Evil Twin: Cypriens Chronicles Preview

Evil Twin’s influences are immediately apparent; walking through the levels you’ll see the eccentricity of Tim Burton, the influences of Lewis Carroll, contemporary comic strips and black & white horror movies. <br /> <br /> Both Burton and Carroll would have been proud with the storyline that In Utero have devised, you play a little lad named Cyprien, who must combat his worst childhood fears and enter a world that swings between good and bad. <br /> <br /> Evil Twin takes you in search of your inner self and fears, a journey back to an age when things really did go bump in the night and evil was apparent. It’s Cyprien’s birthday, which coincides with the anniversary of his parent’s death, driven by anger Cyprien finds himself trapped in a twisted parallel world, created by his own disillusioned ideas and visions, the world of Undabed. <br /> <br /> The first thing that will impress you is the standard of the graphics. The dreamcast has had its fair share of good lookers and it’s looking like adding another feather to that cap. <br /> <br /> In Utero’s graphic engine (Phoenix 3D from 4X Technolgies) allows for levels bursting with detail, varied textures that aren’t reused from one world to the next, and a clever particle system that produces some of the best explosions and magical effects that I’ve ever seen. I can’t quite put my finger on why it looks so good, maybe it’s the dark burton-esque style used throughout, the hyper detailed textures (of which there’s 576 Mb of uncompressed data worth), the rock steady frame rate, the special effects such as the spectacular lighting when you change to Cyprien’s alter ego Super Cyprien… suffice to say Evil Twin will impress anybody. <br /> <br /> The gameplay is traditional action-adventure fare, brimmed to the top with puzzles and combat. The creators cite Mario 64 and Zelda alongside Tim Burton as major influences and this comes out in the gameplay, there still some work to be done on the controls, at present they just don’t feel right when compared to the likes of Rayman and Mario, however we were assured this is being addressed. <br /> <br /> The game contains 8 worlds which are split into 76 levels, populating these levels are some of the most imaginatively designed characters you’ll ever meet, there are 100 NPC within the game, of which 76 you can interact with. Couple the large levels with the fairly steep learning difficulty and we should have a game that’s going to last, definitely a good point what with the barren outlook for dreamcast releases.