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By Contributing Writer Jimmy Payne Rating: Average Time Stalkers is the best Dreamcast RPG yet, beating out the not-so- stiff competition of Evolution and Elemental Gimmick Gear. Like Evolution, Time Stalkers never had much of a chance to be great thanks to its repetitive design and generic story. Time Stalkers' graphics are crisp and colorful, but the characters are rendered very poorly. For example, some of them look downright goofy in the face, especially the main character. There's nothing like a goofy- looking hero to ruin the mood in an RPG. The environments would look excellent if they weren't plagued by pop-up and jagged edges. The developers of Time Stalkers did a good job with the graphics overall, but it doesn't seem like they really pushed the power of the Dreamcast. The story gets off to a good start, but it goes downhill after the first half-hour or so. Basically, you're in a fantasy world that people go to when they run away or get lost, and you have to save this world from evil. It's not the most Earth-shattering premise, but it leaves the door open for many possibilities, none of which are ever explored in the game. Instead, the game involves running around a bunch of dungeons that appear out of nowhere, as well as meeting new party members who help you in your undefined cause. The evil force that you're supposed to overcome doesn't show up until you're 75% through the game, and even then it's not very threatening. Plus, the bosses that you fight in the dungeons aren't even connected with this higher evil, which makes the story seem even more contrived than it already is. The bosses are usually just angry beasts like dragons that you fight for no real reason other than to exit a dungeon and move on to the next one. The dungeons are randomly-generated like Evolution's, but thankfully they're not just straight hallways with wallpaper in them. The walls in Time Stalkers are actually textured and don't look so plain. Some people think that having randomly-generated dungeons adds to the replay value of RPGs, but I've never been one of those people. To me, they just make the dungeons have no personality because they're so generic, as opposed to the often skillfully-designed dungeons of games like Final Fantasy 7 and Chrono Trigger. It's also unrealistic for the same cave to have a completely different lay-out every time you go through it. If you happen to die before you can exit a dungeon, you lose all of the items you found. If you found a really cool sword, that's just too bad because chances are it won't be there the next time through. You also lose all the spells you've learned and all the leveling-up you've done. At least when you're getting into repetitive battle after repetitive battle in most other RPGs, you know it's for your own good in the long run because your levels will be higher. Time Stalkers' standard battles are actually pretty fun because they're quick and painless. The game is similar to Chrono Trigger in that you don't switch to a completely different screen for battles; you just move into position and start fighting. Time Stalkers also gives you the option of capturing monsters during battles. You can release these monsters later in order to help you out in a tough battle. Unlike the standard battles, the boss battles in Time Stalkers are poorly-designed. The main strategy for most of the boss battles is to simply hit the boss with your best attack repeatedly. There are very few healing items in the dungeons, so often times you won't have anything to heal yourself with and all you're left to do is attack and hope for good luck. The thing that determines if you'll have an easy time beating a boss is not your skill, but how many healing fruits are created in the randomly- generated dungeons. The poor story line and randomly-generated dungeons prevent this game from being the first good Dreamcast RPG. You might want to rent Time Stalkers if the Dreamcast is your only system, but you'll need an insane amount of patience and willpower to sit through the entire game. Send your thoughts on this review to jimmy@mastergamer.com
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