Hello, my name is SNES Man. Today, we're gonna talk about an obscure RPG for the Super Nintendo,
EVO: the Search for Eden. Until people started telling me, "SNES Man, you should play this!"
I had never heard of it. And the game cartridge costs $170 so I was like no way! Well, I took
the cheater's path: I downloaded a ROM off the internet.
I've never talked about ROMs before because they're really shaky territory. Due to my
public relations policy, I can't tell you how to download emulated games -- just research
the topic on your own if you're curious. Anyway, I have used ROMS in the past to record game
footage because it's so convenient. And, I bought an SNES USB controller so the experience
is ALMOST as good as playing the real thing on a TV. I like the controller but there's
something magical about a real cartridge with a real controller and a real TV that you don't
get from playing on a computer.
Anyway, let's dive into today's game, EVO: The Search for Eden and get down to gaming.
Here's the premise of the game. A goddess named Gaia plops you down in the beginning
of Earth as a fish and from there, your goal is to keep evolving and, more importantly,
survive. Let me just say this right now, you will not find a game like this on the Super
Nintendo. But we'll get more into that later. For now, let's talk about life as a fish.
As a fish, your primary attack is the bite. You press 'Y' and lunge forward a couple of
inches, taking a chomp out of whatever's in front of you. Once you defeat an enemy, you
can eat their remains to regain some health and earn a couple experience points. Depending
on the enemy, some give more health and some give more experience.
Underwater, you can move in 4 directions with the control pad — unlike in most platformers
where the 'B' button swims, keeping you afloat. EVO realized that a fish are good at swimming
(Who would have though it?) so it gives you quite a bit of freedom and mobility underwater.
Most of the early enemies are jellyfish, pathetic little creatures that won't give you much
trouble. But you've get to eat a lot of them before you can gain any experience! Level
grinding is a huge part of this game, sadly. It's like in Pokemon, except much more demanding
and repetitive. When you tackle an Enix game like EVO, you have to come in with a high
level of patience - and courage.
The game certainly gets hard at times. When you're just a scrawny, pathetic little fish
swimming around and there's sharks and monsters in the water, you feel powerless. You feel
like you ARE a fish! That sense of desperation really comes through while playing this game.
I got into a fish mindset so much while I was playing this that I started craving earthworms
and plankton. No seriously, I had to go to Bait rehab. That's why this simple little
video took so long to make.
The first boss in EVO is a huge shark and geeze is it hard to kill! It's like Jaws versus
a Guppy and you can bet your ass you're not Jaws in this fight. You have to trick him
into bonking his head against a wall and then attack him. But of course you can only get
in one bite before he bitch slaps you with his tail and wipes out all your health.
Here's a secret I heard about for killing bosses. Every time you open up your evolution
menu and evolve, you regain all your health. In other words, come into a boss battle with
lots of EXP points and you can keep reviving yourself. Even with this trick (which is pretty
much cheating) a lot of bosses can kill you with one hit -- so it's not fool-proof.
Let's finally talk about evolution. To evolve in this game, you need to go to your Evolution
menu and choose a body part to upgrade, whether it be jaws, tail fin, dorsal fin, or whatever.
Then, you can spend some points and evolve. You can make some pretty goofy looking creatures
like this.
The game is split into different eras of time, the third one being dinosaurs. That's my favorite
one. You get to chase after these terrified little lizards and chomp on their bones. For
once, you feel like you're at the top of the food chain. And dinosaurs are just cool. They
make awesome enemies: Brachiosaurus, Pachycephlosaurus, T-Rex -- they're just beyond awesome.
The other worlds include the ice age, the age of mammals, and yes, the age of early
man. But I don't want to spoil all that for you.
If I had discovered this game as a kid, it would have made me weep with joy, but also
with agony because it can be pretty frustrating now that I think of it. There's a kind of
unfinished feel to parts of the game. For instance, you can save up to 50 creatures
in one save file -- a huge fricking amount! But you almost never get to use them. Only
when you get a crystal or something, so for the most part you're stuck with whatever you
evolved into.
And let's admit it, EVO fans, the controls are awkward. Just to dash, you have to double
tap the control pad and let your character do a little animation before you can run.
I swear, your character feels like a pansy. If you run into a wall or any sort of dense
object, you bonk your nose and lose health. So stupid.
And the hit detection is really weird. For some reason, your attacks will miss a lot.
And the enemies can corner you and get you stuck in a barrage of attacks. Hope you like
being a punching bag! It's hard to describe, but once you play it you'll know what I mean.
The combat isn't really the most impressive aspect of this game and no one's going to
deny that.
What makes the game cool is the atmosphere and the creativity in letting you evolve.
And the graphics and presentation are really realistic and mature. This isn't some boring,
run-of-the-mill, phoned in game like so many others I've played over the years.
THINGS TO MAKE IT BETTER
-Tighter controls and hit detection. -More complex game combat - at least a few
special moves to add variety to level-crunching. -More fair bosses that don't require cheating
to beat. -Less general confusion. For instance, why
can't you use saved creatures at any time? I don't even know what those crystals do half
the time.
On my scale, EVO: The Search for Eden scores an 8 out of 10. That might be a little too
generous considering all the game's flaws but I just have can't give it anything lower
because it's just plain ambitious. It's really rare for a game company to design a game based
on evolution. The closest I can think of is Spore for the PC but that's more of an RTS,
not an adventure. I would love to see a sequel of EVO on the 3DS or the Wii. Message to Nintendo:
make that happen!
This is SNES Man and thanks for watching. If you have any comments about EVO or RPG
games in general, don't hesitate to leave a comment - as long as it's not a debate about
Evolution versus Creationism or something philosophical like that. Let's all be one
happy family and stick to what we know: gaming.
This is been a SNES Man review and I'll take to you again sometime soon.