"A lousy Zelda clone"

FOREWORD:
Yes, I did write a walkthrough to this game, and spent quite a bit of time on it. If you're wondering why I write a walkthrough to a game I give a 4/10 to, here's my excuse: BOREDOM

GAMEPLAY: 5/10
The conrols for this game couldn't have been simpler to learn. Why? Because there are so few things you can do! Illusion of Gaia is one of the few Super Nintendo games that only uses two of the 4 buttons on the controller. The special moves you perform are repetative and boring. In fact, most of the special abilities need to be used on the level you learn them at, and never again. The game itself isn't really that difficult, since most enemies can be defeated just by blocking their shots, walking up to them, and slashing away.


GRAPHICS: 5/10
One thing that sort of gets to me is how every single person in this game seems to stand up straight in the most robotically stiff posture I've ever seen. It's like running around in a world where everyone looks like Al Gore. One thing this game really could have used is some translucency to spice up its boring spell effects. The game's one graphical saving grace is its boss graphics, which aren't terrible, but definately could use some work. Overall, this game is stuck somewhere between incredibly cartoonish graphics and world-made-of-plastic graphics.

One of the things that I really disliked was the complete lack of a money or experience system. You simply get stronger as you progress through the game, which makes the game very linear.


AUDIO: 3/10
Not very well composed music, just the typical background needed for an RPG. The actual sound effects aren't very good, even by Super Nintendo standards. It's as if someone took the standard RPG sound set and muffled it for reasons beyond my comprehension.


STORY: 2/10
Here's where it all dies. The NPCs in this game are the most uninvolving one-dimensional characters I've ever seen. In fact, most of the characters are disposable anyways. Even the framework for the story is weak. A comet heading for Earth is going to be stopped by a boy who has telekinetic powers and slays his villains with a FLUTE? Oh, please!

The story is also infested with ''boredom points'' (Adrift, anyone?) which do little to progress the storyline while consuming massive amounts of my gaming time. It seems like Enix wanted this to be a ''long game'' so they just stretched out the cutscenes.

Also, my biggest complaint of all about this game: The ending sequence was TERRIBLE!


REPLAY VALUE: 5/10
Well, there are only two real purposes to replay this game. One is the standard replay reason, and that's improving your character beyond what you did the time before. The other is the lame little side quest called ''Find The Red Jewels.'' What are Red Jewels? 50 items, which are hidden in some of the least (and sometimes most) obvious places you could possibly imagine. What's your reward for collecting 50 Red Jewels? You get to fight a boss for no reward. Yay!


BUYING ADVICE: Unless you're a real sucker for Zelda clones, stay away
Hey, it was fun for the first half, and after that, it just started getting really repetative. Once I hit the end, I really began wondering why I spent so much time on this game.

If you want to play a good game, try Terranigma, the sequel to Illusion of Gaia.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 08/31/00, Updated 08/31/00