After waiting for years to get a GOOD turn-based RPG, it looks like we've found it in Hybrid Heaven. Sort of a strange Fighting Game/Adventure Game/RPG Hybrid, HH puts you up against Monsters, Aliens, Cyborgs and other Government-created Freaks.

It's based on Futuristic Manhattan gone corrupt. You play as Diaz, a shell of a man who can't seem to remember anything about his life, his friends, or who he is.

Story "Shoot him, kill him!" these words echo through Diaz's mind as though he is controlled by another, as he raises the gun and pulls the trigger. The sound of a gunshot echoes through the tunnels of a New York subway. A secret service agent lies dying while Diaz grips the gun with his memory slipping away with the fading of the echoes. Diaz looks around to see another woman that just happened to be standing close by. Two unknown men in black quickly grab Diaz from behind and haul him deeper into the tunnels of the subway, though Diaz does not recognize them and cannot identify them as friend or foe. Diaz, feeling in danger, breaks free of the two and escapes into the dark tunnels, uncovering a whole underground city deep underneath the sewers of New York. Without any recollection of who he is and how he got there, Diaz cannot find his way back to the surface and stumbles on a race of genetically engineered cloned humans and creatures created by mixing genes into hybrids.

Gameplay The Tekken-like fighting engine worked wonders for Parasite Eve's otherwise weak RPG Elements and I think they could work well with HH. The Battle Sequences are like Tekken yet the Overworld Sections are like a Tomb Raider - Zero Hour Hybrid, which could make a pretty good conversion to the RPG World.

In Battle Mode, there are 3 Special Gauges that show how much Power, Stamina, and Hit Points you have. Hit Points are your life, Stamina depicts how much strength your throws are, and Power shows the amount of damage on move will give.

Graphics The Graphics look pretty promising all in all but they could use a little work. They in no way get close to the graphic quality of Zelda 64 or Castlevania 64, but they do have a similar dark, forboding ring to them that could make it one of the games you play with the sound up high and the lights down low. Anyone who appreciates the New Scary Genre (RE, Deception and the new Silent Hill are noted most for making people scaried) will be in love with Hybrid Heaven.

Outlook Don't call it Metal Gear 64 because it's not. It's more in the vein of a recently cancelled Konami game by the Name of Survivor: Day One. Expect Fighting, Adventuring, and Demolishing Aliens in this hot-looking RPG. Call it the beginning of the N64 RPG Revolution. Call it Hybrid Heaven: RPG Messiah.

Slim Shady