Black/Matrix

"The start of a classic series"

Black/Matrix for the Seaga Saturn is a SLG (simulation game) which was released only in Japan. It has been updated and ported to the Dreamcast and Playstation but the Sega Saturn version was the original. Not many people know of this game which is a shame because it started one of the greatest SLG series ever.

Story - 9/10
The story in B/M has to be one of the most original I have read. Basically, there are angels and demons. They had a war which raged on for 666 days where the demons won. After that demons came to rule and the evilness of God and the angels was preached all over. This made the people born with white angel wings the slaves of the black-winged demons. They aren't allowed to wear any clothes and are basically treated like pets or expendible resources. This idea is nice and refreshing and the idea is put across very clearly and vividly. You can really feel the superiority of the demons in the story and it makes the game quite touching at points.
The story starts with the main character, Abel, awakening from a coma. Abel is a white-winged angel. Beside him is his master, who you get to choose, who is a black-winged demon. They live happily out of town in seclusion. Once you wake up, you spend some time in rehabilitation (a set of mini-games) for a game year then you venture out into the town to see the outside world. You get captured and then your master gets taken somewhere for uttering one of the 7 big sins - love. After you have received your proposal, you get thrown into jail awaiting execution. There you meet some people who join and help you to escape. Then the game unfolds as you try to get your master back.
This really is a nice story and is quite sad at times. Not a lot of these types of story are around these days, companies preferring to have a story of big wars and mass destruction for the "cool" factor.
The story gets a 9 because it is a bit too short in my opinion. Not really a fault of the game really since there is only so much stuff you can fit in a game and it really does not make you burning with desire to know more about some character. A nice story providing you can read Japanese of course.

Gameplay - 7.5/10
This has to be the worst part of the game. The controls are quite appalling. Not unusable but bad enough to make you curse the menus. Luckily, the menus don't provide you with many options so there is no need to wade through a bunch of useless stuff to do something but the basic actions could have been given more priority. The bread and butter actions of movement and attack are hidden under a menu called "action". This is unnecessary in my opinion and it really slows down the fluidity of the system. Things like "item" and "status" are given a top level menu though which really does need some explaining.
The camera can't be rotated like in most SLGs. This doesn't prove to be a problem because the scenery never gets in the way and everything is in full view.
The battles are for the most part pretty choppy. The thinking stages of the computer can sometimes take a while and the character animations are jumpy in some places. At least there are no major pauses or anything but things could be smoother.
Load times are also present. Pre-battle loads take some time and although you get to look at a kind of battle title screen it sometimes gets annoying. There aren't any noticable loads during the battle though which is nice.
The negative points mainly stop there. The rest of the controls are nice and simple with help bars telling you what to do and everything being nice and smooth.
Although there are a lot of negative points listed, these mainly don't affect gameplay too much. You won't miss an attack because you selected the wrong unit or something but you might get mildly annoyed at some of the stranger aspects of the system.

Graphics - 8/10
The graphics in the game are generally quite good. There is a sort of lack of style though. They kind of remind me of your typical PC game. Sort of dull and not really had any design put into them. What makes this a step above PC level though is that there are some things like the battle grounds and the character portraits which show thought and design. The portraits are nice with the usual facial expressions which add to the personality of the characters. The map designs are also nice, capturing the atmosphere well. Everything has a kind of dark medieval/gothic feel about it and it fits nicely with the story's themes.
The various amounts of 3D rendered graphics used are quite bland. They are usually used to display shops and towns in the background. This is where the game looks really bad and it all just seems out of place. This game is pretty old and it is made by a pretty small developer so don't expect any super smooth realistic 3D renders here. Actually reminiscent of PC games a few years ago. I think they should have stuck with 2D drawings to keep things more consistant but I didn't make the game.
The movies are actually pretty good for a Saturn. The intro is a bit (quite... ok, very) choppy but the pixellation usually seen in Saturn 3D movies is not too apparent. The content is a bit iffy, mainly rolling landscapes and the odd shot of a church and stuff but I suppose it is OK.
Now, with all these negative points, why an 8? Well, true, this game has some issues in the graphics but I think that the only bad parts are where the story don't take place such as when navigating the menus and stuff. All the battle and story graphics are quite nice and they get the feel across quite well. Add the character portraits and things become quite good.

Sounds/Music - 4/10
Erm, what happened here? First the good points. The voices and, I suppose, the sound effects. The voices are generally quite good and varied but sometimes they can sound a bit overacted. A prime example would be the intro scene if you select your master as Couregges. Most of the other voices are acceptable and all come across very clearly.
Sound effects are the standard fare but some interesting effects are used. The cancel or "invalid move" effect is pretty interesting. A sort of little demonic chuckle. First time I have heard a sound effect other than the standard bloopy buzzer type effect. Makes a novel change.
Now for the bad stuff. The music. What the hell were the music guys on when they wrote this stuff!? The in-game music is truly appalling. Its a kind of mix of jazz and cheesy pseudo rap with non-descript vocals. First, I hate rap. Absolutely hate. Second, this is badly done rap. You can probably see how much I love this music... The music seems completely out of place in this game. I have no idea how they came up with it. You'd have to be smoking some seriously funky herbs to create this stuff. Well, hats of to the sound guys for actually coming up with the "music" but other than that, 0 points. Funnily enough the music actually sticks in my mind. Not because it is good but because it is so unbeleivably cheesy that it just becomes impossible to not remember it. I think we have all heard songs which are so bad they can't be forgotten.
I gave a 4 purely for the sound effects. Think of it as a nearly full marks for the sound effects and absolutely none for the music.

Replay - 8/10
The replay value is quite high. You have a bunch of different masters to select at the beginning so you can play through a few times with a different master. A secret master is also available. That's about all the replay value the game has to offer though. Should take a while to do all the different combinations though.

Overall
This game is a definite good buy, if you can find it. Apparently it is supposedly a rare game with only a few thousand copies printed. It was printed in 2 runs. The original run and then a later "best" version run. The first run is more desirable although they are both identical contents wise. I actually found 11 copies of the first edition run in the local shopping street. OK, the local shopping street just so happens to be the second largest "electric town" in Japan after Akihabara but at least you know there are copies out there waiting for a new home!
This brings on the question of if you know Japanese. As we all know, Import RPGs and SLGs are not the best value for money when it comes to enjoying a game in a different language. B/M being in one of those categories will therefore need some pretty heavy Japanese skills to understand. I would pass this game up if you don't know Japanese since pretty much all of the game's beauty lies within the story. If you do know Japanese and can look past the less than pristine presentation, I would recommend this game quite strongly. As a game to enjoy, it definitely ranks up there in my best games list.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/30/04