rarely pay attention to the game music..., however the music itself matched the game just fine and the theme against most bosses are quite nice too.

They are also English dub (with Japanese sub) for this game, which is why I can grasp the little story above, and with that being stated, you should have no problem listening to the progress of the story, as the dub itself wasn't so bad.

Overall: 9
This game is really one of a kind by Treasure, however due to late publish near the end of the short N64 era (in which they're totally owned by Playstation), the game *is* only available in Japanese version (as this review written) and the only way to acquire it is to import the game....., legally.

Of course, you can always try your luck surfing & searching for the Emulator & Rom throughout the Internet (the emulator itself is not so rare, the game though could be a problem as the release of the game is also limited...., have fun searching and good luck).

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/08/07