It’s immediately more engaging than the first game, but suffers a ton from being the jack-of-all- trades of game styles. You start off in a vibrant 16-bit world and then journey to a monochrome Game Boy-like area, an 8-bit time period, and then a futuristic 3D world. Following with the evolutionary theme, each time period has a different graphical style. You play as a young hero who pairs up with a few other characters along the way on a time-travelling quest evocative of Chrono Trigger. The sequel, while still tongue-in-cheek, takes on a more serious approach to the story. I haven’t been less enthused by 2D Zelda gameplay and turn-based battles in years. The only driving force in Evoland 1 is to see how they riff on the next generation of games because the actual gameplay is just a pale imitation of what it’s referencing. It bounces from primitive 2D Zelda to Final Fantasy to Diablo over the course of the journey, but it’s more parody than polished. Character movement is slow, the retro-inspired music very clearly and painfully loops, and death can often make you repeat large chunks of mediocre gameplay. The charming setup is sullied as the gameplay is plodding, sometimes brutal, and janky. The game evolves and mutates as you progress, unlocking better graphics, more settings, more attacks, and cute jokes about the evolution of video games over the past 40 years. I’m actually surprised it found success on PC because it seems like something that would have been way more engaging as a mobile experience. The first Evoland is an interesting rough draft of an idea.
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