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Waste of time and money

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: April 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game has gorgeous graphics... and that's all. What's wrong?

1. You have very little control over your character. You can't do anything but walk for the longest time. Once you finally get a knife, you have very simple attacks - L1 for left attack, R1 for right attack. yawn.

2. You can't read the damn messages because they are in font size 2. And I couldn't find a setting for this. If your TV is less than 50" you are going to have problems. Plus, important messages (like how to fight) pop up at inopportune times (in the middle of the fight) in the small font size so you end up missing them entirely.

3. No clear concept of what the hell you're supposed to do next. Nothing. You can press triangle and talk to the other main character. For this action you will get a simple one line "hint" and spend the next 15 minutes wandering around, waiting to stumble into the right place so the computer will take over and show you another cinema.

I feel bad for the development team on this game... obviously they spent a lot of time and money on the graphics but they overlooked the basics that make a game enjoyable, hell even playable. Rent this one, don't buy it. After renting you won't --want-- to buy it.

If you want to play a game that delivers on the promises of this one -- dark, gothic, kick ... graphics and environments, awesome fighting -- go buy Soul Reaver (1 or 2, both are excellent, but the first was more enjoyable.) This game does not live up to the hype. It doesn't even meet minimal expectations for a video game.

Don't buy this game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 8
Date: April 09, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I was very disapointed in this game. I bought it and was excited but found out fast that it wasn't at all what I thought it would be. You have hardly any control over your charactor. You can't jump or climb, the computer does it all!! You can only move your charactor(s) and when you get to the right spot the computer moves them for you. The fighting ... to, had some cool moves but nothing to write home about. I was very saddened for the graphics where great and so is the story but I like action and being able to explore with my charactor.

Clunky clunky clunky

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 6
Date: January 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The combat system in this game is sad, slow and clunky. In a the modern age of better, more smooth combat systems, this one is depressingly bad. I can typically tough it out for an interesting storyline, but I had to put this one down. Definitely not recommended.

What crack were you smoking when you thought this game was good?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: June 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game after reading all of the reviews on here. I thought, wow, super, this game will be awesome. I played it for an hour and was bored....maybe this just isn't the type of game for me. Maybe I should have given it another try. Maybe it really is horrible. All I have to say is rent it. Save your money. Don't be stupid like me.

glitch galore

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: January 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I was really having fun with this game. The graphics are pretty good and it kept me going, trying to figure out where to go and what to do. It gets sort of tedious after awhile having to go back and forth and fighting is sort of dull, but I did enjoy playing it. I started running into glitches once I got into the second world. I hade to restart once because for some reason I got stuck in some "nowhere zone" with no way out. Then right after I fight the boss and save, I go to the top of this tower where only the other character "scree" can get to. The only problem is, I cannot select him no matter what I do. So needless to say, I've come all this way for nothing so I am very disapointed indeed.

Primal: A watered-down Kain

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: May 29, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Folks, if you were going to purchase Primal to fill that adventure/exploration gap in your PS2 life, save your time and money. While Primal did add some interesting twists on explorative/gothic gameplay, it still falls short of being a title worthy of hard earned cash. Interesting and often beautiful environments are a plus here... but the figthing system is lame and repetitve, and the puzzles hardly merit mention. There is no sense of addictive fun or excitement in Primal. - The stop and start brawls with easy-to-kill monsters gets old really fast. This game is mostly comprised of clever cut-scenes and too much walking around. ...

Good graphics and characters, crummy gameplay

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: September 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

In this game you play as Jen, a heavy metal girl who's boyfriend has been kidnapped and taken to the "demon realms". Jen is taken to these realms by Scree, a gargoyle, and told that she must restore order to the realms in order to save her boyfriend. There are four of these realms, and the graphics are very good, the environments are very creative, and there's a lot of exploring to do.

The first realm is mostly a forest at night, though there is also a city, coliseum, underground caverns, etc. I didn't care for this realm too much, it's very maze-like and I spent the whole time having no idea where I was supposed to go or what I was supposed to do when I got there. The second realm is underwater, and you'll spend the whole time swimming. It's also very tough to navigate as you have to go from place to place and it's a big puzzle as far as how to get there. At least the mission was straightforward, you have to achieve a number of objectives one after another. The third realm was by far my favorite, you travel through an incredibly gloomy village and eventually wind up in a marvelous castle. It was worth it for the scenery alone. The fourth realm was so-so, it's a bunch of underground volcanic caverns and you'll spend a lot of time trying to get from one place to another. The challenge in this level is fun though.

Probably the biggest problem with the game is the combat - it's the most basic button mashing imaginable. Just press R2, over and over and over. By the end of the final boss battle I though the middle finger on my right hand was going to fall off. You basically get one weapon on each level and use it throughout, so there's absolutely no strategy when it comes to combat. Though to be fair, in the third realm you could run away from your enemies, then get a powerup from your gargoyle pal, kill one enemy, get another powerup, repeat until they're all dead.

The story is another problem - you start out trying to save your boyfriend, but spend the whole game trying to restore order to the demon realms, which doesn't seem to have much to do with the original story setup, and left me feeling totally uninvolved. They should have just ditched all the boyfriend stuff and instead come up with a different setup that would have made more sense and been more relevant.

Overall, good graphics and characters, lots of (often frustrating) exploring, and repetitive combat. It's a pretty game and some portions of it are certainly quite fun to play, but overall the bad outweighs the good.

If you don't fall asleep...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

So, I'd heard both good and bad things about Primal. I bought a really cheap copy so I wouldn't waste too much money, just to be safe, but to tell you the truth, I wish I hadn't spent that $3 bucks.

Yes, the graphics are pretty good, if nothing new; and yes, it is very tempting to parade around as a little midget gargoyle dude, but it's just not worth the first 45 minutes of the game.

It is so incredibly boring to start out with, I'd recommend it to anyone with insomnia or other serious sleeping disorder. 10 minutes in and you'll be fast asleep. If you can, through some miracle or act of witchcraft, stay awake long enough for the game to pick up slightly, you're still not out of the not-so-proverbial woods. Very, very slowly, almost like watching grass grow, you'll notice some increased action/excitement, but just when it starts to get mediocre, it's over.

Despite the Yawn factor, the midget a la gargoyle makes the game. Hell, I could have done without the girl all together. Most of their banter is forced, and you just want to shout at the screen "Gee, thanks Mr. and Mrs. Obvious!". However, if you get into that special place where you are very easily entertained, play it for the sole purpose of watching a bit of "Waddling Gargoyle Walk."

lame

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: February 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

game tries to be "cool" but falls way flat. the main girl voice actor is incredibly annoying, its the first time i ever skipped cut scenes i hadnt seen before. her dialog is just so lame, they tried sooo hard to make this game "hip", but ended up being about as hip as my grandmother doing the macarena

Just not enough action...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 11
Date: April 13, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I was glad that I rented this game first before going out and buying it.With a name like "Primal",you'd think there would be alot of action,fighting and gorey moves(like BloodRayne). Alas, this is first and foremost a puzzle solving game.While there is fighting later on in the game(after solving three or four puzzels)it is not very fun.Using the shoulder buttons I thought was a bad idea,and the battles get very tedious.

The story however is very good and a diffrent take on the whole

good vs. evil plot;Order and Chaos needing eachother for everything to exist.Both Jen and Scree were very cool characters that made for a funny team.On the flip side though,I never really cared what would happen to her rocker boyfriend "Lewis" (stupid name;maybe they did it on purpose?).I guess I'm sexist,
but I've never really liked games were the girl has to find/rescue the guy.

The graphics are top notch beautiful,and look very life-like.
Bonus points went out to this game for voice acting with both Jen and Scree.I was shocked to learn that Hudson Leick did the voice of Jen,(actress who played Callisto on Xena) which was a nice suprise.And while I don't know the name of the actor who voiced Scree,I'm pretty sure it was the same person who did the voice of Vorador in Blood Omen 2.

The game's soundtrack however failed miserably;mainly because there was hardly any music at all.The only music that is played is during the battles;and after the battle ends,so does the music...returning to complete silence.That might not be a bad alternative however since the battle music is Lewis's rockin' pop metal garbage.(I just don't like him)

To end,this is a game you should definatly rent first.While it has some great suprises for a puzzle game fan,it is FAR from the best action game you could play.

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