The viewpoint in Evergrace is third-person, as opposed to Eternal Ring's first-person viewpoint. This makes for a few nice things, such as the ability to see what your character is wearing -- something that too few RPGs do. But it also makes for a few really irritating situations. For example, one of the main characters (Sharline) primarily uses ranged weapons, but the viewpoint rarely shows what you need it to. It's even worse in small, enclosed spaces like rooms. This gets very, very irritating. The graphics themselves are pretty nice, with detailed characters and somewhat detailed monsters, but it's not going to knock your socks off.

The same thing goes for the sound. The sound effects and music are weak and forgettable, and nothing you'll be remembering post-game. The voice acting, on the other hand, is actually pretty solid, but the game's translation has some truly awful lines, so you'll hear the actors stumbling over silly things because they're just not meant to be said. It reminds me of some of the more annoying parts of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, whose only weakness was its bad voice-acting. The voices are better in Evergrace, but not by much.

Unlike Symphony of the Night, however, Evergrace doesn't quite have the mad gameplay to make up for the weak voices. Although it has a few very cool ideas, the execution of the game in general comes off as half-baked, and in the end, the game just isn't as enjoyable as it should have been.

You take the role of both Darius and Sharline, two people thrown into a world not their own and trying to get back. When you walk up to the giant, blue Crystals that are scattered around the gameworld, you're given the option to switch between the two characters and go to a shop. The character's stories are separate, even though they take place in the same world, and it's interesting to see how things that happen in one affect the other.

But there's just not enough here to warrant the time spent on the game. Darius uses close-up attacks, while Sharline concentrates on ranged attacks. Your characters don't gain stats in the traditional sense, instead becoming stronger by equipping different weapons and armor. As previously noted, your character's equipment is actually reflected in their appearance, which is a nice feature. And dressing appropriately may save you some money in the store, which is a cool feature too. It's Evergrace's one claim to fame, and while it's certainly cool, it doesn't quite make up for the problems with the game.

Besides the aforementioned camera issues, I had a few times where creatures appeared in the ground where I was walking. I couldn't hit them, but they could hit me, and I died trying to get past them. Argh.

And the translation... well, it sucks. There are typos everywhere. When you switch characters, you'll switch to "Daruis" instead of "Darius." A typo on such a commonly-used command like that hurts. The text of the game itself has its share of typos as well, and the changing spelling of "Palmira" (Palmila, whatever) also makes for some confusing points. Knowing that "r" and "l" are homophones in Japanese may help those of us who know a little bit about said culture, but the average gamer would be lost.

And the gameplay just isn't that hot. Some of the special abilities are cool, and the game itself is mildly entertaining, but it's basically King's Field with a different perspective, and Eternal Ring does that better.

Some of the boss fights are near impossible, but it's more because of the wonky camera and interface than any fault of the enemies themselves. The game itself is relatively easy, barring some difficult fights, and the puzzles are never particularly brain-busting. Fighting with the controls will prove more difficult than anything the game will ever throw at you.

Well, From finally discovered the Analog Sticks, and they actually work quite well. If you use the Dual Shock 2, the game also supports the analog buttons, letting you attack at different strengths. Unfortunately, there's not much of a point to this -- it's rarely beneficial to attack with anything other than maximum strength -- so I found myself using my trusty Dual Shock 1 instead. The menus are pretty clear and understandable, although I would have appreciated it if the shop's menus were geared a little more towards comparison.

In the end, Evergrace is merely a mediocre RPG experience. While it tries to do a few cool things, it ends up feeling more lukewarm than red hot, and the evil camera ends up hindering the game a lot more than it should have. If they had stuck with a first-person perspective, a la Eternal Ring or the King's Field games, it would have been a better game; as it is, you should probably only get Evergrace if you're an RPG completist, or if you simply must experience a third-person RPG.