Far East of Eden - Apocalypse IV

Review by: Richard

The long anticipated sequel to Far East of Eden for the Saturn arrived at my door on Friday. I understand only a few copies made it stateside last week so I thought it might be helpful to give a quick oversight of the first 18 hours.

In a word, fun! Just like the other games in this series, the game is just flat out fun. There haven't been too many rpg's on the new systems that were just plain fun to play. Lots were good looking and "up to snuff" in a technical sense but this one is pretty "low tech" in its graphics. Very beautiful once you get out of Alaska, but not flashy. The Indian villages are all done in primary colors and quite stunning. The outside walk-around is strictly 16 bit but it doesn"t get in the way.

There are all kinds of crazy, loud characters to interact with. There's lots of talking but you can always rush through those parts because the fights are all first person with the enemies animated like a Japanese anime cartoon.

It all takes place in the good old USA so there is a great deal of English especially the towns and locals. You'll recognize San Francisco, Hollywood, Phoenix, Tombstone, etc.

Just as a flavor of the game play, in San Francisco you go out to a foggy pier and take a submarine out to Alcatraz Prison where you make an escape with the help of a wild Chinese inventor.

So it's not flashy graphically, but I can't stop playing. It's so clever and I have played pretty much everything in rpg's in the last 5 years. This is not for the serious or for someone looking for a lot of 32 bit magic but it's a great game. I highly recommend this game for players looking to blow a little fresh air through their gaming brains. I'm currently in a town where everyone is eating themselves to death and you have to wear a fat suit to get into the main house. WILD !

Richard (I have level up and money codes for the Game Shark and PAR if anyone is interested)