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Time Stalkers reviewGame: Time StalkersPlatform: Dreamcast Genre: RPG Developer: Climax Entertainment |
Reader review by pestes
Date unavailable Time Stalkers is a phenomenal game with a rich story, interesting characters you feel compassion for and a thunderous score that coincides with the beautiful proceedings. Developer Climax Graphics certainly has Square ducking for cover.That's what I would be saying if it were opposite day.
Truth be told, Time Stalkers is such a pitiful release that I was half tempted to trade it back in the next day for Mortal Kombat Gold.
No Dreamcast game to date, with the exceptions of Soul Calibur and Dead or Alive 2,has been so highly anticipated. Time Stalkers was the first RPG for shown for Sega's new system at the 1998 Tokyo Game Show. Climax, the same guys behind Blue Stinger, promised VMU mini-games, randomly generating dungeons and the possibility of online play. Sadly, while it does sport VMU mini-games and randomly generating dungeons, Time Stalkers is a very poor effort, even compared to other DC RPG's released so far.
The game's story, if you can dig through it to find it, concerns a young jerk-ss named Sword (kind of like Squall but not as cool) who meets a young girl who knows him. But he does not know her, blows her off, and goes into an abandoned tower hoping to find treasure. When he goes in he soon finds he can't get out, and soon ends up in some other world after running through a gloomy, simplistic dungeon in the tower (don't ask). Sword soon finds himself on some sort of island, gets a medallion, and is called some sort of chosen hero. Or whatever. I don't give a damn anymore.
Time Stalkers has a few bright spots but they have nothing to do with the actual game. There are VMU games to be accessed but they are purchased with tokens, which are gold pieces that are transfered. There are a couple mini-games to be found. One is a nifty little first-person effort along the lines of Wizardry or Treasure of the Tarmin. The others I found dealt with raising and strengthening monsters caught in dungeons (more on that in a minute) and gambling games that let you get more tokens. The games are actually more enjoyable than the $50 disc, but one game takes up about 160 pages. (a lot). The other bright spot is the graphics. They're slickly done.
Now onto the bashing! Time Stalkers plays a lot like Evolution, where you have a small town and one randomly-generating dungeon you have to slog through. Level design is simple: it will either be a straight path with 2 dead ends or a windy path with 2 dead ends. It's ungodly boring and repetitive and so very easy. Plus, you get to go through them again when you get to a point where you meat a bizarro bondage bunny that will give you gold for retriving items and/or killing a dragon. Whoopee! (sarcasm off) Once new dungeons are finished the island you are on expands. A new island sort of ''plugs'' into the main one. Every island resembles a different time and place: there's a forest one, a medieval one, a futuristic one, and so-on and so-on. Quite painful. Oh yeah you reset to level 1 at the begining of each new level.
Sword will meet other characters but they never join his party. They all have their own little missions or stories. Your only party members in the monotno-thons are monsters you catch with bottles. Use them in battle, send them out to graze, or download them to a mini-game. Yawn.
That is all I can really say about this coaster of a game. So much potential gone to waste. It hurts.
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