Evergrace is a traditional action/RPG game that suffers because it is one of the first releases for the new PlayStation 2. It is expected to contain high quality graphics and sound, and unfortunately it has neither.

From the sort of cheesy leaves falling at the beginning to the low-budget music that plays behind the action, the game looks as if it was a straight port from the base Playstation. And indeed, rumor has it that this is the case.

The storyline is intriguing. You are one of two characters - Sharline or Darius - giving a nice male-female balance to the game. You explore the polygon world as in most RPGs, looking for enemies to kill and gathering up mushrooms and special items. The terrain itself is on the restrictive side, limiting where you can go and what you can see. Often vital items cannot be seen, and monsters will appear within rocks.

Combat is not very exciting, with slow paced action, really stupid computer moves and limited fighting options. Taking a nod from the Diablo 2 gem system, you can find Palmira gems and add them to your weapons and armor.

Add to that horrendous mouth-matching-words problems (and times the spoken message doesn't match the written one on the screen), cheezy videos, an awful font choice for displaying messages, I'd say to set this one aside and give Final Fantasy IX a try. Even without any porting, that is still the best RPG available for the PS series.

Buy Evergrace at Amazon.com