CLASSIC GAMING
E.V.O: Search for Eden
Developer:  Almanic
Publisher:  Enix
Year:  1993
Genre:  RPG
System:  SNES

As some of you may remember, I reviewed Spore and considered it a great game.  It seems most or practically all of you did not share my sentiments and I was blinded by childish dreams.  For that I apologise for letting myself be so distracted, so to make up for it I have discovered a lesser-known spiritual predecessor of Spore which while not as open should be certainly remembered more for its originality.
A game that Intelligent Design forgot.

Story - Around 10 billion years ago, the solar system was created, and the Sun had several children, one of whom was Gaia, who would be blessed with a child called Life.  A child who would have to endure a gruelling journey across 4.6 billion years to even begin to reach a lifeform larger than an amoeba.  Gaia speaks to this child to continue the journey of life itself so that her and it can reach the paradise that is Eden as her immortal partner, an intriguing blend of Creationism and Evolution combined into a short but original tale.


As Gaia's chosen one, you progress through five various eras of Earth starting as a fish, working up to amphibian, reptile, bird and lastly mammal.  So imagine Spore but with a good story, as an RPG and shorter.  It's not all a simple primal as there are certain unusual or stronger creatures who oppose your need to evolve and as such want to stop you evolving.  Not only that but there are various odd crystals across time which have affected various creatures, usually in a lust for power.  As well as reaching the end of your journey, you must also challenge those who oppose you and protect the fate of Gaia's children.

Gameplay - The gameplay is focused entirely around evolving and devolving your character into various forms to adapt and survive across the gruelling 650 million year journey the game takes place across.  To evolve your form, you must gain Evo Points, which are obtained by defeating enemies and allow you to upgrade or rather evolve various body parts such as your tail, limbs, jaws and body, all of which give various bonuses in defence, health, agility and power.  There is also of course your HP gauge which you can recover either by eating the meat of defeated enemies, eating plants or bugs around the area or decisive evolution of your form.


When you reach the next step of evolution into another creature however, you lose all your Evo Points, so if you feel you're coming up against a boss, don't be afraid to bulk up into a killing machine, because you can always change back into your old form if you have Evo Points left over.
As well as saving the game, you can also record any creature you made with a capacity of 50 slots to save them in so you can always go back to it with the help of a special crystal.  However if you go back to that creature, you cannot go along the normal path of evolution again and will be permanently fixed into that state until you reach the next change in species.

The battle system is incredibly basic where you only attack with your jaws.  Repeatedly.  This is not a game of finesse, it's almost a button masher when you just have to keep gnawing away at the enemy until it's dead, or use the horn you may have added to yourself along the way.  Of course the enemies hurt you back too and you can only really evade them with no means of defending yourself other than your natural defence.
Here is the real big problem with this game, and that is enemy encounters.  While enemies are not random and randomly spawn in areas off-screen, you will get the occasional problem of being trapped against their body and CONSTANTLY lose hit points from touching them with no temporary invincibility after each hit like some games such as Mario or Sonic (where you flash for a few seconds so you don't get double-hit and killed immediately).


Imagine Mario with this system.  You get hit by a goomba, you ran full length into it, you shrink down but because you're already touching him, you die from the immediate second hit.
This.
Fucking.
Blows.
I swear you will be fucking frustrated at the absolute prehistoric gangrape that will commence to you many times over the game, especially against the sharks in chapter 1 and the domehead dinos in chapter 3.  The only thing you can do is either get away, attack precisely or button mash the fuck out of those jaws.

Graphics - E.V.O has some very nice graphics for the SNES.  The animals look quite similar to what would be the creatures of those eras and move rather fluidly as well as yourself with almost any kind of form the game allows you to have which for its time was impressive but compared to nowadays is quite small.  The scenery is fitting for each time era and while perhaps not tons of research has been done into evolution by the developers, it's at least as much as say The Land Before Time writers do, and that's enough to make a good prehistoric world (I mean they got their own show and a fuckton of sequels including The Land Before Time LXVI: The Fossilisation).
Anyways, the scenes are varied and intriguing and match up well enough to their various eras with well-animated creatures to give the feel of quite a living world you're travelling across.


Music/Sound - One of the reasons this game has a small but devoted cult following, is its music, by the Nobuo Uematsu of Enix himself, Koichi Sugiyama of Dragon Quest fame.  From the soothing sombre theme of the Ocean to the expansive grand theme of the world maps, it has a memorable soundtrack from the saddening to the chirpy.  In RPG terms the soundtrack is not particularly wide or brilliant but a solid effort to give the game some atmosphere and there's certainly a few pieces that bring emotions to the ears.  But I gotta admit, the theme of the dinosaur lands really really pisses me the fuck off for being really annoying.  If you played it, you'll understand how much I hate chirpy music.

So, let me say this again.  I'm sorry about Spore and I'm sorry if I've let you down on reviewing it.  I hope with mentioning this game I can make it up to you all somehow.  It was hard enough going through this game to see SPOILERS the dinosaurs all fucking die END SPOILERS, so you better appreciate this.

Fun and Innovation - 4
Replayability - 3
Gameplay - 3
Presentation - 3

Somehow I had no problem with King Bee at all, I just kept jumping and biting and he just did NOTHING at all.  I dunno how.
But oh dear god the Queen Bee DX JEEEEZ that's a hell of a bitch.

Also, I really love the ocean stages, the music is so soothing.