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Dark Savior is an isometric view Action/RPG, considered to be a sequel to Climax's older Genesis title, Landstalker. I never played Landstalker, but since people say this one isn't as good as it was, Landstalker must really have been something, because I'm liking this one!

The gameplay does take a little while to get used to, but once I got it into my head that this was in fact NOT Sonic 3D Blast and I was limited to only four directions (Which isn't really as bad as other people will be quick to make it sound) it all fell into place. You can walk, run, jump, and do big long running jumps in the main levels, as well as push switches and other things with your sword. (You'd think using a sword would break the switches, but it seems to work okay.) Oh, and you can pick up and throw things too. These moves will get you through terrain very quickly, so long as you know what you're doing, and make for some interesting puzzles. The puzzles aren't really very hard, it's just that usually you (Or at least I) won't see for a while and then you'll say "Oh, I feel SO stupid!!!" but that's okay, because you're out of the hellish puzzle and free to go on to more fun things.

Like the combat system! Say what you will about Dark Savior's "Fighting" engine, I know it isn't as deep as it could be, but I think it's really pretty fun. You have two main attacks, determined by how close you are to your opponent, a jumping attack, and a super. There really is a lot of timing involved in it, and if you want to do well you'd better get it down.

The story is not exactly the best story I ever read, but it is presented nicely. I finished all five parallels in 12 hrs 40 mins, (Although that doesn't include time I spent messing around and not saving) so you know it's not so long.. Although I do still need to go back and try a couple things in the first two that would DRASTICALLY change the outcome of them. The fourth and fifth were a little disappointing, because they're over very quickly. The fourth is where your alternate self comes to the island as "Carbon Garian," and the parallel three Garian has to stop him. The fifth is just non-stop fighting, too bad. Also, all the endings are kinda weak. But I haven't seen a really good ending since, say, NiGHTS, so I've learned to expect not so much.

The music, as far as I'm concerned, is fantastic. It fits the mood perfectly, and a lot of it is quite catchy. The 3D engine is very good, and you won't see much, if any, pop-up at all unless you go playing around with the camera in places you probably shouldn't. If you ask me, the camera is more of a bonus than a feature, and it's really handy for solving some of the puzzles and making tricky jumps. So if you go swinging it around for no good reason, you deserve to have your sprites distorted. Since you have 2D sprites on a 3D background, the collision does get a little odd at times, but it works pretty well for the most part. I have heard some mean things said about this game's 2D art, and I'll tell you right now it's not true. The main character is drawn extremely well and animates very smoothy, as do most other characters. Some of them are lacking a little, but certainly not Garian. (I figure the people who don't like it are the ones who don't like hand-drawn art at all, shame on them!)

My only complaint about this game is that it's just too short, but it's worth playing through a few more times, if only for the music. Oh, and some people will also say that it doesn't have enough RPG elements in it.. Well, that's because it's an ACTION/RPG, and in that case RPG takes a back seat to Action. And if you're like me and would rather have a lot of action in your RPG, then this is the stuff.

On my trite and over-used scale of 1-10, this game gets.. A 9!! OOOOOOOOOO!!!