Dark Savior (Sega Saturn, 1996)

I only started playing this yesterday but I bought it because it was relatively cheap. From the few hours I have spent playing it, the story goes like this:

You play the role of Garian, a notorious bounty hunter given the task of escorting an equally notorious body-snatching monster known as Bilan to Jailor's island aboard a huge prison transport ship. Bilan is sentenced to execution by carbon freeze, but the monster escapes en route killing nearly everyone on the ship. You awaken from a nightmare by alarm sirens during the carnage into a reality just as nightmarish. Your companion Jack who is a talking bird, oddly enough, also awakens from the same dream in which Bilan escaped. And now, it seems events are repeating themselves. In your inventory you find a mysterious blue rose absent before you departed that when smelt evokes vague memories. Hunting Bilan becomes your primary concern, however, so you start following the trail of corpses. Dark Savior is separated into five parallel stories. You select one depending on how quickly you get to the captain's cabin on board the ill-fated prison transport ship.

It seems to be an RPG with a few interesting elements like 1-on-1 fighting games. Maybe they were going for action-RPG that we would find better executed in later games instead of turn-based which is incorporated into this game also. But comparing the two would be apples and oranges. The graphics have a certain quality that while looking dated (naturally) is really appealing and if retro ever comes back in a bigger than it has of recent, they could re-do this game in HD for XBLA in the same vein of Guardian Heroes or Radiant Silvergun and it would still be very entertaining. You will find better RPG's on the Saturn but for what they were trying here, it does succeed on many levels and is very enjoyable (well, for as much as I have played). Your character handles well and it is not linear (sort of) as you do you have 5 stories to play but each of those stories are linear.

I only give this 4 stars because there are other better games that I would give 5 stars. And I need to show that while there aren't many faults that I can point at this early stage, there are simply better games even if the comparisons aren't really fair. Highly Recommended.

Dark Savior is a good role-playing game, though the control problems make this game difficult to wholeheartedly recommend. The fighting game aspect is an interesting feature, but it isn't done nearly as well as it could or should have been.