Yuke’s had recently a significant success on Playstation 2 with their extremely popular Smackdown! Just Bring it, one of the most anticipated releases for Sony’s 128-bit console. A couple of years ago, Yuke’s gave an even more convincing proof of their skills releasing a videogame inspired by Bersek, the violent and artistic anime created by Kentarou Miura. The game was basically a classic beat’em up game, but the strong story, the good character development and the wonderful technical realization made of this title one of the gems for Dreamcast.

Eve Of Extinction, published by Eidos Interactive, is another attempt of the Japanese developer to create a beat’em up game. Eve Of Extinction takes many premises from Berserk, but the final result is a profoundly different game.

The basic rules of the classic beat’em up game are probably three: the main character is in search of his girlfriend or sister; easy and intuitive controls; game levels with a basically linear structure. All in all, we can say that Eve Of Extinction follows these rules, with a touch of originality and innovation that it’s needed in a next-generation game.

The main character is in search of his girlfriend. Yes, this was the story behind Double Dragon, and that’s the story behind Eve Of Extinction too. To be precise, in Eve Of Extinction, the main character is in search of his girlfriend’s body. The soul of the girl has been imprisoned in an ultimate weapon called Eve Of Extinction, a mixture of ancient metals and the human nervous system, by Wisdom Inc.
The Eve Of Extinction can be transformed into many different weapons, and can also offer a constant support to the wielder as a guide in case of uncertainty or difficulty. It can also take shape as a human being, but only as a hologram, a fictitious image. Josh Calloway, this is the name of the main hero, will have to discover the secret plans of Wisdom Inc. trying to have his beloved Eliel back to her “original” – and pretty, I’d say – form. These premises surely offer more than a good starting point for an interesting and original story. Unfortunately, Yuke’s decided to give little attention to the story, focusing their efforts on the game controls and the weapons system. And that’s probably the most evident difference between Eve Of Extinction and Berserk. The Dreamcast’s game was a good Beat’em up, but was also acclaimed by many critics as an extraordinary example of storytelling and character development. In Eve Of Extinction the story unfolds through a bland series of cutscenes and texts that summarize the situation at the beginning of each level. The character development is also insignificant; and that’s bad, because many of the characters you encounter in Eve Of Extinction are extremely well designed.

Anyhow, the Beat’em Up genre is not popular for its unforgettable stories and characters. The key here is a good, solid action experience where only one rule exists: beat them up, as fast as you can. From this point of view, I’ve enjoyed every second I’ve been playing with this game, even though there are many flaws that could have been avoided.

The game is based on the use of the Eve Of Extinction. This weapon – that is also your girlfriend, a strange situation indeed – can be transformed in many different forms thanks to a system called Legacy. At the beginning of the game, only two weapon formats are available: the sword and the rod. Proceeding in the game you will gain new weapon forms by defeating bosses who are wielding a Legacy System like yours. You’ll soon get your hands on the Katar, a weapon with sharp blades that you carry in each hand, and on the Snake Sword, a weapon with “jointed blades that can telescope out”. There are many other amusing weapons you’ll have to find during the game, but you should find them out by yourself. While attacking an enemy, you can rapidly switch from one weapon form to another by simply pressing the L1 or R1 buttons. This will create a combo; many combo moves, like the rod+katar one, are extremely powerful, while others are simply weak.
Each weapon form comes with a special attack called Legacy Drive; this varies from the Lightning Rain of the Rod, the Fire Blast of the Sword, the Aqua Bridge of the Katar, to the Snake Sword’s Chronos Shift, that may be used to stop time for a few seconds. Adding to that, many weapons have a special move assigned to the triangle button. For example, the rod can be used as a pole to jump higher; the Katar lets you perform an amazing backflip. In the same way, the Legacy Drives are necessary to solve the puzzles you’ll find during the game.

While the game concept is surely good, the level design is extremely repetitive and reduces those that were supposed to be puzzles to simple doors that need the Legacy Drive of the latest weapon you’ve gained as a key. I’ll make an example. Just after you’ve obtained the Katar, you find yourself in front of a brazier in which a key is hidden. In order to pick up the key, you need to put out the flame. That’s why you need the Katar’s Legacy Drive that – what a coincidence - is a powerful water-based attack. You have to explore the whole level searching for the gems, called Lay Seeds, necessary to execute the Legacy Drive. After you’ve picked up the key you can proceed in the game, you find a new boss, you gain a new weapon format and once again you find yourself in front of a new puzzle, that requires your latest weapon’s Legacy Drive in order to be solved.

When it comes to battles, Yuke’s did a good work. The controls are finely balanced and the use of the weapons and combo moves is, in a word, addictive. In fact, despite the lack of a strong story, I simply couldn’t stop playing the game just because I was curious to find the next boss and the next weapon. The A.I. of the opponents is decent for an arcade game like Eve Of Extinction, even though the enemies seem sometimes excessively slow and not responsive enough to your actions. In Eve Of Extinction you’ll usually find yourself in front of two or more enemies but the battle can be easily handled by using the target lock button. Boss battles are extremely enjoyable, and while I have found some difficulty in a couple of them, they are usually easy. Occasionally, during the game, special events, like the attack of an hidden enemy or a train coming in your direction, will occur that require you to press timely the button displayed on screen in order to avoid damage. It’s a little addition, but I’ve appreciated it.

The levels structure is usually linear, but Eve Of Extinction inherits some element from classic 3d Action titles like Tomb Raider. Throughout the game, you need to use very often the rod to jump higher; you can grab onto a ledge, buildings, walls and climb up or down on poles. Anyhow, interaction with the environments is very limited; you can jump onto nearly every object in the scenarios and press some button, but nothing more. The game also features a first person mode. Unfortunately, the first person mode becomes mysteriously unavailable all the times you could really need it. It’s annoying to fail a jump just because you were unable to see where you were going to land because of an awkward camera angle and the impossibility to use the first person mode.

Overall, purists of the Beat’em up genre will like the gameplay of Eve Of Extinction. The game is fast, intuitive and the weapon system is addicting. Anyhow, it’s also evident that the game is filled with many good ideas that have been poorly developed and implemented by Yuke’s.