E.V.O.: Search For Eden Review (Super Nintendo, 1993)

I’ll need you to bear with me here. The game we’re talking about today is one of the strangest and most unusual in the Super Nintendo’s library. You’ve been warned. The title in question is called E.V.O.: Search for Eden. It’s an action RPG with evolution as not only driving the narrative but also the gameplay. How this one got past Nintendo’s censorship I’ll never know. After all, the company veered away hard from anything with any religious implications. Somehow publisher Enix was able to sneak this one by them. Regardless, I have the game, love it, and want to talk about it today. Enough with the rambling. Here’s our review.

The game begins with Gaia, a deity and the daughter of the Sun, creating life on the planet that will one day be known as Earth. You take the form of one of these life forms that she has created. The story begins between the years of 450 – 500 million years BC. This is a time when almost all life forms exist within the ocean. Fittingly you start out as a fish. It’s up to you to push evolution forward through the various time periods. This includes the eras where the first amphibians walked on land, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, the ice age, and even the early days of man. You play as the same character from start to finish as you’re teleported to each age while evolving along the way. It’s a downright novel approach to video games from this time.

I really like the general plot outline here. It’s unique, and memorable to say the least. Unfortunately it comes off as tryhard sometimes. Your character can interact with enemies and NPCs in specific situations. They often speak to you. It’s strange if I’m being perfectly honest. The developers tried to throw in minor sub plots with these characters but they’re not particularly interesting. The scene where a dinosaur is killed by a bee stinger and talks about wanting to talk to his son had me rolling my eyes. E.V.O.: Search for Eden didn’t need drama like this. Regardless, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s just kind of cheesy at times.

The game itself looks kind of like a 2D platformer at first glance. While in the water you swim around in all directions, but on land you’re restricted to just left and right movement. Oh and your character can jump too. Life is measured in hit points, and all damage done or taken is numerical. That’s where the RPG elements come in to play. The game is divided into various stages that are selected from an overhead map. What’s nice is that progression isn’t linear. You can return to previous areas, and at some points there are multiple new stages available at once. Sometimes you’ll have to complete specific stages in order to progress, and other times that’s not a requirement. This approach isn’t new but I liked it well enough here.

Okay, so the game is about evolution, right? When it comes to your character it’s not handled in a realistic way. That’s okay, we’re playing a video game after all. To evolve you have to consume meat. This is dropped by enemies you’ve chomped to death. In the land based stages you can also hop on their heads, but that’s far less efficient. A menu can be accessed by pressing the Select button which brings up options for evolution. You can alter your guy’s jaws, horns, neck, body, hands and feet, dorsal fin, tail, and the back of their head. These cost evo points which are gained from eating the aforementioned meat left behind by enemies. Evolutions not only change your character’s appearance but also their abilities.

It’s best to think of these evolutions like gaining levels in your standard RPG. The most basic upgrades increase your stats like attack, defense, and speed. What’s interesting is that you’re almost always given multiple choices. Generally the better ones give more noticeable upgrades. The jaws are the most basic choice. They cause you to inflict more damage when gnawing away at an opponent. The back of the neck upgrades also up the ante for your bites, but often at the cost of speed. Body evolutions are what determine your defense, hands and feet your speed, etc. Depending on your preferred play style the most expensive upgrades aren’t always the best ones to choose. The evolution system plays a large part in why I consider this to be one of the best RPGs of all time.

Making specific selections can trigger additional evolutions and options as well. For example, evolving into a bird isn’t a part of the story. The option unlocks when you select a specific jaw in the amphibian era. Changing into this species gives you wings which allow for flight, and also negates fall damage which can be quite useful. Some later stages (past the ocean world) contain water and this causes you to transform into an amphibious version of your current animal. It’s a really cool concept. What’s interesting is that you can evolve into any of the past forms you’ve unlocked by consuming a green crystal. These are fairly common and often prove helpful when you’re stuck in particular stages. The evolution mechanics are deep, and experimenting with them can unlock a whole host of different options.

Everything up to this point has been good. E.V.O.: Search for Eden is a very fun game. Unfortunately it’s not without its fault. The first problem is level design. The stages are generally very boring. Far too often these levels are just flat plains with a few enemies scattered about. I’m not sure who thought that was a good idea. Even the more technical areas tend to be flat with a couple of optional hills in the background that you can climb up. There’s almost no platforming challenge to be found. No bottomless pits, no moving platforms. Just enemies. What’s more is that most of the levels are short. If you avoid enemies it’s possible to finish many of them in far less time than a minute. On the bright side there are a lot of levels, and so EVO isn’t exactly short, but some areas should have been combined.

Sometimes the path forward is a little vague as well. For example, one of the early stages has a barrier of bubbles blocking your way. The game doesn’t tell you how to get rid of it. The solution is to simply swim around and wait for the volcanos in the background to erupt thus breaking the barrier. I’m not exactly sure why the game needed something like that, but okay. I literally just wasted time swimming around eating fish until the solution presented itself. Later on the game gets better at giving hints, because sometimes you’ll need to have completed a specific stage to destroy an obstacle obstructing the path. It even tells you before you get to the roadblock. Still, it’s an annoying habit this game has. Despite these issues I still consider it to be one of the best SNES RPGs. Everything else is really that good.

Also, you’re going to spend a lot of time grinding in E.V.O. It’s built right into the concept. In the first few worlds you won’t need to worry about it as much. You can simply evolve as you naturally collect evo points. Later on the difficulty ramps up quite a bit, and it’s either eat or be eaten at that point. I’m no stranger to grinding, and I enjoyed it here because of all the options you’re given. I realize many people are sensitive to this mechanic, and so that’s just something to keep in mind. Combat is easy enough to get the hang of and though it can become repetitive when you’re focused on racking up points. At least evolving your creature restores your hit points. I found myself saving up my evo for moments when I was near death just to take advantage of this.

E.V.O.: Search for Eden is somewhat of a mixed bag in the graphics department. Underwater areas look nice and have excellent ambiance. The enemies themselves are easy to see apart from the background with a great contrast. Some of the land areas, particularly the deserts, are really bland. Others range from okay to good. Enemy designs are generally kind of basic. They’re supposed to just represent animals, after all. I get it. There are some really nice parallax scrolling effects going on, and some areas have a shift from day to night that looks fantastic. The music is also uneven. Some of the tracks, such as the world map theme, sound absolutely amazing. This fits the game extremely well. The underwater themes are also great. It’s the land based ones that are the problem. Generally they sound a little goofy. The music isn’t bad, and at times, is even good.