Evoland 2 Is The Greatest Thing Since Tits!
This shit right here is why I love my job. These last few weeks havent been kind to me when it comes to the quality of the games I chose to review. Take Submerged, for instance. Its little more than an interactive screensaver with zero gameplay, zero fun, a shit story and still there were a whole bunch of critics, who dished out insanely high review scores for that turd, because its "art" and of course there is always some idiot who falls for that kind of shit. Just look at Dear Esther, Valiant Hearts, Gone Home... they all suck, but theyre all "artsy" or they have some kind of "brave message", and somebody always pretends to be impressed, because they totally "get it" and the game is not for critics and yada, yada, yada, FUCK YOU. Pretentious morons.
There were less controversial, more obviously lousy games such as Alone in the Dark: Illumination, a multiplayer shooter, which requires you to stand in the light in order to make monsters vulnerable. Because every Alone in the fucking DARK game should be about cooperative gameplay in well-lit areas.
So thank you, thank you SO FUCKING MUCH, Shiro Games, for Evoland 2. Because its, without exaggeration, the best damn game Ive reviewed all year. By far. Its like a final exam in gaming. Its like all the games Ive played in my childhood - Double Dragon, Street Fighter, Secret of Mana, Bomberman, Zelda, Final Fantasy, R-Type, Musha, Shining Force - all this stuff and so much more was just preparation. Ive mastered those titles, loved them, breathed them. And Evoland 2 is where everything Ive learned about those games is being put to the test. So. Fucking. AWESOME!
Imagine playing what looks and feels like a traditional JRPG, top-down visuals, swordem up style gameplay you may know from Secret of Mana or the older Zelda games and then you walk into a boss baddie. And suddenly the perspective shifts, you see the characters from the side, there are life bars at the top end of the screen and an announcer goes: "Round 1! FIGHT!" No tutorial, no explanation, you get thrown right the fuck in there. I didnt even think when I tried a quarter circle forward, it just happened. Instinct. Muscle memory. Its what gamers do. Then I hit the punch button and the magic happened. Like, in my pants. Yes, its that good "HADOKEN!" YES! Fucking hadoken!
But the game didnt leave me much time to celebrate, because suddenly I was in a Musha-style arcade shooter. Again, no explanation, no "use WASD to control your character and dont forget the power-ups" or any of that shit you get in every fucking game today like youre some kind of retard. Just instant action.
Now dont get the wrong impression here. This is still a classic JRPG more than anything else, so you talk to lots of NPCs, gather clues, try and figure out where to go and what to do next. There are some really challenging puzzles here. If youve never completed classic Zelda or Final Fantasy, then youre gonna need a walkthrough for this one. Its just that all the action on here isnt told in boring text boxes or crappy little cutscenes. Action sequences are games of their own.
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| Or Hearthstone. Sometimes theyre just fucking Hearthstone. |
There is, of course, one little downside to this whole concept. At some point, you will inevitably bump into a mode of play you simply hate and/or suck at. In my case that was fucking Bejeweled. Fucking. Beweweled. I mastered the tactics stage, beat the platforming bits, completed all the beatem up sections with ease, but goddamn Bejeweled broke me. I failed again and again, for a whole hour straight until Claire helped me. I had to ask my girlfriend for help. She crushed the bejeweled boss in a landslide victory. I dont have a fucking clue how people manage to figure out all these chain reactions and shit. I cant handle it.
Evoland 2 doesnt simply mimic those games. It doesnt rip off or imitate popular classics for a cheap laugh or to draw attention with screenshots and trailers. This stuff is deep. You want to pull a shoryuken in the Street Fighter segment, you pull a fucking shoryuken. Its in the fucking game! This is a love letter to some of the greatest games of all times. And at the same time, Evoland 2 tells an exciting, surprisingly serious story, which gives it an identity of its own. Evoland 2 isnt "that game, which imitates a million other games", its just fucking Evoland 2. And thats genius.
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| Also WoW, Giger-Aliens, Mewtwo, Metroid, Mario, Sonic... |
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| You might even run into some old friends. |
He used to play the old Mario games many moons ago and Ive seen him throwing cats on some crappy little flash games on the net. But hes never held a modern controller before. He has never played a 3D game. And when I plugged in the Xbox and showed him the tutorial it was all a bit much at first. Controlling a character AND the camera at the same time. Taking cover, switching characters, aiming, shooting, driving, triggers, so much new stuff!
I was fully expecting to come over there on the weekends to do things like rescue Jimmy off Michaels abducted yacht. But what do you know - hes doing it all by himself! So fucking cool. The guy is old enough to be my dad, he has zero experience with this kind of thing, but hes actually getting the hang of it and Im sure hell complete the whole thing. That whole thing about old dogs and new tricks? Bullshit. Youre never too old.
-Cat
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