Evergrace

Evergrace features two main characters, Darius the swordsman and Sharline the homemaker, with two distinct storylines and battle techniques. The game allows players to switch between characters at any save point, and uses an experience system dependent on items and equipment rather than statistical upgrades. Another feature is the Palmira Action System which allows players to improve the physical abilities of their characters by combining specialized crystals with their armaments.

Evergrace also features a bonus dungeon that is named after Shadow Tower, another game by FromSoftware, a company often known for including past game references in their games. The Moonlight Sword, for example, a weapon that originated in their flagship series, King's Field, also appears in Evergrace as well as its follow-up, Forever Kingdom.

The continent of Edinbury once held the largest and most powerful empire of all time: the Rieubane Empire. This empire was primarily ruled by Morpheus, a powerful magician, and his servants and clients. Morpheus became devoted to studying the Crest, a series of markings on one's hand, and are considered cursed due to the misfortunes that happen to the Crestbearers. Morpheus was fascinated with the Crest and performed several experiments, thus creating the powerful Palmira Armaments and the man-made AI Crest.

After capturing a renegade soldier who had the Crest, Morpheus ordered the Empire to invade Toledo, a nearby independent village in the Billiana forest, because they worshiped the Crest and were supposedly a threat to the balance of Rieubane. The Empire would never have agreed with Morpheus if they knew his real reason for invading the Toledans: simply to acquire more test subjects. In the end, the Empire effortlessly crushed Toledo, but as the flames grew higher, the Rieubane Empire, Toledo and the Human Research Lab suddenly and completely disappeared. People came to call Rieubane "the Lost Kingdom", and the land became overgrown with Billiana Trees.

EverGrace was developed by FromSoftware and led by producer Masanori Takeuchi. The developer intended Evergrace to be released onto the PlayStation 2 (PS2) in its earliest stages of production. However, with these plans in place, the development team decided to try creating a version for the original PlayStation (PS1). About 50% of the PS1 version's assets including all its music had been completed before it was ultimately cancelled.

Despite the PS1 version performing well in the company's quality assurance meetings, many staff members questioned if the project should just transition to Sony's new console. When the decision was made to move the project to the PS2, the programming, modeling, animation, textures, and soundtrack all had to be redone from scratch. As the new console had yet to be released itself and the developer lacked an understanding of its power, development consisted largely of trial-and-error. Takeuchi claimed that many of the ideas the team had could not be realized on the PS1 hardware.

EverGrace received "mixed" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. IGN praised the game for its innovations, including its full use of the DualShock controller buttons and the unique "paper doll" system in which the player's avatar actually wears the armor and clothing assigned to it. GameSpot criticized the game for its dated visuals and laggy gameplay during battles. Steven Frost of NextGen said, "EverGrace's 32-bit beginnings really hurt its ability to provide a true next-generation experience.

Only die-hard RPG fans will have the patience and persistence to finish this adventure." In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of two sevens, one eight, and one six for a total of 28 out of 40.