Evolution Worlds (EW) is a Nintendo game developed by Sting, which must have
something in common with Sony. Why Sony? Because by all rights this game should
have been called “My First Role Playing Game” akin to the “My First Sony” line
of products. (OK that little analogy, while true, was mostly because I wanted to
get a Sony and Nintendo conspiracy theory started!)
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| Unleashing a freezing tempest. |
I really liked the Sega Dreamcast and thought it got a raw deal. The
Dreamcast had some of the most innovative and fun games around and years after
its untimely death some of those same games are being ported over to the new
consoles. You have Sonic over on the GameBoy Advance, Jet Set Radio for the Xbox
and the 2K series on everything. Yet sometimes some lesser quality games also
sneak over and get reborn. That’s the case for Evolution Worlds. EW is basically
two old Dreamcast games spun into one. The original games, Evolution: The World
of Sacred Device and Evolution 2: Far off Promise, were not the best RPGs on the
Dreamcast but they weren’t the worse either.
Evolution Worlds is a cute role-playing game and one that can introduce
younger players to the genre without smothering them with the sometimes
overwhelming complexity of more mature RPGs. You play as young Mag Launcher of
the famous Launcher family. Unfortunately it seems that after many generations
of successfully producing world-class adventurers the Launchers have fallen on
hard times. But our main man Mag is all about restoring the family name and will
do so with a little help from his friends. Joining Mag at different parts of the
game are his butler Gre Nade (work with the name for a second, you’ll get it…),
his girlfriend Linear Cannon, who showed up at his door one day with a note from
his Dad saying take care of her and several others including the daughter of his
family rival, Chain Gun and the strangely sexy Pepper Box. (Say, where do they
come up with these names anyway? Is there some special school you can go to?)
You can pick who you want to join you on different adventures. Hey, who hasn’t
wanted to throw down against a bunch of nasty beasts with their butler by their
side?
The story is rather…uh, missing I guess would be the best word. Unlike most
RPG there isn’t a giant Evil about to destroy the world that only you can stop.
Instead you are sent on special jobs to different dungeons by “The Society” to
hunt for artifacts of a long vanished ancient advanced civilization. Some of the
artifacts are known as Cyframes and both Mag and Chain have one to aid in their
explorations. Mag’s Cyframe is called the Airacomet and it’s basically a really
big hand that he wears over his back. There are special attacks that the Cyframe
can do in battles but I really expected it to play a bigger part in the game.
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