Episode 67: E.V.O. Search for Eden from a time long forgotten

DonaldPrevie (00:00)
Real quick, do you guys have a least favorite boss? Cause mine is the... the frog. I think it's in the amphibian era. Dude, he is tough. Dude, I almost wanted to f***ing hum my frog ally across the living room because of those little... stupid frogs stun locking me. You're supposed to jump on him. How do you jump on him when he jumps like two screen lengths away from you?

No, no, no, not the big frog. You jump on the little ones as they're coming at you because they only have one, one. he got my number the most times by far.

Welcome to the Cable Club. We're a video gaming podcast where three guys eat tons of meat. And we're linking up to talk about the games you love and rank them. Just flip that food pyramid upside down. Worm? Hell yeah, carnivore diet. Water, salt, beef. That's I need. You evolved into an herbivore? Eat meat anyway. This is episode number 67. We're your hosts. I'm Steve. I'm Dino Dan. Gaia kind of bad though.

I'm Don. And today we're talking about the cult classic Evo search for Eden. ⁓ is it a cult classic? I've never heard of this game until that's why it's a cult classic. It's very like the legit. Yeah, this is legit a cult classic. Is this is this the hidden gem? I'm not going to get chewed out on on social media for calling a hidden gem. No, somebody's always going to have a stupid opinion. Okay. All right. Proceed.

So get ready to upload data from us to you, but first, let's set the mood, Evo, Search for Eden, carries itself as strange, lonely, and quietly awe-inspiring. From the moment the game begins, there's a sense of being so small within a gigantic, uncaring world. You're not a heroic savior, so much as a creature struggling to survive.

evolve and adapt in a world governed by natural selection and mysterious cosmic forces. The environments feel ancient and primal. There's a constant tension between wonder and danger. Every new era promises growth, but also extinction if you make the wrong choices. At the same time, the game's mood becomes increasingly philosophical and unsettling as it progresses.

What starts as a simple evolutionary journey slowly reveals deeper themes about ambition, control, and the cost of perfection. The presence of higher beings manipulating evolution adds a sense of dread and existential unease, making you question whether progress is truly freedom. By the end, EVO feels less like a traditional action RPG and more like a meditation on life itself. Beautiful, harsh,

but ultimately fragile. It leaves you with a lingering, almost somber feeling, as if you've witnessed the rise and fall of countless lives compressed into a single haunting journey. It's haunting journey for sure. Yeah, the fucking music. Grindy, dude. That grindy journey for sure. We did a lot of eating. Lots of eating, lots of killing. You name it. So much murder.

But before we get into all that, I have some announcements, which the first of which I'm actually pretty, pretty excited about. So our merch store is actually open. ⁓ So finally you can get yourself some cool cable club gear. There's only five products on there now. We'll probably put up some more, but I'm going to do Dan a big rock hard solid favor here. And I'm going to share my screen with the store so he doesn't have to edit in video footage afterwards.

very nice. second while I pull that up. if you're not, if you're listening to us on a platform, you can go check us out on YouTube. Look at that. also getting the plugs in right now and you can look at the wares on offer. So we've got a t-shirt, which actually is not ⁓ quite a t-shirt. They're calling it a gamer tee. It actually feels like a workout shirt. You guys know what I mean? Kind of that like light breathable, like moisture wicking material. Yeah.

Yeah, very, very comfortable. Five different colors. We have this awesome insulated travel mug, which I have to say is probably like the favorite thing that I've gotten. I drink from it every day and it's, it's really big. It's got a really high, high quality lid comes with a good quality straw. ⁓ Some stickers, some hats, just go check it out for yourself. ⁓ If you don't plan on heading over and watching the video, the link will be in the description.

⁓ and I want to say that, we've priced all of these things so that, ⁓ our operation, just believe in total transparency. So we'll actually net about $5 from each transaction. And, ⁓ $1 of that actually ties into my next announcement, which is that we're officially partnering with, extra life. And if you hadn't, haven't heard of extra life before, they are a charitable, ⁓ gaming platform that partners with, ⁓

Children's Hospital networks in order to fund ⁓ local and national level Children's hospitals. So basically how it works is a gaming themed entertainment like our podcast right here ⁓ does our work, we partner with them and we give, we're going to give a certain percentage of everything we make to them. So we have a meager goal, because I'm not delusional and I know we don't have a big audience, but we have a meager goal of a hundred dollars in 2026 that we're trying to raise for them.

so, we'll do this in a couple of different ways. One is through the merch sales. but also you'll see on our social media, we'll post once in a while to try to draw up some donations, but also in November, there is a 24 hour stream of thon events that people who work with extra life, host. So I'm hoping to put something together for that. So hopefully, you all can join us at some point during that day when we announced those things and we'll have more details to come. Awesome. You guys excited for that? Cause I am. Yeah.

You know that you want to do a 24 hour stream with on with me, 24 hours. I'm sure it won't be that bad. Did the last time that Don and I tried to do a 24 hour game a thong. It was Donkey Kong 64 and we were fucking wired. We were like over it. Yeah. All we need is like a game that's similar to a bloodlines Castlevania. I think we'd be good to go. Just put your diapers on. How many games can we beat on Don's?

Not beaten game list in 24 hours depends on the game. guess I still got to hunt down all the relics in, ⁓ Metroid prime. So there is, there is that. And then I just wanted to talk a minute for about, ⁓ about this week, this year's schedule. So right now we're in the middle of our winter backlog. This is Dan's game. So that's the last host pick game we're going to do. The next three games are going to be picked by you, the audience, and you've already submitted.

Some of your backlog games, we're to pick a random one today. If you haven't submitted your backlog game yet, you still can. We have two more of these episodes coming up. We're going to pick a random game from our listeners backlog. So if you are listening, you can either write us in an email. The game that you would like us to play. And it's a prime cup rules. If you're familiar with Pokemon stadium or no holds barred, so you can pick any game you want us to play and do an episode on it. It'll get entered into this random pool of games.

So after that, we're going to start our league this year. And this year's league is going to be focused on ⁓ indie games, not, retro games. So we're going to have guests come on. They're going to bring us their favorite indie games. We're going to rank them into cups and then we're have our audience vote on them and give out prizes just like we did last year. So look out for that. That league is going to start on March 27th. So ring in the spring. And that is what I have for you. So Dan question of the week question.

of the week comes from Hux. He wrote, what's your favorite e-sports moment? What do you say boys? I have a couple. ⁓ I don't watch e-sports. Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't really either, but, ⁓ I know this is gonna, we've, we've talked about this before, but I feel like the Daigo parry is very good. And it's partially for me because I still watch Justin Wong stuff sometimes.

And he's still kind of traumatized about it, or at least he plays like he is. And it comes up so infrequently, but it's such a good memory. But, ⁓ a little bit more near and dear to my heart is the hearthstone scene. So, ⁓ there are two major types of cards in hearthstone. Maybe, maybe more. It's been a little while, but there are minions and spells. And I think in like the fourth or fifth set to ever come out, they released a card called Yogg-Saron.

⁓ which you're in, in the game of Hearthstone, you'll go every turn, you get more mana to spend up to 10 mana. So Yog-Saron costs 10 and he's a minion and he has seven attack and five health. That's not very much for something that costs 10. But what he does is he throws a random spell at a random target from the pool of all spells in the whole game. ⁓ times the amount of spells that you, the player have played.

throughout that game. So he was tournament legal. And if that sounds random, it is, but people did the math and figured out he was beneficial to you like 50.8 % of the time or something like that. So basically everybody's deck included this vanilla card. And if they fell behind in the late game, they would just throw it down as a hail Mary, if they knew they couldn't win. And the amount of times it worked, you know, on camera, cause people were hyping it up. It was just ridiculous.

He eventually did get banned, but it's just funny how much of a coin flip it was and just really kind of speaks to the evolving meta of card games. That if you're like, if I can coin flip, win the game and I know I'm going to lose anyway, I may as well flip that coin. yeah. And you'd have turns where people would jog Saron, flip the board state and the other person would jog Saron on their turn and flip the board state back. That sounds like the wild west. I'm not here for it.

Or or you die? Spectacularly because yogs around would kill you he'd throw like five burn spells at your face or something geez Mine's a smash brothers melee related There were a lot of really good moments back in you know 2007 2008 but one of my favorites is the wombo combo and it was it was a 2v2 match

so in Smash Brothers, know, pretty much everybody that listens to this is probably fully familiar with Smash Brothers, but, ⁓ one of the team members was knocked out. So it was a two V one at the time. And it was a premeditated preplanned grab combo between a Fox and a captain Falcon where they did this crazy combo and they killed the other Fox, ⁓ or knocked him out.

with this cool combo and everybody was streaming in the recording. Wombo combo! it was just happy feet. That ain't Falco. That ain't Falco. I really enjoy the montages of salty smash gamers. Yeah. Where like people get mad and they like, like I see people take their controller like a mace and just like whip it at the ground. Those controllers are expensive.

Every smash tournament is somebody's controllers retirement party. That's basically what I figured out. The other person's holding out their hand to shake their hand and the other guy's like whipping his controller around on a string. I've seen ones where, you know, the, match ends and the dude puts his hand out, ⁓ the opponent that one and the guy quickly goes over, he shakes the hand real quick thing, he turns back over and slams his controller down. He's like sportsman like for.

Literally two seconds. Yeah that that actually reminds me of a I'm trying to think of his name He's a he's a guy that is Marvel versus Capcom ⁓ Pro but he's like the nastiest most toxic trash-talking like heel of a player ever Like he comes out and he just talks me. I want to say his name is like it's like Turkey champ or something like that. I forget but he's so

He's just brutal and it's funny because when when when he loses he's actually pretty graceful about it But like he talks all the smack like to everyone and especially when when when he wins like he's he's playing against like the best player in the world and he takes one stock off him and he's telling the guy how how dog shitty you're free Yeah, exactly

That reminds me, like, there's so many old videos of Magic Pros, and it used to be like part of the game where they would just smack talk throughout the whole match, these pros. And it's like ridiculous. What is it to like get in their head so they make mistakes? it's to distract them. And like it was a big part of the game way back when. Jesus.

I'm trying to sit here and do math and they're like what are you gonna do you gonna attack you're going just like I already got you block here here here and there it's like so bad man sure you want to do that bud? So BM Yeah, I don't know I don't really watch eSports but like Don brought up a good point with a Marvel vs. Capcom 3 like I don't know any of these guys's names But like there was this like like top tier player that like did smack talk

And there was like this other player who like played a bunch of low tiers was like Hulk and like a bunch of like bulky slow characters. And obviously this hired this like best in the world kind of player was like rocking like Phoenix and stuff. And Phoenix was like, basically if she was your last character, she'd get like ridiculously strong and like super overpowered. And it was like a strat that people would use.

where like they would save Phoenix for last. But like what this guy would do is like, there's a couple moves in the game where like you can kick the opponent off the screen and it forces the switch. What this person would do with the low tiers would like try to get like a force switch into Phoenix and just try and eliminate it. So like his whole strat would like basically disappear. They did like a first to 10 and it was like neck and neck. was like they both had like nine wins and the guy with the low tier ended up pulling it off. And it was just like insane.

Sometimes I feel like stuff like that happens because nobody's ready for it. Yeah, but like This guy was like was would that's when I kept saying you're free That's like what he would say to this guy every time like you would win a game like off the player that was playing the low tiers So it just feels so good when someone smack talks and they get put in their place It reminds me of all the videos that I'll watch where you know, one of the

You know, two UFC fighters and one's like real BM and then you get to see the guy that was being humble. Yeah. Knock him out. So like one to have some too. He deserved that. It's showbiz, you know? Yeah. All right. Let me pull up the community answers here. We'll start with Hawks. He said, I love me some Daigo Perry. Who doesn't? And Leroy Jenkins is iconic.

But my vote obviously has to be, my God, lightning helix. don't know. my God, it's lightning helix. What is that? Okay. in Protor Ravnica, ⁓ it was like 2008 or no, I'm sorry, earlier 2005 or six. And ⁓ what happened was there was this zoo deck, which is all creatures. And then there was a burn deck or something similar to that.

And these two people were playing in the top eight finals. And, ⁓ the game was like game three, it was the deciding game and they both played masterfully and, ⁓ this guy had only one card in his deck that would win him the game. And that was lightning Helix. And it was, if he didn't win that turn, then his opponent was going to win.

And so right as his turn came over, he grabbed the top card of his deck, flipped it over and slammed it down before even knowing what it was. And it was lightning helix. my God. Yeah. Great. Great. ⁓ great. Esports moment is tabletop gaming. Esports. Does that count? Tell us in the comments. I mean, I feel like it does. Okay. In the same vein for me too. Yeah. Put chess and esports too.

I don't know. think I draw the line there. think both. Just happy to be not included in the. What would you call it though? Just like chess by itself. Like it just doesn't. It's not one thing with anything. Yeah, it's like it's like its own thing. Yeah, could be. Chef Doug, I can't find the clip, but there was a moment in Halo Tournament where the dude fired a single shot and a quarter and the enemy team moved in such a way that the dude got a five person headshot. Multi kill.

Team kill all at once. Penta kill. my god, dude. Imagine like, I wish she found that clip. Yeah, that's a, that's a retire now moment. yeah. Like just him like explaining that. Like I want to go and see that. Like that, that seems insane. Like that's like tournament winning right there. You know, Ridiculous. Completely disgusting.

Because you know it was not intentional. no way. Yeah, the team had to line up for that to happen like well now they know not to do that Don't follow me. It's like follow too close burn after reading. What did we learn here? I don't know I just learned not to do it. I just learned not to do it again. Whatever it was right Okay mythical MLG another halo halo 3 Meadowlands ⁓ 9 after final boss

completely dominated Halo 2 tournaments. They were off to a bad start in Halo 3. They ended up kicking off their team captain, Welshly. He joined another team and ended up beating them. When interviewed in main stage, he said, it was like taking candy from a baby, but I think the baby would have put up a better fight. Such a nerdy moment, but it was hilarious at the time. We'd be like six people deep crowded around our single PC watching live.

That's pretty tough. That is definitely some revenge there though. True fan there. Yeah. Like I'm sure like that dude like was amped up to beat his, you know, former teammates. All right. And then we have Happenny. My favorite esports moment is a combination of moments when I make my opponents quit mid game. I salt my tortilla chips with their tears. I don't know. He actually put up a video of his own channel. I don't know if he created the channel to just put this.

⁓ he's gone. But yeah, he put up a video of his, ⁓ I'm assuming his maddened gaming and he takes, he takes the ball and he runs it like all the way down the field. Like basically never happens in actual football, it seems, but it just goes in. And then, and then after he gets into the end zone, it just DCs like the pop-up comes and DCs the opponent quit. Yeah, that happens a lot in gaming.

Yeah. What's your favorite part of, ⁓ of e-sports rage, rage quitting. Yeah. Rage quit edition. There would be metas where like you knew you didn't want to play against a particular class. So sometimes I would pick that class and I wouldn't even be running the deck that, that was broken and be doing something else. But as soon as they see the class you are, they just quit. Like you get like, you get like three out of 10 games for free. Cause they just see it they're like, no, wow. I'm not, I'm not doing that again. You tell what kind of day everybody's having.

Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy. I don't know if I could play a game where it's like if I was invested into it, but like I quit like half of my matches, like depending on like what the opponent is like that. That doesn't seem that that doesn't seem that fun to me. Play any kind of PVP style game with a ladder and you'll you'll have days like that. I'm sure. Yeah, I guess. But it's just like just play it out to I mean, at least I would in this don't you lose. Don't you lose points for like

DCing out or something or? Well, you lose the same amount of points for losing, in this case, the deck would make the games go really long. So if you that you weren't going to win anyway, like if your deck was not favored. like half hour long game just to lose. Yeah. You know, you're just like, no. Yeah. That, that is definitely needs to be fixed on Blizzard's end. If the games are like that.

Especially if you got a couple of bad beats like you know before that you're just in a crap mood and you run you run across that and you're like no I'm like I'm not like I'm not like big into cards But like I'm sure there's like decks and various games that do that like try to draw row at a game Yeah, you see the island go and you're like mmm to like to take the opponent though like I just want to end this What time do I have? Let's the clock 30 minutes. No my god

It's hard to balance games, you know, especially, especially card games. know, when you have control decks. card games, especially, cause it's not like a, like a video game where it's like, you can just throw out a patch. No, what usually happens in card games is metas evolve over time to where control, you know, loses to aggro or control beats combo. And then aggro beats, you know, control and combo beats aggro. It's like, is it like a cycle that like.

Yeah, it's like a long cycle that usually happens the meta shifts in a way that decks move around hmm Makes sense. I guess I need to make enough powerful cards. Yeah, I guess that's one way around it Yeah, you know cuz it's like you can't patch cards, right? It's like all this card does something else now They got patched. Well, you can patch them now because most most card games are digital That was the cool part about Hearthstone. They have they absolutely would balance cards. Yeah over tweaked

Which was kind of nice. So I liked it when some cards went from completely broken to completely unplayable. Like, yeah, no, don't want people doing games. Why do they do that? Like in games in general, where it's like, when something's like broken, like, why can't you like nerf it to like, where it's like, okay, you know what I mean? It's like a lot of time when they throw like the nerf hammer at it, it's like makes it completely dog shit after that. I mean, if you want the real answer, it's Reddit.

Like, cause people go and blow it up on a forum and then you're like, wow, people really hate this. Let's make sure they don't experience it anymore. they just do that thing from orbit, whatever. Like it should still be like at least viable, like not like unplayable. You just can't make everybody happy. can't. guess what it, the are much more vocal than the happy. I'm a, I'm a fan for like a squeaky wheel of the grace. Yeah. Micro nerfs, know.

You keep nerfing it until it gets to a spot where it's good. Like, you know, it's sitting at a good spot. just get it to micro evolve until it gets good. It's gradually evolves. Either way, either buff it or nerf. So whatever it needs, but like doing like these like, ah, 50 % nerf, like 75%, you know, it's just like, of course it's going to be shit or like overpowered. nerf? With those kind of numbers. a bird or a reptile. Like, dude, those are some mega nerfs.

Like in Evo search for Eden the game that we're gonna talk about

Alright, so it was Dan's game, so therefore I feel that Dan should do the overview. before we do that, Dan, what the fuck? I was practicing my duck face because, you know, that's what I want to be. What is this game? So, EVO Search for Eden was released in 1992 in Japan. year as Final Fantasy V.

Hold on, we'll get back there, but I just want to point that out. The US got it in 93. ⁓ Platform is Super Nintendo. Developed by Almanac Corporation, published by Enix. Not Square Enix, Enix. It's a side scrolling action game, I would say light RPG mechanics. Not a lot, but yeah. You get like these like EVO points, which is like basically experience points.

You can use these to evolve various parts of your character, depending on the era that you're in. So like you start off in the ocean era, and then it gradually goes to like the prehistoric era up into like early human eras. Dialing it back to the ocean era, you start off as a fish. You'll fight other fish and other like crustaceans and water life to basically evolve. So you'll get experience points when you eat the meat off of them. Everything's like a, a, like a

T-bone steak or whatever, not a T-bone steak, like a, everything is a short rib. Yeah. Basically I'd say short rib. Yeah. Everything's packing that in their little body and that's all you eat. Yeah. So like you, you, you kill a jellyfish, you get a, a bone in short rib. Yeah. Like a beef short rib. Yeah. It's great. I'm, know, I'm putting on my little neck napkin, fork and knife, my bib. Even if you're an animal that eats

plants you still eat the yeah, 100%. They know what's up dude. Blood is the only way to evolve. Yeah, so basically you can evolve like various body parts. You can do like head, ⁓ horns, like fins, hands, feet, fins, dorsal fins. Yeah, like basically you name it, it's probably there. Like you got you know body parts for like more defense.

But like the main mechanic of the game is to progress through the ages because the name of the game is Survival of the Fittest. Kind of? Yeah, I mean that's what it is. It's like you have to outlast everything else. So like you come out on top and evolve and...

The game starts you off with Gaia and she basically tells you that like, hey, we're going to try to progress through these ages and basically see like how far you can get. And then there's like something going on with like crystals, I guess, are interfering with like the natural evolution. like you got to be... Ancient aliens for all who are familiar. Yeah. So like you kind of, there's not much of a story in this game, but like there's that going on where it's like you get to fight off ancient aliens at one point, but they're like way later in the game.

Usually you're just going through the game progressing. It's kind of like if I had to put a name on it, Link's Adventure. Where you'll go onto the world map and you'll pick a stage and it's like a side scroll event, kind of like a Link's Adventure. And you just got to go from point A to point B and then you can go to the to the next one. But yeah, basically that's what it is. It's just like the game's very grindy at times because sometimes you'll get stuck on some bosses where it's like, you can definitely tell like, all right, I am

very underpowered for this. So either I try to bash my head against the wall trying to fight this boss or I go back and just grind out the necessary like upgrades to see if I can progress further. I think when I started this game, I had expected, ⁓ I think you guys are both familiar with Spore, right? Yeah, I think that was like an early 2000s computer game, wasn't it? I thought it was older than that, but I did a little bit of research on that. But

think that's a late 2000s. It's actually kind of like 2008. And I didn't realize there was only like one Spore game except for like a couple of like peripheral games. Like I think they made one for the DS and there was like a cell phone one. But yeah, I thought Spore was like a whole series, but it doesn't seem to be. But like, I thought it was going to be kind of like that where like, you know, you could evolve into different creatures based on the aspects you did. But actually like,

I don't know if you guys found things to be sort of linear. Like, cause like, really wanted to be like a fish that used like a horn, like a, like a narwhal. Yeah. Right. ⁓ and so like your only attack when you start is, is like a bite. Yeah. And then like you, but you can evolve to have a horn. So I figured out how to use a horn, but then my horn broke after like three uses. Yeah. But had, but like I had ground up.

you know, ⁓ enough short ribs to get myself a horn and then it just broke and I don't get those points back. And so I just decided to not do that. So I ended up like, know how the most expensive upgrade. Yeah. Especially for the, like the last year one too, like, holy moly. Yeah. So I like, became a swordfish at the end with an unbreakable horn, but the horn wasn't even good. Like it didn't deal good damage. Yeah. I have a gripe.

I think like a big gripe I have with this game is not knowing what any of the upgrades do for you until like you actually buy it and then check your stats. Cause like you have no idea like what, like what it even does. Like I was like, do I really want to spend like 2000 on this upgrade that I might not like? Like I was safe stating before buying upgrades so I could see what they all did before making an actual selection.

Well, Dan provided a nice chart in the discord that kind of told us, Right. there's even, even that one was kind of bad. Cause once I started playing it then I was like referring to that list, I was like, dude, this dude isn't really being descriptive. He was like better HP, you know, but like, but like, don't know. Some of them, was just like, really? That's all you got to say about it. Like, well, it's like, okay, there's five dorsal fins and they go up in.

how many points you need to evolve into them. Right. And what they do for you is HP and speed. the final dorsal fin is, Whoa, it's faster than the first one. Like that's just how it is. Like, so I don't know my, my inclination was, I guess one thing that was nice about this game is I, my inclination was to just skip all the other evolutions and try to go for the top one first.

but I was not really able to do that. Like the game scales in difficulty fast enough. Yeah, I was doing that at first. Like you can get away with that in the water era, the ocean era. Yeah. But like after that, it's just like you kind of need like those micro upgrades just to speed the process up. Like especially like the Jaws. Like I don't want to sit there like trying to chomp this thing, you know, five damn times to like get like 30 experience. I want to one shot it and move on, you know.

And sometimes just getting one job grade will allow you to do that. like definitely in this game, it's like the first thing that I would upgrade is damage. And then the second thing would be speed. was not worried about HP right away. Yeah. But HP definitely does help, especially with the goddamn hit stun in this game. Holy shit. Really? I feel like that's the reason it doesn't help. Yeah, it does though, because it's like.

If you get caught in like a, like a hit stun and it's like boom, boom dead, you know, at least sometimes you might be able to get out of it with like more HP. I think the first time it happened to me, had 25 HP and you know, those little, um, horseshoe crab things and yeah. I, I like when, when, when over one and it, when it like pinballed between me and the ground, like, and it hit me like

five times and killed me like instantly and it's so fast that I thought it only hit me once and I was like oh my god those things are deadly like yeah it took like 25 hp off me yeah it's insane like how fast you can die sometimes you know what's funny too is when you die Gaia basically tells you like your evil points you're going to lose a slight amount of them she says slight it's half you lose fucking half of them that's not slight girl I'm sorry it depends do you have two or do you have a thousand

At times I definitely had to. Yeah. Like quit lying to me. Like some, some enemies took like 14,000 points off me. Like it just was that, that, that way it was very sad. Yeah. Anytime I tried to like go to like a bot or if I knew a boss was coming up or something, I would just try to spend it. Cause it was like, there's no way I'm losing that much.

And the hit stun, can't overstate. This is one of those games. have no iframes. So something just goes and dogs you, which happens a lot. Like you can't get out of it. there's instances, oh, and enemies all have me germs too. If you don't know what me germs is, you know, if you remember scary movie, the guy with the little hand sticks his hand into the pie and shouts me germs. It hurts you to touch him. That's what me germs is. They're bosses that you hurt to touch.

So they would just like get in you like in your sprite and it'd be hitting you and they'd be attacking you. And depending on your, on your upgrades, you probably couldn't hit them back because they were like in your sprite and you just get like stun locked to death. Yeah. It's pretty brutal. Well, to be fair, can stun lock some enemies too. Yeah. It does work the other way around. Like they don't have eye frames either. It's not a nice combat system in general. It's rival of the fittest baby.

Yeah, kind of, except you have a goddess that really wants you as her mate and is reviving you to just throw you. Don't tell my father. Don't tell my father. Throwing you endlessly. Same as Princess Ruto when she gives the Zora Sapphire. She's like, don't tell my father. like. weird cold dead eyes. Yeah. I mean the game like in the grand scheme of things, like, you know, the upgrades are like cool and whatnot, but.

As Don was saying, the game is actually pretty linear. You don't really get a lot of different attacks until much later in the game. then even then, it's just one extra attack. I never even knew this, but guess Don says when you get the bird form, you get this kind of swooping attack. I didn't even realize you got that.

So, you you, you bite, you bite your way through most of the game. And then, ⁓ in the dinosaur era slash, ⁓ early mammal era, then you kind of get choices to do things a little differently. And, and actually, ironically, we all did, right? Like we were kind of talking about this before the show. So like in the dinosaur era, you're, you're, you're a dinosaur, obviously, but if you climb this mountain and take a leap of faith and jump off of it, you evolve into a bird.

Yeah. And I stayed as the bird. So usually when you transition from era, like when you trans when you transition from the ocean to the amphibian era, you are essentially starting over. And I think you even lose all of your Evo points too. And you start from, you know, the lowliest of amphibians and you have to work your way up from, the bottom. That is the most miserable form in the whole, the whole game. I don't know. The one's brutal too.

As soon as you transform into the amphibian. Yeah. They're all, they're all pretty brutal, but, ⁓ so once you've done that, when you transition from dinosaur to early mammals, it's a choice. You don't actually have to turn into the, the, the early mammal. can stay as a dinosaur or in my case, a bird form. And, you can just kind of ride that out through, through the end of the game, but even from the mammal stage.

You can either stay like an animal, like a lion hippo giraffe thing with, with teeth. ⁓ that's what I am. ⁓ Or you can actually like do a combination of parts that aren't so obvious. I think it's like body of a rabbit and like, what? Jaws of a cat or something like that. Yeah. And you can eventually evolve into a human with like an ax. So you could, you could.

stay a dinosaur like a t-rex dinosaur you could be a bird you could be a human you could be a mammal thing and that's kind of how you finish out the game so there's a little bit of license yeah i mean it is kind of neat that like once you progress far enough in the game it actually gives you like choices because like in the in beginning of the game you don't get that like you become an amphibian like no questions asked and you become a dinosaur and then so i get like the point where they're trying to be like well

You know, you need to work hard to evolve and you have to adapt to survive and all that stuff. But like if this game was made now, I kind of wish that they would give you some kind of return of investment on all of the upgrades you had in the prior like age. Like not saying that they have to give you all the points that you spend, but what about like half, you know, just to cut the grind down on the game. Carry your stats over to the new creature and just build from there. Yeah, something.

Yeah, that would be cool because I would like a more like say like in the ocean era, a little more like a robust system where like say like, hey, I can upgrade my speed and I can up because you can't really upgrade too much of that because you're a fish. But like, I would like that to carry over to like the amphibian. So like say like if you went like really speed heavy, like on your fish, your your base amphibian would would be fast or faster.

It would have been cool if there were trade-offs too. like if you, maybe if you picked a certain fish tail, you would not be allowed to ⁓ have like the most powerful fish jaws or something like that. Right. And, and they kind of did that a little bit with the fish and I'm surprised they didn't with the amphibian ⁓ or the, or the dinosaurs really, but like you could turn into a swordfish, but that reduced your jaws to like the.

Like I think it's like the second best jaws. Like you can't have the shark jaws and also be a swordfish where you had like a horn and you could like charge enemies with it. ⁓ So I like that. just, yeah, I just wish there was more of that. Yeah. Another thing I want to point out too is like some of the upgrades that you would get were kind of like head scratchers. And I mean, like the, the dinosaur age.

specifically, like you'll get like the T-Rex jaws, which were really strong. But like, then you had like upgrades like after that, that like they weren't as expensive, but like they were like past the jaws. was like three different like, were bird beaks. Is that what they were? Cause you could change into those, but like at the end of the day, it's like, why would I use these? mean, like, I don't understand because they were like significantly weaker.

So I don't know if I was missing something or what. and even as the bird, I gave myself T-Rex jaws. So I was like a flying, like pterodactyl, except I had a T-Rex mouth. Yeah, that's what I did. Fist jaws are really good. Yeah. And it's like, I'm not going to bother with the beaks. I don't know what they do and I don't care. But they might've been good for the bird kick. So like that, that, that, that other attack, like the swoop would get more powerful when I would upgrade other stuff like.

Like when I upgraded from an armored body to a feathered body, it got better. And when I upgraded to like a long bird tail, it got better too. So I don't know if it's just maybe the beaks would make the picture Yeah, maybe you could have went for like a swooping build or something. Who knows? I didn't know So during the dinosaur age, did you guys farm the giant crustaceans? Oh, on the water? giant crustaceans? Like the ones that were worth 500? Yeah. I didn't even run into those. What are they?

There's a water area in the, it's the only water area in the dinosaur age. felt like they were only worth farming if you had like a strong enough jaws. Cause the jaws. Yeah. So I thought, I thought the plesiosaurs for a hundred. Yeah, no, there's, if you have the fierce jaws, you'll one shot the, you know, the little crustacean you're talking about that pinballed against you. There's like really large versions of them at the bottom of the water.

You could swim and miss them completely if you swam on the top of the water. But if you went in the bottom of the water, there's crustaceans that are bigger and they're worth 500 Evo points a piece. Yeah. Like bosses are only worth like a thousand. That's insane. But like they, like if they get like the drop on you with like the pinball, like with the ⁓ multiple hits, it was like a one shot almost. If you didn't have good armor, that is.

He could buy good armor pretty quick. Yeah. Absolutely deleted you if you weren't ready for that. But yeah. If you had like a really good armor, like they didn't really hit that hard. Yeah. That was one of the tips I wanted to bring up. Yeah. So is it, is it time for tips and tricks? Yeah. Just the tips. All right. The tips. ⁓ Not a lot of tricks here. So mine is, ⁓

It might not be so obvious, but throughout the game, there are these red crystals that, that you can find and they give you special forms. And this is not explained in the game very well, but anytime you are a creature, you can go and you can record it. And so if you found the red crystal that you could turn into a dragon, which would give you like 150 HP, which is roughly three times what you might have at the end of the game. ⁓ and you hit for 30.

And you have a horn that hits for like 15 and you can fly. Like it's a very good form to be, and you have significant armor. Like some stuff that was hitting me for like in the twenties was hitting me for only like 10 as a dragon. So if you took forms, uh, and these, these red crystals, they'll turn you into like a special form for like a minute. But if, if, while, while you're in that form, you go make a record of that creature, you get to name it. And I don't know how many you get, but I think there's like.

I think it's like green. like six or seven red, red, red crystals. But yeah, then, then you get these green crystals, which don't appear to really do anything, but what they do let you do. And I don't even think it's a place you can look to see how many you have. There isn't that that's something they need to add. Like, like I just, I just had a bunch. Like I think I had 10, 10 by the end of the game. Cause it took me a long time to figure this out, but you could go and.

evolve back into any creature you recorded. So if you found one of these powerful creatures, you could record it. And then you could, for like a boss fight, you know, if you found yourself on the ropes, you could like turn into a 200 HP elephant with like a 20 power charge attack or something like that. you'd be input, you it'd be like impossible to kill you for like three minutes while you fight, while you fight the boss. This neat little.

system there, but you had to do it though. Cause if you turned into the dragon and then turned back and you didn't record it, you don't get to. There's no second chances. can't go back the crystal again. It's just gone. it's strange, but that's a good tip for people to know, I guess. it definitely is. Cause that one was going to be mine that I was going to say, I guess another tip you could do is save States and rewinds. No, I'm just kidding. What is this? I'm just kidding. ⁓ I guess.

For another tip that you could do is learn boss movement. They have patterns. And if you learn them, you can typically get them in such a loop to where you won't take any damage. For example, the fish boss, which is a pretty tough boss for a very first boss. He can definitely demolish you. So he does this dash attack.

So like if you're like next to a wall and he dashes at you and you like move up, he'll like slam into the wall and then you can get behind him and then chomp him like one or two times. And then you just get out of his way and you can repeat this process and he'll never touch you if you, you, once you learn it correctly. So, and, and a lot of bosses like do that where, another example, the amphibian, if you like level up the, the jumping capability,

on the the B bosses. Like they like to fly like pretty high up. But like with the amphibian stage, like you can jump like so high, like really high and like frog. Yeah, like insanely high. Like I think it's the only era where you can actually jump that high, like like ridiculous heights. But anyways, you can jump up high enough to basically bite them out of the air and then they'll just fall down and then they'll try to fly back up. And then you can just keep

getting them in this loop and the bosses are jokes. Like some of them, some bosses, if you don't learn the loops, they're like ridiculous and they're hard. So that's my tip. Just learn some patterns. If you get behind it and you just continue to just chomp, he'll sometimes hit you with his tail, but it does so little damage and you can just bite and bite and bite and bite. Yeah. Trading hits isn't bad too, if you're on ⁓ the better end of that. My tip that I brought to the table, these two boys didn't know.

That if you evolve mid fight or at any point if you choose an evolution, it heals you completely. So if you have a stupid little evolution you can do that costs 100 evo points and you can alternate back and forth. Like if it was size or if it was like a cheap horn upgrade or you know, whatever it is. It's so ridiculous. And the funny part is too, is it's not even that hidden.

It's like almost like you just have to pay attention because it's like, soon as like, like Steve was saying, you get that upgrade, you get fully healed. You know, it's like, it's like presented to you, but it's like, goes over everybody's head. So like when he said it, I was like, my God, he's right. can't believe it, dude. Because the, the, healing is like menuing, right? So feels like something you want to do when you have a minute to sit down and look at your options. Right. But.

And I don't know, to me, I just didn't think of doing it in the middle of combat. then like I had been fighting bosses the hard way. Oh, dude. He mentioned that. know. Like I was probably like 90 % through the game. Like when he said that that trick or that tip, because like I want to say in the first week, I like played the crap out of this game. It got like 90 % of the way through. Then I took like a like a five day, six day break without even playing it. And then I finished it off.

But I was like, damn dude, some of these bosses would have been a lot easier if I knew that. Well, I have another one actually. Did you guys notice that if you went into the menu at the right time, right after you got hit, like you could time it to where your HP would be zero, but you could go into the menu. Yeah. Yep. So before you died, like, like your HP, your HP was at zero.

is a pretty generous window when you get hit to when you actually die. And if you just pause during that window, you evolve, you go back to full health. you just, it's almost like a fighting game counter in a way or a parry or something. like there was, God, the hit stun. It's so bad. So I figured this out against like the first B boss during the amphibian era. like I

I went in and it was the, the King bee and I was messing him up. just kept flying up and I kept jumping and biting him and jumping and biting him. then I accidentally zoned, which is the thing you can do. Like you can zone back out of the boss room. isn't mega man style. Right. So I was like, no. Right. So I go back in and he was right there and he shot his, he shot his five shot stinger.

And I couldn't move and it was like one, two, three, four, five. And I went from full to dead. was like, give me those Evo points pay up. had like, I had like 3000 Evo points, which at the time was a lot. And I was saving up for something good. Dude. He was enjoying your sorreloin rib steak or whatever. So then you meet the King B and you're like, Oh, you meet up with this little dragonfly. And he's like, yeah, I didn't agree with the King B anyway.

And you're pretty much at this point where you don't need to evolve anymore. You're strong enough, but don't go into the desert because the sand worms are really strong and you're like, who are you? Tried to me. Did you guys have a favorite era or like a favorite like species? Bird. Bird. I have a hot take one. think honestly.

Like the mammals pretty cool with the kick, but I actually enjoyed the amphibian a lot. once you got going, dude, I dude, was jumping like so high that I was moving the screen up. the screen up. was like, dude, I love that. What color was your amphibian? Cause I don't think they're the same. I was what? By the end of like all the evolution, like the end. Mine was purple.

Mine too, but I watched a video somebody had a different color amphibian than me. I how I it. Mine was gold, but I didn't have max everything. Yeah. Yeah. Mine was purple. He looked like Spyro. Yeah. yeah. Cause he had, I think he looked the coolest too. out of all the, yeah, they went hard on that, on that one. So I didn't like that. There was no range options. Like you fought the big fat amphibian thing and he's got like acid spit or whatever. I'm like, I want the acid spit.

Like I said, they could have done a lot more than they did ⁓ It's very linear in that where it's like you all you literally do is like jump and bite. I said, well this concept has legs But you know, it's like it could have been so much more like of which the hands and feet upgrade only exists for the fish just saying Hands and feet so but it's just for the fish. That is wild

It's weird. Sorry, I had to interject that. But like, man, this game kind of like deserves like a sequel or like a remake. yeah. I feel like like like Act Razor did. Like I think it kind of deserves. Yeah. Something where it could reimagine the game and have like the core like foundation of evolving through, you know, side scrolling combat where you could get more than just bite. Yeah.

Well, I it did. feel like, mean, I don't have any way to prove this, but there's no way somebody invented Spore and didn't play Evo. know, but that game is like a 3D, like adventure kind of game. It's not like this. Yeah, it's way different. Yeah, but you can, so it's not way different. is, it is an, an ARPG element, but it was made in the era of 3D games. But the way you evolve is like harping on one particular characteristic until it turns into what

to what you want it to be, right? So you might start as like an amoeba and then it makes you a ball up your jaws. But isn't Spore kind of like, it basically looks like how you want it, like exactly almost? Like no two things look the same, like in Spore. I think there's just that many upgrades. mean, I don't- Like this is more linear where it's like, you know, you have a set path that you follow. Yeah, which I think is its greatest flaw, if I'm being honest. think so? Eh.

I actually think what they have is good. just needs to be expanded on. Like think about it. They could have had ranged attacks. They could have had elemental attacks or something or some facsimile of it, right? You could have turned into a venomous creature that was good against some things, not good against others. They could have straight up had herbivores. Imagine that having like a poisonous bite where you bite something and then it has like a DOT. That would have been...

That was sick. Like they didn't do any status effects, right? No, no, no paralysis, no sleep, no nothing like that. Right. And like they had weird creatures too, except you couldn't turn into them. Right. Like there was later on, there was the bird men. So we're kind of getting into the subplot of the game. Right. But the whole reason that Gaia has you to reach Eden is because there's something, she mentioned something strange is going on with the evolution on this planet. And you find out that it's like.

basically these aliens experimenting on different ⁓ creatures, also the thing that they like, whatever they did to experiment became such a problem that they couldn't control it anymore. And they left some of their crystals, their technology behind, and it turned into the final boss, which is Bullbox. Yeah. Basically. But, ⁓ like the, you know, I just feel like there's so much that they could have done in this, in this game that, that, that they didn't do.

Like because it's linear. exactly. I don't know if it just wasn't well known back then, but like, like you guys were saying, I do think it had enough leg to have a sequel. Like for sure. You know, like I like I'm playing it today and I, and at the end of the day, I'm like, you know, this game isn't like, you know, tops here, but it's all right. Like I could definitely see this, this, you know, getting a sequel to

evolve like basically what we have going on here like I'm just surprised that it just flew on it must have just flew under the radar or something because like I felt like it was okay think about when it was released and what it's competing against like Dawn said Final Fantasy 5. Yeah. I mean that didn't get a US release but that game Final Fantasy 5 is a good Final Fantasy. Hmm. But like I'm just thinking of like back then it's like this game would have been

pretty good for back then, you know what I'm saying? So I don't know. It's a lengthy game. It's got saves, right? So I could see myself as like a kid who was like seven or eight years old, just getting started with video games. And I had my Genesis and it was, you know, games you turn on and off and that's it. You got to beat it in one sitting or else. Right. But you had this game and you could play like a creature and you could feel like you had some license and making some choices and you know, like that, that would have felt pretty good at the time.

Hmm. Absolutely. think it's definitely got some scuff on it now. Like, but yeah, for sure. You know, it had on, on like losing half your Evo points sucks, but it's not quite the same as losing like hours of progress. Like if you game over in like a final fantasy or something and you didn't save for like a of hours, like to me that feels worse than losing the Evo points. the

The game's a little bit grindy, but it's not that grindy. doesn't, like, I think it only took me like 20 minutes to grind up enough points to get the Tyrannosaurus jaw and like the most powerful 5,000 body or something like that. It really didn't take long. It was monotonous, but it was only like 20 minutes. I mean, yeah, well, it would have been a lot. It wouldn't have felt a lot faster if the music wasn't so repetitive. The music is pretty bad.

I mean, there's some okay tracks, but like a lot of the music in this game, like loops after like five seconds. And I don't know what they're thinking about that. That's, kind of crazy, especially with the game where like you're forced to grind a bit. Like, come on, you need longer tracks. I'll actually link something in our show notes, but I went looking for the soundtrack to just see if I could get some names of songs and they're more like boss music and you know, the, names of stages, but.

There's a group called arcade player that remade these songs and they really tried to make them sound cool. So, you know, I'll just give them a shout out and put them in the link. If you're morbidly curious, ⁓ they're not making my playlist still, but I do applaud the effort. actually sounds like, you know, something that somebody puts some work into as opposed to this. The super, this is one of those soundtracks where the super Nintendo trip does chip does not do it any favors. Yeah.

I I mean, like I said, some of them, some of them aren't bad. Like, I mean, there's one that kind of sounds like Dragon Quest II, where it goes like, do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do

I like the ambient like undersea ones too. It kind of reminds me a little bit of Super Metroid, but that's probably a dirty thing to say. Metroid music is really good. yeah. It's ambient. Definitely helps the feeling of the game. Yeah. Well, not something I would totally off to. ⁓ I do want to talk about the final boss though. How'd you guys find Bullbox?

I know, was it like Russian Roulette or something? I'm not like, I still don't understand that boss, because it's like, are they like, do they come out the same way every time or is it random? Yeah, it's random. I fought him enough times to know it's random. I fought him a lot. I probably fought him like seven or eight times. I made sure he had a bunch of evil points going in there, and I just did that whole thing. I was gonna say, did you fight him before I told you the tip? No, but the, so...

The thing that was getting me were actually a couple things. So occasionally it was hit, stun. So I could pause mid hits done. What would. well, I actually didn't know that. so he was was stunned in real life. So sometimes while I was like hitting, hitting buttons like no, no, no, no. Like, like, trying to jump out of it. But like so like Bullbox would do that attack where he would like reach out for you while you were fighting whatever the minion was. And he would like.

Occasionally he would get me and he would like literally juggle me to death. was like, ⁓ the big problem for me was the amphibian. So I was a long necked bird. And like, when this guy was on the ground, there was literally nothing I could do to him. And that took me forever. Right. So the, long neck was super useful. Most of the time, but it took me forever to, ⁓ be able to figure out something to beat this amphibian.

where, so I found out you can not only dash left and right to do the bird kick, but you can dash up and down during that fight. So I would dash down and kick and it was like a, like a quick, like bird kick and then he would go to jump and I would snap at him. So I figured that out. The other one that got me a couple of times was the stupid, ⁓ what's his name? He's a, ⁓ that dinosaur with like the head thing. yeah. The one that like

I don't remember the name, the one that likes the belch and like, like a yells or whatever. it like, you let him go the other way and you don't corner him, you're dead. There is no way to stop it. So he just yells and it just AOE is the whole room and it doesn't hit you for good damage, but it will hit, stun you. It'll, it'll hit, stun you. And then bowl box will, will eventually hit you.

But he yells at such intervals that you like literally can't Yeah. Happy feet. Combo combo. Yeah. I mean, that was like my thing with the fight because it's like, I tried to get most of the, ⁓ the mini bosses in the, office, the corner just so I could bite span them and then looking, ⁓ ball bag over here with extend his arm over and try to hit you to interrupt my combo. I was like, no, get out of here, So you couldn't kill that guy. Yeah. ⁓

then he had like some BS ones, right? Like, like one of the, one of his eight eggs, you were like, these eggs must all be serious mini bosses, right? One of them is just like a super meat. Yeah. then one and then the baby amphibian or whatever. Yeah. He's the baby amphibian, his meat is actually poisonous and hurts you for five. Yeah. Maybe it's just like.

some war or something. It's like, Hey, that's frowned upon. of frowned upon the triceratops that lost his baby. can attack him and kill him. I do look in a, game where the bigger your target is, the more points you seem to get. You telling me you wouldn't at least try it. Cause I did. This game does like, ⁓ try to pull out the heartstrings a bit, especially with like the, the, the, ⁓ dad yeti and the mom yeti and the, and the little baby.

⁓ Scream and you killed its parents and he's running around going I Felt I felt a little bit bad after that one and like they get the little sad music going huh, so I love it a son you'll learn it one day comes back for revenge and he wombo combos your stupid ass into Sasquatch ninja. Yeah, he goes like

He throws like a, like a jab cross hook, uppercut combo at you. That'll completely take you out. You have to like rub your eyeballs after that. You're like, excuse me. What, what just happened? Yeah. If you're playing your stupid human with his one act and you that swing and he just gets, he closes the gap on you and just gets in on you. Some of the bosses are, are just like fun. And I, I like that.

A lot of the story of the game just boils down to like all the other animals complaining about the dominant species at the time. Like your first dialogue in this game is like, hear rumors amongst the kelp that there's like mean sharks just like on the forgot my drink. My diet Dr. Kelp. Ah, you didn't order a drink. Or like, what did you say Steve about the bugs or something?

Something like that. None of the plants can grow. All the bugs are eating them. Well, now that you defeated the bugs, plants will grow again and dinosaurs will flourish. There you go. I still eat meat and I'm definitely the supreme ⁓ evolution. And then I killed the rexes. You find like hidden stegosaurus later and they're like, they're like, will you

Will you leave us alone? And you can answer yes or no. And it's like, depends. How much points are you worth? And when the dinosaur, the end of the age of the dinosaurs comes and all the meteors are falling, Guy is just like, here, just step through my magic point. that was super violent, right? Yeah. Like there's like T-Rex bodies like crushed with like boulders under him and they like tons and tons of stuff. the blood, yeah, there's blood. It's like blood everywhere.

Gaia's dragging you through the portery like, no my evo points! She lets you keep them at the very least. Well no, I meant like all the dinosaurs that were dying, it's all the evo points left on the table. Eat all the short ribs, go go go! Or the Just a snack.

I like how you can answer to some of the bosses that you'll just do it their way, right? Like you come up on the T-Rex's and they're like, we're the king of the dinosaurs, but you show a lot of promise. Why not roll with us? You're like, yeah, sure. And then like you just do. And then I guess Gaia just doesn't pull you through the portal and just lets the meteor kill you. Yeah. Yeah. All those interactions where the boss gives you a choice. The wrong choice is always like some mini cut scene of like how it didn't work out.

Kind of something like funny. It doesn't give you a game over or anything. It doesn't give you a game over. It just brings you back to the state. Yeah. You just go back to state select. Try it Okay. So I did the dinosaur one, a yes. And I did the merman one, a yes. Did you guys do any of the other I did. I did. did it for every one. I played on my raw galley. So I did save state for decisions like that. Real quick. Do you guys have a least favorite boss?

Because mine is the... the frog. I think it's in the amphibian era. Dude, he is tough. Dude, I almost wanted to fucking hum my rog ally across the living room because of those little... stupid frogs stunlocking me. You're supposed to jump on- You're supposed to jump- Dude, how do you jump on him when he jumps like two- screen lengths away from you? No, no, no, not the big frog. You jump on the little ones as they're coming at you because they only have one- one No, he got my number the most times by far.

I lost to the Yeti the most. I was the human and like because your attack doesn't push anything back like you hit the Yeti and then he's like He was pretty bad so he cost me like I don't know maybe him and his wife total or whatever cost to me like Seven or eight thousand points because the human is a thousand points to heal. ⁓ god you fought the You you you were losing against the first the first yeti's not brown one

Yeah, because I didn't have a good attack on them. human attack doesn't knock them back and they counter. Yeah, the mama one with the slab, dude, the Donkey Kong slab, dude. Yeah, clap those cheeks, boy. Yeah. It was real rough. And she's so much bigger than the male one. That's funny, yeah. She was brutal. Like sometimes she could dash into you. So like she'll dash into you, bounce into you, and into a clap, dude. was like, oh my Yeah, I know. That's exactly how I died to her the first time. I was...

next to my wife and I was like, ⁓ and she's like, happened? was like, just got my cheeks collapsed. Literally. But, for me, it had to be the, so the queen B you fight after the King B she comes back later as like a blue version and she's faster and hits way harder. And for me, she was easily the hardest boss. Her fight starts off with her immediately dashing you. And I don't know if you can dodge it.

But basically it resulted in me taking like 34 damage at the start of the fight every single time. the rip. Yeah, like you had, was one of those, right? Just real bitchy moments. And you had to get her in like a pattern. She also had the multi-stinger attack. And if you got hit by one of those, forget it. you're hit by GG. Yeah. It was pretty much one hit death basically against, against her. was, she's really tough. Yeah. And apparently you guys didn't fight her. I didn't, I don't remember it.

I don't remember. did. fought the blue one. Yeah. And you have to teleport to the other continent. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I didn't have a problem. That's some cryptic, Simon's quest shit, huh? Getting over to the other continent. I'm assuming you guys all got there via a guide because I don't know how you were supposed to know that. Yeah. ⁓ yeah, I did. I, all you have to do is just hit the jump button. I think at like a certain part.

On that. how are you supposed to know that? I just stood in place teleported me. It's like a Stonehenge thing. It was weird. ⁓ with like the little crying birds, which is also kind of funny too. Yeah. Yeah. No, after at the end of this, at the end of the level, it's like this like weird like structure. So I just walked into it and teleported me. That, that, little space with all the, all the birds with

No wings. They're all like crying. saying our ancestors were wonderful winged beings who don't have wings. mysterious force destroyed them all. I had a moment, like a Futurama moment. What killed the dinosaurs? Me! It was the, Michael Scott from the office. He's like, ⁓ No mercy. I'm back to finish the job, How many Evo points are you worth? How many Evo points are you worth now without wings?

Good stuff. Does anybody have anything else? Yeah. The pervy face that your T-Rex jaws make when you run. Like angry, like. Yeah. It's quite the expression. I feel like we need to make it one of the emotes on Discord. I just can't find a good picture of it. Or like when you get hit too, some of those are pretty funny looking. Like some of them have your eyes bulging out and stuff.

Yeah, they're all like the weird anime kind of like, esk looking things. I don't know. It was, was, was a pretty good game. I had, I had, I had fun with it. Obviously I beat it. So, Yeah. I think it was, yeah, it was average. You know, maybe, maybe slightly above. I also beat it without safe states or speed up. that, you know, it's not, it's not bad. I was, I was glad to go back to it because I know I played it when I was a teenager, but I didn't finish it. And I don't remember why, but,

I'm glad to have been able to put it on my finished list. Alright, so you guys ready to get into our host review? Yeah, let's do it.

All right. So before we get into our host review, you know, I got to get the plugs in right guys. So if you like what you hear, you're a new listener, hit the subscribe button. If you've been here for a while, you're still listening to us. I know you've heard me say it. Click on that review portion, drop us a rating and or review. Your feedback's wonderful. Helps us grow as a show and helps us get better at this. And we hope to keep doing it for a while because we're having a good time. You could even.

Become one of our awesome friends over in discord because that's our favorite fan group. the people that hang out with us every week in our discord and talk about the game and other things and other hobbies and, sometimes hang out on the gaming couches with us. So yeah, go check that out. It's totally free. We won't even hit you up for Patreon money. Not, not yet. ⁓ and, or, know, just interact with the show by sending us by, ⁓ commenting on our social media. We're on the Facebook and, ⁓ the Instagram.

And, ⁓ we are also on YouTube. So, you know, leave us a comment or something where, and we usually do respond. So yeah, without further ado, I'm going to kick it over to Steve to host our, ⁓ host rating and review. That's me. All right. As, ⁓ as traditional cable club goes for our winter backlog here, we've come back to the rating portion of the game, like we used to do.

We've got five different categories and each of us are going to rank it between one and five and give us a total aggregate score. The first one that we're going to do is presentation. That's how the game looks, how it sounds, how it presents itself. You know, is it like going in for an important interview or is it just waking up on Saturday morning? You know what I mean?

Our next category is gameplay. How does the gameplay feel? Is it fluid? Is it laggy? Is there tons of hits done? Is there too much grinding? That's going to be in the gameplay section. Pacing. is ⁓ how the story moves and how fluid the game feels as far as, you know, does it go by quick or is it dragging? You know, kind of deal like that. it go by at the right speed? Yeah.

It's important. You know, got to see there's a minimum speed limit and maximum speed limit. You gotta be spikes, know, Goldilocks on playability. Can you play this game easily today? And would you replay it? And then the last one we've got is our choice specs. And that one is just to pick your own reason for rating the game. It's your own personal opinion. If you think it's.

Special or if there's something that you like about it that is unique That's where we would put that so presentation Dan I know you're excited to tell us about how bad the music is. ⁓ I'm excited because I'm thinking about Gaia. So it's an instant five for me ⁓ Guys guys probably seven

Nope, nope. It's a one through ten. You can't pick seven. That's the rule. All right. Well, know, jokes aside, I guess. Yeah, I mean, the game looks good, I think. Like the sprites are all good. you know, all the evolutions look cool. So that part, you know, aesthetically, it looks great. Like it's it kind of has like a little anime style going to it. ⁓

I like the way that it looks. But as far as like, you know, your music and whatnot, like they got a couple good tracks, but like a lot of them are very, you know, especially with a game that you're grinding for points, you know, you got to have longer than five second loops. I'm sorry. Like that's just unexcusable to me. Yeah. I other than that, like, I don't know, I would probably give this like a three.

I think it's, it's good at a three. It's pretty low. You think so? Nah, think it's all right. mean, like the music, I don't know. I'm pretty big on music when it comes to games. That's fair. Listen, what year did Donkey Kong country come out? Oh, was it 90? 94 or five. It was, it was a little later in the system's life. one? Yeah. It was, it was, I think it was a little later in that, in that system's life. Cause they figured out they could do the pre-rendered sprites.

This is worth a look. Yeah, I don't know. mean, they weren't like trying like anything special. Not that they needed to. 94. November. 94. Not that they needed to, but I don't think they're... I don't know. There's no Mode 7, I don't think at all in this game. Not in this game. But I will say... You know there was an ActRaiser, which was a launch title.

But I will say, like, if you pay attention to the background, they have like multiple backgrounds where like they're shifting at different times. So that, that, that was actually a nice touch. yeah. And there was, there was day and night too. If you hung out in a biome long enough, you'd reach nighttime. I would, I would give us like a 3.5 if I could, but I'm just, I'll just stick to three. Oh, okay. It's like a 3.4 then. How about you, Don? What do you want to give this thing in presentation? It's on the SNES. Looks good. Sounds awful. I'm going to give it a four.

I am going to be more on the lawns of Dan here. I think that the game does look pretty good I could I think it could It could do even better, but it still looks good. There's a lot of rights. There's a lot of enemies. ⁓ Chrono trigger has a lot of enemies. What do you want me to say? Yeah

Came out well as far as music to though like a super mario world looks just as good as this game It was a launch title for the system. Yeah, fair enough fair enough. Yeah And as far as music goes to like they had a tall order to like you know, you know Chrono Trigger Mega Man X Donkey Kong You know, it's just the music is just not doing it. Yeah. Oh, well, it's very the music's very bad. Yeah Yeah, like I said sounds awful

Yeah. And I mean, like the menuing is like, it's not very aesthetic. It's all like weird blocks, different shapes. It's just kind of weird looking presentation. Oh The, the text inside, like the, yeah. Whoa. What were they going with that? That was weird. don't know. Oh, whatever. Um, it didn't, didn't hamper my experience much. Um, but this is the presentation of the game, not gameplay here. Listen, sometimes presentation, sometimes presentation makes gameplay worse.

If it's something like the camera or something like something that just literally impairs your vision. Yeah. Sometimes presentation bleeds over into other categories. It's that bad. So at least, at least there was none of that. So. right, Don, why don't you start with the gameplay? How would you put the gameplay in a rating? Man, like the whole game's combat and the combat's not that good, but something about getting to the next evolution, not just because it'll make you stronger, but seeing what it'll look like, seeing how ugly you're going to be.

was kind of an addicting loop. And I don't think it really took that long to grind. And I was, I didn't even do it very efficiently because like Steve said, there's like these little crustaceans on the ocean floor that you can get for like 500. If I had known that my grind would have been over very fast. But even then it only took me like 20 minutes to get to the max power that I ended up ending the game at as a dinosaur. So like, I don't know. I think the gameplay is pretty good. I think it's, I don't quite want to say four because

Every creature is kind of the same and I wish I want more. Like I wanted ranged attacks. wanted different characteristics in the animals. So yeah, I'm probably going to give it like a three. I'm definitely more positive on it than I am negative, but it's, could have been a lot better. Yeah. the, the, the combat could definitely be better. Like for sure. Like having bite.

Like all your only mode of attacking is biting for like 75 % of the game. ⁓ it definitely needs variety and some of the bosses do just feel cheap. Just be just by design. Like I was saying, like that frog boss and maybe it could just be a skill issue on my part. I I'm not really sure, some of them hit stone. Yeah, exactly. But some of the bosses did feel pretty bullshit and it did. That just didn't feel good. ⁓

I don't know dude, like I'm stuck between like a two and a three as far as just like gameplay. I'm gonna be generous and give it a three. I think I'm happy with that. ⁓ I think it's kind of a unique idea, but as far as the gameplay goes, just felt it just felt so repetitive. Man, ⁓ I'm having a hard time.

Was this the section that you asked when you said it was like, is there any lag and stuff? Was it this section or was it the next one? Yeah, gameplay. It's like, is the gameplay fluid? game lags like a mother effer. There's some points where it chugs. holy moly. When he said that, I was like, I forgot to mention that in the previous section of the podcast. You to change your answer?

Yeah, that many instances. No, dude, like if it was like two things on the screen other than you It was like that game you could feel the the drop. I was like Dude, no, I I think I'm at a two as well. You know what I forgot about the lag too Yeah, that's where I'm at. I just a rip on it ⁓ I think Dan picked it because he couldn't he it's been so long

Yeah, I thought it was more fun than I, than I remembered. I mean, it wasn't bad. Don't get me wrong. I know I'm like, I'm kind of giving it away. Beat the games we don't like. we're so high on a game like final fantasy eight, but only one of us beat it. then like long, know, we, we play like lost kingdom and we were all pretty dogging on that one, but all of us beat that one despite it being.

Yeah, but I beat like I don't hate almost all the games, but I don't love it Yeah, you know, this is how it is. All right pacing this is how the game? Progresses through the story. Is it fast as it's slow? And Does it feel like it's taking forever? So for me, I'm probably gonna be in the middle of the road on pacing There is some grindy spots, but you don't necessarily have to grind

And because the game has different acts, you know, the different ⁓ periods, think that pacing wise, you know, the bosses are mostly different except when you have to like fight three bees over the course of the game or whatever. for the most part, I feel like they kept it, ⁓ they kept it moving. And the only thing that stopped you from moving forward is yourself. So I'm in the middle on pacing. I was going to give it a three. Yeah.

Probably the same. If the gameplay loop was a little bit more exciting, then the pacing would have felt more enjoyable, I think. I think if you had more meaningful upgrades that gave you different stuff, like status effects or range attacks or something, then this could have been an easy five, just like how you're progressing your current species. But I guess my biggest gripe is the grinding, which it's...

Granted, it's not that long, like I do feel like bosses end up being roadblock sometimes where like you can clearly tell like, yeah, I'm going to be bashing my head against this boss if I just don't go back and grind. Because like the, like the, the, especially like the defense upgrades, like they're, they're massive. Like you can go from like getting two shoted to like getting like five shoted depending on which one you're, you're getting like, so.

I mean, you don't have to play like that. Like you could try and like beat it, you know, not getting hit that much, but you know, I like to make it as easy as possible if I can. So yeah, I'll give it a three, you know, it's a little grindy, but it's not too, too bad. I mean, it's, so it's not bad. I really want to give it a one. Really? Let's hear it. Yeah. So I, it's.

It irks me so much that I go to a new era and then I lose everything and I start from the ground up again. it happened to me in the dinosaur era when I turned it turned into a bird. And I have to admit that was a little BS, although I ended the game as a bird. ultimately it was a fine choice, but like I like why.

Did you take the jaws away from me that I had to then just go upgrade again? Like I had already spent the points on the Tyrannosaurus jaws, 5,000 points, which at the time was kind of a lot. You had to kill a minimum of 50 enemies to get there. And then they gave me the, a jaw that did one damage, like the, like the weakest possible jaw and the weakest possible body with no HP and no speed and no anything. It's like, to be fair though, like if they had told you

Even a little bit if there was any kind of you know They way to know that you could go and then immediately after get flying go get the dragon and then fly up and get the 10,000 points from the alien ship It would solve that problem But I don't know that you know gotten it because I think the enemies would have killed you right there's no there's no Wasn't there those pterodactyl guys?

Yeah, it is pretty hidden though like to do all that. it's very hidden. You can get the dragon right immediately after and then go in to stay with the enemies. Yeah and flying and get the 10,000 points to get your jaws back. But they don't tell you it. You have to like I found it on a guide. didn't even. Yeah, that's something that's very easily missable. But like that.

You'd have to know to jump in Stonehenge in order to go to the next continent. I feel like is a really cryptic thing, but then like a lot of the biomes, like I don't remember a lot of them. Like there are just areas that you just walk from left to right and you just pass it and that's it. Like you don't have to interact with the enemies if you don't want to, or you can just like, I don't know. It's just there. It's just filler. And there was a lot of that. no, there was. Cause like a lot of the time it's like you try to.

fine, like what's the best exp per hour enemy and obviously it's not usually in the, the beginning biomes. So a lot of time you're just running right through those, not giving a, just not a of memorable spots, know? ⁓ so yeah, that's, that's kind of how I feel about the pacing. I, I feel like it's one of the things that got really messed up, ⁓ on this, on this game in certain points. And the latter half of the game where you get to keep your points and use,

make decisions like, can stay a reptile. I know I won't change much, but I can at least keep my strength now, or I can turn into a mammal or I can be a bird. Right? Like those choices all felt impactful and the pacing felt a little bit better. wish like you actually, those green orbs that you get, ⁓ I wish that was like a permanent thing where it's like in the game, like, like maybe get rid of the orbs.

And like, say if I wanted to swap back to my amphibian form for something or vice versa, like any of the forms that I previously had should have stuck with you through the whole game, in my opinion. Just maybe, maybe like- could have. No, you could- No, what Dan's saying is he thinks that you should get rid of all the orbs and be able to change between your forms whenever you want it. so like say if I wanted to play an amphibian through the entire game, I should be able to do that.

Yeah, hard mode, right? But like, feel like that that would have been so all the upgrades that you had like what has stayed with you through the whole game because it's like, I don't know, like when you when you get like limited resources, you have a hard time like spending it because you don't know when when when do I use this kind of thing? So you end up not using them. if you lose to a boss twice, you go from like balling to broke. Like, you know,

And then you have to go, go grind again. like I got my, my intention was always to go mammals and I was just building up points, building up points. And then I got shellacked by a boss twice. And then I was like, well, I guess I'm not doing that anymore. I'm not going to get all those, those, those points. Like I had enough points to go from the like Quetzalcoatl dragon looking thing that I was too, too human. Right. Like, but it just, yeah, I was like, no, no, guess not. So I feel like pacing is a one for me. Yeah. I feel like that's pretty valid, honestly.

I think they really messed that up. Yeah. All right. Dan, you want to start us off on playability? Yeah. mean, the game's definitely playable. You know, like I said, I wish there was more to it, but it does open up when you ⁓ when you get to the dinosaur era. And then, like you said, like we could all like play at different species. Like you could turn into a human out like near the end of the game. We could stay a mammal.

You could stay a dinosaur. You could stay a bird. So like there is choices, I guess, like on how you would beat the game. But at the end of the day, it's like they all play fairly similar. I guess the most different one would probably be the bird, right? Cause you're flying. Cause you literally move around the screen whenever you want and you get the bird kick. Yeah. And you get the kick as the, mammal, which is, which is nice, but like that, that kind of stuff needed to be in the beginning of the game.

Like right off the get-go, not like when you're like 75 % done. Agreed. You know, it's just like the fish feels the same. The amphibian feels the same. The dinosaur feels the same. You know, it's just a lot of saminess. feels the same. Yeah. It's just not a lot going on. You know, you just, your sprite looks different, but essentially you're the same thing. You just look different. So.

The fact that you do have somewhat of a choice at the end of the game, like where you can branch off a little bit. I won't knock it too hard, but like, think I'm going to give it a three for that as well. It's not, it's a, it's a cool little game to play. like it has its, you know, downsides, but like it's fun. right, Don, how do you feel about playability? think if you've exhausted a lot of the SNES library, particularly the RPGs, and you're looking for something to play.

That's maybe a little off the beaten trail. You could probably do worse than Evo. However, if you don't want to emulate it, it is one of those games. This thing will cost you like $330. yeah. I didn't even think about that. Yeah. So it's very hard to come by. It's never been re-released. Yeah. It's probably one of those, one of these cases where the game is expensive and not worth it.

Although once you reach that echelon, it's hard to argue for anything, but, um, yeah. So I, I'm probably going to give it a two. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't take that road. Like, damn. Yeah. You guys are right. Uh, I am never going to replay this game ever, ever again. You don't want to go play as the bird. No, I got the bird. I was the bird at the end of the dinosaur. I feel like I'm not missing out on anything.

by not playing it again. don't think that the replayability for a different animal at the end of the game going through a, you know, five hour slog to experience something just slightly different. I don't think it's worth it for my time. And also we talked about it. It's impossible to play other than emulating unless you want to dish out, you know, a whole day's worth of work. And I'm not doing a whole day's worth of work for another whole day's worth of work.

You know one man. I think it's pretty terrible. I'm downgrade to to a two Keep changing dance answers It's I it's perfectly okay to recommend this game. I just it's the nostalgia goggles if for somebody else Yeah, I mean maybe a three because it's a little bit different, but me personally I would go back and replay it Okay. All right. I think Don gets to start

On the last section, choice specs. Is there something special about this game or just personally that you think either, ⁓ deserves high points or low points for? obviously the uniqueness is in the idea that you're building a creature and you're evolving and you're, know, building it the way that you quote unquote want. it's one those empty choices where you don't really have a choice. You kind of do have to make the creature stronger in a very linear way. Most of the time.

with a few exceptions to that rule. So, you know, it's greatest potential strength is also maybe its greatest let down. But, you know, overall it's unique specimen. So I'm probably going to give it a three. It definitely has its own unique element and the elements kind of fun. So I'm going to say I'm three. Like I, was definitely unique for the time. But like, again, like it's, you know,

You know, heads aren't exploding with this idea. You know what I mean? It's like, think they could have been, but I don't think it just didn't. They didn't execute it well enough. And it could have just been the time that it was made, but like, it just feels very lacking for what you could have done with this game. You know, like your character feels very samey. Like at the end of the day, from start to finish, your character feels very samey.

So for a side scrolling, not very platform heavy game, but it's like a side scroller having the ability to play like five different characters is kind of cool. So I think a three is fair. I think it has a little bit going for it in, in originality. So I, I commend it for that. You know, unfortunately it's feels half-baked, but it still has legs. The idea is interesting enough.

for me to say like, you know, if you haven't played it, you could try it if you wanted to emulate it. think it was a good idea if it was expanded on for sure. our totals are Steve giving it 12 out of a possible 25 points. giving it 13 out of a possible 25 and Don giving it me a 13 out of.

A possible 25 for a total of 38 out of 70. God, dude. What's that? What's that percent? That is, ⁓ sorry. I mistyped it. Hold on. ⁓ it's right around halfway. ⁓ we'll call it a 51%. Yeah, it's still better than average. No, no, no, no, no, no numbers work. ⁓

So that is our score. That's that's that's what we thought. Feel free to agree with us or rail on us in the in comments or send us an email with your grievances for why this is a hidden gem. It's a hidden something. I just think it's more like a hidden lump of coal than a gem. ⁓ But it's there. Is it a reason that we call the Super Nintendo Super? Maybe? No. But anyway, we're gonna we're gonna

Let this fossil go extinct, set it aside and we're going to pull up the picker wheel to pick our first random guest game. We haven't done this in a bit, which I hope for all of you, it's more interesting than what we just had. come on. You guys had fun. We did. did. yeah. No, I mean, it was, it was an experience to go back to. All right. So you pull up that picker wheel.

Get that, get that bad boy up here. GTA. of games on it. So is there, is there any games on it that stand out or any, any ones that people voted like more for than others? Wow. That's a lot of games. Yeah, for sure. Look at that. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So we've got all kinds of games and for anybody not in a discord, you're missing out on having an opportunity for your game to be on here, but we have, that's probably like

30 games. Some of them are doubles because somebody would mention something in the discord and they'd be all excited. They say, yeah, put, put that on there for me too. So yeah. if people wanted to see us play a game more, they can vote for it again and it gets an extra spot on the picker wheel. Yes. All right. So are you guys ready to spin to find what game we're going to do in our winter backlog here? I guess here's your gift. Hope you like it.

Please no shit game. Please no shit game. I'm surprised somebody didn't put some actually, you know what? There's, there's the ring fit game in here that I actually have that believe it or not. Yeah, I kind of want to play it, but I don't want to buy it. I think it's like, I think it's like $80 for the whole setup. Uh, I found it for, for 50. So it's not that bad, but I, know, I'm hoping that I don't have to buy, buy ring fit. So, all right, go ahead and that thing. Ready?

Let's do it.

Come on Batman, Batman!

We almost got DBZ that would have been cool this one might be seasonally appropriate to until dawn, huh? Yeah on until dawn and I don't like scary games. Why did it have to be a scary game? Because you need to get over it the until dawn Yeah, I know nothing about this game. So

Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. So it's like a horror, storytelling game where the choices you make matter. And, uh, like you play. Trying to remember the name of the company 2015. Yeah. 2015. And it's like, you play a bunch of teenagers who go to a cabin in a woods and there's basically a bunch of ways to get murdered and a bunch of ways to save everybody. And you're trying to do that.

Yeah, I'm not gonna spoil anything. what is it like one of those? I've never really played these, but is it like what they call them, like Telltales or something? ⁓ No, because there's some action elements in it. is there? Okay. So, it's ⁓ a, think it eventually spawned the series called Dark Chronicles. I don't know if you've ever heard of that, but I think like almost annually they've been coming out with a horror game in this style, just in a different setting. And I think this was the first one they made that really

caught everybody's attention and it's kind of a wild ride. So I'm a little bit excited to pick it up and I cannot believe that this game on steam is the full price. Really? What price are we looking at? On steam it's $60. For the PS4 you might be to get it for nothing. Yeah, like the PS4 version you can find for like

15 bucks, 10 bucks. Really? Wow. That's crazy. Might have to dust off the PlayStation 4. Apparently. Flash five because five is, five is ⁓ playable. Yeah. I can't believe it. That's crazy to me. This game is like, it came out in like 2012. It is very popular. It got a movie adaptation. It did? ⁓ wait a minute. Yeah. So.

Is there a remake for this? I it's a yeah, PS5 remake. ⁓ okay. Cause the one I just looked up says on until dawn remake. what are we playing? There's a different one on steam. are we playing? we, it doesn't matter which one we play or I think we're going to the original. ⁓ I wonder if that's on steam, like the, the, the original. Maybe it'll be cheaper.

So before we go, I do like to say that, um, our theme music is done by cubby. It's seahorse dreams. It's pretty awesome. He's an awesome artist. Go check them out on his bandcamp in our description below. Uh, I also like to thank our listeners, uh, the people who listen to us every week, who are subscribed to us in the listening platforms who hang out with us in discord. All of you. Thank you so much. Make this so worth it for us. Um, and then I also.

The editing and producing for our podcast is done by the three of us. What three talented guys we are doing all this graphic design, this editing work. Pretty awesome. Right. So yeah. ⁓ now that we've set, ⁓ Ivo aside and we're to play until dawn. we'll see you in two weeks for that. For now it's game over fellas. Game over. Game over.