Darwin's Rolling in His Grave! Let's play EVO: Search For Eden!

so where does this monstrosity fit in?

In the closet when you turn off the lights.

If Horses and Gastornis mated.

I have oft wondered, when reading Brickroad's outstanding Final Fantasy LP's, "Oh, what could I ever do to garner even half the amount of conversation these LP's muster?" Now, I know. Throw around Final Fantasy references. You guys are lucky I'm lazy don't dress this whole LP in FF trapping from here on. At any rate, today's update is going to be an extremely short one, so that the next one can be well-paced. So, let's see where we've ended up after being warped away, eh? If you were hoping for Moonside, you'll be disappointed. The circle of stones actually serves as a warp point to its sister site in the Kalahari Desert. Fair enough; all the closer to our goal! However, once we enter the stage...


Queenie! It's you! How we've missed you! You were one of our most delicious meals! We didn't get to properly appreciate you the first time, since we had our form and EVO. P reset immediately after the honeycomb goodness. How kind of you to show up now for an encore! And during a time period when bees actually existed!

However, while we're singing her praises, she's singing the praises of another!


It seems Queenie is a noble foe not only in title! Still, I'm mildly unsettled. Not because of our foe - we beat her as an amphibian, we'll slaughter her as the hell beast we are now. I'm simply unsettled about the one in the North (the one in the East to the Monkey Humans). So, not only does he know how to make elevators, but he's figured out the crystals enough to just utilize their effects on whatever he wants? That could be interesting... We could have to deal with all manner of boss creatures before getting to this creature... Sounds like a feast!


But first, it's time to deal with Q-Bee, palette-swap version!


Silly bee. This Q-Bee fights identically to the original. I'm not sure if her stats are the same, and I don't have any saves prior to Chapter 3 anymore to check. But, I think they are slightly enhanced. At any rate, just as it was millions of years ago, her opening move is to bite our face. It was near impossible to counter this attack in any way save dodging as an amphibian, but as a mammal, the kick once again saves the day.


And, of course, if Q-Bee isn't biting, she's busy with Thousand Needles. We don't really need to, but, why not use a Green Crystal for her? We've done it for most bosses so far. I was planning on being a flying creature to have exciting flight combat, but it's actually very boring. We bite her, she falls, and we try to predict what height she'll hover back up to so we can bite her and make her drop to the ground again. Too easy. Let's pull the ol' Doomkip back out, for a trip down memory lane (I probably could have done something more exciting, in retrospect). But, look, she's already zooming in for a bite! Well, time to show off the unparalleled jumping height of the Doomkip!


Bwuh? Next thing we know, we're warping again, and we're back in the circle of stones in South America! How peculiar! What's the deal? Are we not meant to be in Africa yet? Is the fight on a timer? We begin re-exploring the circle of stones stage, that we might find our way back. Very rude of us to just run off in the middle of the fight (one of the only true boss battles you can run from, actually). On the plus side, our Doomkip leaping ability means we can now feast on the out-of-place bananas? We can also agitate the Chocobos into leaping at us. Like the le*pards, they can jump to whatever height we're at, so we can coerce them into leaping to the top of the stage if we like. They're not so earthbound, it seems.


Also, I failed to mention last time that they're one of the slumbering creatures. The last one in the game, actually. Yeah, the end is certainly creeping up. Quit sleeping! We need your chocograph-hunting skills to unravel the mystery of Stone Henge (thought both sites are not remotely near the real one)!


So, how exactly do we get back? Well, let's compare these two screens of where we warped at each site. In fact, the two stages are exact duplicates of one another. The furthest right screen of each stage contains this particular rock formation. If we push the jump button while in the opening between the two rocks, we are warped back to the world map, on the other continent. The tricky thing about this is that while running around fighting Q-Bee, we can end up accidentally warping out of the fight (making it one of the only boss fights in the game that we can exit without dying). This doesn't sound like it would be a huge problem, but when fighting the boss, its hard to remember not to jump when at a specific spot. The most frustrating thing about this is that if we make this mistake, we have to start the boss fight completely over.


Speaking of starting over! Here's a gallery of false starts! When we return to the stage, the intro dialogue has already been triggered, so Q-Bee instantly zooms in for a devastating bite, finishing us off (as we were a bit wounded from teaching the Diatryma how to get unreal air)! When we try to enter the stage again, we're prepped to dash to the left to dodge this attack! However, we dash clear out of the stage. Seems this stage doesn't have the usual "two enter, only one leaves!" rule. We at last try a leaping dodge, but even that's difficult. If you'll recall, the Doomkip's jumping was so amazing that it was outright difficult to aim and control. Jumping left enough to dodge, but not so left that we leave the stage is a feat in and of itself. Maybe this wasn't the best evolutionary choice.


Once we're out into the stage, however, this battle is much easier than the original Q-Bee battle, due to the stone platforms that can be used to easily get within jumping distance of our foe. Last time, we had to counter her attacks. Now, so long as we're fast, we can keep her from even getting attacks in! As long as the crystal lasts, anyways. Stupid accidental warp to the chocobo desert...


ME WANT HONEYCOMB!


Though being a mammal puts us back in counter mode, this just means the rest of the fight is a boring series of running from needle rain, then kicking the bee in the face, until she surrenders her honeycombs to us. Satisfied with the kill, we attempt to move on, again slamming our muzzle into an invisible wall. ...sigh... Returning to the world map doesn't help; the African continent is still naught but an impenetrable wall of clouds.


Thus, with a belly full of sweet honey and sour frustrations, we once more warp to South America, and finally make our return to the sea. By the way, the fight with Q-Bee can be totally skipped over until after this ocean stage. But, I felt like doing it first. For various pacing reasons.


This aquatic stage is the Final Ocean. Indeed, this is the last time we'll be swimming in the game. However, this is also one of the most epic stages in the game. As we come to the shore, our dear Gaia surprises us by actually calling for once.
A mission! Early whale-wannabes appeared as long as 50 Mya, but it's only 5-10 Mya that they finally managed to completely give up land again, which sits nicely within this chapter! Nice job being chronologically correct, whales! But what's a Rogon? I have no idea, and I never well. You guys can start looking at prehistoric aquatic creatures now, if you feel so inclined. I promise - seeing them will make it no easier to figure out what they are.

But, Gaia, darling, we thought you only showed favoritism towards us (and children)!? Just how many creatures are you secretly ensuring you're populated with? What would your father think!? Yet, seeing as how much she has twisted the laws of survival and evolution in our favor, I suppose we cannot deny her! And so, we dive into the sea, joining the whales as a mammal making its homecoming to the sea. By the way... once we enter these waters, we cannot leap back out of them. This is a battle we cannot retreat from! But what's this..?


Something strange has happened! There seems to be something new on our evolution menu!!! :excited: For the first time, as a mammal, the Hands & Feet block seems to be available to us! Can we finally evolve some sort of fins for the epic underwater battle about to take place? Who knows! The new option is labeled simply as the mysterious "Try to Evolve". What could this be!? Only time, and the mysterious flow of it, will tell...

Next Time: Sharks, saddled fish, mythological sea beasts/locales! Let's just not even pretend we're playing the same game anymore.

Cliffhanger-spouting bastard.

It looks like your Rhino-cat-horse is violently shitting honeycomb.

Careful, now, you'll bring down the wrath of the cereal companies...

My frothing demand for the next update increases.

PREHISTORIC FROTHING DEMAND LAND BIRD

This is the cliffhanger I was waiting for, yes. The next part is so utterly WTF. It's fantastic.

I think I like prehistoric frothing demand bird more than OG frothing demand bird




it might have something to do with the fact that the former is eating a prehistoric horse!

Pre-historic frothing demand bird is hungry enough (for content) to eat a horse!

Sorry for the cliff-hanger, folks! I promise that I'll never do such a thing again! But we just embarked on what is an especially entertaining evolutionary chain for myself, and also the very last secret I discovered in the game! This evolutionary chain will carry us through the whole of this update, during which we will encounter some of the most bizarre stuff in the game. So, let's get to it!


SONG: Dinosaur's Land 1
We left off in the midst of trying to evolve in a mysterious new direction in the Final Ocean! How epic! We have just been tasked by Gaia with saving the whales from the aggressive Rogons! Will this new form be a boon to our cause, or yet another horrible mistake? Either way, I'm excited! It's been a little while since we last evolved! And the result is:


Maybe some kind of manatee/sea cow? They are one of the earliest marine mammals. But what's that? Some of you couldn't care less about anything but numbers? How robotic and heartless! But, here they are!


A down-grade of 5 or 10 to most every stat! The singular exception is Agility, which is boosted to 10 (+5). However, it is worth mentioning that this form is still in every way superior to our final form in Chapter 1, with the singular exception of that form having some Defense. That, by the way, is probably our biggest risk with attempting this evolutionary chain. We'll be encountering a lot of heavy-hitting foes up ahead. But, as I mentioned last update, once we're in these waters, we can't leave them! So, we've no choice but to press further into the sea from which we came, o so long ago. Hey, look, a Coelacanth!


We could pretty antagonize the plentiful old sea creatures that cover the next screens of reef, but they still only give 4 EVO.P, remaining one of the worst things to waste time on in the game. This is their secret to surviving so long! So, we'll just let them be. Besides, I hear they made a pretty cool retro RPG. Having, once the reef drops off into bottomless sea, we encounter a multitude of sea dinos, at at 100 EVO.P each, we'll happily slaughter them!


In the midst of our tossing Nessy into the air, it suddenly occurs to us to wonder, "What exactly are we collecting EVO.P for at this point?" Opening up our evolution, we're horrified to find that every single category has been closed off to us, with the singular exception of Body! Furthermore, within that category, the only options we have are to "Evolve Further," or a slightly cheaper change to body size. Much like entering the Final Ocean itself, once this evolutionary chain is begun, there's no going back. Well, not so long as we remain in its waters. At least the option to change body size is maintained, as it provides us with a way of healing without changing our form further.


By the way, I won't be changing my size, but for the curious, here's a look at the adorable small size of our current form. As is usually the case with small size, it's faster, but it's strength and HP suffer. At any rate, after 4 screens more of ocean, we are able to enter the next area. I jumped over the waves while changing screens, hence our expression in that last screen. But, this area is underneath a sheet of frozen ice, so that is where we find ourselves. But, wait! What is that in the bottom-left corner!?!?


Oh, hey, there, King Kuraleseche! Been a while! Don't mind us! ...Maybe we can just sneak past th- ohMYGODRUN!!!


Our old rival seems to have tried to reclaim the sea in our absence! We've conquered land, sky, and stars, with Eden soon to follow! The nerve of this guy, interrupting our efforts to collect areas of dominion as though they were capsule toys! He's failed to learn any new tricks in the time that's passed. The first spot I find seems like it would be ideal for avoiding the guy. But, honestly, it's too small for the big guy, and he'll never stop swimming over us. Also, if he ever did get in there, we'd probably get trapped under him and take inane amounts of collision damage escaping. So, I begin trying to play the usual games. When, suddenly... the old man just sort of... stops. And just proceeds to swish about on the sea floor, as though he realized the futility of his efforts. Or maybe he's just so old he got tired out.


Stuck. He got stuck. The old champ just made a total fumble of his return bout. Sadly, in spite of his lack of mobility, we still get clobbered picking at the big guy. We have a little trouble hitting him without taking collision damage, since he's currently unable to provide the usual courtesy recoiling from our attacks. Regardless, our nibbling eventually finishes him off, and we're disappointed to find that, unlike Q-Bee, he's down-sized his explosive fish cakes to the usual meat dinner. Lame. Well, at least that's another boss down! Should be smooth sailing, err, swimming from here on in!


In Poseidon's name, WHHHYYY!?!?
This isn't as bad as it looks... though it can be. There can only be two of these guys at a time, and it's petty easy to separate them from each other. Though they give great EVO.P, they take too long to kill, and are too high risk. Besides, there's no need to defeat the now casual shark enemy. We can swim right past them into the cave ahead. This stage has consisted entirely of recycled content from chapters 1-4 so far. Time for something new!


SONG: Pre-Boss Theme
Pressing on into the caverns, we at last encounter... a fish. Riding on a fish. Maybe a shark.
...Maybe a shark riding on a shark.
While holding some kind of tube... gun... thing.
These are the Rogons. Is the mounted creature the Rogon? Are they both Rogons? Are they some freakish symbiotic organism? I have no idea. I'm guessing they're some kind of shark thing. Feel free to use the collective power of hive mind to help me out on this one. Going off my best guess, and the return of the Chapter 1 boss, let me just talk about sharks again for a bit. I feel most compelled to mention Megalodon, a rather famous gigantic shark from roughly 25 to 1.5 Mya. I could potentially see its name being butchered to make the Rogon name (Megalodon = garodon = rogon?), though they should be huge if that's what they're supposed to be. But, you see, a main reason I bring them up is that they weer so large due to their main diet being the over-populous cetaceans (whales/dolphins) of the Miocene, and the shrinking of that population is attributed with killing the over-specialized, too-large Megalodon.


The main Rogon attack is the use of their pump gun, which they use to fire off controlled pairs of electric blue pain at us. My silly younger self simply saw the pumps, and thought they were pumping air at me as a sort of reverse drowning us. Which is still fun to think, if nonsensical. These guys have about 25 HP, so it takes us three hits to take them out, for 100 EVO.P each. Speaking of EVO.P... about time we spent some more, don't you think?


We have reached dolphin!
Hit Pts + 10
Biting + 5
Strength +10
Agility +3
Adorable. And a form befitting the jerk we are.


One of the main perks of becoming a re-integrated sea-mammal is that it gives us a very horizontal frame. The shots fired by the Rogons will very often be fired just over our heads, minimizing the need for dodging. Were we a mammal, these blasts would be hitting us in the face (or, perhaps neck). The Rogons are also down to 2 hits each, making them much more ignorable. We also find a green crystal while wandering aimlessly in the sea caves. The last screen is just a strange spot I found, where if I swam up from the bottom, I could get the majority of our body in the wall. At this point, I could continue to move up, but not down. I just thought it was odd.

Since I'm talking about the cave, here's a map of it. It's certainly bigger than any of Chapter 1's poor excuses for aquatic caves, but its smaller than most other labyrinths we've been in. When I bragged about this stage's size, I suppose I need to point out that I was referring to all areas of it:
Area 1: 2 screens of coast
Area 2: 7 screens of reef
Area 3: 3 or 4 screens of subarctic waters
Area 4: the caverns themselves
Area 5: ?
The only stage with as many areas crammed into it is, again, the final stage of Chapter 1.
Alright, enough of that. Dolphins are over-hyped. Let's "Evolve further"!


No, no, no, we want to take it back! Evolve less! Devolve further! Argh, we're an abomination!


Hit Pts + 10
Biting +5
Strength +5
Agility -3
We are now strong enough to take out the Rogons in a single dashing strike, but our appearance is the furthest from dashing it's ever been. Gaia will never accept us now! She only loves innocent children and attractive murderers! We'll just have to slaughter more persistently to ensure there's nothing more appealing left.


Starting with these horrible Rogons, whose contaminated sea water is doubtlessly the cause of our hideous mutation! Speaking of, these guys do have a minuscule bit of variety to their attack patterns. They normally just float to and fro, but if they turn to face us and find us in their field of vision, they may fire immediately, or they may dash a random distance towards us before firing. This random distance could be as far as on top of us, but is usually on our face or directly in front of it. Though their curious pump-action water rays do a hefty 14 dmg, they're easy enough to dodge... but the rare occasions when we have to cope with two at once can get rather hairy, especially if they catch us in their crossfire.


The potential danger is these fishy foes is proven by our near-death as we finally approach the end of this area. We can't present ourselves to the leader of the Rogons while in this state! We must evolve further still, in order to restore our health (and, please, please, let us become no more hideous than we already are).


!!!!!!.......<3


The end result of the Final Ocean evolutionary chain is, in fact, a {mermaid. And our bite looks to have turned into a kiss, but were you playing the game yourself, you would hear the adorable voice clip of our new vocal chords as we sneezed. Bite = Sneeze. Our enticing new form is superior to our earlier land mammal form in all ways, save for Defense, though her extra 30 HP almost makes up for that. There's also the fact that she can't kick and, sadly, has no horns. Mostly, though, I'm just trying to come to terms with the fact that, apparently, we've been a female this whole time? Unless we evolved into one? I'm just so confused about our gender identity now. This also changes our relationship with Gaia a bit... It's suddenly much sexier.


Happy with our fishy new form, we at last move beyond the caverns, into the Final Ocean's final area. We found ourselves in a large, open area, filled with the ruins of some long lost aquatic civilization. I usually refer to it as Atlantis, even though we're far too early in time for that. Perhaps, much as the birds that built their kingdom in the sky, the Rogons have built a kingdom in the sea? We must dominate!


Our tail flails rapidly, propelling us rapidly between the ancient pillars. However, it is not long before a fearsome creature presents itself, and we must stop suddenly to avoid crashing into the Creature From the Black Lagoon, Muttonchops Edition.
I've got news for you, body. In my experience, the crystal doesn't do a job of protecting people very well. At any rate, it seems the boss is presenting a choice to us! By now, we know this pattern quite well! And so:


Ending #4: Rogon
SONG: A Glimpse Into the Future
Except... each other?

Aww, this late into the game, you're going to be cheap and use in-game sprites for the ending graphics?






Who the heck would eat fish cakes made from something like that!? Never trust processed fish again, you guys! It might just have come from a prehistoric Rogon prince that became trapped in the nets of heartless fisherman!

Getting serious again, look at our adorable yellow fish sprite on the world map! Guess where it's going? Nowhere. I wasn't kidding when I said there's no backing out of this stage. Once you enter the waters, you're not leaving until you finish the stage. In fact-

When we return to the stage, we begin in the second area right away. This is, of course, to ensure that we don't have the opportunity to try to create a land version of one of the Final Ocean evolutions. Speaking of evolution - mermaid is an evolutionary dead end. She only comes in one size, as well. No evolutionary healing to be done. We're a tough girl, but we've got a hard life ahead of us. There's lots of fish in the sea. Most of them just want to bite our pretty face, though. How could he do such a thing!?


Trying to be The Great Romantic instead of The Great Destroyer is hard. It's hard, and noone understands. And then they slap you in the face.


Before moving on, just a little more mermaid fun. We certainly have to leap over the waves, imagining what it would be like to be part of your world. That is, to be a land mermaid. Oh, such a grand dream, it is! But for now, we're stuck hanging out with sharks. And the sharks just like hanging out in walls (this one isn't stuck, by the way. It's just... in a peculiar position that shows off the cave entrance tile a bit too well. Around this time, I realized that I needed to reload my file and do i all over again, because having met the Rogon Prince, I wouldn't be able to see his refusal dialogue otherwise. So, that's what I did. Bye, huge EVO.P pool! But, really, what were we ever thinking, agreeing to let this bozo run the sea? Ha!


I always liked this fishy fellow's reaction. Indignant and angry shock, quickly stifled, and followed by a cold, prude, "I do not approve." Very classy.


SONG: Boss Theme
And then he eats us!! Not quite. That particular animation is for the prince's summoning of a heat-seeking sphere of light. The thing constantly floats towards, staying a fair bit too long. He keeps one of these in play at almost all times, but they blink constantly, so though there's one present in most of these screens, you won't always see it in these captures. Once the light sphere begins chasing us, the prince follows suit, charging at us ferociously! By the way - don't mind that one screen with 99 EVO.P. It was from when I reloaded my file to get the refusal dialogue from the boss. That screen right after he shut-up was just too delightful not to use.


Fortunately, the light sphere finally burns out just before the boss closes in close enough to attempt a headbutt... which also comes to a halt a pixel before hitting us. We truly are fortunate! The charging headbutt is the prince's main attack, and the best time to strike him is just after he misses with this attack. However, he'll perform a random attack immediately upon being struck, and when trying to dodge the prince and his light spheres, we sometimes end up in situations in which we have to choose one or the other. I'll go with the light sphere that does 1 dmg, thanks. However! The light spheres' main threat is not their offensive strength, but the status ailment they inflict, shrouding us in darkness. A grue approaches!


Once blinded, we're forced to wander about uncertainly, and at any moment the prince could draw upon us, or we might suddenly be struck by another sphere of light, extending the duration of our ailment. A truly duplicitous opponent! I managed to catch a screen here of the boss's rarely used claw rake. It actually does 15 dmg to our current form - the 2 you see there is in fact from collision damage we took right after ramming our foe. The dreaded headbutt hits for an astounding 25 damage, though! With no healing options available to us, we can't afford him many of those! (well, in retrospect, I guess I could've used the green crystal...) The blindness lasts for approximately 7 seconds, and the timer resets if we're hit by another. When blinded, the best strategy is to swim the perimeter of the arena until we feel better.


It's near impossible for us to get close enough to sneeze on this guy without getting clobbered, so ramming it will be. However, even this is tough. Striking just after he whiffs an attack is fine, but there's a lot of waiting involved with trying to find those golden moments when a light sphere isn't also on our back. We need to get aggressive! But, whenever we dash in recklessly, he instantly headbutts us, and he has a much larger hitbox than us. Except from above! Thus, the best strategy is to lure his light sphere away, quickly hover over him, and ram down at him repeatedly! Hardly {ladylike! Perhaps the most annoying things about this boss is his tendency to wander off-screen. Normally, it's not a big deal. It can be surprising when we're sliding along the top of the screen, blinded, and the prince suddenly descends from above! The worst, however, is that on rare occasions, we'll get "lost" off screen, and we'll have to wait for him to find his way back. I've had this take a whole 5 minutes.


After delivering 250 dmg to the prince, his curse is lifted, and we overtake him as the ruler of the sea! Call me queen! OH HO HO HO HO HO~!!! We are a carnivorous glutton of a mermaid, and happily consume 1200 EVO.P worth of sea creature meat. The over-throwing of a rival kingdom is only complete after you've consumed your foe! And, now, at long last, we can exit stage left, completing our mission for our dear Gaia! But what will we find there?


{SONG: Victory
The royal palace of the sea mammals.
......
This is probably the point I'll choose to declare as the most absolutely insane of the game. Our Darwinian epic has now reached the point where we played as a mermaid using her sneezes to defeat sharks with pump guns riding other sharks, ruled over by the creature from the black lagoon (muttonchops edition), all so that Gaia could delight at seeing a procession of dolphins cheering in the royal palace of the whales. This is it. The bizarre threshold has been reached. But then...


Warning! A large wind fish approaches! O_o
It actually plays the Pre-Boss theme as this guy very slowly creeps on-screen. It's a little intimidating!


But then, the Victory theme resumes! Phew!
This is a tease. Do not get excited.

We are returned to the coast of the Final Ocean, where we are granted our "new" body by the Whale King. The "new" form is simply a reversion to your normal form if you advanced down the Final Ocean exclusive evolutionary tree any. Lame. I mean, it's nice being a hell beast again, but we'll kind of miss being queen. Then again, would that mean we had to be the Whale King's queen? :shudder: Gaia probably wouldn't let us eat him. ...sigh... Well, screw it, we're finally released from the sea; it's time for amazing land evolution!


Like turning back into the mermaid queen! Sadly, this cannot be done, even in the coast of the Final Ocean. None of the sea mammal evolutions can be recalled unless we are in the midst of Gaia's mission to destroy the Rogons. O, how terrible! After having been so attractive, we can't bear the thought of entering Eden and confronting Gaia in our current state! Isn't there some sort of creature we could evolve into that might look somewhat similar to the mysterious mermaid? Hmmm... perhaps...


As the stegosaurus in the hidden forest hinted to us, we now evolve the jaw of a cat, and the body of a rabbit, thus, finally unlocking the hidden evolution of the Ramothecus Body! In truth, if we'd evolved the cabbit combo earlier, we could've evolved into a Ramothecus earlier. In Chapter 4, even. But, it seemed best to save for last. And so..!


A Mysterious Time stream awaits us in the next update!
When I never said I'd do it again? I LIED. Just like Darwin, when he left out Martian space crystals, bird magic, aquatic nobility, and sentient planet intervention while telling us about evolution. Alternatively, Enix is positively insane.

Next Time: The Gate to Eden, and the Path to Final Evolution
There will be a human versus human battle.

Maybe the "mermaid" form is just a really androgynous merman?

NOOO I WANT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!

I mean,

Excellent as usual!

Alright, it's time to head back to the eastern continent, and finally enter Eden! But first, let's see how that Ramothecus evolution worked out for us, eh?


Nooo~, we are a terrestrial variant of that horrible sea monkey! Just a monkey, then.
I'm tired, and you wouldn't get this update today if I took the time to research it properly, which would probably be fruitless anyways! So for Ramothecus, I'll just link you to Pierolapithecus, oft suspected to be the common ancestor of most of the great apes (to include humans).

EDIT: So, I took a mini-nap, which left me in much better research condition than when I posted the update in a semi-conscious stupor! I am now confident that Ramothecus is actually Ramapithecus, which was considered a genus at one point in time, and a possible ancestor of hominids. However, it is now considered to be in the genus Sivapithecus, and to be more closely related to orangutans, the one group of great apes most unrelated to the other existing species. It was actually in the 1970's that scientific evidence began making all of this clear, so there's really no excuse, Enix!

Stat-wise, it's decent. Inferior to some of our earlier mammal forms, but very well-rounded. Possibly one of the best stat sets we're able to get while still maintaining such a high Jumping Ability. For those of you that aren't into DK, I've included a screen of the Diddy version as well.


Also, before I go any further, I want to go ahead and offer these screens, displaying the small forms of some of our sea evolutions, and also showing what happens if you evolve into an elephant while swimming. I don't think I ever high-lighted it in this LP, but all of the green crystal evolutions do indeed have aquatic forms (or land forms, for the eel and stingray). The mermaid is the only evolution that can't handle land (or, rather, the game never lets us get near land as one).


[DKC64voice]MMMMMM, BA-NA-NA![/DKC64voice] Monkeys love bananas! Actually, one of these horrid carnivore chocobos loved crying on me so much that I couldn't get the horrid thing off of me, so some healing was needed. But we're then into our prehistoric stone teleporter, which takes us to...


It's sister site in Africa! Advancing north into the plateaus, we encounter yet another old boss! Yes, it's time for another Domain of Tyrasaurus. These guys have been in 3 stages now. What losers. Furthermore, was the T-Rex even still around at this point in time!? No, definitely not! Tyrasaurus, explain yourself!

Stupid one in the North, always using his omnipotent powers to resurrect ancient terrors of the world. I'd argue, however, that these guys were much more important in Chapter 3. But then, we're not going to bother arguing with the logic of a lowly dinosaur. Our powerful simian brain knows what to do!


For whatever reason, this body of ours seems to have much better luck at kicking sharpteeth in the face than our polar bear body had back in Chapter 4. These dinos will be no problem at all! Or so we were thinking before we get cornered between a pair of them! As you can see from glancing at our health here, these guys still pack a punch, so this isn't looking good for us... There's only one thing to do!


Digi-volve! Just as with the mermaid, Ramothecus evolution is restricted to the Body, and even then simply to readjusting our size, or Evolve Further. Since its evolution or death by dino jaws at this point (we're actually in the midst of being bitten while in the evo menu), I suppose we'll choose the former! This transforms us into the missing link, Monkey Man!

Okay, heavy science now. This is a period of evolution that a lot of scientific debate is still taking place on. We're clearing moving into Homo territory. That is, the genus that contains modern man. The two first species that I should mention are Homo habilis and Homo ergaster. H. habilis is one of the oldest known member of the Homo genus, and is thought to have appeared very much like an ape-man. However, they were still intelligent enough to have crafted tools. H. ergaster gets a lot of debate. Scientists often consider habilis to be ergaster's ancestor. But, both species were around for the vast majority of their times on earth, so many other scientists suspect that they were just cousins, with a horizontal relationship, rather than a vertical one. Still others think ergaster shouldn't exist at all, and is really just mislabeling of some fossils from the next descendant, H. erectus. Of course, those that think habilis and ergaster are cousins, then also get to debate about which one H. erectus descended from, and even H. erectus gets debate as to whether its the anscestor of H. sapiens, or another cousin species. Tricky stuff! Both H. habilis and H. erectus fossils are from Africa, from very roughly 2.5 to 1.5 Mya (the figures vary between the two species).


We've got a bone to pick with these dinos!
Yes, it seems the 'Y' button, which has served us faithfully as our chomping button throughout the game, has no changed over to the clubbing button!


We can still eat through the use of the 'X' button, which has received only comedic use up until now, since biting was faster at the same task. Ramming has always used the first frame of our biting animation. We can still ram, but in leau of our non-existent biting, we simply brandish our powerful chest at our foes. Where else can you see monkey men chest-bumping t-rexes to death? Nowhere. Our mobility is down a bit, survivability up a bit, and Biting has now been replaced with a mildly improved Strike. Yes, the Strike stat that has been sitting in our menu for the entire game, is utilized solely by this final evolution tree.


The Strike attack has the Kick's surprising benefit of not lunging forward 40 meters like the Bite, and seems faster as well! Most importantly, it gives us a longer reach without putting our face in danger's path, giving us a major advantage in our battle, and allowing us to safely complete our journey past the last of the dinosaurs. I then backtrack to display the Sea Monkey Mk.II, with its horrible flipper feet. Also, the tiny monkey man hat was never to be.


Now that we are Monkey Human, we make an attempt to visit our brethren, but like all creatures on Gaia's green earth, they still hate us. Doesn't stop us from visiting the grave of our new ancestors. Don't mind if it looks like we're dancing upon it.


Also, while back-tracking to acquire those screens, it occurs to me to get images of our new overworld sprite. I probably should have been making GIFs of these all along... Over the course of the game, there's one for the fish, one for the amphibians, three for the dinos (4-legged, 2-legged, and between), one for the birds, and two for the mammals (4-legged, and humanoid).


But enough of that! On to the mountain that acts as the gateway to the World of Espers Eden. We've encountered the final bosses of chapters 1-4 already in this chapter (or the descendant of them, in one case). And, in every case, they've seemed to be indebted to the creature at this location we are now approaching.


We are now entering the final stage of EVO! This mountain is the gateway to Eden. We've endured many struggles on the way here, not simply from the "survival of the fittest" the sage jellyfish told us of so long ago, but also a great many trials from creatures that evolved using the crystals the Martians dumped on the planet. Here, as we move on to Eden, we can't help but wonder what our final foe will be, this creature that has learned absolute control of the crystals, and that has revived all of our greatest foes from across the eons. Well, there's only one way to know! Let us press on!


What the heck is that thing!? It's gigantic! It seems to be some sort of mammal, but it's barely got a bit of hair on it! Moreover, it seems to be a foe that specializes in using a striking weapon, much like ourselves! However, while we've simply been bashing in t-rex skulls with a t-rex bone, he seems to have fashioned a weapon from the body of the ever-vicious trees! We were pretty confident with the tyranosaurs, but this thing blocking the gate to Eden seems like a greater threat... Perhaps, it is time to evolve further!


Oh, would you look at that. It seems this fellow had evolved... ahead... of us!? Inconceivable! We can't stand for that! We wanted to be the first Homo sapien! As you can see, our stats have all undergone minor improvement, to the point that our survivability and offense are both impressive again. However, surprisingly, we can evolve further still! Of course, the option also remains to change our size. More surprisingly, we are a male now! We are now so confused about our sexuality! We're finally tapped out on EVO.P again, so all that's left is for us to make one last attempt at being civil and social with our fellow man. The poor guy does look rather sad!

I'm going to assume that Cro-Maine refers to Cro-Magnon, which is an out-dated term. It was used to refer to the first early humans discovered in Europe in 1868. By the 1970's, it was used to refer to all early humans, but as of late, many scientists have been trying to push for stupid acronymns to refer to the group, leaving Cro-Magnon to refer to the specific fossil type that originally received the name.
At any rate, he seems like a nice enough fellow!


SONG: Boss Battle
Holy crap, he looks pissed all of a sudden! This guys has some emotional issues! Alright, this is it! Finally, a fight club for club fighting, mano a mano! When two men collide, it's a question of honour!


And he knocks us clear out of the park. O_O
We had some annoyance with staying in the arena during our fight with Q-Bee Redux, but this guy is built all around that gimmick. If he hits us once, the force of the blow is enough to send us clear out of the stage, to try again. He also hit for pretty intense damage, if you didn't notice! This means that not only do we get sent out of the stage if he lands a blow on us, but we also have to dedicate some time to restoring our health between each attempt! A fairly frustrating fellow!


We return from the world map to our field of battle, where our fellow man has yet to calm himself from our previous encounter. We attempt a new tactic of leaping at him, and he moves for a leaping strike at us! However, the poor fellow needs more mental development, as he ends up slamming himself into our heels, for a paltry 3 damage, and an embarrassing reveal of his prehistoric bottom.


The neanderthal (note, not actually a neanderthal, they were either a cousin species to H. sapien, or a subspecies) decides to try this tactic for himself, and moves to leap upon us. This will be his response to every blow we strike him. We dash to the right, hoping to strike him in his back upon landing. Alas, we are too slow, and he strikes us once more. Sadly, we cannot enter the mountain until we defeat him. While being on Cro-Maine's right means that we don't have to worry about being knocked out of the stage, this isn't really much of a blessing, due to the massive damage he inflicts. In fact, I believe he's the most damaging enemy in the game (excluding infant amphibian meat).


We strike faster with our next leaping strike, and succeed in clubbing our foe on the head, so he'll know how it feels! Unfortunately, our leap carries us right on through our foe for collision damage as he makes his damage-evasive dragoon leap into the air.


However, we're ahead of him enough now that we can safely stroll behind him, and strike him as he lands. We have to strike him from behind, else he'll swing at us before he reaches the ground.


This, of course, sets him to leaping again, at which we rush under and behind him, give him another paddling, and so on until we've committed the first human murder. His patterns is fairly simple and easy to abuse, to make up for the frustration that any mistakes cause. We are swiftly restored to prime fighting strength by devouring our fallen adversary's meat, which gives 1250 EVO.P per piece! Cannibalism has never been so satisfying! The early days of humanity were amazing indeed!

And having crossed this new disturbing threshold, who could possibly argue that we are not the ideal candidate for becoming Eden's new tyrant hero? And, thus, we proceed onto the final path to Eden. Final Dungeon, go!


SONG: Final Dungeon
It's a pretty good track - you should give it a listen![/I]

The final dungeon doesn't look to be anything too fantastic, at first glance. It mirrors the cave of Monkey Human quite heavily, probably the reason that the Enix felt the need to have the Monkey Humans say that this mountain's residents taught them how to make the elevators. At least the music gives us a nice sense of desperation! This first elevator shaft is a bit of a lengthy one, carrying us up four screens higher, and offering for us to ride higher still once it comes to a stop! Which we do.


The top seems like the best place to start from for trying to reach Eden, I think! We travel to the right, devouring a rabbit roasting over a fire as we do. It's a good think it was roasting above it, because now that we're standing on two feet again, we can never bring ourselves to eat anything off the floor again (even if we wanted to). However, just after finishing our meal, we at last encounter one of the inhabitants of this mountain: A reptite!

Dino-People, eh?


Ugh. I guess this is what those Martians were talking about when they said that creatures had developed that were like them, and that could fully utilize the crystals? However, surprisingly, these people seem every wary and cautious of the crystals - quite the opposite of every other creature we've encountered that was familiar with the crystals. So... surely the Dino People couldn't be the ones responsible for resurrecting Q-Bee, could they? Hmm... There's probably more to this mystery! Either way, we're pressing on. These guys can try to be the guardians of the crystals if they want, but until we see some official orders from Gaia, we're going to just keep on with our march of murder towards Eden. Sorry, you seemed like a nice enough guy, dino man!


The Dino People do not admire determination! Thus began the filming of "The Cave Man Versus the Kung-fu Dino People of Eden".


The Dino People operate quite similarly to the Monkey Humans as well. There are several types, and each, after launching their initial attack, will proceed to flee rapidly. We chase this one to an elevator, which counts as a pit as afr as his AI is concerned, sending him back our way for a good clubbing. Their pained animation has always amused me. I like to imagine that their pain is overshadowed by their incredulousness at our savagery. "Did you really just strike me with a bit of timber!? How crude!" Then we eat them. I mean, there was a perfectly good roasting spit right there! These ones will attempt another jump kick each time we damage them, but we strike fast enough that there's little threat past the initial attack.


Amused by the Dino Peoples aversion to elevators, I attempted to knock one onto one, which caused him to fall beneath it. However, he then immediately rose like a phoenix from below for one final kamen kick of justice, before falling into the depths below. Grr, nothing infuriates me like a martyr! There's no direct revenge to be had! I guess I'll have to settle for murdering the rest of his friends! (My guess is that he attempts the counter-attack the moment his damaged animation ends, which causes him to rise at me even though he was falling just a moment ago.)

Continuing to travel right brings us to our second sort of dino person. This sort carries about an orb with it, and upon seeing us, transforms the orb into a projectile that hits us for 15 damage, same as their melee counterpart. These ones are harder to avoid, but after their initial attack, are completely harmless.


We pass over three more elevators before finally reaching a horizontal stretch quite filled with Dino Peoples! We charge past them to the end, which reveals to us the game's final crystal - yet another green! This one will be used for our final encounter, so I guess this is our last one we'll be able to make frivolous use of. I decided to use it to turn into Kirin's Jackalope, because it was adorable and didn't get nearly enough screen time.


However, no sooner have we transformed, than one of the Dino People we charged past fires a projectile that, upon hitting the ground, transforms into a slime! The final type of Dino Person seems to be the normal projectile sort, but upon striking us or any surface, their projectile will transform into one of these tricky creatures!


These slimes are definitely our greatest foe in this dungeon. They attack far more aggressively than the Dino People, constantly crawling and leaping towards us. They also have more health than the Dino People. This spot is especially bad, thanks to the Dino People wandering int he corridor to our left. We'd almost taken this one out, when some jerk tosses another one in here with us! That's it!


We put our horse body and rabbit ears to good use, leaping from the death trap, and bounding from one dino man skull to another. The first fellow is the one making all of the slimes, as evidenced from the unpictured downward curve of his projectile. The one in the rear is the standard projectile sort, here demonstrating that they can fire them at angles if it suits them. We proceed to attempt to brutally slaughter dino peeps, but our green crystal wears itself out all too soon, most of its time having been taken up in the very room we acquired our last crystal in.


Honestly, we were having a much harder time in that older mammal form, anyways. Normally, so long as our health isn't low (as it can become easily here), I love the slimes. Slimy meat awards 300 EVO.P, and they go down much easier with the club (though other people like butting in...).


Speaking of health getting low! We finally try to take one of those many elevator downwards, and I took someone along for the ride, just to prove I could! He and I are both immobile and immune while traveling on the elevator, but we're clearly going to die via collision damage the moment the elevator reaches its next stop! Fortunately, we can still open the evolution menu while riding it! Naturally, I'll be choosing to evolve further, but I included a screen of our rejected small size for your viewing pleasure.


And we evolve... A SHIRT!!! And stone-crafting, I suppose. And upgrading to a fur shirt and a stone ax provides the sort of trivial advancement one would expect.

Strike +2
Defense +5

Sadly, this changing of accessories is the final evolution available to us for the game. No H. superior, no New-type. Fortunately, unlike the mermaid, this final evolution does retain change of size s an evolution (the final boss would be impossible otherwise).


Here's just something fun I happened to capture. I have no idea what the heck is happening. It's pretty rare, but every now and then, and enemy will plummet from above at us. This dino person conveniently happened to attempt to deliver justice from above just after a slime hurled itself through us and into the great below.


I suppose this is as good a time as any to provide a map of the final dungeon. As you can see, this place is more elevator than not. For this reason, I replaced the old elevator graphic with a more subtle pulley graphic. You can trace our progress up until now: From the starting point, we traveled straight up to the top, then right to the green crystal. We then back-tracked left and took the first elevator we hit down twice, then headed right, and took that elevator down, leaving us currently at the dead end 3 down, 1 right of the boss location.


Hey, look, there we are! And so, thus the mild exploring done to complete our map brings us to the hallway that will carry us to our final foe! There's quite a few Dino People packed into this hallway, so we get this delicious feast of four dino meats just before entering the ominous open room ahead! Every bit of EVO.P is one extra healing evolution available to us! With this final bounty in hand, we step forward, eager to eliminate whatever foe might seek to keep us from finally meeting with Gaia in Eden!

When suddenly...!!


The music comes to a stop, and the usual surprise dialogue sound effect plays.
SONG: Pre-Boss Theme
It is suddenly announced that the Dino People have lost control of the "too dangerous" crystal they spoke of earlier! Really, a pot doesn't seem like the most ultra secure method available; I thought you guys were advanced? This sounds like a serious dilemma, but we're mere screens away from Eden - this isn't our problem anymore! And as we move forward, we encounter a pot, and it seems to be doing just fine.


Oh, you mean the exploded pot with the omniscient energy stream rising into the heavens. Yeah, that one's done for.


And, apparently, so are we! The moment we get a step closer to the destroyed pot, we are caught up in the flow of energy, and pulled along with it into the sky!


It appears that this most dangerous of crystals has itself shattered, and its energy is being pulled away! And we're going with it! But where is this energy going!? And what caused this crystal to go berserk in the first place? It seems we're finally about to meet the other creature that understands the crystals. The creature that has been reviving our foes. And the creature the poses the greatest threat to Gaia.

NEXT TIME: The final battle at the gates of Eden!
What is the mysterious foe that has been plotting over the millenia to steal our place in Eden!?

So the first human rode a teleporter to the stars to fight some sort of nameless foe for the fate of the earth?

Huh!

History is fun!

Did you forget about poor Cro-Maine?

Bah! Only our bold protagonist made it all the way to homo sapien!

Cro-Maine is like 60% human tops.

Odd, I recall from the TAS (and checked just now) that there's one in the room right after the "The crystal has exploded!" dialogue. It doesn't seem to be behind your dialogue box, though.

Non-update time!

First thing's first!

I felt that I recalled one being there as well, but thought little of it. But, after you brought it up, I watched the TAS myself, and then went back to the game to investigate.



Lookit that! So, what's the deal? There are in fact two green crystals in the final dungeon. One in the top-right corner, and run in the final chamber. However, the player can only acquire one of them.

We grabbed the more out-of-the-way crystal in the top-right room. Doing so causes the crystal in the final chamber to vanish; there will be no evidence of another green crystal. We can wander onto the same screen as the top-right crystal without consequence. When can see it, touch it, but the moment we eat it, the other vanishes.

The crystal in the final chamber is the much more obvious one, being on the required path, and pretty much guaranteeing that the player will have one on hand when encountering the final boss. Once the player wanders onto the screen that contains the final green crystal and the dialogue about the crystal explosion (even if the player doesn't wander far enough to trigger the dialogue or eat the crystal), the final elevator stops working, trapping the player into the final encounter.

All of that said, let me get into the reason I was originally going to make this post! It's something trivial and minor, but that always bothered me as a child. In fact, you might even be able to say it's the sole reason I played the game as much as I did. And that, is this:



There seems to be unreachable areas in the final dungeon! Here, I've taken screen shots along various walls, in which the borders of unreachable rooms can be seen. This alone is no big deal - I could attribute it to just byproducts of stage-designing that the developers didn't clean up. But the thing that kills me is the elevator in the boss room! You can see it directly under the portal! Hence the elevator to nothing in my stage map (I also rammed a dino-person down there for fun - he is not effected by the crystal energy flow). This elevator can't be used - I've tried.

The primary reason I played through the game as every single imaginable evolution is because my younger self was certain that some form would allow me to use that elevator - perhaps avoid the pull of the crystal. Of course, I long ago decided that there was no way to reach those areas (I should just make a walk-through-walls code). These days, I often wonder if the elevator is just there to maybe allow the programmers some work-around for the upwards pull of the crystal flow. Who knows? This just drove me insane as a child, though.

Did you ever debug your way through the walls to find out?

Who knows! Could be all sorts of dummied out stuff back there!

I await the final update, at which point Gamespite.net will be put on all sorts of watch lists as a hentai site.

I think the first Blade movie had that spot of a hapless enemy jumping from a balcony into a violent death.

Somebody has to cater to the internet's midget-cavemen-eating-giant-cockroach-meat fetish.

I'm really upset that I read that spoiler-text. I'm not sure if I'm ready for what's next.