Evergrace

"Could Have Been Great, But a Few Flaws Keep It From That"

I made a deal with my friend to each buy a game then let each other borrow the other. He got Zone of The Enders and I received this, I think he got the best out of it. It started out a fun and generally enjoyable game. But as time went on I just wanted to get through it for the sake of beating and finally being done with it. This may be one of those love/hate games.

Story: 7/10

It’s hard to remember since there wasn’t much to begin with. It starts out with our hero (Darius) or heroine (Sharline) getting mysteriously transported to some strange new world. Now they must save this world from some evil that you really don’t know about until quite a bit into the game, in the beginning you are searching for a way back to your own world. It’s somewhat difficult to grasp the story, since they never go too in depth about it, but as far as I know you must stop the evil scientist Morpheus from doing something sinister, it has something to do with his human experiments. Darius has a crest on his right hand and people fear it as bringing tragedy, this adds a little bit more depth to the story.

You just travel around occasionally meeting a person who’ll say some small piece of info. to help you on your way through the area or give a little bit of history about the world. The only time when you actually learn something about the towns, people, and just about anything else is from the loading screens that give you a little piece of info. that is basically useless and gives you mere moments to read all of it, so you’ll either have to read it fast or hope it comes up again in another load screen. Another thing, they spelled one of the towns wrong in one of the load screens! There is practically no interaction whatsoever in this game. Some characters are just thrown in there for no reason at all.

Gameplay: 8/10

Nothing to great, but it is simple to get the hang of and easy to use. The battles are a bit like Zelda, but not as much to it. Most of the weapons you have consist of two attacks, a horizontal and a vertical slash, whose attack strength rely a lot on how hard you hit the X button. Magic works bit differently and is referred to as “Palmira Actions”. You do not acquire it, but rather it is gained by upgrading your armor. For palmira actions to work, you have to be wearing the particular piece of armor that has the palmira action. An aspect unique to this game is the “dress-up” system. Depending on what you wear, your defense and offense will be higher or lower for some parts.

This is a “you walk around by yourself through the whole game” type of game, there are no allies. The enemies can be easy; die in a few hits with the right weapon and attribute, or frustrating; enemies that can knock you ridiculously far when there just happens to be cliff for you to instantly fall off of and die. The puzzles in the game are repetitive, mostly involving changing your equipment around just to get through to another area. Most gamers will find this tedious and boring. One thing I found a bit strange is that you can to the hidden, extremely tough and frustrating, dungeon right at the start of the game!

Graphics and Sound: 8/10

The graphics are actually not too bad, nothing to rigid or shaky. The backgrounds look nicely done for the most part but at times can seem rather bland. The character designs are ok, they’re much different from one another and seem to be well done. The music is ok but not too memorable, you won’t be humming a tune from the game while on a walk or anything. The voices are good, they fit the characters and their appearance very well. But some of the dialogue does not match with that of the text, this happens frequently. Other than that, everything’s fine in this area.

Replayability: 6/10

If you want to see the true ending then you’ll have to go through the game with both characters. But if you’re a masochist you might want to torture yourself through another round of play for the hell of it. It seemed fun at first, but eventually you just wanted to beat the game and be done with it.

Evergrace 2 has been announced and is said to be a lot different in terms of gameplay than this one. Though the name has been changed to “Forever Kingdom” last I heard. I highly suggest you rent it first to see for yourself whether you like it or not.

Overall: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/12/01, Updated 08/12/01