FOREWORD
I have always been a sucker for primal/barbarian aesthetic. Dinosaurs n shit and cool reptile-like monstrosities have always enamoured me. EVO is a game where you play as a little creature evolving to be let into heaven; leaving nothing but blood in your path. It's a grindfest of a game, but good god do I just love how it looks. I'm good with repetitive gameplay, so I don't mind churning hours to afford one horn. I think I just like dinosaurs.
THE WORLD BEFORE LAND: THE FISH AGE
The story starts with the Sun telling his daughter, Gaia, to make animals play the evolution game so he can find a suitable husband for Gaia; Disregarding the fact that there's only 1 route where you become human. You're put on the watery earth as this cute little fish. The artwork of this game is astoundingly adorable, probably one of my favorites. A jellyfish lies to you first thing, so eat him and start to reach eden through bloodshed.
Consuming is the main mechanic of this game. You beat the hell outta enemies then eat to gain evo points to evolve different parts of your body. Each body part has its strengths and drawbacks, but for the first one just live lavish and grind for the most expensive parts. This whole game is a grindfest, but a quick one. The fish age is just a bunch of tutorial caves, so there's not much until the boss.
There's stage hazards also, like the underwater volcanoes. Be careful because you can be locked in a combo due to the stunlocking; In fact, many things can lock you into a damage combo if you're in the wrong place. It sucks ass.
The next level they introduce things that fight back. The colecanths are easy, but those armadillo trilobites are straight from hell. I've gotten stuck with them richoceting off of me and doing 15+ points of damage.
Now we're at the boss level. Some seaweed tell you that the strolites are attempting to put oxygen into the atmosphere to create a new world on the land. The kuraselaches keep squashing the strolite's plans, so we have to beat the big boss kuraselaches.
You can get the boss stuck in a corner and do massive damage to him, but he can also do that to you. Not too difficult if you get em stuck. He drops sashimi when he dies; No clue why since evo points don't carry over to the next stages. You exit the cave and see bubbles of oxygen rising to the surface. The strolites won, and now the land above is habitable!
You get legs for a second before Gaia turns you into a fat frog-xolotl. Now is the age of the amphibians! The land segment is much more fun than the aqua segment.
THE WORLD WITH LAND: THE AMPHIBIAN AGE
You start on the coast of the continent Pange. There's not much here except tutorial, so i'm skipping those first 2 levels.
There's a short segment where you go back underwater and meet some colecanths. Nothing there either... But now we get to the first actual land segment! The land segments are named after the creatures who inhabit them, the first being Land of Timid Ikustega. The enemies can jump and goomba stomp you now, and (almost) everything's aggressive. What's cool is that there's a (very short) day-night cycle; enemies fall asleep at night, so that's prime attack time.
Then you get to the land of amphibians (which I thought I was already in, damn.) and you're told that this land belongs to an elder who takes care of plants. before you meet Pliny, you gotta get through the boss ikustega Debustega. He gets mad we insulted his body shape (despite us being built the same) and goes nuclear. He's a massive pushover, actually... Just get him in a corner and beat the hell out of him. He doesn't even have a back attack like the shark boss.
The elder tells us of insects who keep eating all the plants, and won't make a treaty with the amphibians. That's our next assignment: overthrowing a tyrannical monarchy. As a loyal amphibian, we march off to our fate willingly. Oh god, if only we knew.
Finally, the bug wars commence. The first buggy domain we get to is the domain of Profasu (ancestor os cockroach). These thangs just swarm you out of the gate, goddamn. Annoying little buggers.
Next up is the realm of the giant bees. Judging by the last bug hopefully they'll be-
WAR IS HELL!!!
But no, these are the damn worst so far. I fuckin hate the bees. They sting you and are so hard to hit. The elder only told us that the insects were eating all the plants, not that they're taking our children in droves. Priorities, it seems. Nature is hell.
Finally, we make it to this little cave area. It houses a bunch of insect eggs, which we eat. This triggers the big boss King Bee to go after us. King Bee tells us that the only way the megafauna insects can exist is if they eat all the plants (disregarding that the bees had shown carnivorous behavior on our babies) I had some trouble with him first, but when you recognize the attack pattern it gets easier. He also can be stun locked just like the other bosses. All the bosses have been piss easy so far; Surely this trend will continue for the rest of the game :-).
I forgot to get screenshots of the worm section, whoops.
After the King Bee, you get confronted with an indestructable worm. You just gotta skeddaddle the hell outta there while the worm spits sand and bites at you.
This is when the reptiles finally come. The first one is this little sand lizard called an Edosaurus. They tell you the era of plants and frogs are over, and that reptiles can only thrive. We ignore this and try to farm them. Don't farm the sailbacks, they do 10+ damage and will get you stunlocked into a damage spiral.
Next is the mosuchops, which are easy to farm. They jump outta the sand and attack you. They're easy to counter, and really cute looking.
The final boss of the amphibian age is the Queen Bee, and boy is she a bitch n a half. I regret everything I've ever said about the bosses being easy, she was hell. I don't know why they decided to have a jank souls boss at the end of this chapter after everything else was a pushover. I wish there was a bee hell. In fact, I stopped recording when I was fighting her since it took me so damn long. The only screenshot I got was of my frog smiling after eating her.
After overcoming great trials we are unceremoniously given a reptile body and told to go to the reptile age. Alright. Stay tuned for the reptile age then, I guess.
THERE'S JUST MORE LAND: THE REPTILE AGE
Welcome (again) to the reptile age! After a couple months hiatus, I had no clue where I left off. I just went back to the first level to retrace my steps, which is why my little guy already has an upgrade.
The first stage is the Domain of Tecodonto. These guys are alright for grinding. They run away from you, so I'd use this spot. They're goofy looking things. There's also little bugs on the ground that give 3 points a bite.
The Door to Dina Continent has nothing of value except worms. The hint orb brings up the fact that two legged creatures have better jumps, so that was helpful. Maybe i'll go two legged since i'm a jump spammer. i mean, next has to be the era of mammals, and monkies are two legged...
Some ominious whispering from the heavens tells us that only the BRAVEST reptiles brave Mt. brave. Looks like that's our next quest to reach Eden.
We finally make it to this swampy, muddy area The Marsh of the Prime Frogs. A nice change of scenery. Some frogs ask me what's so bad about being slimy. I have no dice in this game; My skin looks to be leathery like a thrift store couch. They also say "ribit" Must've not evolved that final B yet. These things suck to fight. They whip around and hit you a bunch with their tongues. Annoying ass things.
In the Marsh of the Reptiles, we see some familiar faces. Those little fat frogs that watch over plants! They survived! Although theyre now saying that reptiles are eating everything now and that worries them. Their jump attack is a bitch and a fourth. Don't get caught in the damage spiral. Good farm spot, though.
Domain of Syrocosaurus is next. Shes furious because she can't find her son. I forgot that you can just walk past certain creatures, so I begin to wail on this greiving parent. She beats my ASS, and then I walk by her. 19 points of damage a hit. Horrifying.
The final stop on this part of the island is the Domain of Poisaurus. There's a little green evo crystal i'm told not to take, and I take in anyways. these saurs just spend all their time headbutting each other. I walk past them, not picking any fights. They're easy to avoid since they seem to just want to attack each other. it's like a little platformer section. They don't do damage to themselves, though.
