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In case you don't know, Dark Savior is a action/role playing game. Other than the use of hit points and text-type speach to other characters I'd say this is mostly an action game. The storyline puts you, Garian, and a sidekick bird, Jack, on a boat as part of a special bounty hunter crew to transport the murderous, Bilan, to Jailer's Island. You guessed it. Bilan kills everyone on the boat, except you and one other guy, and escapes. Only to swim to Jailer's Island anyway! This is just the playable opening! Your boat makes it to Jailer's Island on auto-pilot and you start your quest to recapture Bilan.

I have to admit, I was pretty excited about playing Dark Savior. I did get a scare from a review I read on the internet about the import version the day before I bought my U.S. copy. The reviewer criticized the control and fighting sequences. I do agree that moving in only "four" directions is a little simple for a 32 bit game, however, the level designs fit the controls perfectly. If you've played any 3/4 view game, then you know how frustrating the controls can be because you are constantly moving diagonally. Pressing diagonal to progress through levels is not natural and you get tempted to turn the controler to compensate. That's why I believe that Climax opted to limit movement to just "diagonal only". This way, depending on wether you are left,right or no brained you can push right or up-right to move diagonally up-right. The fighting sequences do deserve some criticism. There are things you fight that don't follow these guidlines but for the most part fighting is as follows: You meet a fightable character and you are put into a unique Street Fighter-esque sequence. You stay in the 3/4 view but are limited to only a one line of fighting feild, so, movement is only forward and backward. I have been able to go left or right to sidestep a charging opponent only to be "snapped back" onto that same fighting line. That's the bad news. The good news is that the fights are in real time-meaning that you don't select attacks from a menu, you press an attack button like in older fighting games-and you can jump, charge, special attack and capture opponents. Capturing opponents is cool because you can let them fight for you in future battles with you controling their movements. Gameplay, on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give it 7.

Graphically, this game is smooth! Your character walks quickly and smoothly through levels and you can even run if you're really impatient or need to make a far jump. The colors are vibrant and the details are excellent. I'm really impressed with the lack of any apparent loading. Levels just quickly fade to black and quickly fade back up with the next scene. I've read that Climax used polygons for the backgrounds and sprites for the characters. I feel that more game makers should try this method. Graphics, on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give it a 8.5.

Musically, it's pretty good and it fits the game well. There are variations-a-plenty in the constantly present music which keeps it from getting old and monotonous. The sound effects work good also. Nothing fantastical, nothing terrible. On a scale of 1 to 10, it gets a 8. It's a shame that no Saturn game, to date, makes full use of that Yamaha sound chip.

Complaints, the camera. It has to be manually moved to be able to see hidden areas and doesn't quite move far enough. It rotates left, right, up and down. It zooms in and out. Just not far enough! It would have been way cooler if you could be able to rotate the camera freely 360 degrees around Garian and were able to temporarily lock the camera in position. Maybe they were going for a "realistic" effect as to what Garian could actually see? I'd also change the fighting sequences. If you want to go the Street Fighter way? Then do it all the way. Make it 2D side view and some kind of cool, generic background. Maybe they were afraid of harsh criticism from the "3D only" crowd?

Overall, this game is still worth buying. It is very original, challenging but not hard, and quite long. If you have doubts, rent it. Try it for more than five minutes. It takes that long for the controls to become natural and to even get to the first fight sequence. On a scale of 1 to 10, overall score gets a 8.5 with originality bonus.