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

And so, our story ends. We were not the chosen being... We were defeated by our belief that being flabby was a flaw. But now we know. That jellyfish tricked us. Knowing we would slay it, it told us a terrible lie, knowing that it would eventually bring our demise. O, why did we not evolve ourselves into a splendid, corpulent form? Now, that Debustega will be Gaia's partner in Eden!


O, hey, look at that. Yea, no real game overs in E.V.O. Our darling Gaia is pretty dead set on giving us a smooch in Eden, and so she will infinitely necro us, albeit snatching away some of our acquired evolutionary knowledge. But, hey, we were clearly setting ourselves up to evolve in the wrong direction if we died, right? I enjoy that she asks we not let her daddy know that she's rigging the game for us to win. Scandalous!


Alright, let's try this again... Run under the boss... Keep running to avoid the vomit ball...


Hit the end of the stage, and get cornered by a vomit ball when we try to jump...
So, new strategy, play his own game! Jump on him when he tries to vomit!


..and end up landing on the ledge over him. What a cheater. Okay, coax him back ot his perch, then head into open area, and pounce on him when he leaps down at us! Ha ha!


Then I tried to bite him. It didn't go so well. Any time Debustega takes damage, he hops at you, and the bite leaves me close enough that it causes collision damage as he jumps up, leaving me stunned long enough that he's guaranteed to hit me on the way down as well.
But, ramming him the second he lands from his jump, that works just fine!


The ram knocks him far enough away that your safe when his jump starts, and our meager tail is decent enough that it lets us easily run under him once airborne, and we can safely ram him in the butt like we're playing a generic 3D action game. If we miss a beat, he would spit on us, and we would die. But we don't so he doesn't, so we didn't. He has 60 HP, so it takes us 20 rams to take him down, but it goes by rather fast. Then he explodes into meats.


Delicious, fatty meats. As we move on, content that we are now the boss Ikustega, and eager to take advantage of supervise our minions, we are suddenly intercepted by a frightfully wrinkled newt.


And he brought an appetizer! However, these guys seem to be the first intelligent life to have developed, because they have the good sense to lavish us with praise. Our terrible ego has now evolved narcisism.

Elder of Ikustega:
"Considering your
great strength, I have
something to ask you.
Could you do me a
favor?"


Isn't that how it always goes? O, you're so big, you're so strong, wanna' do some manual labor for me? Jerks. Unfortunately, this is the standard gaming "false option." I think this is the only one in the game, but it always annoyed me. I always liked to say "No," the first time, so I could pretend I was only saying "Yes," to listening to the story, not actually doing a favor.

"Thank you. Actually,
this island used to be
covered with plants.
Suddenly, insects
started to evolve
extremely abnormally.
These insects ate all
of the plant life
leaving this place
like a desert.
They are trying to
eat any remaining
plants around the
area.
They refused our
proposal to
coexist. Now they
are attacking our
people.
The father of this
child went to try and
persuade them, but he
has never returned."


Daaaaww....
I-I mean... Wimp. Suck it up, Simba.

Elder of Ikustega:
"Could you please
help us?"


And gameplay resumes. Nighttime conveniently hits as soon as the dialogue concludes, providing... decent ambience for the threat to Gaia's greenery that has been presented to us. Sudden abnormal evolution? Hmm, what do we know of that causes something like that? At any rate, what should our next move be? We gots plenty of EVO.P in stock folks, because I totally cheated and reloaded after dying (and we're about to have a ton more, just so you now, so don't be frugal with the requests). I'm gonna' try to have the updates be shorter but much more common, to avoid these long periods w/o evolution, though it has been an interesting play that way. I dare say I kind of want to attempt a no-evolutions run of the game now... Well, not now, but some time.

NEXT TIME: BUGS!!!!

Horns, dammit. Ram them all, let the Sun sort them out.

Debu (デブ) is Japanese for "fat", so essentially he has named himself Fattystega. Surely that is why he was proven evolutionary inferior.

Also, I nominate we evolve a set of terrifying jaws. Let the insects who would consume the world be themselves devoured.

Could be a Diplocaulus? It is the only early amphibian I know of that has a similarly shaped head as the one in that screenshot.

Magnificent horns, the best you can get.

Horns always break when ya need em most, while teeth won't. Get yourself a new mouth.

Teeth teeth teeth teeth

I considered this one, but after grasping so badly for what Debustega might be (apparently a pun), I didn't want to keep grasping. Unfortunately, this entry was very light in the "SCIENCE!"

Best tail. Jump on their heads and then eat their bodies.

There's something magical about this LP.

Tails, brother. Get all the tails.

Yeah, Tock beat me to it, but I figured this one out due to FF4's Debu Chocobo.

Anyway, it looks like ramming everything in sight is working out pretty well so far. Maybe evolve something to get even more Strength? (That's the relevant stat, right?)

.....except I just remember what the next boss is, and maybe going for ramming damage only would be a somewhat inadvisable idea.

Turns out I was a liar full of lies when I said I was going to go for shorter updates, as this is probably the largest yet... But what are ya' gonna' do, amiright? Well, I suppose a sub-boss is a first for this chapter. We'll be seeing plenty of them for the rest of the game. At any rate, the main thing our genes have been calling for is now upon us:


Fierce Jaws!
Biting +9 (01 > 10)

We are now capable of massive double digits with but the press of a button! If you'll recall our fishy past, that was the most damage we were ever capable of doing in the last chapter, and then only with the Spiraled Horn, which broke after but a few uses! Had we acquired this before the battle, Debustega would've gone down in only 6 bites! Hmm, but he could still kill us with one ball of vomit... We must become a creature greater still! (Though preferrably without vomiting).

It seems these insects have become the scourge of the land. That's our job! And so we set out! But... It does seem a waste to just leave this meal here...


And so, we take a bite out of the child! DUH-DUH-DUH!!!
Long before GTA, E.V.O was teaching the kids to murder anything they could for their own benefit! But even it didn't steep so low as to allow us to attack children!


He recoils behind the old man, but he can't save him now! They both begin trying to rush to the end of the stage, and the spritely child eludes us, but the old man is slow, and therefore quick to fall! I like how it looks like they're marching into our mouth here.


You'd think his old hide would be tough and stringy, but his age brings great experience to us, in the form of a whopping 200 EVO.P! Cruelty pays off! Where'd that boy go? This is a very nutricious species!


Oh, wait, that red number for our health was a BAD thing, wasn't it? The old and rotten lizard carcass does 999 damage to us, far more health than we'll ever have in the game. Sheesh, I wish we could just keep his hide on us to toss into the jaws of our enemies! But, Gaia's a sweetheart, and decides that as long as she's going to be helping us out behind her daddy's back, she might as well turn her own back to our murderous ways. Our shared deceipt strengthens our relationship!
Though, really, what made her decide to sympathize with these guys, but not anything else? It can't be because they're non-aggressive, because she kept her mouth shut while we were shoveling Coelacanth meats into ours. Besides, he was the first old thing we'd seen. Those genes of longevity just had to go.


Leaving this stage shows that we can now progress east (again, quite the wrong direction if our destination is Eden). But, I'll rewind the clock a bit to before I devoured the elder to show you that any time you return to this stage, the two will still be there, and the poor orphan will ask you to help the Ohmu save Ferngully. If you bite either, but "allow" them to flee, they will be there to give this message when you return. But should you succeed in killing either, the stage will remain empty. I was always kind of annoyed that after you agree to help the Elder by saving the plants, the ikustega in the earlier stages still wants to attack you for encroaching on his lands!
Hey, we ate the elder! These are our lands now!

Bwa-ha-ha, your head crest can't save you now!

At last, the aerial hors d'�uvres is a simple meal!

And the land fell silent, and Gaia's servant surveyed his land, and saw naught but roasted meats, and it was good.


♪Insect Territory
Okay, okay, moving along, we come to Domain of Profasu, which it so nicely informs us is the ancestor of the Cockroach. Thanks for clearing that up. You got me on Profasu, but, Blattoptera is the Order of the proto-cockroaches from which are modern variety evolved. I don't really have a super detailed index of the various genera and species of it, but I feel safe assuming Profasu is an engrish of one of those categories within this Order. In short: they are big cockroaches, up to around 50mm. So, not gigantic. But still yucky.

Profasu (Ancestor of
Cockroah):
"Those pesky
Amphibians are coming
again!"


And, our first insect encounter begins scurrying towards us, but they are no match for our ferocious - AHHHH, we're biting bugs! YUCK! But, that's the way it has to be. If we ram or jump on them, it's not enough to kill them, and once injured, the prehistoric beetles take flight and flee.


At 40 EVO.P each, and their attack pattern consisting of little more than running into our razor face, we can't resist crunching through a couple exoskeletons as we make our way further into insect territory. The next area is BEEEEEEEEEEEES!!!!. I feel compelled to note that wasps aren't suspected to have developed until roughly 115 Mya (much less bees). They're quite a ways ahead of schedule.


Aww, that's just a baby lizard like the one we were trying to eat. Being chased be a bee. And then abducted. And carried away. For devouring. Or potentially injection of eggs into its spine.


After a brief pause to eat some sun-bleached bones (just 'cuz), we set out to devour the lizard children! They must be punished for wandering so far from home! And though we take a bite from one, it only wounds it, before it is rescued by its buzzing friend!
Alright, actually, bees spawn constantly, as do baby lizards. If any free baby lizards are around, then a bee will lock onto it to steal it away. Unfortonately, most of the time, when you try to bite a bee before it can grab a lizard, you end up biting both (or just the lizard, like I tragically did here).


But, if you manage to damage a bee carrying a baby lizard, it will drop its prey, who will be stunned momentarily before continuing its ineffectual fleeing.

But, as night falls, there is only terror. DO NOT WANT BEES!No baby lizards exist at night, so both bee stages suddenly become death traps. Seriously. You want to get out of these levels when the sun goes down. Going to the world map switches us back to day time, so we can then resume grinding. But I died a decent number of times in this level while grinding thanks to over-staying my welcome. But, completing this stage at long last gives us access to the mysterious cave to the north! I didn't really appreciate it back when, but I rather enjoy the gradual flow of the stages as you approach the cave, with the harvesting grounds of the insects, then the stage that is simply them carrying their prey to their lair, and, now, the lair itself! The saving baby lizards thing is mildly enjoyable as well, and that special little E.V.O touch of being able to eat the poor little kids if you so choose is delightful.


Upon our arrival at the lair of our competitor for this era's throne, we suddenly encounter- Aagh! Get away, super toxic death meat!

"Pant, pant..."
I was supposed to try
and persuade the King-
Bee, but I have been
badly injured.
Is there anyone who
can tell the King-Bee
how important living
in peace is?
Sir ---, you look very
strong. I have a favor
to ask of you.
I am about to pass
away soon. Please eat ("about to, soon," is redundant!)
the food I have
collected so that you
may become strong
enough to defeat the
King-Bee.
If you can defeat
the King-Bee, it will
enable the plants to
recover and grow
again.
(Really? The... the bees are destroying the plantlife? The pollen harvesting and spreading symbiotic pollinators? You're sure?)
But.... I wish I
would have met my
son before I pass (This guy's grammar is all kinds of bad.)
away.
Sighhh...
....Farewell, my
son.


This was the father of the first baby lizard we had encountered. Why he dies with a smile on his face, I do not know. Maybe, like the others in his family, he is in awe of us, and is grateful that we are the last thing he gets to see.


The meat that he... "collected"... Is more rancid super meat, and gives us an incredible 1000 EVO.P! This puts us at 5000, so it's time to do some serious evolving before we engage in combat with this silly insect that deigns to claim the throne that should be ours!


And, so, to finally make you horn lovers happy, all 5k gets dumped into a pair of Dual Horns, baby! At a Horn Power of 20, we are now capable of dealing twice the damage we ever were able to as a fish! More damage even than Debustega was capable of rendering in a single hit! We are, again, supreme!


Upon entering the cave, we find a delicious egg awaiting us! However, as we approach, it cracks and shatters, destroyed by the awesomeness radiating off of our new, profound form.


Why the blue yolk proceeds at leap at us and beat the living hell out of us, I cannot say. Seriously, I despise these things. You'll note I lost 15 HP just from it jumping on me. That's because they hit once per leap, and once while on the ground. So, we take 5 dmg as they leap at us, 5 as they land, and 5 again as the instantly hop again. No big deal, right? Just charge them with our horns, right? Well, turns out they are near impossible to hit with them. They are over are horn height for most of their leap, and under it when crawling. Why did we get these horrible horns!? Why didn't we do something to increase our HP!?


What's more, these little nuissances give only 20 EVO.P. However, there are non-aggressive eggs scattered about, which can be easily told apart from their tell-tale health-restore item wobble, while face-hugger mucus comes from immobile eggs. We are resorted to sucking on eggs to stay alive against blue bee larva... I feel mildly less supreme...


The cave is fairly short, but near the end, we encounter the worms on slight ledges, which makes them mildly more troublesome. We leap past them, but it seems we cannot finish this stage until we've defeated all of them. As we devour the last of the next generation, our rival makes himself known!

King-Bee:
"Here comes another
Amphibian."
"You have evolved
strangely. Did you use
the crystal's power?"
"As I said before,
the only way to
satisfy our large
appetite is to devour
all of the plant life
we can find."
"If you feel the way
we have chosen to
live is wrong, maybe
you should change it.
You may only change
it one way though.


That's... a pretty big bee... Sounds like he's had some encounters with the same overly-chatty crystals we have. Seems to have gone better for him than for us.
Tha's alright! I'm not worried! Bring it on!

And we are stung in the throat by rapid fire stinger and die instantly. ;_;


Our next go, we immediately flee as much as we can while crying to Gaia, as stingers pepper the cavern floor behind us. The assault finally yields, and so we prepare to make our counter attack, as the King Bee ever-so-slowly hovers towards us. Just as he is in jumping distance, and we brace to strike... He spears us through with his deadly ass-lance, instantly doing more than our max health...


And then we die. A bunch.
The gatling stingers usually fire only 3, but he can fire far more in a row if he chooses (I believe its based on your movement). If even one of these hits us, we're likely to be hit by another, and so, we're pretty much in a fight in which we cannot make any mistakes whatsoever due to our low health... But we've got bad-ass horn! That's what you wanted, RIGHT!?


The time to strike is just after dodging one of his attempts to spear us. It doesn't paralyze him, like the rush attacks of last chapter's shark boss, but it does put him at ground level, and is really the only moment when he's briefly not trying to kill us. So, we hop on him as he prepares to fly off again, which, like all airborne enemies, makes him fall back to the earth. We have no time to bite, but double-tapping forward instantly applies our horn damage to him! Take that, ya' jerk! Ha ha, these horns are fabulous! I love them more than-


....... F-.... O-Okay... That's okay.... The 3 or 4 horn stabs were totally worth the 5000 EVO.P... Totally... worth... it... And hey, at least I get healed from the horns breaking, which, you know, means a lot when almost any single hit is guaranteed to kill me.
As he backs me into a corner, and prepares to attack, I know there's almost no way I'll be able to dodge, which means it's time for me to die. But I've still got a little over 200 EVO.P. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and part of the E.V.O experience is scraping for healing and adaptive evolutions in boss battles. I've even downgraded myself in boss fights before, because it was all I could afford. The only thing in our price range now are the first two dorsal fins.
I could try to stretch out my EVO.P by buying the worst, then removig it, getting it gain, then removing it... But, that wouldn't really help in a battle where one hit kills me. So, I opt to buy the 2nd dorsal fin, hoping it'll give me enough health to maybe survive one hit.


And, quite honestly, the results are a lot better than expected! My health more than doubles!

Hit Pts +25 (23 > 48)
Strength +3 ( 3 > 6)
Defense +1 ( 0 > 1)
Agility +2 ( 4 > 6)
Jumping +2 ( 3 > 5)

This might seem like a pretty huge health leap, and it initially seems so to me as well, but then I remember why my health is so low to begin with - I have a small body. Though, in contrast, I suppose that if I had a large body, dodging this guy would probably be a pretty difficult task (though this would've soled that as well, via the Agility boost).
By the way, in the first screen here, I'm not biting the boss for 3 damage. That 3 damage is from jumping on him. I just tried to bite him on the way down, but he was still in his recovery frames. I never really noted it before, but it seems your jump damage is half of yoru Strength stat. It rounds down, which is why we've only been doing 1 damage with our jump up until now, with our Strength of 3.
Our new health allows us to even survive a stinger attack, and since we can at least survive an attack now, the eggs become relevent again. The eggs (the non-deadly ones) will respawn as long as they are off-screen, giving us a consistant means of restoring our health as the battle wages on.


It's a bit tedious, running back and forth gobbling eggs like Gaston, but we're eventually able to get in enough bites to explode the King-Bee into succelent bee meats. What, you've never had marinated bee meat ripe off the bone? There's jut no culture in today's people...
Upon exiting the cave, we are greeted by a dragonfly, which apparently realized they should have been in the insect territory rather than that of the amphibians.

Ha...ha...ha...
I am a dragonfly.
You may call me
Megausu.
You got it!
I didn't agree with
the way of the King-
Bee either.
I will give you some
advice.
You have no strong
enemies ahead. At this
point you don't need
to evolve.
The Sand-Eater in the
next area is very
strong. I suggest you
run away.

Though he calls himself a dragonfly, this fellow's name makes me want to think he's actually a pre-dragonfly from the Permian period, maybe Meganeuropsis.
One thing I am sure of, though - he's an idiot.
"You have no strong enemies ahead... The Sand-Eater in the next area is very strong."


And, so, as he buzzes away, I let him know what I think of him.
Sadly, he just gives regular dragonfly EVO.P.


And so, we are in the northern deserts, for the final stretch of this chapter! But, before moving into these final stages, let's review a little, shall we?
First, you'll notice that the exit to the cave counted as a separate stage. We'll see this used more in later chapters, where stages have mulptiple exit and entry points.
You can also note that it has a stage name, "Desert of Choice," which it didn't show when we exited the cave.
Also, that damn dragonfly will be here every time to blather the same thing to us, no matter how many times we eat him.
I was actually trying to return to the bee stages for additional grinding, but to my surprise, it seems that these stages are entirely empty after the defeat of King-Bee. A nice touch, that.
Finally, as I was back-tracking, I noted that I hadn't bothered to check the nocturnal behavior of Profasu. During the day, they will come only from the right, while at night, they will storm from both directions, making them a bit more annoying.


Returning to the elder and his grandson, they have new dialogue, which annoyingly includes no thanks. Hey, kid! Your dad has returned! He's just... in my stomach. He was delicious. On that note, while back-tracking, I slaughtered enough things to get the next most requested upgrade from you TT viewers!


Thorny Spring Tail!

Hit Pts +2 (48 > 50)
Strength +1 ( 6 > 7)
Agility +2 ( 6 > 8)
Jumping +5 ( 5 > 10)

The doubled jumping height is pretty delightful. Also, between the tail and the jaws, we actually look somewhat intimidating at long last.
The best part? As you ladies and gentlemen can see, I did a fair bit of extra EVO.P grinding, as I know the final battle for this chapter is just around the corner, and we would still die very swiftly as is. So, what'll be the last few evolutions we take into the final fray with us?


we have but 4 stages left before the end of an era. Meanwhile.... REVENGE!!!

NEXT: We become a draconian horror, and reptiles appear!

up that body, son.

Go get yourself a better armored body, after that last boss you'll need it...
Also, Jumping dorsal fin and never look at horns again :P

Heh, you killed the Elder! Doesn't seem to be any real consequences aside from the E.V.O. P loss from eating his poison meat, though. It's not like it even matters considering how the stage layout's done. The sad music accompanying Gaia's sudden "WTF PLAYER?!" like dialogue left kid me too scared to advance beyond that, though.

Also, good job on taking down the King Bee. That bastard's a real roadblock even if you've got a bigger body size. Speaking of which, I'll go on and suggest upgrading your body for the upcoming fights. And get that Wooper thing for the back of your head for the hell of it.

D'aaww, those baby lizards are so adorable.

No no, look again.

That's HP you're losing. You gain EVO points from it, but it's an instant kill. Because even from beyond the grave, elders hate the young and strong.

Those were some sweet horns.

Uh, I said E.V.O. P loss. You know, like the kind where you lose half after dying.....like from that meat instantly killing you.

I just wasn't clear enough in my post. ^^;

Oh, now I get what you're saying. Well, that's what savescumming is for.

Edit: Now that I think about it, since he went from 116 to 316 EP from eating the elder, he would actually have profited from the tainted meat, coming back from the game over with 42 more EP.

Of course, I think he would also have had to fight Debustega again. Probably not worth it.

Horns suck (except as a healing device). Stick with being a small, armored crazy jumping thing!

You know what would look great with that tail? Dual Horns.

Are you looking to be bitten, sir?

Can't blame a guy for being horn-*BLAM*

Our journey into the northern desert finally begins. Specifically, the Desert of Sand Eater. I couldn't find a wiki on these things, but this seems suspiciously like the subject, despite how recent it is. But maybe I'm far off again. These fellows sprout up randomly throughout the stage, sometimes immediately under our feet! If you get too close, they'll spit up a little sand on you, but its reach is small. If they touch us in any way, we take 9 damage. However, we are unable to inflict any sort of damage on them. This makes for an interesting stage. Essentially, it's an obstacle course of attempting to cross the lengthy level while constantly jumping to avoid the death that sprouts from underfoot, as well as avoiding landing on any.


Fortunately, we have a lot of evolving to do, so as we make our way through this death trap, we can purchase our evolutions, keeping our health full as we make the trip. First off, the most requested Jumping Dorsal Fin.

Hit Pts 50 > 35 (-15)
Agility 08 > 11 (+3)
Jumping 10 > 12 (+2)

Crossing this stage should be much easier with our even further increased agility and jumping! But what's this? Our HP has dropped by 15 points! Apparently, our doubled HP from our prior dorsal fin was a special attribute of it which we've now traded for increased mobility. Well, our decision to live this era as a tiny, green lizard amphibian means we favor mobility over HP anyways. Let's just hope we don't end up having to fight in any confined environments. But, oh, what's that ahead? Another green crystal! I told you we'd have another before we needed it! Too bad that we have nothing worthwhile in our Record of Evolution...


After hopping about, admiring the new heights we've literally reached, we devour the green crystal. Can't be letting those troublesome bees have any more of 'em! And, what the heck, let's go ahead and get another one of those evolutions you guys have been craving, hmm? The Back of Heads are pretty cheap. I'm gonna' go ahead and briefly show them all off for fun (probably should've done that earlier, but MetManMas was the only one asking for one, so seemed safe to assume we'd be going with that one).



From left to right, we have Wooper (JUMP +5), Kerll (AGIL +4), Jeprol (BITE +5), and Morimar (DEF +2). Wooper was the only one we received any votes for, so Wooper it is! I wouldn't mind rocking Jeprol's extra Electrike damage, but the increased air mobility of our Mudkip frills is much more fun, honestly! Good call!


Here's a nice screen mash-up I did at the exit of King Bee's lair to illustrate exactly how high and far we can jump. I chose that location because it was enemy free (after I ate that annoying dragonfly again), and the area is exactly too screens long. So, that's actually that whole area shown here. I'll probably be more inclined to do level maps when the levels get more interesting than just a horizontal romp.


Next stop, Desert of Edosaurus! That's right, "saurus." Ladies and gentlemen, we have officially reached the "-saurs". Do we dare hope that in a stage or two more, there may even be a "dino-" preceding the "-saur?" The answer: Hell yeah. But for now, we just get these losers.

But the era of Amphibians has not, sir! We will not be intimidated by a premature, immature reptile that isn't able to keep even the spelling of its own name consistent! (Apparently, Edaphosaurus) We are tired from navigating Sand Eaters. We will devour this small tubule of plant matter (I think?) right in your face to show our lack of fear!


Sweet mother Gaia! Our beloved health points are scattered upon the sand! Why must our justifiable arrogance always be punished!? These guys do pretty intense damage for a normal enemy, so it may be time to get that armor evolution you guys were asking for. It's pretty much our only neglected aspect at current, and I only put it off this long because I enjoyed having maximum mobility. But we can't take this kind of abuse! Sadly, it seems we are currently unable to afford the coveted Armor Body. Heck, we're a little short of the Scaly Body right now! Looks like we'll have to tough it out for now!


Like most enemies, get too close, and they begin to charge. Fortunately, they're pretty slow. They remain in aggressive mode even after hitting you, but if they wander a couple seconds without getting near you, they'll return to minding their own business. They have the odd tendency to bury their heads in the sand. Perhaps to cool their brows, perhaps to scour for food, or perhaps to allow us the opportunity to take a fierce bite out of their rumps using our fierce jaws. Sure, it pisses them off, but they can't even jump! So, we simply leap to safety!


Wow, umm... Our unparalleled leaping ability courtesy of our draconian wings is rather impressive, but... It kinda' makes it hard to plan a landing when we lose sight of the ground... Our amazing agility doesn't help, as it makes us zip about quite a bit whenever we tap left or right. That's right: we're so impressively awesome that it's actually kinda' inconvenient. And damn proud of it!


Wow, this kinda' proves my point, though... I landed a little too close to one of these jerks, resulting in his slapping our ass with his fin as pictured here. Though we were initially flattered by this advance, it sent us flying into his buddy, whom you can see munching on dirt to the right. And this friend was quite aroused by our being tossed at him, and attempted to seduce us with his own dorsal slap. Right back to his friend. They proceeded to pass us back and forth and gang rape us, and we found ourselves quite decidedly fucked. Gaia promised not to tell our future father-in-law about this embarrassing ordeal, but we were too ashamed, and just reloaded our file. And then decided that using our ram attack on these guys was a much safer method of attack, thanks to its further reach.


we happily leave behind those jerks, hoping that the next stage might afford easier pray. Edaphosaurus provided 80 EVO.P each, but they were just too high risk to invest our time and teeth into. And so we advance to Desert of Mosuchop. I figured this thing would be hard to identify, but it was actually rather easy. Moschops is one of the proto-mammal reptiles, and one of the largest creatures of the Permian. But we're getting a little ahead of ourselves talking about mammals! (We'll eat them in due time!) However, the titular Moschops is not to be seen! All we see are those little crested fellas that have been so popular throughout this chapter! Well, we'll happily cull their over-population.


NIGHTMARES COME FROM BENEATH!!!


And at night... They come to feed!!
These monstrous moschops are set at fixed points underground in the stage. When we wander close, they suddenly surface, lunge at us, and then return to the sand from which they came. But at night, they are released from their prison, and wander the earth, seeking flesh to feed upon. These guys are actually considered to be primarily herbivores, but we are a "small" amphibian, so I suppose we are fair game for them. They're actually not too big of a threat, though. If your reflexes are decent, you can beat them. The trick is to actually bite the air ahead of them early. That way, when they lunge, they'll simply be flinging themselves into our waiting maw. They give 60 EVO.P each, so, we might as well eat a few to purchase the Scaly Body. That was my plan, anyways, until I got a super meat for a whopping 400 EVO.P! (No picture, sadly.) That's... Hex Meat + 4/6! (Okay, I should just give up on these special meat titles now...) So, I go ahead and grind a bit, getting another super meat in the process. Before you know it... 5000 EVO.P!


Armor Body acquired, completing our hell beast!

Strength 07 > 11 (+4)
Defense 01 > 06 (+5)
Agility 11 > 09 (-2)

We loose a little of our Agility, but honestly, we can afford to. Most importantly, our defense increases to something that's actually worthwhile!

With a final evolution for every part of our body (with the exception of any horns...), and the final stage next, now seems like a good time to make a Record of Evolution! This way, if Gaia tries to turn us into a guppy again, we'll at least have something worthwhile to recall with our green crystal. With our great and terrible image safely recorded for future generations, we move on to the end of an era!


Oh, great, not this punk again.




We eat the damn dragonfly for the last time, but the moment we do, we are frozen in our silly-looking mid-chewing face (what a horrible time to take a photo of someone!). If we hadn't devoured Megausu, then this simply would've happened as soon as he got off-screen.

Lady, chill. Who ever heard of a King Bee, anyways? Aren't you suppsoed to just have a man brothel of drones? Just load one of those boys up with some royal jelly and he'll be good to go!


Yay! Q-Bee approaches us, eager to unleash viscious combos!


Sadly, she is quick to realize that her enticing appearance has no effect on our insatiable appetite, and so she reverts to her true form and... apparently breaks her teeth all over our armored hide, from the look of things. Her bites are pretty vicious, at 25 damage, even with our armor, and, like her husband, she fires stingers.


She tags me with a stinger, mostly because I'm being sloppy. She's fairly similar to her husband, with a slightly simpler pattern, but higher damage. She will dive in for a bite, soar high, launch 3 stingers, and repeat. We're just fast enough that as long as we're running, we're 100% safe from her stingers. This is also easier than with her husband, thanks to these arena being flat, unlike the cave. Furthermore, after launching her final stinger, she will dive from her position, rather than hovering in close first like her husband. And, lastly, the arena is much more spacious, allowing us to put our wings and tail to good use. As with her husband, we'll wait for her to dive, leap to avoid the attack, then proceed to take hearty bites of wing and thorax.


Also, since she's a little larger than her husban, it's a little easier to get multiple bites in on her. After each bite, she'll recoil, then take off to the left or right. If you can position yourself properly before she recovers from your bite, you can bite her with another the moment she recovers. This works for most enemies/bosses that don't instantly recover with an attack, so we're actually able to get in 3-5 bites each time we get her. Unfortunately, here, I missed a bite, and panicked, thinking she might recover with a bite. She did not, but our incredible jumping keeps us airborne so long that she has plenty of time to soar up to us and launch a stinger. Just in time, I open the menu, and pull the ol' horn trick. Her drill-like needle then comedically stabs right into our new Original Horn.


We end up taking one more stinger when she chases us into a corner, but it only takes 2 more sessions of catching her in our little jaw traps before we take Q-Bee down. I actually remember her being a really tough boss, so I'm pretty surprised about how easily she went down this time. Disappointed, even. But then, her only real challenge was her high damage.


I couldn't have said it better myself!


The queen explodes into bee meats- oh, no, we get sweet honeycombs this time. Seems that like the King Kuraseleche, the Queen Bee has a special food product for us. Also like him, we will not get to keep any of it, and our darling Gaia will soon snatch all our hard-earned evolution away from us. So, before we go home to see her, we stop by the pub and waste it all on garbage evolutions, just for fun. Pictured here, we're rocking the Tusking Jaws, Mottled Body, Feeler Horn, and Thorn Tail. The Feeler Horn always made me upset that we don't ever get the option to evolve as an insect...


Walk to the far right, and...

AT LAST! We will become a reptile! Maybe note a venom-spitting ninja Reptile, but mayhaps a ferocious earth-shattering Tyranosaur!


.........
Not the mamma'!


And here we have the stats for both the small and large starting reptile. Once again, I'll be letting TT decide which size to start with. However, I won't say we're making a lifelong commitment to our size this time. The reason being: this is the first body available to us that we'll be able to keep for the entirety of the game. Gaia will no longer give us new forms, nor will she steal our EVO.P at the end of chapters. We will have the option of a few other Orders later on, but for now, it's reptile, and it can stay that way forever if we so desire. Exciting! By the way, when I reloaded to change my size, I went ahead and tried to use our green crystal to become a reptile. The message you see here is what happens when we attempt to become a creature from a future era. Lame!

As we leave the Permian behind, I feel the need to note something. Of no mention was the Great Dying, a more significant extinction event than the more publicized end of the dinosaurs. This is the epoch event separating the Permian Period from the Triassic, and the Paleozoic Era from the Mesozoic. The majority of all life in land, and almost 90% of all life in the sea died. But, until 2000, when some rock dating in China was done, the date of this event wasn't firmly known, so I can't blame Enix. Furthermore, the cause of this event is much less settled on than that of the dinosaurs. Oh, well.

Next time: Dino dna!

"Not the mama!" is more fitting with pink, not green.

Go for the big guy.

Go big! Be a dinosaur!

Yes. We survived by being a tiny speedy punk, now we must be a massive invincible luchador!

Or something like that.