Hard Edge (ハードエッジ?), titled T.R.A.G.: Tactical Rescue Assault Group - Mission of Mercy in North America, is an action-adventure game for the PlayStation developed by SunSoft and published on December 3, 1998 in Japan. It was also released later in North America on March 31, 1999 and in Europe on May 20, 1999. As a member of T.R.A.G. (a police squad) the player must infiltrate the Togusa building, which has been taken over by terrorists, and attempt to take it back, as well as rescuing Prof. Kevin Howard, an important scientist who is a hostage of the terrorists. The gameplay is somewhat similar to that of Resident Evil, with 3D characters moving across pre-rendered backgrounds most of the time. There are 4 playable characters, each with a unique ability and also a different fighting style:
- Alex, is a member of T.R.A.G. who is able to use night vision goggles and fights using his pistol.
- Michelle is Alex's comrade, who fights with a knife.
- Rachel Howard is Professor Howard's daughter, who fights with tonfa batons. Her small size allows her to get in tight places.
- Burns Byford is a local detective who was searching for one of the terrorists, Gasshu. He fights with his fists. His strength allows him to move heavy objects that the other characters cannot.
Each character can be switched with another one almost anytime; in fact, if the characters are split into 2 teams, the player is able to explore 2 areas separately as well. It's notable that there aren't new weapons to be picked during the main game; instead those are obtained only as unlockables after the game's completion.
Famous quotes containing the words hard and/or edge:
“Do not human beings have a hard service on earth, and are not their days like the days of a laborer? Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like laborers who look for their wages, so I am allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery are apportioned to me.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 7:1-3.
“It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)