Ghost Lion

"Simple effort with a decent result"

The story of this game is simple and to the point: The lead is a girl lost in a fantasy world, with only clues and a few items to point her in the direction out. Nothing complicated here; just traveling from point A to point B and then to point C and so on.

Combat is nothing new, although I can say without hyperbole that it features the most impressively annoying battle music I've ever heard in my entire life. However, seeing as how if you play this game it almost has to be via emulation, you can mute it easy.

The ''hey, look what we came up with'' tag on this game is a simple summon system. Various items you can collect throughout the game will bring forth various warriors to stand by your side and fight with you. That's a very good thing, considering that the young girl is, well, just a young girl wandering through a world where everything seems to want to eat her. If one of your summoned buddies falls, you can call him right back up; they, unlike the girl, can't really die. You can also summon as many of them as you need, and that combined with how many you can eventually accumulate throughout the game leads to you never being outgunned when you choose not to be.

Maybe this was a classic back in the day. Maybe it was highly anticipated and touted. I doubt it. Even with old games with new ideas that have, by now, been done to death, you can tell that they did it first, and have fun with the simplicity. This just feels like a simple lack of effort to me. More things could have been done, and I'm not talking graphically. The plot is lacking. The battle sequences are lacking. The whole thing screams, ''We didn't do everything we could have for this game.'' It's like a couple of guys thought one day, ''Hey, that whole video game making thing sounds easy. I bet we could make one better than the big companies! It'll be a snap!'' They came up with some ideas and started working away, and then realized how not easy it is to make a game at all, let alone a good one. So, they just ran through everything, cutting any chance for real joy along with the corners, and threw it on the shelves. You can see the good ideas in this game trapped behind the lack of craftsmanship that went into this production. It's honestly too bad.

This is the kind of game that you play on a rainy weekend if you have no friends. Otherwise, there are more worthwhile things to do.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 12/31/03