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Evil Zone Review
After rounding up several of the last Dreamcast games, marked down to a mere 10 bucks a pop, I realized my apparent-destroyed copy of Space Channel 5 was completely defective. Broke. And so then, I was given the unscrupulous task of searching through Meijers after Christmas for a replacement.
To anyone whose never had the chore of digging through after-Christmas "bargains" at a Super Store, you've been graced. The inventory of games was a shadow of it's former self from a week before, giving me about four choices, save Aladdin's and/or The Olsen Twin's Magical Adventure: WWF Warzone, V.I.P., a low-brow kid's RPG, and the remake of Blaster Master. There also remained several miscellaneous war titles, and numerous copies of one particular game with a standard Japanese Anime Babe on it. The Woman CALLED to me. She lured me with her siren's call, and made me read the title "Evil Zone", which I had seen over a million times in the last couple years at the local video store but never bothered to waste a dollar on renting. She made me choose HER that day. Or, actually, I just didn't feel like fetching a rarely-seen Electronics attendant to get "Blaster Master: Blasting Again!" out for me.
Evil Zone is halfway on "standard fighting game", and halfway on "bizzare". Even with the amount of animation in it, I was never able to decipher whether it was based off of a Japanese Anime, because of the oddness it sustains. EZ somehow manages to cling on to every popular Japanese entertainment trend(excluding Mechas, which would kinda defeat the purpose of fighting evenly), leaving Iron Chef the only one not included. Fighting as a demonic chef bent on beating all of the fighters with his magnificant cooking skills and becoming IRON KING of the chefs would have been a bit more interesting, but I won't touch on that. You've got Sentai, Bounty Hunters, Martial Artists who only wear suits, heretic rockstars, and, of course, a big-boobed blond with a sword(a fighting game must). And so you have "Evil Zone".
Graphics. The characters are pixelated, standard PSX polygonal people, and the scenary in the background is regular, bland 3D stages. It was made 2 years ago, and by Titus for that matter, so I'm not scratching that many points off due to those factors. However, the Anime sequences that are shown are done quite well, but are unfortunately rarely seen unless you beat the game or hit "reset" frequently. If the characters looked as good Polygoned as they do animated, it'd be alot more interesting in terms of appearance. 6/10.
 Gameplay. Unlike the typical fighting game, where the sole purpose is to basically kill your friends and get punched in the arm for doing so, EZ manages to make one of those seldom-seen "Story Mode"s that are addictive, as well as interesting. You play through as each character, going through a series of "episodes" for that character's "show". Alright, I said it was fruity. But although you may not admit to it, fruit can sometimes be good for you(this has been a paid LR Announcement from the Federal Government's Bureau of Nutrition!). Most of the shows, however, aren't particuarly interesting, 'less you like hearing advice for the other characters' lives or listening to Big-Boobed Blond Erel talk. The game's Sentai Character, DANZAIVER, has the show of all shows. If you aren't fluent in Geekish, Sentai is basically used to describe shows in the nature of Power Rangers. Y'know, that show you beat up 3rd graders over? Believe it or not, it came from JAPAN, and the variety has been a trend for ages. That's right, the same place that brought that jewel of your's, DRAGON BALL Z! Anyway, as you can imagine, DZ's show is amazing. Or absolutely confusing. Whatever. 7.5/10.
Plot. The box reads as follows: "FIGHTING FOR A REASON! Inhadurca needs to be destroyed. But first you must defeat the 8 other warriors and your own clone. Only then can you face Ihadurca." So obviously, I was a bit tempted to go with Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen's Magical Adventure after reading this statement. Although it may seem a bit narrow, after getting in to EZ it's obvious there's alot more than there appeared to be. Alot more. Actually, I became pretty confused after playing through several of the "shows", but that's remedied by the biographies that appear for each character after "ending the season" for them. More like an "Encyclopedia", it selects the info in a Table of Contents/List sort of way, allowing information to be read easily. Come to think of it, the Extra option IS called "Encyclopedia". Note to self: think ahead. 7/10.
Sound. Ihadurca must have DESTROYED the soundtrack for the game during her reign of terror, as the only music that's heard is during "Episode" synopsises. And foreshadowed at that, as the blaring voice-overs battle it out with the music and sort of phase each other out. So basically, it sounds like the Circus came to town. The Voice Actors can hardly be heard(or rather, can be heard, but not understood due to being overly loud) on my dual speakers with the sound setting on the standard "Stereo" option, so I change it to "mono" and get practically the same results. It'd appear that whoever was in charge of watching the bass level while in the recording booth was either playing the game, or went in to a state of shock after seeing the game. Not that it really matters, as a translated Anime-esque game wouldn't be an Anime-esque game without, what else, poor acting! Some of the vocals aren't terrible, but I wouldn't go so far as to say they're great, either. Danzaiver's "John St. John" frightened my cat. 3.5/10.
Replay Value. When it comes to playing with a friend, the addictiveness couldn't be any higher. But like with the majority of fighting games, once the story's over and everything locked is unlocked, the lonely fun is over. But not if you're looking at Ihurduca. "Someone call the Fire Department, this woman's ON FIRE." 5.5/10.
Final Thought/Overall Rating
Evil Zone is one of those few, random, barely-advertised Playstation games that actually manages to be entertaining. Had someone not DESTROYED my copy beforehand of Space Channel 5, this mildly-enjoyable title might never have reached you. Okay, so it only reached me. And yeah, I'll stop saying DESTROYED. It's a mediocre fighting game, worth the few bucks I threw at the Clam Shell case it was encased in, and that's about it. 6/10.
Pueto wouldn't stop staring at Ihurduca, mentally undressing her barely-clad body with his eyes. He then proceeded to violate my Playstation... Boy, that was one hell of a Kwanzaa!
-Grand Master Dragon
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