Everhood 2

About four years ago I reviewed a game called Everhood by Foreign Gnomes. An independent studio run by two key devs, Chris Nordgren and Jordi Roca, and together they created a unique experience that wore its influences on its sleeves. They asked the question, “What if we combine Undertale with Guitar Hero and drugs?” and this is how we ended up with Everhood. A title that could’ve honestly faded into obscurity due to it’s incredible resemblance to it’s inspirations, but it managed to be more than just a rhythm based imitation. Everhood was not just a fun game, but delved deep into themes of existentialism and death. Of what lies beyond our mortal realm and how we accept our coming end. The fear and anxiety that comes with passing on. Not knowing if there’s a heaven, a hell, or place for which our soul can reside. It’ds a f*cking terrifying concept and yet the game handles this subject matter in the most positive and enlightening way possible. It’s easy to understand why Everhood has gained such a big following since its release. It was the biggest surprise of 2021 and looking back I can’t but appreciate what it managed to do within a short runtime. Everhood was more than just an Undertale clone.

One thing I wish I could do is rewrite my review for Everhood. 2021 marked two years into my reviewing hobby, and it being one of my earlier works my opinions tend to be all over the place. You grow older and begin to realize opinions you used to stand by have changed. I don’t mind playing games in easier settings and for god sake I love Assassin’s Creed now. Something my younger self would’ve loathed me for. The Everhood review was all over the place. Jumping to and from praising the game and ripping on its main influence which I didn’t like at the time. I distinctly remember saying I loved Everhood more than Undertale, and that opinion has aged as well as a milk carton left to sit in a heated wooden bedroom. A lot of my older reviews could be better seeing how I was churning them out like crazy, but it just shows how far I’ve come as a reviewer and that the quality of my reviews and opinions have gotten better. Everhood is still a great game and I replayed the first hour of it as of writing this to see if it still holds up. Indeed it does, so now that we’ve gotten that statement out of the way again it’s time we drop the ball and witness the most whiplash I’ve got from playing a video game sequel in quite a long time. We got a messy one.

After the success of the original, the development team decided to cash on the unexpected praise and start work on the sequel. Deliver more of what people liked, but on a much grander scale. A few weeks ago during my Citizen Sleeper 2 coverage I stated that there’s nothing wrong about an indie dev making a sequel rather than a new game. They can innovate on the ideas they’ve set in the past and create an experience they felt the first game should’ve been like at release. A vast majority of indie game sequels I’ve adored alongside their predecessors with the only exceptions being Salt and Sacrifice and Curse of The Moon 2. I still stand by the statement I gave a couple weeks ago, so forgive me and what I’m about to say right now. Everhood 2 is a prime example of how to not do a video game sequel. If you’ve been paying attention to any discussion of this title you’ve probably realized that Everhood 2 is all over the place. With older fans being confused on the direction and quality of content Foreign Gnomes has produced. The original Everhood right now sits with an overwhelmingly positive rating on Steam. Meaning it’s one of few indie games out there to be considered an all time great. Everhood 2 sits with a mostly positive rating, a 7/10, which isn’t terrible but is a significant drop from the first game. Showcasing something went wrong during the development of this game for reactions to be all over.

What I’m writing may sound extremely harsh, but I want to let you know right now I don’t think Everhood 2 is a bad game by any means. If I were to discuss Everhood 2 to a general gamer or to anyone who hasn’t played the first game I’d probably say they’d be in for a good time no matter what. The game in terms of gameplay and combat is slightly better than the first game, and those who just want more of the first game’s combat they probably won’t be disappointed. Everhood 2 is a game that puts a heavier focus on combat and length, but this is kinda the reason why I and so many other players feel divisive about this sequel. It’s an example of how more isn’t better, and that sacrificing artistic integrity and thought is actually a bad thing. A statement I really hate to say, because a lot of thought and passion was put into this game much like the original. I do not want someone who worked on this game to read this review and think I hate their guts. If you’re someone who liked this game then congrats, I’m happy for you. However, this is my review and today we’ll be talking about why Everhood 2 is a good game but not a great sequel. 

Story

The game opens up by asking the player several personality related questions. Whether that be on life and death, or silly stuff like whether they play Fortnite or not. This determines the soul color of the Light Being you play as. You awaken in a hand drawn room. Comfy, yes, but ther;es not much to do around here besides play with the limited supplies you have. A stopwatch falls over and begins bouncing into the distance. You follow the stopwatch with hope you’ll retrieve, and if not then maybe you’ll go somewhere more interesting. You’re surrounded by nothing but pitch blackness and soon you’re cornered by a mysterious entity. Attacked from every side with no way of escaping to safety. Before you meet your untimely demise you’re saved by a feathered figure, Raven. They serve as your guardian figure and wish to guide you towards your ultimate purpose. That thing you just fought was the Root of All Evil, and you will help lead the battle to end the eternal madness. You must make unlikely allies to assist in the cause, locate resources to help strengthen your fighting capabilities, obtain your Soul Weapon, and plunge deeper into the  sinister sea of emptiness. Only then can peace return and you can finally lay down easy.

You’ll explore various realms during your travels and each contain their own conflicts. A war between power hungry vegetables and rebel fruits. Travel to numerous time periods of an alien world and see how your actions affect their lives. Sail an endless sea to reach the end of time. A never ending party in Pandemonium. An infinite hotel with guests who’d like to meet you, or just maybe return to a familiar place. A realm where souls who wish to be laid to rest and move on now struggle with a problem they may or may not have created. Everhood 2 is a game that goes all over the place in terms of ideas and presentation, and while a majority of games are able to get away with this easily including the original for some reason the sequel struggles to tell a plot where randomness lies around everywhere.

Gameplay

In Everhood 2 you venture through a multitude of areas fighting enemies, leveling up, and with each step growing stronger so tackling future challenges becomes more manageable. The game is broken up with dialogue segments and portions where you can chat to other characters, but most of the time you’ll be fighting. Combat is a blend between the bullet hell avoidance of Undertale and the five grid not displaying of Guitar Hero. A song plays and the enemy dishes out attacks in accordance to the beats of the song. Attacks must either be jumped over or avoided, but you can’t just dodge attacks forever. You have to fight back, and this is done by absorbing enemy attacks to charge your own and launching them back at them. In the original it was to absorb two without getting hit and shoot, but Everhood 2 there’s a new combo system. Absorbing multiple attacks of the same color charged your attack even more. The more you absorb the higher damage output is. Reaching certain charge thresholds changes the attack you perform and if you go above the max you can dish out an ultimate projectile. Cutting through anything in front of you.

Another new addition to Everhood 2 are the Soul Weapons. Three weapons you can fight with are dual blades that can shift into a sword, a winged spear, and a skull hammer with a built in cannon in its mouth. You’d think these weapons function differently from each other, but quickly you realize that the weapon you choose to fight with doesn’t matter. Final new addition to the combat is the talisman. Charms you can equip to offer bonuses during fights, and by that what I actually mean is the ability to resurrect and wait for the resurrection opportunity to recharge after a few seconds. The core gameplay loop overall is great and it was one of few reasons I endured the game for it’s over lengthy runtime, but my main criticism comes with wasted opportunities I am surprised the developers missed out on. Ideas that any RPG including ones made by other indie devs would’ve taken when implementing into their games. Everhood 2 has good gameplay and for a majority of people gameplay is king. However, we are about to explain why this is not always the case and why I believe gamers deserve more than mindless dopamine rushes.

Thoughts

Everhood 2 is a good time in general, but a disappointing sequel to one of 2021’s most beautiful and meaningful games. It is a nothing burger being served in a fancy restaurant. Nothing about this game makes sense, which says a lot for a universe that’s trying to act obtuse. The building blocks for a good game are there, but none of it meshes together to create what the original was. A memorable experience you’ll look back on for years or are eager to revisit. Everhood 2 is not one of the worst games I’ve ever played. I’ll just say right now my rating for it is a 7.5/10, which is alright to me. It's a serviceable game and I can see a majority of people having a good time or getting their money’s worth. I personally don’t recommend this game even if you haven’t played the original. I do have some good things to say about Everhood 2. The combat is still good and it being a rhythm based action game it has to come alongside good music. The music kicks ass just like the original game’s soundtrack, and the visuals are stellar. Some battles here get crazier than the first game, and I’m surprised the developers managed to pull it off. I played Everhood 2 on a Nintendo Switch Oled. I say that specifically, because my original Switch is starting to bite the dust. One of my complaints with the original Everhood was how much the framerate tanked, and part of that may be due to playing it on the original Nintendo Switch. Playing the sequel now on stronger hardware is great, and not once did the game crash or stutter. 

This is where my list compliments and praises end, because now we crack down on this disaster sequel. The gameplay of Everhood 2 is good, but there’s a few ideas that feel wasted when you look at them. The three Soul Weapons could’ve offered different playstyle and strategies, but all of them function the same. In fact, it didn’t even matter if they functioned differently. It’s just dodge, absorb, shoot, and repeat. As much as I praised the mind bending visuals of certain battles I don’t think it’s always a good thing. Some battles create multiple reflections of where the player is standing. Stretch out their point of view, or begin rotating the creature wildly. This does not make the battles more fun. They make them more headache inducing and difficult to avoid what are really easy attacks to dodge. The talisman could’ve offered varied perks and playstyles for what is already shallow build diversity, but a majority of them is just resurrecting the player. With the talisman with shorter resurrection cooldowns removing any reason to use any other of the talisman you stumble upon in the game. Everhood 2 attempted to be a deeper RPG than the original, but what it ended up doing instead was achieving nothing. The goals it set for itself were barely met, and I’m surprised the devs didn’t look back and wonder if their implementation of these new ideas were good. It’s wasted opportunities at their very worst.

Moving on from the gameplay we have everything else about Everhood 2. The original Everhood has a diverse cast of characters. Everything you fought was a distinct NPC. There was only one of them and you couldn't see them anywhere else. This made each character memorable. That they were their own being living in the world. It makes the second act twist where you have to kill everyone hit hard, because now this person with their own life is now gone. Taken by your bloody hands. The only other game I can think of that does this is Lisa: The Painful, and in both games it’s genius in terms of design and writing. In Everhood 2 you now stumble upon generic enemies roaming about. Battles you had before can repeat and now half the cast feels distinct. Goodbye any and all effort to create a world you can grow attached to. In fact, nothing about this world is memorable. It’s supposed to be this odyssey where you journey to multiple realms, but as zany as they are, none of them hooked me. This is why having a distinct cast of characters is better than churning out gag character after gag character. If I’m not emotionally invested in all that is going on then I’m going to be interested or remember anything I do in the game.

Among the several characters Everhood 2 has, maybe four to five of them are memorable and those are the characters involved in the main story the most. Yet, trying to describe them is still difficult. That’s because there’s no personality or traits for which I can call out. No moment I had with these characters feels special. Keep in mind the first game was able to generate moments with characters literally named Blue Thief and Green Mage. I can still recall the D&D moment in the first game where everybody you met up until that point was having a wild time playing. Only for the campaign to go off the rail and there to be a joke about speedy development time leads to crappier products. Everhood 2 is random and it’s not a good thing. None of the jokes or humor lands, because there’s nothing leading into the jokes. One of these days I’m gonna write an essay on what makes good humor to me, because one of the fine rules I’d like to establish is that good humor leads into its jokes. Not pull one out of its ass, expect five seconds of reaction, and leave you feeling numb. The writing of Everhood 2 is not good. You can tell by now, and this is a huge problem because a major component that defined Everhood for me and many others was its plot and central message. Of passing time and moving on from the life you had just lived.

What is the central message of Everhood 2 you may wonder? Nothing, like literally nothing. The game has no message or central themes to speak of, and ends on a joke ending. It’s a hollow title that barely attempts to emotionally connect to you, and a pretty long one too. Everhood 2 took me ten hours to beat, which isn’t a lot for an indie game. It’s how it paces itself that irritates me the most. Around hour five I thought I reached the end of the game. Only to discover you need all three Soul Weapons to reach the final act of the game and beat it. These weapons are supposed to be found through exploration, but if you miss them the game goes, “Oh well, you just have to replay the game again to get the other two.” This isn’t Nier: Automata where redoing the stuff you just did is changed so the new run offers a new perspective or content. No, it’s literally doing the same stuff again. This just makes the game go on way longer than it should, and when I failed to obtain the third Soul Weapon my mind was getting ready to blow because I didn’t want to play the game a third time through. Thank god the game pulled an event near the end to avoid this entirely, because at one point I wanted to give up on Everhood 2.

The original Everhood is a game much better than what everyone expected it would be. It was a deep five hour journey that explored themes of life, death, existentialism, moving on, and having to accept what you’ve done in life. With a memorable setting, cast of characters, good combat loop, and content that managed to elevate the whole experience above what it was trying to take inspiration from. Everhood 2 is the exact opposite of this. It is an unfocused bloated mess that manages to say absolutely nothing, go nowhere, and somehow move backwards in terms of what the original game setup. It is a mess of a sequel and made me realize why some stories shouldn’t be followed up on. I respect the developers wanting to do all these ambitious ideas, but I pray they don’t come back to Everhood and just make a new game. Everhood 2 is a good game, but a terrible sequel and I can’t recommend it even if you heavily enjoyed the first. It's just…..wrong.

7.5/10, Alright