Perky Goth Jen and her gargoyle companion Scree battle through four elemental realms to restore balance between Order and Chaos. Along the way Jen gains the ability to transform into four demonic forms. Pretty Tropetastic for a single game not in an already established universe.A British counterpart to Ico, Primal is as much or more about experiencing the game's universe and interaction between characters as it is about gameplay. Sometimes it's like a luxuriously animated old-school text adventure. In contrast to Ico's minimalist approach, Primal spared no expense in its presentation production values. Motion capture, BAFTA nominated soundtrack, machine band combat soundtrack, lavish object and character models, luxurious textures, top-quality voice acting, richly imagined worlds, cultures and races, realistic characters with sometimes extravagant amounts of dialog.Developed by SCEE Cambridge, the development team responsible for Medi Evil and its sequel, Primal (2003) is a PS2 exclusive. Even today, it can hold its own against more recent games. It is a single player, two character action/adventure game focusing on Jen, a mortal girl attacked when leaving a nightclub with her boyfriend Lewis, singer in the club's band.The attack leaves Jen and Lewis unconscious in a hospital. A short, dark figure approaches Jen's bed and raises her spirit up out of her body. The figure reveals itself to be a small stone gargoyle named Scree. Scree explains that Jen's body is close to death and she must come with him to the Nexus.The player can control either Jen or Scree, an animated stone gargoyle, as they travel through four fantastic realms to restore the balance between Order, represented by Lady Arella, and Chaos, represented by Abaddon.Controllable Characters
Jen, a snarky Goth girl.
Slim enough to enter spaces too narrow for Scree.
Jen obtains forms with different abilities in the various Realms. One of the forms is an almost unique aquatic form. This permits a full water level, as well as watery paths in later levels.
Jen will do most of the fighting, using only melee attacks, despite the fact that some enemies have ranged attacks. During combat Scree freezes into immobility. If Jen can get clear of combat Scree will loosen up enough to let Jen heal by drawing energy from him.
Scree, a possessed gargoyle statue. Powers include:
Able to walk up some dressed stone walls.
Carry a torch for light and incendiary purposes.
Collect lodestones.
Possess some statues, if he has sufficient lodestones.
Store elemental energy from fountains, energy stones, blobs of energy and enemy corpses.
Jen's Elemental forms are healed by drawing elemental energy from Scree that only he can collect. Her human form is weakest, but regenerates naturally after a short time of not being hit.Notable Voice Actors:
Scree - voiced by Andreas Katsulas, who played G'Kar in Babylon 5 and the one-armed man in the Harrison Ford movie, The Fugitive.
Aborted Arc: Scree grills Jen about her Power Tattoo, saying the symbol is very important, and asking where the designer saw it. While the same symbol is seen all throughout the game, we're never told why it's so important, or what it means.
Actor Allusion - Jen says 'Hold it, Xena!' to a Wraith Guard Captain Valeera before they fight. Hudson Leick, who voiced Jen, played Callisto in Xena: Warrior Princess.
Aliens Speaking English: Enough of the demon tongue is spoken for flavor, sometimes to Jen, but the majority of communication with the races of Oblivion is in English on both sides.
Bridge Logic: A tree bridge in Solumn and a statue bridge in Volca.
Button Mashing: Combat. Sometimes it works great, often it doesn't.
Camera Abuse: You see the raindrops hitting the screen when you look up or into the wind in rainy areas. You also see trails of water running down the screen when surfacing from diving.
CaptainCount Ersatz: Evil Count in a castle what could easily pass for the Carpathian mountains. Gains invulnerability, and perhaps immortality, by feeding off of the blood of poor villagers.
Lampshaded by Jen's "I guess the ol' 'fangs in the neck' trick went out of fashion" when she sees the Blood Machine.
Courtly Love: listen to Scree the first time he describes Lady Arella. Since he's in her service and the only one of the party who can hold a flaming stick, he often carries a torch for her as well.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Scree is really Arella's champion, Abdizur, forced to use a stone gargoyle body he used to escape captivity in Volca. Foreshadowed when Scree possesses a statue of Abdizur to fight Belahzur in the Colosseum in Solum. Arella addresses Scree as Abdizur in the next visit to the Nexus.
Cute Monster Girl: Averted. Though not ugly or overly monstrous, the demon forms are definately not "cute".
Deadly Dodging: The final fight vs Ibliss in Volca. Jen must hide behind the largest lamps so the giant statue would destroy them trying to hit her.
Death Glare: Jen gives one to Scree when he proposes to just walk past her and turn on the switch that will start the turbine and kill Arturo, the Undine engineer. Scree later muses "We can't turn this on without chopping up Arturo. I kill him. Jen kills me. Hmmmm."
Exposition Fairy: Jen can ask Scree for help. In Count Raum's Mansion in Aetha an array of severed heads serve this purpose in a cutscene. In the mansion proper various severed heads randomly hanging around shout advice and encouragement.
Face Heel Turn: Jen, when possessed by King Iblis' Djinn energy. Lewis, presumably possessed by similar means.
Ferai Queen Devena of Solum is actually dead. She's been replaced by a demon magically to imitate her.
King Adaro of Aquis has been transformed into a monster by unfiltered 'normal' water in his world. His queen allows him to sacrifice her to alleviate the problem.
Iblis of Volca pretends not to be the king when he actually is.
Finishing Move: Jen must kill some defeated enemies with a finishing move or they quickly recover some of their health. Weak mooks like the Malkai and lava people are exceptions.
Fire, Ice, Lightning: Jen's Undine form uses lightning attacks. The Djinn form uses flaming blades. The Ferai Realm is permanent night, winter, and snow.
Foreshadowing: Concerning Jen's origin, and Scree's true identity and Lewis involvement are scattered almost liberally.
Friendly Fire Proof: averted. Jen can be hurt by her few allies. Opponents can be hurt by each other. It's even possible to lure one opponent into the line of fire of an opponent with a ranged weapon.
Heroic BSOD: Jen, after Aetha. Scree's pep talk is classic. "Now, my girl, stop that. Right, the best thing to do when things get as bad as this is to look at the facts. Agreed? Good. Fact number one- and top fact on the list- I'm still alive. Agreed? Good. Fact number two... you're still here to take care of me! Thank goodness for facts."
I Shall Taunt You: Jen has a taunt move in combat. It does notthing, but taunt.
Jiggle Physics: Jen, a B-cup at best, has a slight wavy motion on her cleavage when she runs. More of a graphical distortion than actual physics model.
One of the game trailers has a section where she runs toward the camera in a manner designed to show off this 'feature'. So subtle, by modern standards, it took multiple viewings to notice.
Even then the tip off was that the scene had no apparent point, leading to closer examination.
When Jen transforms to/from a beast form, she rises into the air, tilts back, and the camera centers on her torso as she vibrates up and down.
If this happens in an enclosed area the camera may be forced into a rewarding jiggle close-up.
Lampshaded when Jen remarks, "I hate mazes," "Eugh. Mazes suck," on encountering it.
Mister Exposition: Scree at great length the start of the game and each realm. Generally at least two other characters per Realm.
Mobile Maze - There's a switch in the maze that causes it to change. That permits the player to advance to another switch that changes the maze again, but to a much simpler form.
Oh God, Did She Just Hear That?: When Jen sees Chronos for the first time in a Nexus cutscene she says, "Jeez... he's looking at me!" Scree replies "Perhaps he can hear you, too."
Order Versus Chaos: The entire premise of Primal. Arella was the literal personification of order, and is explicitly named to be so. Her polar opposite is Abbadon.
Jen has a "look" mode, where she moves her head around and the camera follows, much like Lara Croft's "look" mode in the Tomb Raider series.
Screen does a forward handstand/legover to move from climbing down a wall to the ground. Lara Croft has a similar special move when climbing over a ledge.
Shown Their Work: Take a look around the Wiki. Many characters and their names have meaning or relate to some other works in the world.
An example would be Queen Aino's namesake, from a Finnish poem about a girl who drowns herself rather than be married to an old man. Aino is introduced by "drowning" herself with air (She's from the underwater realm) as a sacrifice.
This may be partly due to a unique feature of the game. After playing an unlocked cutscene the game continues on from that point.
Take That: at Lara Croft. Wraith Jen breaks a tombstone for 'Laura' Croft with a death year of 2003, The same year both Primal and Angel of Darkness were released. Angel of Darkness is also known for being a major bomb.
Tarot Motifs: The game features a Tarot Card Gallery depicting some concept art pieces of characters from each of the realms.
If Jen runs out of health in human form, the rift gates will open, and you, as Scree, have to get to one to bring Jen back. Just like the Aino mission, there is no visible clock, but you still have to move it, or risk a Game Over.
Voluntary Shape Shifting: Jen, the female main character, can shapeshift into unique monster-like forms.
Walk It Off: In human form Jen regenerates health when not in combat. Fighting in human form also saves Life Gems, which are automatically used when Jen runs out of energy in beast form. So there's a double reason to fight in human form as much as possible.
Wall Crawl: The gargoyle Scree can climb 'any stonework surface.'
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