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When the Dreamcast first launched, its lineup was heavy with arcade games. RPG gamers clamored for a lengthy quest, and Ubi Soft attempted to answer the call by bringing over Sting's Evolution: The World of Sacred Device. Evolution centered around the Launcher household, a family of famous adventurers who were seriously in debt. With the aid of butler Gre Nade and friend Linear Cannon, the young Mag Launcher took jobs excavating ruins to uncover treasure to sell in order to pay off his family's debt. Despite the original's shallow story (involving a general's attempts to kidnap a young girl), the game was a nice first attempt by Sting at making a Dreamcast dungeon crawl. Although not exactly the kind of game RPG fans were craving for, Evolution was still the only game in town at the time, leading many people to purchase the game despite the availability of better RPGs elsewhere.
As a big dungeon-exploration fan, I enjoyed the first Evolution and thought it was a charming, if problematic, spin on the old sword and sorcery bit. Now, only seven months later, we have before us Evolution 2: Far Off Promise. Ticketmaster. Considering the quick development of the sequel and the returning cast, players will surely expect more of the same. And that's exactly what they'll get with this sequel. With the recent release of Silver and several "big" Dreamcast RPGs looming in the next few months, Evolution 2 finds itself having to prove itself worthy against a field of stiff competition. Is the new Evolution good enough to entertain RPG fans this time around?
The Good
Most of the old cast is back for more.
Evolution 2 is more evolutionary than revolutionary, as it merely upgrades many
aspects of the original. The graphics are cleaner and a bit more detailed, but
are for the most part the same. Enemies now look better than the cheesy-looking
jointed rats that festered in the first game (and which you can still check
out in E2's fifty level practice dungeon.) There is also a new "behind
the character" view a la Tomb Raider, and, while a nice extra, it is no
where near as versatile and user friendly as the standard overhead perspective.
There are more cut scenes this time around, but like in the original, these
only appear after conquering a dungeon. The main town is somewhat better-developed
this time around, and there's even a second town (of sorts) this time around.
However, the neatest thing about E2 is that the characters actually talk, and
in a move that's sure to impress anime fans across the country, Ubi Soft left
in the Japanese voices and used subtitles. The quality of the translation and
subtitles is wonderful, and no longer must we be forced to endure "Naolin
you have found" and the other grammatical inconsistencies which plagued
the first game.
Other nice touchs include being able to save anywhere outside of a dungeon,
and being able to purchase an Escape Essence which will let your party escape
from most
The simple, straightforward battle system returns from the first game.
any dungeon. However, you'll pay a price if you forget to purchase an Escape
Essence before entering a dungeon, because the exit portals that appeared every
five levels in the original game are no longer present in this sequel.
The battle system is still as quick and user friendly as it was in the original, although several of the characters' more powerful attacks have been neutered drastically. You are still free to take any of three positions on a grid (forward to strengthen your attack power; backward to increase your defense) and you once again regain FP (magic points) every time you attack. Each character has a laundry list of special moves available to utilize, and Cyframe users (characters which attack with ancient weapons attached to their bodies) can swap these weapons with newly found ones as desired. Evolution 2's cast consists of six characters, and those not currently used in your three person party still earn equivalent experience points so that they do not become completely useless later on from earlier neglect.
Lastly, the dungeons are a bit more interactive this time around. Mag can punch pillars and stone blocks to reveal treasure chests or enemies. There are icy, slippery floors and conveyor belts which make the individual dungeons stand out more than they did in the first game, although they're ultimately just window dressing. You're still just traveling down extremely long corridors, entering a large room, and repeating until you find and climb enough sets of stairs to meet up with the boss. Still, at least they tried to inject a little variety into the proceedings.