Sumptuous graphics and sound; horrible combat controls; poor first "world". The game improves as you progress

User Rating: 6.6 | Primal PS2
By xx-dante-xx | Review Date:
Primal looks and sounds great - the music and the graphics are superb in this updated tomb-raider style combat and puzzles game. I like primal, it's a good game - great idea of having a combat-orientated character and sidekick who is non-combat orientated. However, it's let down badly by its confusing and ineffectual combat control system - there's no chance to practice any special "combinations" shown in the clips/previews, and as such, the most effective combat strategy seems to be hitting right-2 repeatedly and hoping. It's also let down by a poor first "world" that you go to. Puzzles are not obvious at all, in that unless you read a walkthrough, you don't realise there is a puzzle to be solved at all in many cases. There's no repition of any of the puzzles in world 1, so it just turns into a confusing mish-mash of combat and puzzles. Having a "use" option come up automatically would help on either of the characters. World 2 is fine, just a little "light" on content - Yes, swimming is nice, but however good the graphics are, there needs to be something to keep you interested.

World 3 is a horribly hard slug-fest until you get the wraith powers, at which point, the whole game improves right up until the end. After getting the wraith powers, for some reason, the game improves massively - the puzzles seem far more inventive, more obvious, the battles seem more carefully balanced, and on the whole is a MUCH better game from this point onwards.

World 4 is beautiful graphically, wonderfully atmospheric, and excellently balanced - puzzle, combat, puzzle, combat, puzzle, all the way through. Whenever I return to the game, I skip worlds 1-3 and just play world 4 because it is extremely well designed and great fun to play.

Summary: Good game, let down by its combat controls and patchy quality. Rent it first.

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