Evergrace

FromSoftware's Evergrace is mostly what one would expect if King's Field went third-person: A deliberate action-RPG built around equipment skills and minimal direction, albeit following two level-based routes with sci-fi traits and a difficult camera instead. Buried in all sorts of comical jank and obtuse puzzles, its few real innovations were more technological than mechanical, but one compelling idea among those combines HP with stamina to dictate attack power regeneration.

Eternal Ring was a dead game from the get go. From Software tried. But the mainstream will never be kind for a first-person full-control dungeon crawler with almost no regards for long cutscenes and character development. It did not help that the experience is just a dumbed down, yet interestingly arranged, Kings Field clone. It just felt off for everyone, except those kind hearts that actually got into the game's bland settings.

The principles for a dungeon crawler experience, however, were there. The exploration existed, the combat followed the norm and the level design was decently labyrinthic; with a whole pinch of washed nothingness. There was something to grab on. I don't know if I could say the same for Evergrace, which is visually a bit more engaging but seems even more disjointed against its competitors.

So, let's get to the best thing Evergrace has to offer: The soundtrack. Kota Hoshino REALLY does a fantastic job at conveying how quirky yet sorrowful the tone is. But you gotta have a taste for it. It's phantasmagoric, whimsy and kind of creepy, as the instruments collide against each other. Not the typical soundtrack of the time at all, and I should say it does sell the game better for weirdos. It's great stuff and I appreciate it.

...That's basically the best concrete feature Evergrace has going for. From here, everything goes downhill. It's such a tasteless dissapointment.

First of, the game's main attraction is the fact you have to play with two separated characters and follow their journeys to a final act, where you have to control both. It's an actually good idea that serves to nothing since, even if there are noticeable changes in both combat and level layout, we're talking about a bad title here. Not a good one. The second main attraction is this carries over the Shadow Tower level up system, where you don't really level up, but your equipment affects your overall stats. Also, you use some items to raise statistics to your liking. It's a cool mechanic, but adds for the weirdness and nothing else, since you don't really sense a progression as strongly as in Shadow Tower. Probably because the game it's not hard at all, but finnicky on how it approaches its user options.

The word that I would use to describe everything is that's just janky. It seems obvious this launch title needed a lot more time to be fleshed out to its full potential. The animations and combat feels stiff from the get go, and not in a slow-paced, strategical way, but just a clunky, too-basic one that you HAVE to dominate - and when you do (which takes like a minute or so) it shows itself. It makes me think of Dark Cloud, were it tries to be this Zelda-type hack-slashing game but the game feel is so barebones it starts to get on the nerves around three hours in. The weapon and equipment options are varied and sometimes bizarre, that's for sure. But once again, the combat is not worth the time to invest in anyway. The camera layout is fucking atrocious too. You don't control the camera with one of the sticks...you have to use the R1 button. It's worse than it reads, actually. And I like my shit obtuse.

But the worst offender for me it's that it never really communicates to you it's gonna be a puzzle-heavy game... because it's really not, until it suddenly wants to. There was never a sense of finding what's beneath around the corner, because everything's pretty handed to you the first rooms, including the Guard Boots -more on that later. But suddenly, in the underground temple, it becomes a tedious riddle of using the right magic against the right door, and aligning some mirrors -the shitty translation job does NOT help with this. By that point of the adventure, I was tightly equipped and killed enemies by 2, maybe 3 hits. Exploring the area seemed awful, and boring... because it was boring already.

Well, I got out with the white door. Somehow I resolved it. I was pretty annoyed by that point -five hours of gameplay- but the shores seemed like a good moment to keep on. Then, I got stuck. Reeaaally stuck. I spent like half an hour looking and searching everywhere (with no loot found other than what enemies dropped, take that into account). It started to really piss me off, and I got into a GameFAQs guide -shoutouts to that relic. And, well... I discovered the real stinger.

To keep going, you have to fight a Royal Guard statue, which does NOT respond to you unless you equip the complete Royal set: chest, helmet and armor. I had two of those things adquired (because they were easily obtainable). The boots, however, were hidden in the fucking underground temple. So you HAD to explore everything - explore the worst part of the game yet. AND, to use the lifts, you have to equip the Guard Boots, which were laughably easy to obtain. If I DIDN'T know that, and got even more tunneled with my progression, I'd get stuck a lot sooner.

And, by that point, taking into account how much shit I had to go through, I decided it was not worth to return, do the whole mirror puzzle again, go to that specific room, kill some easy-as-hell enemies, do the mirror puzzle again and kill the Royal Guard once and for all. Pure boredom, mixed with an aesthetically uninteresting, anime-wannabe art style, terrible dialogue, intriguing yet underdelivered storyline and bland mechanics.

Oh, From Software, you REALLY got a hard time fitting in the RPG library. It's not the worst ARPG game ever, but believe me the only redeemable, legendary quality this has is the official soundtract. Give it a spin, it's magical.

Not even the Shadow Tower dungeon can save this thing. I've seen it, and it's more of the same. What a joke.