Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

Kaloes wrote:Lunar Silver Star Story (LSSS and LSSSC) is a game most people don't know about. Now if you grew up in the NES - PS1 days then you would know what I'm talking about when i mention Lunar. But for the majority of people who have grown up on the PS2 era and are only interested in graphics rather then storyline this game I believe falls in the category of games no one knows. Its such a shame that newer gamers cannot understand the greatness of sprite based games.

Tsunami wrote:Around a month or so ago, I went through some roms and stumbled across E.V.O.: Search for Eden. It's an RPG that is very unique in many aspects (from my experience, anyways). You play the role of an organism going through the journey of life (quite literally) as the world evolves around you. And, as the theory of evolution goes, you start off as a fish and the theme of the game is "survival of the fittest". So, in other words, you eat the other fishes/weaker creatures and gain EVO points.

Here's where it gets interesting on how they handle it.

You don't level in this game. Instead, you gain EVO points from eating meat left behind and when you have enough points, you can go to the menu and spend the points on upgrading a part of your body. You can increase body size, get stronger jaws for more attack, get an upgrade on fins... I really liked this feature, and the development is completely up to you as far as evolving anything goes. You can also save/record your forms and reuse them later when you find green crystals, however the time is limited and you will eventually revert back.

I'll be brief on gameplay. It's a side-scroller (think Mario...and yes, you can jump on enemies if you wish it ) and you can attack through various means (depending on what you are), like biting, ramming, kicking, etc.. Defeat another animal and you get food (meat) which restores health and awards you EVO points. Enemies do respawn. Each chapter has a number of areas that you need to clear/pass through, and it is linear. There are bosses, too (IE the first boss is a shark). If you die, you lose half of your EVO points, so saving your progress would be a good idea.

There are five chapters in this game, each respectively having its own theme: Fish (ocean), Amphibians (part desert, some vegetation), Reptiles (land is tropical in appearance), Mammals (ice age), More Mammals (the world is now separated into the continents and lush with forests and the like). While the final chapter also has mammals, their role is much stronger than in the previous chapter. In each chapter, you are given a new body, though in chapter four you can choose to become a mammal or stay as a reptile.

It's a really fun game and has high replay value since you can try different evolutions and combinations. ^_^

Has anyone else heard of this game or tried it before?

MrKite wrote:One game I know of that most people have never heard of is a game by Capcom called Dynasty Wars that was released in 1989, which is based on Hiroshi Motomiya's Tenchi wo Kurau manga, which is set during the Romance of the Three Kingdoms period in ancient China. It was also the first Capcom game that gave you multiple characters to choose from. Also has a great soundtrack by Manami Matsumae, who did part of the music for Mega Man and Mega Man 2. And I'm no expert in arcade collecting, but I never see this game show up on ebay. All I ever see is the kit instruction manual. How many kits did they make of this game? 5? Anyway, yeah, it's a good game. It also didn't get many home ports. There was a japanese only version for the PC Engine released in 1994, and the only english home versions were for home computers like the ZX Spectrum, the Amstrad CPC and the Commodore 64.