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:
“A strange age of the world this, when empires, kingdoms, and republics come a-begging to a private man’s door, and utter their complaints at his elbow! I cannot take up a newspaper but I find that some wretched government or other, hard pushed and on its last legs, is interceding with me, the reader, to vote for it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Americans see history as a straight line and themselves standing at the cutting edge of it as representatives for all mankind. They believe in the future as if it were a religion; they believe that there is nothing they cannot accomplish, that solutions wait somewhere for all problems, like brides.”
—Frances Fitzgerald (b. 1940)