[The Whole Plate]

Video games
E.V.O.: The Theory of Evolution (aka 46 Okunen Monogatari - The Shinka Ron) [PC-98; 1990]

ᴇɴᴅ ᴏғ ʟɪɴᴇ

Getting into this was a total accident, I swear.

I was testing to see if PC-98 games worked through RetroArch, and I can't seem to figure out how to make them function. So, I booted up Neko Project Ⅱ, and mucked about with it to remember how it worked. This was the second game I booted up—the first, Rusty, didn't get much dedicated play time—and I just kinda… got into it.

For those that may have heard of the SNES game, E.V.O.: The Search for Eden, this is the predecessor to that… though I'm very hesitation to call it a prequel. Aside from sharing a similar premise (i.e. creature evolves through the ages with the favor of Gaia), it's a completely different beast.

For one, it's a turn-based RPG. You still attain Evo Points that you use to increase your stats, but instead of being a chimera of animal parts, here you select one of four attributes: Strength, Vitality, Endurance, and Wisdom. Once you reach a certain threshold, then you'll be able to evolve.

There are also random events that happen when you wander around. A lot of them sap your HP, but give you a healthy amount of Evo Points in return. HP regenerates though, so it isn't too much of a big deal unless you're hit with several of them in a row… but more on that later.

Interestingly enough, there are no actual random enemy encounters. In a very unusual move for 1990, all of the enemies you face are on screen, and you switch over to your typical Dragon Quest-esque battle once you touch one of them.

One neat touch that I really liked: The battle theme of this game is the boss theme in Search for Eden. Most people aren't going to touch this game, so I felt that I should mention that.

Overall, it's a very primitive game… but its ambition and uniqueness is something that I find very admirable. Also, I like grinding when the mood hits me; I find it very soothing.

I like it enough to find out that there's a cap of how many Evo Points that you can obtain at once (i.e. 250).

You also absolutely have to move to the next area once you level up enough. It's basically the game's way of not allowing you to grind and make yourself stupid powerful… but there's a way around that.

Remember those random events that I mentioned earlier in the thread? Well, those are mad abusable. If you just move back and forth rapidly, then you'll roll into one of them right after the other… and because of the nature of the game, most of them are the "HP for XP" tradeoff.

This means that if you want to god grind to make your character crazy powerful early on, you absolutely can. However, you do have a cap of how strong you can make your creature in each chapter, so you can't break the system over your knee… just crack it a bit.

Overall? I like the game, despite it being old, and having a very basic and repetitive structure at its core. I'll probably keep playing it. Hell, considering that it has forty-six endings in total, I may end up keep coming back to it.