Evoland
Shiro games
Often, less is more, but here,
more would definitely have been more. What there is, is not at all bad,
but it leaves you wishing there was … well, more.
Evoland is what it suggests; a
land that evolves as a homage to the development of questing style
games. It starts as a blocky, big pixelled monochrome top down world
with basic movement and little else. As you explore this (very) old
world landscape, finding chests will result in the world evolving as
computer games did – things like 2D movement, sound effects, musical
accompaniment, 16 colours and so on. A sword too of course, then
monsters (far more fun than hacking at bushes) then save points, and
extra lives, and so on. Eventually we get to pre-rendered backgrounds
and full 3D glory and after a few hours and some boss battling, you get
Hero and the end.
Other “developments” abound; a
store in which to buy goods, a dungeon to explore, turn based combat, a
companion and puzzles. Find cards and stars as well, as adjuncts to the
main goings on. Which, not surprisingly, involves helping retrieve a
crystal to save a village.
You never get spoken word. But
you do get just about everything else.
There is humour, not at all of
it funny, in the messages and the dialogue and even in the evolvements
(is that a word?) themselves - I chuckled when I got the spinning cd
that suggested a screen was loading.
If you never got to the end, and
even if you never played these quest types of adventures, I reckon most
adventure game players would enjoy the first hour or so. It might be a
little samy after that, and a little too battly.
The boss battles aren’t bad but
the plethora of pop up turn based fights are annoying. You don’t really
play to win them, you just have to play them. They are triggered as you
explore your world map (when you get one) or other locations and there
isn’t any tactics involved. Just keep playing till they are over, win
some glis and xps, and move on. To another one. They felt way too much
like filler.
Picking up loot doesn’t really
do anything either. There needs to be loot, and other treasures
liberated from all manner of things, but they felt like they were there
purely because they had to be, rather than because they had any other
purpose.
The high point in my view
involves changing between 2D and 3D in order to solve puzzles through
changing the perspective. It felt like a real puzzle, rather than a
somewhat superficial add on.
More of that type of thing is
the more that was needed. This is a game with an obvious affection for
types of games it mimics, and its heart is in the right place. It could
have been a lot more, which would have made it something worth playing
in its own right, as opposed to something worth playing in order to
reminisce.
Grade: C+
I played on:
OS: Windows 7
Processor: Intel i7-3820 4GHz
RAM: 12GB Ripjaw DDR3 2133 Mhz
Video card: AMD Radeon HD 7800 2048MB
