Awhile back I reviewed a game called Cadence of Hyrule and stated it turned out to be one of the most unique adventure games I played. The core mechanic of having actions timed to the rhythm of the song was really awesome, because it felt like you were creating your own custom track while feeling like a badass. There was also satisfaction of mastering the flow of a song, finally getting through a difficult section, and seeing how the world evolved alongside a track. It was a really cool game and it may even have convinced me to play it’s predecessor. Rhythm based games are just really cool in my opinion and it would be nice to see more games experiment with a rhythmic system like NecroDancer without having to go out and be another casual rhythm game. BPM: Bullets Per Minute decides to tackle a rhythm based system as well and it turned out to be really awesome as well. These two games in particular have proven that rhythm based combat can work if properly thought out. They might not be perfect rhythm games, but they set an example for those wanting to experiment with rhythm.
Another game I recently covered on this site is Omori, an RPG Maker game that has a happy setting but a dark twist as the game goes on, and it may just be one of my new favorite narratives in gaming. The essay is flooded with spoilers and it’s practically a story breakdown from my perspective, but basically I talked about how the game handled it’s narrative so well and that it made the player feel guilty for good reasons. A lot of people compared this game to Undertale as it too is another RPG Maker with a dark twist later on………..then again Omori started development way before Undertale came out so technically Undertale wasn’t the influence behind the game. Come to think of it, a lot of people compare games made using RPG Maker to Undertale. Which is kinda sad to be honest with you, because it shows how unoriginal people are to judge a game for what it is and how much their developers slaved away to make unique and original projects. Lisa: The Painful came out one year prior to Undertale and it had dark themes with horrifying truths. What I’m trying to say is that these games aren’t Undertale clones or imitators. They are passion projects much like a majority of indie games out in the market. So maybe we shouldn’t call these games out for being so similar within the first fifthteen minutes of playtime.
Now you may be angrily thinking to yourself, “You’re just being stuck up! Undertale is the best thing to ever happen to the indie scene as it’s the most successful Kickstarter project out there. Plus Toby Fox deserves the perfect review scores for spending countless nights making this compelling masterpiece that belongs in the goddamn smithsonian.” Well thank you for not taking the time to know that I have something we critics like to call: an opinion. Let me clarify with you that I don’t hate Undertale and it isn’t a bad game. I can respect it for what it represents, but just because the game achieved something amazing doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be criticized. Undertale isn’t a perfect game and there are a few shortcomings. It’s really hard to have a fresh experience with this game now as the ravenous fanbase are willing to spoil the game freely. I’m so sick of hearing the same joke over and over to the point that Undertale itself has gotten annoying to hear about. Nothing wrong about being an Undertale fan, but no offense your fanbase is god awful. That’s why you haven’t seen me review this game at all on this site, because I don’t want to or feel like it.
However, I just played through a little indie RPG called Everhood which is a recent game compared heavily to Undertale. It was developed by two people, Crhis Nordgren and Jordi Roca, and published under their studio known as ForeignGnomes. The resemblance is clear. Originally I was planning on skipping this game due to how it reminded me of an eternal nightmare, but then I heard it had rhythm based combat and that handled the topic of death and life. A rhythm based RPG that explores the philosophical theme of existence? That actually sounds pretty cool. Then I played the game and my expectations were exceeded. Everhood is really good and I want you people to know that this game is worth checking out. Today we’ll be talking about why I loved Everhood and why it deserves your attention.
Story
The game opens up with a mysterious voice asking us if we’d sacrifice our humanity for immortality to play the game? If we agree to the voice’s question then he’ll transport us to a place where every being is immortal. We then see a wooden doll in red clothing sitting in a forest and a small blue thief stealing one of it’s limbs. The doll then reassembles itself and begins chasing after the thief who stole their arm. A talking frog with a guitar teaches us how to defend ourselves and we chase the thief down to a dance club. We communicate with some of the individuals in the club and we trace the thief down a room with an evil ruler. Gold Pig, the owner of the dance club, has tasked Blue Thief with stealing your arm. We don’t know why he wanted to take our arm, but it seems like he is trying to prevent something from happening. He orders his servant Purple Mage to dump us down a chute and we are then tragically incinerated. We see several weird figures attack us and glimpses of powers far beyond our comprehension.
The voice who spoke to us at the beginning of the game reappears and asks us if we want to hear an Absolute Truth, information that reveals more about the immortal plane we are in. Answering either yes or no will allow us to push forward, and our wooden doll body reassembles. A ladder appears down in the incinerator and we climb up to find the Blue Thief. His legs were stolen by Gold Pig and he asks if he can help assist us. He simply calls us Red due to the color of our clothes and together they venture forth to recover a missing arm and legs. They’ll encounter many friends and foes, get caught in wacky scenarios, and learn to get used to this weird trippy plain known by the residents as Everhood. Something is a miss though. If this is a plain of existence where everyone is immortal then why don’t they acknowledge it. The voice from earlier calls us human before making us immortal, so why don’t the residents remember anything about being human? Why does the voice want to tell us about the Absolute Truth and what is to come? Well that’s a mystery we are soon bound to find out. And that Absolute Truth is more horrifying than you think.
Gameplay
The way Everhood plays out is severely different from a majority of RPGs out there. It doesn’t have action packed combat nor turn-based fights, so what does it do instead to make up for the lack of strategic builds or even some type of engaging system? Instead of having combat, Everhood has the player maneuver the character around what is basically a guitar grid. There are five rows and the player can switch between them within a short notice. The NPC who dares to fight you will initiate their fight theme and a swarm of projectiles will be sent towards the player. They can move from side to side to avoid oncoming projectiles, but sometimes their sideways motion isn’t enough to dodge every single projectile. You can only take a few hits before you die, but health does restore quickly. It’s more of a matter of withstanding for a few seconds to regain what you lost, rather than having an actual health bar that depletes and must be refilled using magic or consumables. Makes up for how there is lack of customization and equipment to use. No weapons, armor, or charms that give you unique perks, just your ability to dodge. Projectiles are sent out to the beat of the song, so it is somewhat predictable to tell when more attacks are being sent towards you. You have a short jump that can be used to jump over wave projectiles. It’s quick and brings you back down to the ground immediately, so you might want to learn the timing. The jump can’t be used to dodge every projectile, as block projectiles must be avoided from the side.
There are tons of wacky characters to encounter and they will assist you in many ways if you carry out specific tasks for them. The main goal at the beginning is to collect fragments of a blue door, because Gold Pig is hiding out in a secret lair and he has shattered the doorway to get towards him. Each section of Everhood is separated using doorways, and the doorways take you somewhere unique. A mushroom forest, race track, the dance club I mentioned earlier, or a small village where some of the residents live. It’s all very happy and the game wants you to connect to it’s colorful cast of characters as fast as possible. That’s all I have to say really. Okay. So I do want to explain how the second half of the game works, but to do so I would need to spoil what happens later on. Everhood is a game I want people to check out, so if you haven’t played Everhood just yet then go out and do so because this last section of the gameplay paragraph is about to spoil the second half of the story. Mechanics and plot wise. If not then just skip to the next paragraph where I sum up my thoughts... okay.
Red traverses through Everhood, picks up the pieces to the blue door needed to reach Gold Pig, traverses across some dangerous terrain, and finally reaches him. Blue Thief's legs are given back and Red finds his arm within a room. Some text is written on the wall and it warns Red of a massive killer who will break free upon Everhood. What killer? Red picks up his arm and we are then taken into a room with FRog who hasn’t talked to us since the opening section. Frog reveals the truth that all the residents of Everhood were once human beings who roamed the earth and died peacefully or from random reasons. Rather than move onto heaven or get transported to the next plane of existence, they couldn’t take the fact they were dead and ended up in Everhood. Their bodies began to morph into alternate identities and they began to forget who they once were. They became spirits trapped with an eternal plain and they got so used to Everhood that some of them stayed for eons. Frog directly asks you to slay the residents of Everhood and free them from eternal imprisonment. Once done he asks you to get rid of Everhood forever. Red then goes out on a killing spree to eliminate every spirit in Everhood. This is where the game changes and you have to locate thirty NPCs you may have communicated with across your journey. Some areas will have to be navigated in different ways, while others will be locked up and must be accessed through other means. Combat changes entirely and Red gains the ability to attack his targets. You must absorb two of the same colored projectiles. If you take damage while trying to absorb two or absorb another color then your attack is cancelled out. Once you absorb two then you can send your own projectile to damage your foe. Hit them enough and you will properly kill them. Some enemies won’t stop fighting you until you're dead, and others must be beaten within a specific amount of time. The residents won’t give up so easily and it's up to you to kill them one by one. Carry out the genoicde and Everhood will be brought to an end. It’s up to you to carry out fate.
Thoughts
Everhood is really good and I want every person reading this review to go out and play the game as soon as they can. This is my new favorite rhythm game and so far it’s my most favorite release this year. 2021 is not a very exciting year for video games. Nothing has really hyped me like what Doom Eternal and Persona 5 Royal did last year, and what I am hyped for is scheduled either for next year or has an unknown release date. Still though, we have another half of the year and we’ll see how this all unrolls. Everhood is one of those games that does something right and continues to take your expectations out the window. The combat is a little frustrating at first with how stiff the jumping may feel or the overwhelming number of projectiles being thrown at the player, but give it some time and it turns out to be really good. It’s challenging, satisfying, and it doesn’t overstay its welcome. There are difficulty settings, but they don’t remove the challenge entirely. All they do is give you a few extra hits and faster health regeneration. On normal mode you can only take three hits and on easy you can take five, so the game still wants you to dart around. The pixel art was nice and the design for some of the characters can be pretty cool when you enter epic battles with them.
The writing was the aspect of Everhood that should have been a miss, but it ended up being really good. This game makes sure you have that feel-good feeling before the dark twist is revealed. I remember so many characters along my journey. The tall lurky Zig who tries to act cool as possible. Green Mage, a cheerful mage who is willing to have fun no matter what. Blue Thief who always tries to comfort us along our journey and remind Red what he is supposed to do. There is the Orange Doctor and his mad experiments. That time I talked to the slime brothers to get a large plank to cross a gap. That really fun moment where Green Mage basically hosts a game of DnD and some of the Everhood engage what is basically a little game within a game. The doors and save points are characters too that check in with the player which is charming.
The twist later on caught me off guard and the game executed it very well. Now some of you may argue Undertale did it better by letting the player discover it rather than force it down. Everhood still handles this moment very well, if not better, because you spend the first half of the game connecting with the cast so when you're sent out to perform this horrible task you feel really bad. There is even a secret boss if you refuse to carry this task out. The ending was really good as the game asks the player if they are proud of what they have done, and the final confrontation handles the theme of existence and moving on. It’s a magical moment and the build up to it is what makes this moment work elegantly. The developers even leave a message near the end telling players to email what they thought of the game and if they enjoyed it, and I found it to be heartwarming. Two guys made a game for people to enjoy and they got what they wanted. If they're reading this then I hope they know that I recommend their game.
Now, I do have to point out what Everhood does wrong. Even though I want to give this game a really high review score for what it succeeds at, it does struggle in a few minor aspects. Combat is fun, but the projectiles and particle effects are very trippy and flash in a variety of neon colors. I can see quite a few people getting seizures from this game and the developers even left a message telling players that this game may give them either seizures or epilepsy from all the flashing lights and swirling. There is this one glitch that happens near the end section that I do want to point out. The game wants the player to press specific buttons and one of these buttons is the one used to open up the item menu. If you press the button too quickly then the item menu will open up instead of the player progressing with the scene. They can’t exit out of the item menu and the game will remain stuck. This then forces the player to reload the game and repeat a huge chunk of the final section. Several other players have addressed this and I hope the devs fixes this bug soon. Otherwise they have a brilliant game. Everhood is one of the best indie games this year and I hope it gets nominated for a few awards. The team is obviously passionate and I wish the best of luck for what comes next. In the end I am going to give Everhood a 9/10 for excellence at best.
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