The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Moving On.

Now I want you to try and imagine something, as vividly as possible.
Let's say you're running this Sweatshop in Thailand, with about 50 children of about 6 or 7 years old, right? Now one day, you get this big assignment from a Huge Multinational Corporation, and you have to throw all of those kids into a small confined room with some pots and pans, some pieces of string and a couple of bits of wood. Then, by the miracle of Modern Technology, you shake the room around with all its contents, not completely dissimilar to a washing machine, and you record the sound it makes on a Late 1960s Bell & Howell Combination Cassette Recorder/AM-FM Radio. What would you get?

The soundtrack to Evergrace, that's what.

So that's the music part of the review over with, let's look at the rest:

Graphics: Well, I think this was a launch game, or at least it was released very shortly after, so it's nothing to be amazed at, but it does have its peculiar charm.
The indoor environments are very straightforward and boring, only the outside scenes are kinda nice. But in a sense, the simplicity of the graphics is in line with the nature of the game. The entire game itself is very no-nonsense, layed-back and runs at a leisurely pace. I think it's kinda nice to play games every once in a while that don't try to wow you with graphics and special effects and dramatic happenings.

Or indeed, any happenings whatsoever. The story seems to be there, in that you sometimes get cutscenes and dialogue, so there has to be SOMETHING, but I'll be damned if I know.
It's like they tried to make a nice Swiss Cheese, but they only included the holes and forgot about the whole dairy part.

But as I said, I like the way the game comes across. No Drama, no Rush, just you, walking around a bit, solving some puzzles, killing some monsters.
And the puzzles are rather original too. As mentioned before, the game relies heavily on an active Equipment System, and most puzzles in the game are connected to what you are wearing, or indeed, NOT wearing, which is a pretty unique way of dealing with puzzles. It does get old though, and sometimes hints are rather obscure.

But a Review by me wouldn't be a Review by me if there wasn't something to REALLY bitch about, so let me introduce you to the 2 most annoying parts of the game:

1 - Your Equipment deteriorates. Fast. Dark Cloud also had a system where your weapons would run out of Hit Points as you used them, which does make some kind of sense, but not the kind of sense I particularly like to see in my Video Games.
But Evergrace is even worse, because not only your weapons, but also all of your armor deteriorates just with the passing of time alone! If you stand around doing nothing you can watch your Equipment HP just FLY down. Of course it can be mended in shops, and shops are never too far away (they can be accessed through the Save Point Menu, but it's just stupid anyway).
One time, I accidentally made the mistake of leaving the game on while I went to mastur.........uh........donate to charity and when I came back my character had been basically stripped of everything, which cost me a lot of repair money.

But then there is 2 - and this is REALLY insane: We've all played 3D Action RPGs before right? Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Brave Fencer Musashiden, we all know them right? As a rule, this kind of game has Pits, Lava, Rivers etc. to fall into when you're not careful. Then what happens? You lose a smidgeon of health, naturally.
Not so Evergrace. Oh No.
Fall into anything in Evergrace, and you DIE. You DIE like a whiny little Bitch. You DIE and you go to Evergrace HELL, which is almost the same as the Normal Hell only with less polygons and more boring textures. And I think Satan wears a Pumpkin on his head.
And, no, there's no "restart at the beginning of the room" feature either. You DIE like a Raped Maggot and you have to restart from the last point you saved at. The only slight twinkling of light in this Big Black Darkness is that at least, after restarting, you can skip conversations. But that doesn't make up for squat.

I don't need to tell you that this gets TERRIBLY frustrating very very soon. Especially when you have to fight bosses on small platforms (nice one, From Software!), which as a rule are so far away you have to stand on the edge to be able to hit them (and with almost EVERY weapon you use you take a step forward when you swing it) and they are usually so strong they can send you flying with one single hit. Very Nice.

Despite all this, the game is really extremely easy, mainly because money is very easy to make, and you can pretty much buy all of the strongest equipment right at the start of the game.
So, what's the verdict?
Hmmmm...... 7.2

Painstakingly random rating?
Shut up.

No, despite everything, I did find myself enjoying this and I actually WANTED to finish it, but reward is minimal and it doesn't really excell anywhere. Decent enough, but nothing to write home about.

posted by Ingen! @ 11:47 AM