Evolution Worlds is a role-playing

Role-playing game (video games)

Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...

 video game for the Nintendo GameCube

Nintendo GameCube

The , officially abbreviated to NGC in Japan and GCN in other regions, is a sixth generation video game console released by Nintendo on September 15, 2001 in Japan, November 18, 2001 in North America, May 3, 2002 in Europe, and May 17, 2002 in Australia...

. It was developed by Sting and published by Ubisoft

Ubisoft

Ubisoft Entertainment S.A. is a major French video game publisher and developer, with headquarters in Montreuil, France. The company has a worldwide presence with 25 studios in 17 countries and subsidiaries in 26 countries....

 on December 3, . Evolutions Worlds is a dungeon-crawl game starring a character called Mag Launcher. It was originally two separate games but the two releases are combined and compacted on one GameCube disc.

This game contains an abbreviated version of Evolution: The World of Sacred Device

Evolution: The World of Sacred Device

Evolution: The World of Sacred Device is a console role-playing game for the Dreamcast console. It was developed by Sting and published by Ubisoft in North America and Europe. In Japan it was published by ESP .Evolution is a dungeon crawling game that follows the adventures of Mag Launcher...

, and the full sequel, Evolution 2: Far Off Promise

Evolution 2: Far Off Promise

Evolution 2: Far Off Promise is a console role-playing game for the Dreamcast console. It is a sequel to Evolution: The World of Sacred Device. It was developed by Sting and published by Ubisoft in North America...

, on the same disc. Both games were originally released on the Dreamcast.

Story

The game is set in the year of 930. An ancient civilization had met its demise one thousand years before. Special individuals are able to use Cyframes, ancient tools, which were excavated from the ruins of the ancient civilization. These individuals are known as 'Cyframe users' or 'adventurers,' and are assigned jobs from the Society, a research institute. The adventurers use their Cyframes to explore ruins. Some of the ruins have hieroglyphics that tell of a Cyframe called Evolutia that has tremendous power. Many search for the fabled Evolutia like the Launcher family and even the army.

Major characters

• Mag Launcher: The only offspring of the renowned Launcher family, Mag lives in his parents' mansion west of Pannam Town. His dream is to become as famed and successful an adventurer as his father, Asroc, who was lost while adventuring and never returned. Now, Mag is the only one to lead the family; despite his talent and enthusiasm, the Launcher family has since spiraled into debt.
• Linear Cannon: She is always following Mag around on his adventures. Three years before the events of Evolution Worlds, she appeared at the Launcher home with a letter from Mag's father, which requested that Mag protect her. When she first arived Linear was afraid of everything around her, when Mag gave her an Ocarina she slowly started to feel safer. Linear is habitually shy and silent, only occasionally daring to voice her thoughts, but she wields mysterious healing powers. It is later learned that she is Evolutia, the god of evolution
  Evolution
  Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
  
  . After defeating Eugene, and revealing her true form, she begins to speak, addressing Mag only, and in combat, or when examining objects. Her sentences are still short.
• Gre Nade: He is the Launcher family's butler. He watches over Mag and Linear with a stern eye, charged by Asroc Launcher with their safety. Gre is often strict, but skilled in all respects befitting a butler: he is good with money, a master chef, and in times of battle, an excellent shot with a rifle. Gre takes away no money when chosen for a dungeon.
• Pepper Box: She is a wild adult adventurer with a bazooka
  Bazooka
  Bazooka is the common name for a man-portable recoilless rocket antitank weapon, widely fielded by the U.S. Army. Also referred to as the "Stovepipe", the innovative bazooka was amongst the first-generation of rocket propelled anti-tank weapons used in infantry combat...
  
  -like Cyframe attached to her hip. Pepper is a beautiful and flirtatious young woman who seems to have much experience as an adventurer. Her Cyframe, once sufficiently upgraded, can become extremely powerful. Pepper takes almost half of the prize money when completing a dungeon with her.
• Chain Gun: A young girl whose family has always been rivals with the Launchers. Chain is brash and a little conceited, but she is always willing to help Mag on a trip into the ruins (in no small part because of her secret infatuation with him). The Guns had wanted a male heir to carry on their legacy, and when Chain was born, her parents raised her as something of a tomboy. Chain takes a small portion of the prize money when completing a dungeon with her.
• Carcano: A mysterious but honorable bandit who raids the train Mag and friends are on to Museville. Mag later finds his hideout at Pine Village and defeats him. Near the end of the adventure, impressed with the young Launcher's strength and devotion, he joins Mag to defeat Yurka. Carcano can steal items from enemies, and he wields a devastating and versatile Cyframe that is fashioned after a drill.
• Eugene: Refined and intelligent, Eugene holds unsurpassed military clout as the head of the 8th Imperial Army. He stations his troops in Pannam Town while searching for Evolutia, in hopes of harnessing its power as a source of unlimited energy. Disturbingly enamored with Linear, he eventually captures her, forcing Mag to confront and defeat him.
• Yurka: The evolutia of Destruction, he may also be Linears brother. After visiting her a few times at hotel he convinces Linear to leave Mag under the presumtion that if she stays with Mag he will be in danger. He later combines Linear's power and his own to power a machine called Ulticannon. Linear is brought out of a trance that Yurka put her in by Mag when he plays the Ocarina he gave her. When Linear leaves his jealousy and anger transforms the Ulticannon to a much darker form but is defeated by Mag and his friends.

Note that most of the main characters are named after weapons, such as Gre Nade (Grenade

Grenade

A grenade is a small explosive device that is projected a safe distance away by its user. Soldiers called grenadiers specialize in the use of grenades. The term hand grenade refers any grenade designed to be hand thrown. Grenade Launchers are firearms designed to fire explosive projectile grenades...

) and Linear Cannon

Cannon

A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...

.

Changes

While a re-release of Evolution and Evolution 2, this version has had several changes. The first Evolution had no spoken dialogue, while the sequel featured a Japanese voice track. Evolution Worlds uses newly-recorded English voice acting for both games.

The Linear Watch was removed, due to lack of Dreamcast's portable memory cartridge, Visual Memory Unit. Also, due to limited disc space, the first part (re-release of Evolution) is highly trimmed down, eliminating almost all of its dungeon crawling and condensing the game's entire plot into fewer, but much longer, cutscenes.

Reception