The first year of the GameCube’s launch in Europe was a busy time for NGC Magazine. Not only were they trying to review games as they were released in the USA, but also re-reviewing games for their European releases and had expanded into handheld games. As a result, some games that got a PAL release ended up being overlooked by the magazine, as there simply wasn’t enough space in the pages. The only reference I could find was in the March 2003 issue, where Evolution Worlds was listed as due out in March.
Evolution Worlds is a remaster of two Dreamcast games combined into one game: Evolution: The World of Sacred Device and its sequel, Evolution 2: Far Off Promise. The game now features voice acting and a bit of visual flair, although the first game has been heavily shortened so things move along very rapidly, with the finale kicking in before you really know the characters. It revolves around a mysterious girl, Linear, who gets kidnapped by Prince Andrew ..wait, I mean the extremely creepy Prince Eugenie, who creeps on the young Linear in a sexual way.
The dungeons are in the style of roguelike such as Mystery Dungeon – large, flat random labyrinths where you have to find the next set of stairs while battling enemies you come across. These battles are typical turn based RPG affairs (so, admittedly, I cheated to see more of the game as it’s not my kind of combat system). Despite the simple levels, there’s an immense amount of fog, which is odd as the more complex outdoor areas don’t have any fog. The fog isn’t even removed for any cutscenes that occur within the dungeons.
When you reach the second part of a game, you keep doing the same thing of going into dungeons, except these one’s aren’t randomly generated – although you’d never guess on your first playthrough unless you looked it up elsewhere (such as looking at a guide). They’re all still flat, with traps and enemies dotted about.
Despite this, the story is interesting (it gave me a kind of Mega Man Legends vibe) and there’s a charm to the game that helps to keep you invested throughout.