If the gameplay is amazingly weak, the graphics of Primal are just wonderful. It's worth playing this game not because of its gameplay, but because of its amazing visuals.

The realms you'll explore in Primal couldn't have looked better. These demon worlds are incredibly detailed; whether you are exploring ancient ruins in a realm of eternal winter and eternal night or mysterious beaches immersed in the light of a cold sunset, Primal is always able to amaze you, thanks to a meticulous attention to detail and a graphic engine that takes full advantage of the system's potentialities. Textures are very smooth, even on "difficult" surfaces like the trunks of trees and metal, and the engine constantly streams the data off the disk, reducing to a minimum loading times.

It's evident the developers passed months and months designing and realizing the areas of the game, breathing life into them with plenty of perfect special effects. The foliage of the trees gently moves in the peaceful, cold night breeze, burning torches generate photorealistic smoke while the heat distorts the surrounding air, lighting effects create an intricate tissue of moving shadows and dark areas.

Character models are beautiful. They are richly detailed and textured; the main heroes and the creatures of the game are carefully animated so that their bodies are really expressive, and their movements look fluid and realistic.

Not everything is perfect though. First of all, there are many evident collision detection issues. During battles, characters seem to punch the air, and it's not too rare to see Jen's body stuck into a concrete surface. The camera movements are also a bit annoying, mainly because they are a bit too hectic, "sensible" even to the slightest character movement, and there are occasional drops in the framerate. But despite these issues, Primal is simply one of the best looking games on any current gaming system, and also one of the few Playstation 2 titles supporting Widescreen TVs.

A top quality soundtrack supports the great graphics, with a mix of nice original themes performed by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and hard rock songs written by the rock band 16 Volt; while I profoundly hate the kind of supposedly "alternative" hard rock music featured in Primal, it's undeniable that it perfectly fits the atmosphere of the game and its "pop-Goth" aesthetics.

Sound effects are also top-notch, and professional actors were hired for the game. As a result, the dialogues sound good, even if as a whole the script is unoriginal, filled with annoying clichés and predictable lines.

With its linear but vast environments, Primal is a pretty long adventure, with roughly 20 hours needed to complete it the first time. The disk also features a good selection of unlockable extras, including interviews with the voice actors, with 16 Volt, special features on the making of the game, and artworks. Unfortunately, the flat, boring, repetitive gameplay obviously hampers the replay value of Primal.