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

Yeah, you're doing fine. More bite!

B-But! The game doesn't TRULY begin until chapter 3! The Fish Age is pretty much just tutorial world, and the "age of reptiles" is the training wheels version of the real game! Chapter 3 is when you get access to multiple branches of evolution, some of which you can't move back from, and is when you finally start to get exposure to the game's main plot, and when the hidden stages start appearing, and, and, there's so much AWESOME stuff in chapter 4! D:

I learned something about red crystals I knew nothing about, and you got effortless evo points from the volcano-fish.
Actually, I also had no idea there was really a ramming attack, I even thought you were joking when you mentioned it in your previous post.
On top of that you cleared up that bizarre shark name nonsense.
Not just a double-good update but quadruple good!

I don't think Talking Time is ready for quadruple meat.

More biting means more teeth to bite the quadruple meat.

It's science.

Strange how the "training wheels" segment of the game is one of the most difficult parts. Those bees are murder.

...This game is such a horrific bastardization of evolution it's not even funny.

It on Virtual Console?

Anyways, your LP is great.

If it was on VC I wouldn't have said this:

Day One. I'd buy it Day One if it ever goes on VC.

I love this game. Accordingly, this LP makes me very happy.

Well, the contents of GSQ6 were forum-wide voting based, so that'd have to be some pretty impressive retroactive karma. Plus, as much as I'd like to play it, I've never managed to get my hand on a decent version of an UK game on a system I actually own, alas. And yet, rumors circulate among the cucumbers...

I'm really enjoying this LP, because of the Science. Keep it up!

Having fled Gaia's violent eruptions a second time, we conclude that she must simply be over-eager to meet us in Eden, and is trying to tell us to quite wasting our time on these lesser being. We have a rather hefty EVO.P pool at this time, so we concede, and happily flee from the volcanic ash, moving on to volcano #2. Volcano #2, by the way, is the Cave of Zinichtys. Have fun figuring out how to pronounce "Chtys." As usual, there is the brief one screen cave entrance, littered with the familair jellies and eels. The jellies are immune to our Angler's Horn, but the eels stare wide-eyed at it in delight. This is essentially an annoyance to us, as we would normally ignore them, and they us, at this point. Having dispatched them, we proceed to make our way into the Cave of Zini-"when consonants attack". I'm not sure what that is, but I'm sure it will be tastier than our last meal, as each dish we've come across has been progressively more delectable the last.

Actually, Zinichtys is probably a slight romanji-error of Dinichthys, a genus of fish, also known as Dunkleosteus, a "hypercarnivorous apex predator"...

....I hate you, ocean. I am suddenly filled with the compulsion to evolve. Incidently, this genus was also used as an enemy in the prehistoric area of the first Ecco the Dolphin game.


Let's start by increasing our body size, which gives some significant changes. HP +10, Strength +1, Defense +1, Agility -3. This seems like a great package, aside from our pathetic Agility. Our unbearable Agility. These first two screens with my new body? They display how far I was able to move in 4 seconds. I full screen takes 5. Seconds are short, but when I can almost count each new pixel of the area as I move, something is wrong. A change in speed is required when you increase your size. Normally I go for the fins first, as they're cheap, but we've had some requests for the tail, so we'll go that route.


Since we're rolling in evolution, let's invest in the best tail available, the Kuraselache's Tail. This yields HP +15 , Agility +4, Jumping +4, giving us yet another HP boost, and leaving us slightly faster than we were before we became so bloated! So, our proposed eons of devouring the speedy Thelodus have strengthened our tail fins as we chased, and increased our size that our stomach might better handle the vast swarms we ingested. But what of our rampant mastication? Surely the jaws must be improved! And, again, only the greatest for us!


And the greatest... is that of the very creatures we are preparing to assault? We... were overtaken in evolution!? Unacceptable! Purchasing the Zinichthy's Jaws gives us Biting +2, allowing us to do 5 damage with each clasping of our jaws. Also, recalling that one of my favorite things to do upon aquiring a new jaw is to examine all the different faces for it, I've assembled my collection here for you. Somehow, the way the Angler's Horn shifts along the head in the Biting animation seems cute to me... At any rate, please let me know if you'd like for me to continue to include sprite galleries like this in the future. With these astounding evolutions in place, we now press into the caves to see if we can't supplant these deep-sea nightmares, and show them that we are the apex predator!


well, there it is. Imagine, having the audacity to evolve a pair of jaws superior to our own! What a joke! We totally could have had such jaws sooner if we'd wanted to! we simply chose not to! Because we are superior enough that we didn't need them!


Umm, it looks angry... We certainly think that these jaws are a fine evolution... In fact, we'll even spare you a little praise for having the good sense to evolve in a manner so similar to us! I don't think there's any need for your well-armored body to swim any closer...


Oh god, oh god, ohgodogodOGOD!!!

Wait, that's it? Even with our slick body, only 4 damage? OUR SUPERIORITY IS RE-ESTABLISHED! Their armor means that we only do 3 damage to them, but two bites is still sufficient for taking them out. Look at them curling up like a pathetic little shrimp as they realize the futility of their efforts to match our grand design!


Speaking of pathetic little shrimps, here's a tiny little creature crawling upon the floor, not even worth our notice! Look at it balling up in terror just from the sight of us floating ov-UMPH! Th-That little shrimp just hit us as hard as that other fish bites! What's more, it still takes two bites from us! It's superior to this area's dreaded namesake! What's more, each Dinichthys simply roams its set area, and should we enter it, it will glare at us, then charge, then wander back into its area, allowing for us to chomp its tail. These rolypoly aggressors, however, bounce back and forth between us and the sea floor 3 times, requiring you to move or get hit more! If you're near the seafloor when they hit you, that guarantees 12 damage. If we hadn't evolved, a single one of these might be capable of taking us out! The real threat is if you get a Dinichthys and one of these little fellows on you at the same time, leaving you too busy to get out of the shrimp's bouncing area. Fortunately, we consume everything the moment we see it, so they can't gather up on us.


This is our first area that isn't completely straight-forward, with alternate turns and paths presented. Heading straight-ahead as we've been conditioned, however, will present us with our third crystal, the blue variety! It seems I lied - using stones can be a quick path to a better life! The blue variety instantly adds 500 EVO.P to our (already impressive) supply. Each blue crystal has a fixed amount it provides.


The crystal being at a dead-end, we retrace our steps. The cavern isn't very complex at all, pretty much having two horizontal paths that frequently connect to one another, and a third path at the bottom with only one entrance to it. As we make our way down to this third path, we found the way blocked by a jellyfish! Course our inability to tilt our torso! If our jaws could only direct themselves some manner other than perpendicular to the earth, we would give that jelly such a biting! Fortunately, the ram attack can be done with any part of your body, so we simply slam our belly into the jelly (tee-hee, "jelly belly~"), allowing the momentum of its digesting kin to cast it into the briny depths.


The bottom-most path through these caves brings us at last to the volcanos. As we move past them, they begin showering rocks at us, and I'm just going to tell myself that Gaia is over-excited at our speedy progress. Just past the volcanos, we encounter one last Dinichthys, which we promptly convert into a meal, and then heal as best we can by having a dessert of the surrounding sea anemone. Not that it matters much at this point, but each rolypoly shrimp thing provides +40 EVO, and we receive +50 from each Dinichthys.


The way is unlocked to the final volcano, the Domain of Cepalas. This would seem to be Cepola at first glance, however, I'm prone to think this is coincidence, and is actually supposed to be something else, as these don't seem much like the real Cepola, and the real ones are a fairly modern creature. Yet, I'm unable to locate anything that this might originally have been intended to be, so... who knows? Either way, these guys are a bore. Normally, they would swim in schools of three, orbitting near us, then charge us en masse. They're only a nuisance, though, and this is probably the most forgettable stage in the game.


I'll take this moment to note that the Angler's Horn works on these guys, although past this stage, it's useless as anything other than ornamentation. Also, there is one flaw with the Angler's Horn - it draws all dim-witted sea creatures directly to the ball of light at the tip of your horn. This means that should the sea creatures be behind you, they will swim through you to reach it. Collide damage is only a single point, but you'll take it multiple times as you're trapped spasming as the creature tears through you to the object of its affections. Change this into a whole school of fish swimming through you, and it becomes a problem. At any rate, continuing to press ever-rightward past the boring Cepalas brings us to a cave that marks the end of the stage.


And we are now trapped! Trapped in an isolated bay! Yes, from this point forward, our only option is the final stage! We are drowning in EVO.P, so it shuldn't be a problem, but we'll save regardless. I'll also note yet another system aspect of the game here. Your save file will detail your progress through the game, as shown here. "Chapter 1 You pass 9/15 Area." Each "area" is a space that does not require the screen to fade-to-black to change. For instance, the first stages each consisted of two areas: the outside, and inside the cave. So, apparently over a third of this world is in the final stage! It looks like its time for some evolution to tackle this obstacle! We have enough to evolve absolutely everything at this point, of course...

Fun fact about the Dunkleosteus: it's believed that they could open their jaws so quickly they created a vortex that would suck their prey into their mouth. Not exactly unheard of among large fish, but catfish don't have razor sharp armor plates lining their jaws to shear off anything left outside the mouth.

Yeah, it's definitely sucky that this game's not available on Virtual Console for easy, non-piratey access. A keyboard's just not good for ramming. Bawwwww I wanna evolve into freakish monstrosities on my Wii. =(

Also, keep up the sprite sheet stuff! It's great to see the different faces of each new form, even though every player's creature composition will be different. =D

.....Oh man, I'd kill for a modern day remake or sequel.

Yes, please! Details like this is what makes an LP awesome!

Also very much this.

We need a dorsal fin.

So I went on youtube and checked out the final boss.

I am disturbed now.

EVO is a brilliant game, but the lack of mercy invincibility is absolutely baffling.

I haven't played a lot of this game, but the bit that I did I used save states to view every available evolution. I'm a bit OCD. Probably why I didn't finish it

Well you can always make up for it with the horns snap off, adding them back heals you exploit.

Another vote in favor of the sprite collections; they're awesome.

And yeah, the lack of mercy invincibility is really the biggest factor holding this game back in the playability department. Fortunately it makes up a lot in the awesome concept department.

Note that horns aren't the only healing exploit. Since any evolution heals you, in later chapters lengthening and shortening your neck is one of the standard ways to totally cheese boss fights. But we're getting ahead of the LP here...

At long last, let us move into the final stage, and bring the Age of Fish to an end! (Don't worry, we will still have aquatic adventures now and then).


And for this final challenge, let's have a nice final wave of evolution. From countless centuries of having our silky smooth hide mauled by the jaws of the Dinichthys, we have evolved a Shell Body! From our fearful dashing out of the paths of the shrimp-like assassins, we have evolved the speedy Tackle Fin! And from our extreme awesomeness as we batter the lesser creatures away from us, we have our proud Kuraselache's Dorsal Fin, which may slice through the surface of the sea, casting an image of terror for all! The end result is HP +10, our ram surpassing our jaws due to the Stength + 5, the godsend of Defense +4, and the soon-to-be blessing of Agility + 5.


Now the ultimate creature of the era (we've the best of everything, save the situational horns, which I'll address soon), we press on into the Cave of Origin. You'd figure the Cave of Origin would be closer to the Ocean of Origin, where we began or journey, but go figure. This is another boring screen of jellies and eels. Following it is a simple straightforward cavern, with no branching paths. It does, however, feature another new enemy in the form of a squid-like enemy, apparently of genus Orthoceras, which was pretty much around throughout the Paleozoic Era. This enemy isn't worth noting. It's quite similar to our shrimp-like foe from before, slowly scooting along the sea floor until we swim overhead. But instead of bouncing about aggressively, it just shoots up, attempting to spear us with its orthocone, and then very slowly falls back to the sea floor, providing ample time to take it out. And I've just realized that we had no opportunity to be an invertebrae! I could care less, save for the fact that this also means: no opportunity for tentacles! How I long to be a sexy eight-armed fiend (one detachable tentacle reserved for reproductive purposes), or a thousand-armed Lovecraftian horror from the deep!


As we begin to move out of this cavern and into the third area of this stage, we happen to overhear some more of those chatty plants. At least it isn't a rumor mill, like those worthless cucumbers churn out:

The Seaweed whisper to
one another.
Friends, the
Strolites are trying
to create a new world
using oxygen.
They are having
trouble because the
Kuraselaches keep
interfering with
them."

Strolites, eh? Took me a bit before finding Wikipedia's section on the evolution of Earth's atmosphere, which stated, "In the late Archaean era an oxygen-containing atmosphere began to develop, apparently from photosynthesizing algae which have been found as stromatolite fossils from 2.7 billion years ago." Stromatolite seems to be our pioneering Strolites. Blue-green algae cultures that were once extremely abundant, and are credited with creating the abundance of oxygen we now have in our atmosphere, via their rampant photosynthesis. I can't imagine why the prehistoric sharks would be making a problem for them, but perhaps pressing forward will reveal an answer?

As soon as this dialogue concludes, our standard eerie cave music is suddenly replaced by a heroic ditty, inspiring us to fight our way valiantly throught the rest of the stage. And yes, if we leave this level and return, it will still be permanently swapped to this new song. I should probably start providing some sort of audio links... Lemme' steal this person's...

Sea tunnel theme (what it was playing).
Coastal theme (what is is now playing).


The third area of this stage, Domain of Kuraseleache. At long-last, our aquatic rival for dominance, eh? These guys are a slight bit of trouble. They're more aggressive than the other enemies we've met up until now, with jaws that do 5 damage (keep in mind that this is with our new defense), and their bite leaves them inside you, almost guaranteeing you take some collision damage before you can counter-attack. Lastly, they have a tail-slap attack as well, which you see one of them using in this last screen. These folks are rather vicious, but two bites still takes them out, so we can tough it out. Thankfully, you won't find them in pairs any past this first occurence.


After a very long climb upwards from the caves, we finally reach another open area, speckled with more Kuraselache. I took this opportunity to note that an increase in Strength not only improves your damage, but also the distance your foe is launched once you ram them. In this hilarious instance, I came from below, and rammed the poor fellow plain out of the sea. The result is that he sank like a rock and was never seen again (I do mean that his sprite just plummeted to the sea floor).
The Kurasaleche's give 80 EVO.P each, so if we had avoided enough combat to not have the ultimate body for this era by now, we would probably be getting it at this point. Once again, this is the starter world. I have much more fun in later worlds, where there is no "best" body.


As we reach the end of this area, we are harrased once more by the gabbing of greenery. In this case, the aforementioned rebellious stromatolites!

The Strolites whisper
to one another.
Strolite A:
"If we could move
along the bottom of
the sea without
sticking, we would
not have to be ruled
by the Kuraselache."
strolite B:
"Shhh! Speak quietly
or the leader in the
cave will hear you!"

I will repress my horror that the algae cultures seem to have cohesive thoughts via hive-mentality, and will instead focus on the fact that they are being ruled by the Kuraselache. We won't stand for that! There are none fit to rule save ourselves! We'll show this "leader" what's what! But first! Let's swim over the cave, and to another area not yet meant for us (feel free to laugh at the shrimp-thing that sprung out of the cave and whapped me).


Ignoring our enemy (he will die soon enough - we've killed plenty kuraselache already), we enter the Coast of Pange. In my younger years, I thought this was somehow supposed to be "Coast of Change," but my older self realizes that it probably refers to Pangaea, the theorized one land-mass that existed before late tectonics and other volcanic activity gave us multiple continents. More importantly, "Land, ho!" A slight bit of plant-life seems to have ade it here before us, but let us become the first animal on land! By the way, the middle screen there is to illustrate something I haven't mentioned yet - if you dash into a wall, you will be briefly stunned (no damage).


And so, we have becoem the first land creature! Funny, our fishy form looked nothing like Sarcopterygii, the fish from which all four-limbed vertebraes and their ilk supposedly stemmed from, nor do we look like anything out of the amphibian subclass Labyrinthodontia, which is supposedly the first of their ilk. So, we seem to be neither the last fish, nor the first amphibian. History can't be wrong (that never happens, right?),so what gives? Well, if you look at us gasping in agony in that last screen, you'll now. This was an evolutionary blunder, and every second we remain on land shaves another 5 health away from us. Not fun.


Leaping back into the water like a frightened sea cow, we do nothing but slowly sink for a second before the time stream gives us back our fins. For whatever reason, the second that you just sink has always amused me, as has the way you just smack into the land and lay there a second before evolving legs. Having humiliated ourselves so, we retreat back to the Domain of Kuraselache and restore our health on a diet of shark and starfish (starfish are a plant of this area shown in the screens in which I was battling the kuraselache). Re-invigorated, we go to take out this last "leader" kuraselache in the cave.

Boss area theme

Well, this certianly doens't feel ominous... Well, we'll just move on ahead and LOOKIT THE SIZE OF THAT SHARK!!! Do you think it's too much to hope that the giant kuraselache might be drawn to our Angler's Horn, even though the others weren't? Once we get close enough, the music stops, followed by a brief four-note bass-line that is basically the "get ready for the boss" jingle. Fortunately, this guy doesn't seem all bad. He just wants to talk, and know why we barged into his chamber.

Huh? Who are you?
Knowing this is the
domain of the
Kuraselache, King of
the Sea, why are you
here?
Are you not trying
to help the Strolites
build a new world?

Well, they are trying to freshen up our mother Gaia a bit, and last time I checked, Eden wasn't in Atlantis, so we probably need to be able to wander on land to reach it...


But I want more! There's so much I don't understand about the world above! Like, what's a fire? And why does it - what's the word? Buuuuurn~!


Oh... well... maybe we can talk about this, then-

Boss theme

And the second the dialogue ends, the boss shoots towards us like a rocket and clamps his vorpal overbite into us for a whopping 13 damage! RUN AWAY! Unfortunately, the exit is now blocked and here he comes!


Bwa-ha-ha! Look at him crumple up like a doofus! Like ourselves, should the big guy dash into a wall, he'll be momentarily stunned, allowing us to take a slight nibble out of his delicious tail meats. Probably our last sushi meal for a while.


Unfortunately, we can't just chomp away. Like his little brothers, he has a tail swipe attack, and if you go for a second bite, your likely to take a hit from it. Therefore the main strategy is to coax him into charging yo, then dash out of the way so that he stuns himself, and get your one bite in. His bites tend to send you back a ways, after which he'll probably dash in again. However, if he gets you against a wall, you'll probably end up taking collide damage after his bite, and he'll actually show mercy and swim away a bit, back into dashing range. He's still doing a number on us here, and our Angler's Horn is doing us no good, so let's get the best of the one area we haven't evolved!


Yeah, Swordfish Horn! With most horns, you lose the ability to do a frontal ram, as just having your horn touch an enemy while you dash will cause "horn damage." This is affected by no stat. Each horn just has its own fixed amount of damage it does. With this horn it seems to be... 3!? Less than our jaws and ram were doing before!? Furthermore, the swordfish horn actually replaces your jaws as well, so, we've actually lost a lot of our damaging capacity, though just running into the boss to hurt it is a bit simpler...


Seems I left out a frame of the biting animation on my last sprite sheet. Remedied here, and hopefully for all future sheets. Aww, aren't we adroable?


Adorable as we are, though, these jaws just aren't letting us get the punch we need. So, after getting corned in the roof of Kuraselache's chamber, we take enough damage that we swap out to the Spiraled Horn. And yes, if you didn't notice, changing our horn did in fact restore our health. This is because, as those in-the-know have already commented in this LP, any evolution will restore your health. This is handy for meaning that you never feel you have a bunch of wasted EVO.P, because they can also be thought of as your health restore pool.


We bought the Spiraled Horn because it was a bit cheaper than the Swordfish Horn, and doesn't have that one's quirk of replacing our jaw. But, let's just give the boss a poke to see how much - HOLY HECK, 10 damage! Take that! And... it broke? Are all horns useless!? This is actually how most horns work. Dash into an enemy, and the horn does its damage, but after being used a certain amount, it breaks. The Angler's Horn and Swordfish Horn were two examples of special evolutions, that function differently than normal ones. The Spiral Horn does do good damage, but is distressingly brittle. But, it's not all bad, as the breaking of the horn counts as an evolution, restoring our health once more. This actually means that you can restore your health twice off one horn, which isn't a bad deal!

And after we chomp on his tail enough, the poor fellow explodes into fish cakes or whatever these are (my young self thought them loaves of bread). I evolved a second Spiraled Horn for the boosted damage, but it broke again before the boss went down. Thanks to our abuse of how easy it is to get EVO.P in this world, though, we still had enough to keep restoring our health for some time. These tasty shark meats grants 250 EVO.P each, and the boss exploded into four of them (as most bosses will). Unfortunately, one flies off-screen, and another blinks away before I can eat it, do to my struggling to time my screen cap. Lastly, because I had nowhere else to include it, I added a humorous screen of when I tried to dodge the boss and dash into him, resulting in us both stunned on the wall.

Victory theme

As we exit the cave, we're greeted with the traditional victory music, and some happy words and oxygen expulsions from the Strolites.

We are the Strolites.
Outside the sea a
world filled with
oxygen is being born.
The entrance is here.

The second image is shown anytime you swim into the Strolites (you can't interact with them in any direct way, as they are background. Yes, Strolites! I want to be... A Part Of Your A Whole New World! (I don't know why I keep thinking Disney so much. were this game an animated movie, it would definitely be Don Bluthe). Regardless, now that these guys are voraciously photosynthesizing, we can return to the Coast of Pange(ea)!


We celebrate by happily leaping about. Previously, we were unable to finish a jump without suffering asphixiation damage, which would remove all our inertia and drop us to the ground. With our wholly evolved body, and nothing but plants accompanying us on the world of land, we should henceforth be able to march to Eden with nothing to stop us save for the annoyingly over-chatty moss and lichen.


As we reach the right edge of the screen, our destiny calls us up! She has not forgotten us! We have conquered her world and moved beyond it, and she has coem to take us to Eden!

I am Gaia.
The "Fish Age" lasted
about 2 billion
years. As it ended it
gave way to the
beginning of a new
world. One filled
with oxygen. It is
called the "Land Age".
The Strolites and
plants have already
begun living here to
prepare a better
place for those who
choose to follow.
Here is a present for
surviving the Fish Age.
It is the body of an
Amphibian. You have
lungs so that you may
breathe and you may
also move about the
ground freely.
A new adventure
awaits your new body.
So----.

Wait, Great Power give us what now? But, our perfect form is perfect? Oh, Gaia, what masterpiece will you be giving us that we might better enjoy our time in Eden with you?


....what the hell is that? These jaws seem weak, their cheeks fat...
The body is soft, its sides flabby...
My tail is neither here nor there, ill equipped for land or sea...
I've no fin to speak of, my hand & feet are stubs...
Gaia, dearest, whatever turns you on for our eternity together, but this is a bit humiliating.
And all my EVO.P are gone! I'd just gathered so many from eating Kuraselache, but I guess I won't need them in Eden...


Wait, what? But I was ahead of the times! How are you going to give me this horrible body, then send me to a future era where it is no longer anything special? ...sigh... I was once the greatest of fish, and I am now the lowest of amphibians... But, oh, that Time-Trans looks fancy!


At this time, the Time-Trans appears and opens, and you somberly march through in your horrible new form, after which it closes behind you and disappears once more. This concludes Chapter 1. But let's back it up a bit, shall we?


Since you lose all your EVO.P at the end of the chapter, I like to spend them all wrecklessly. So, let's make our body small again, get a new Spiraled Horn, and grab the Scaly Body, Coelafish Fin, Coelafish Tail, and Sailing Dorsal Fin. It's just fun to see how different of an appearance we could have had, yeah? I guess I could also state now that every body does have a different color for the small and large bodies. Also, your body size is the one trait that you keep when undergoing a complete change in Order.


So, here we have the two options for what we can enter the new era as. The smaller form has significantly less health, and less strength and defense! However, it's Agility is 2 points higher, which isn't much, but when Dodong0 (ignore the accidental zero) has a mere 2, the concept of creeping along as him is a bit scary. So, it's an option of defense over speed, really. But here's an extra tidbit to make choosing this more interesting for you folks in TT! Whichever size is chosen here, I'll be keeping for the entirety of the next era. So, what'll it be? As soon as TT tells me which body to choose, I'll be hopping in the Time-Trans!


NEXT: Chapter 2 - Early Creatures of Land!

If anime has taught me anything, it's that small and speedy wins the (biological arms) race.

The chapter with the two evolutionary branches is the one after next isn't it? I don't think I've ever seen the weak form for the red crystal in the secret area there. (Is that really a spoiler?)

I think my super-beast in chapter 2 was always big so I'll vote small.

Green is a better color than Yellow.

Therefore, go with the green body!

But we have no arms! Good lord we are finished!

I suppose you should be the kerokero? Did the programmers not know if that was the correct name? What is the question mark doing there?