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

5 chapters, over 10 bosses, 74 stages, many forms, and hundreds of millenia, and we are finally on the threshold of Eden, the end of our journey, where we will finally stand at Gaia's side. Our journey should have been a simple one. The survival of the fittest.

One- "Fight for survival and for food."

Two- "Only move forward never back."

Three- "Evolve and become strong."

However, our journey became a very complicated one due to the influence of extraterrestrials.
These beings meant well - it was their hope that they could prevent the creatures of Gaia from evolving down the destructive path that they did. Unfortunately, it seems that their good intentions were simply their latest folly. Many creatures tried to abuse the power of the crystals these aliens sent. Earth's creatures used them to dominate those around them, and it was only with the greatest of efforts that we were able to defeat these foes and the crystals that gave them power. But, there are now beings on Gaia that are well aware of the power of the crystals, and seek to use them to claim Eden for themselves.



When we finally arrived at the mountain leading to Eden, we found it filled with the Dino-People, who were attempting to act as wards over the world's crystals, to include the sealing of the most dangerous. We attempted to force our way past them into Eden, but just as our journey was to become complete, there was an accident at the chamber where the Dino-People store their crystals. The energy of the crystals was being siphoned away, and we found ourselves caught in the vacuum of this power. Now, we find ourselves in a strange, organic chamber, with eight of these crystals silently completing revolutions before us. Suddenly, there is a voice.


If, by help, you mean that Gaia has the game completely rigged in our favor, and is offering us countless do-overs, then, yes, that is correct. What can we say? The lady loves us. However, this invisible creature that has yet to show itself has now identified itself as Bolbox - strongest creature... in the world! But what is a Bolbox? I came to my personal conclusion about this while still in highschool, flipping through a biology textbook.


Anyways familiar with the basics of Engrish should know that there's a common B/V mix-up. For this reason, I suspect this creature to be volvox.

Hahhahaa~! Algae!? We've fought sharks and tyrosaurs, space pterodons, chicken wizards, boxing yeti monks, and so much more! You expect us to be concerned with algae!? Everyone, watch out for the algae packing crystals! Our pools are in great danger! Summer is ruined!


So... that's a bit different. So Bolbox evolved from that point to a caveman using these crystals? In short, it completed the very same span of evolution we have over millenia in mere moments! It's like every evolutionary shortcut the game's various bosses have taken, merged into one collective spit in our face.


Our past opponents were content to simply rule their era. This fellow has the audacity of declaring that he's supplanting us as Gaia's partner in Eden! Pretty bold, outright declaring that he is both our rival and superior! Infuriating! Idiotic! We'll see whose journey is coming to an end!


SONG: Final Boss
WTF IS THAT!? THAT IS NOT A CAVEMAN.
I would not have even known how to describe it a few days ago, but, now, I'll just say... Bolbox is very penis.


Volvox! Volvox. Growing to psychotically huge sizes is not evolution. I mean, technically, I guess it could be considered that, but... Come on. Are you even at the colony stage of volvox evolution yet? I mean, your nucleus is showing and everything. I see you've got it held in place by chains running between your organelles, that's pretty metal, so, props for that. But... I'm sorry. You're freaking me out, and I'm going to be having nightmares about your phallic face tentacles in my grill.


AGH, GET IT AWAY!
This disturbing image is Bolbox's only direct attack towards us, which it will use consistently throughout the battle. Bolbox will stretch it's... it's... let's say "neck," because I don't want to think what else it might be... Bolbox will stretch its neck towards us until it reaches our horizontal position. This means it can stretch across the entire stage, and can only be avoided by jumping at the last minute. Ideally, to the left, so that the head will catch up to us and stop safely below us. It can come at various angles, so jumping early means Bolbox will just knock us out of the sky. It's damage isn't intense (thought it's worth remembering that our Defense is mitigating half the damage), but that isn't this attack's main focus. It's simply meant to keep the tension on us while Bolbox's other attacks work their magic on us. But for now, it seems to be the only thing Bolbox is capable of! Lucky us!


Bolbox can only be damaged by attacking it's head, and even then, it doesn't take damage in the usual sense. For the most, it seems like you have to strike Bolbox a random number of times to have any effect. I actually think you have to deal a set amount of damage, but Bolbox is constantly regaining health, or somesuch? Which isn't all bad, because we love striking Bolbox, for every blow causes it to emit a pitiful flanged, warbling cry. Regardless, for the most, if we rapidly strike it 3-5 times, it will begin flashing opaque rapidly, as in the last screen. By the way, Bolbox's body does cause collision damage (I only got where I did for that last screen through being creative on a separate attempt).


While flashing rapidly, Bolbox will then vomit one of its eight crystals. Which crystal is determined by the positioning of them when we strike the blow that sets him flashing. However, this roulette is very difficult to time, especially since any bit of waiting will most likely return Bolbox to requiring extra hits. Fortunately, every time Bolbox is struck, it resets the timing for Bolbox's extension attack, so we're quite safe at this point. But what do we do with this crystal now?


Sadly, we can't eat it. The crystals, once released, will hover into the sky, blink briefly, and then hatch a creature for us to face! This one contains a jellyfish! As the first enemy in the game, this makes a rather decent first crystal! Oh, sage jellyfish, we've come so far! Let us show you!


Unfortunately, it won't be that easy! The jellyfish is a ruse, and after but three strikes, it transforms into the Massive Man-o-war! As we stare in shock at this transformation, Bolbox gets in a cheap shot! I know it says 1 DMG here, but we actually took 10 from Bolbox, and his blow flung us into our aquatic foe for a point of collision damage! What a slimy tag-team of tentacles! This is the tension I was referring to. The entire time we're battling the crystal creatures, we have to constantly be on guard for Bolbox rushing onto the scream screeching, "TOASTY!" or whatever you like to imagine. By the way, we came into this fight pretty beat-up, so we should probably heal.


Time to Decrease Body Size! As you can see, we have enough EVO.P to heal only 3 more times. Furthermore, it's worth keeping in mind that our stats will change slightly each time we heal. As usual, smaller means more sprightly, but also more vulnerable.

The jellyfish is still a fairly easy foe. He floats about rather aimlessly, and if we're close, will now and then make an electric strike at us, much like his smaller brethren. These blows are unpleasant, but pretty easy to avoid. Also, since he's not very aggressive, we can simply stop the fight every few seconds to either anticipate Bolbox's attack, or run over and smack him to prevent one altogether. You can see here that Bolbox's neck is actually not a threat. Of course, we can't strike it here, because it would then retract, its head striking us in the process. Instead, best to jump on its head.


We take the jellyfish out rather easily and lazily, but this makes us too relaxed! As we happily move to devour our prize, Bolbox bats us away from it, the jerk! We strike it away, and rush to our meal, but it's too late; we've missed it. Seriously, this thing is the biggest jerk! We take great delight in violently beating it until it vomits!


I always found it interesting that if you PAUSE the game while facing Bolbox, everything but the crystals goes black. Anyways, our next crystal presents itself! If the mottled sky blue crystal produced a jellyfish, what will the spiky yellow crystal reveal!?


After Massive Man-o-war's update of the jellyfish, we now get a Parasaurolophud update in the form of Big Bansheesaurus.


It has the same sonic attack, but Big Bansheesaurus's booming baritone is much improved. It comes out quit swiftly, and will strike us no matter where we are. Fortunately, the damage is rather small, though it hits us four times and keeps us paralyzed, making us a sitting target for Bolbox's thrusting member.


Music these days...


And here's a prime example of the complications with this fight. Bansheesaurus is about to start singing again, but we see a Bolbox head rushing in. We have to be sure to hit both with one blow, otherwise the other's attack will hit us. This forces us to right into the Bansheesaurus, but we pull it off. Sadly, once this dino decides it has something to say, it gets determined, so we now have to beat it nonstop. The moment we stop, we'll be paralyzed Bolbox bait.


Fortunately, we have enough time to finish it off before Bolbox's next strike! Unfortunately, he hits us just as we're finishing our meal, and here is where the real threat of Bolbox comes in. It's quite possible for him to extend across the full room, and begin bouncing us on hi head. In this case, though we had just been restored to max health, he juggled us thrice. We're once again sure to make him vomit for it, this time producing the clear blue crystal. What will the third of the eight crystal masters be!?


Super meat. Our third boss is super meat. He is a deadly foe, but we defeat him. This not only restores our health, but improves our EVO.P enough that we can now heal three more times! We then wail on Bolbox some more, even though he did nothing this time. Because, well... that's why we're here? This produces the ruddy segmented crystal! We've fought a fish, a dino, and a meat! What next?


NOOOOooo~~!!!
Kill it forever! D:


The Terroach skitters randomly back-and-forth, covering almost the entire area, before pausing briefly to wiggle its antennae. This is the time to strike! However, upon taking damage, it begins flying in circles around the room, making it extremely difficult to land a blow without taking a hit ourselves. Jumping is no better, and even ramming makes it barely easier to avoid. Worse is how long the guy flies around the room. This can easily become the longest battle to deal with. However, you'll quickly find yourself cornered if you try to strike the terroroach while it's flying, as it will reset it's circular route, based upon the spot it was at when struck. I hate this thing so much.


As the damage becomes too great to bear, we decide that the most important thing is to take out the creepy crawly as quickly as possible. If it responds to our blows aggressively, we just need to make sure each blow counts for more! Percy to the rescue! But then he dropped the ball and got double-teamed fierce. Admittedly, my bad. I went so aggressive on the bug that I forgot to watch out for the big guy.


Still, we do succeed in devouring the annoying little bastard, and finally getting to enjoy our hard-earned meal for once without Bolbox butting in. Halfway there! Sadly, it used up all of our green crystal time, leaving us back to our own merits to deal with the craterous purple crystal. Please, not another bug.


Red Falcon! Red Falcon is probably the most uninteresting boss crystal. It's one of the royal guard from Fort Bird-man in a different palette. It's stats are boosted a bit, it certainly takes more hits. But it still goes down swiftly, leaving another tasty meal for us! That we're barely able to grab before being punted away again. DAMMIT, Bolbox, we're going to enjoy eating you, you stupid over-sized pond scum!


Our sixth opponent, the cue ball crystal, yields Baby Liz. It dies like only a baby lizard can. Do we dare eat the only meat to have ever caused us triple-digit damage?

Baby lizard meat! Now 99% less poisonous! Thanks, human immune system! Unfortunately, Baby Liz is immediately followed by Obese Pukestega, spawned from the Cooling Magma Crystal (I like to see it as a glowing ball with a black mesh encasing. I guess it could just be an inverted tiger-esque pattern, but that's boring).


This fellow is no different from his previous incarnation, either. Just a bit beefed up. He's still a bit too fast for us to just corner him, but a simple pattern of coercing him to leap a us, then burying our hatchet between his eyes when he does works wonders. We take some damage from little mistakes, but the battle isn't a big deal.


We are barely able to bite down on our meal in time before... you know, I've had Bolbox do this plenty to me int he past, but never with this much frequency! It's getting ridiculous! Fortunately, we're down to the final crystal. The jade jawbreaker crystal! Of course, we still have to beat it out of the big guy. As Bolbox begins to be filled with fewer crystals, it gets much easier to control the roulette, so we were a bit lucky in getting this one last. In my opinion, it's the toughest one, by far. I'm a bit upset that we had to use our green crystal so early. Oh well, here we go.


The final foe expelled from Bolbox's hefty stomach - Zee Zippy Zinichythys (Dunkleosteus)! You can tell from just looking at this guy that he's going to be trouble! ...You know, sense the aquatic creatures can freely swim around in this flesh chamber we're in, it would've been pretty cool of our aquatic forms could as well! Lame. At any rate, en garde!


After some especially aimless wandering, our enemy will perform a sudden unexpected dash attack. We successfully intercept his efforts, but he also performs a dash attack any time we strike him. Meaning, once again, we seem doomed to never get a hit in without taking one ourselves. He bites far faster than we could ever hope to strike. Also, he occasionally decides to double-tap us. How mean!


Here's one of the highlights of this battle - a horrible dual tech attack, in which the fish paralyzes us with collision damage long enough for Bolbox's undulating member to be thrust upon us, launching us into the air where the fish then eats our head. It was disheartening, but also impressive.


We're pretty swiftly forced to evolve to a smaller size. Since a size change costs 1500 EVO.P, this will be our final evolution of the battle. The key to survival is going to be avoiding hits while dealing our own damage. But how can we avoid this psychotically fast fish's jaws!? While pondering this, we are assaulting by our Freudian rival, and we give him a swift kick to the junk, allowing us to cleave the nightmare fish from above! And here comes the counter-bite!


Well, lookit that. So long as we stay within the Dunkleosteus' body, he's content to be right atop us, and his jaws will not reach us! After a very brief period of attempting to bit us, he will give up, and wander away! If we were faster, we could perhaps outrun him and avoid him. Bu, that would have to be a very fast body! Instead, minimizing the damage in this way might be our best bet... Actually, the whole rear half of our foe's body is collision-free. But, if we wander too far back, then our foe will turn 'round and feats upon us heartily. So, we'll just have to skillfully time our attacks, and hope we can deal enough blows of 18 damage to off the guy before we die of the 8 HP each attack costs us!


It gets pretty close, but this strategy wins the battle for us! The bastard had 250 HP, if yo were curious, so it took us 13or 14 blows between our two forms. Our hard-earned sushi meal doesn't grant enough EVO.P to grant us another healing opportunity, but it does restore us to max health, so there's that at least, now just to deal with-


BOLBOX!
Cheap shots are fun, huh!? Yeah, we're starting to see that! We're just going to keep wailing on you! Yeah, got nothing left in your belly, huh!? What are you gonna' do now, puke out your nucleus at us!? Some ribosomes, maybe? A mitochondria!?

...please don't make us fight your mitochondria.


All music gives way to silence, and Bolbox's peculiar whines of agony begin to play on endless repeat. The only thing the dreaded Bolbox will now expel is the breath of life. And, doubtlessly, many a maiden sighs a breath of relief upon seeing such a pornographic beast erased from this world. I feel very dirty after that battle. We've evolved along way, but, in the end, our final battle was with the most base of creatures. Perhaps, this shold tell us something about ourselves. That no matter how great of a predator we become, we can still become prey to something so simple as a virus. Or, perhaps even, as we continue on, our base instincts will begin to be over-shadowed by the evolution of psyche and will, and this could be thought of as the battle humanity will forever endure with its primal self? Perhaps we can never escape battling giant penis monsters in flesh corridors. I'm just glad it didn't drop any magnums meat never mind.
GG

The most important question we could ask ourselves now, is where do we go from here? What is the next step in evolution for us?

......

Oh, right, we go to Eden.
Where the hell are we, anyways!?

I don't even want to think about Bolbox being Gaia's partner. The walls are just put up in my mind will stand for all of time.


End of evolution? That's pretty egocentric, Gaia! We may be restricted to an evolution of culture in the near future, but the rest of the planet still has infinite possibilities! Furthermore, whose to say what the future will hold? Oh well, maybe I shouldn't argue with the will of the planet. Exit, stage right!


SONG: Ending
We now find ourselves mysteriously transported to another corridor within the mountain. With no place to go but forward, we progress through the scarce few screens that comprise this final tunnel, and we exit stage right for the final time.


We exit the mountain to a starry sky at twilight, overlooking a sprawling forest of green.
We have arrived at The Great Valley Eden.


Get out of the sky this instant, you blue-haired broad! We came all this way to meet you, the least you can do is approach us in a civilized manner.



The conclusion of our story will be told in but a moment. But first, we cut to another scene, to close the story for some interlopers in our journey.




No, I'd say you pretty much bothced up every little old thing. That dragon was pretty sweet, though.




Nope, evolution has come to an end. That's all, folks!


Why are they wearing space helmets on their home planet!?


100 years later, a violent biological war wiped out all Martian life.
Let's get back to the people that matter: Gaia and ourselves!


Whoa, we're planet-sized! Ack, it's our soon-to-be father-in-law! Play it cool, guys!

Mr. Gaia Sun. It has such a nice ring to it! I think Dad's trying to tell us that he wants us toplay Actraiser next? (The game has the same director.)


A small bird appears - the first of the modern birds. It expresses its frothing demand fo the new era that we and Gaia will craft together.


And so, a new door is opened to us, containing a new era. The future.

But what does the future hold? That is up to us!


SONG: Credits
And, so, our game comes to an end! Like many (most?) Enix games, EVO was fashioned by an outside studio. In this case, Almanic, later known as Givro. A little surprising to me, as EVO seems to fit in nicely with the stylings of the many Quintet games (such as Actraiser or Illusion of Gaia).


As was pointed out rather early in the LP by a fellow tyrant, the music for the game was composed by Koichi Sugiyama, of Dragon Quest fame.


E.V.O: Search For Eden, was one of my most beloved games of the 16-bit era, and I've been happy to revisit it and share it with all of you these past few months.


Like a number of other games, EVO does not return to the title screen upon completion. For a final experience of what it is like to play the game, feel free to stare at this final screen shot with the credits music looping for as long as you like! The game will only finally end when you make that bittersweet decision to finally power off your system!

My first LP turned out to be a lot more work than I expected, but it was also a lot of fun, and Talking Time was a great audience! I look forward to playing with you again in the future!

Though I'll definitely be taking a little bit of a break before my next effort.


Look forward to it with prehistoric frothing anticipation!

This was great!

Great job Elements! (I'm so glad you changed your name) I could never get through this game and now I never have to!

Would you be so kind as to do so?

This was pretty awesome, thanks Elements. Yet another of the many SNES games I rented a handful of times but never owned nor completed, so it was fun to finish the journey vicariously.

That was great. I was sure I never finished this game, but dang the Bolbox fight looks familiar. Maybe I just never made myself into a human. Can you get that far as an reptile?

And psst, one of your images needs a [/img] at the end, the one right after "Why are they wearing space helmets on their home planet!?"

I've actually only a very casual knowledge of Actraiser, so I'm not sure how suited I'd be. I do have a couple games in mind, but I don't think I''ll be ready to start one until July, at the earliest.


From the moment you get one of these forms, every evolution becomes optional. In short, you cannot remain a fish past chapter 1, nor an amphibian(lizard) past chapter 2. But it's entirely up to the player if they want to remain a dino, bird, or mammal when the options are presented to them.

Lies and slander! I've actually been fixing errors throughout ever since I posted it. I always get over-eager with my updates.

I can't believe I didn't post in this LP before. I've been following it from the start! When I rented the game, I couldn't get past the shark boss. It's been great seeing all the wackiness that I missed out on.

Great first LP!

Congratulations, p3g4n3l3m3nts, it was a hell of a ride!

Rest well, nestled in Gaia's fertile valley. You're so very penis.

/applaud.

Good job.

Amazing job! From fish to lizard, Hippo to human, p3g4n3l3m3nts to Elements, we've seen a lot of change in this LP. I look forward to the crazy alien crystal influenced giant algae future!

Great Job!

Excellent LP, Elements! I enjoyed it every step of the way.

sven promised hentai. i'm kinda disappointed.

That was an excellent read all the way through.

Congrats on an LP well done!

Excellent LP, I give it a hundred stars. I am prehistorically frothing for your next project.

Wow I remembered almost all sections of the game, except the final boss. That was a bit of a surprise.

Great Job!

Hey, it's that song from the final area (and final boss part 1) of I Wanna Be The Guy.

I had no idea where it came from at first, but I knew it sounded Dragon Questy (later confirmed in the credits) so I went scouring the wrong series thinking it was a tune I couldn't remember from DQV. And now the mystery is solved!

Also

If you're going to spread the new meme, do it right.

I don't know about you, but I saw a tentacle thrusting at a caveman's open mouth.

By way of thanks for your tremendously entertaining LP of a game I love, a picture in its honor:

You inspired Deptford art! That makes this the best LP.

I've always considered the humanity path to be less of a thing you're supposed to do, and more of a trap for suckers. Mainly because the ending doesn't change one bit if you finish the game as a mightily armored 4 legged horned hellbeast.

Also, this makes the ending more amusing!

*Falselogic glares enviously*

Suddenly, the months I spent on this seem worth it!

Nah, I kid, it was fun, and many thanks to everyone for the kind words!

I tend to mix it up a lot when I finish the game; the caveman is definitely a bit of a bore after a while. I think I'd probably try to go through as a super armored 4-legegd dinosaur if I had another go of it. See if it's actually possible to clear the game in such a horribly slow form. I most commonly stick with the flying, feathered t-rex.

Would it be greedy to ask if you have any older save states that could be whipped into an alternate ending?