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

Tezuka sure liked 'em!

This is the biggest update yet. Probably because I took too many damn pictures. And that's reason enough to go ahead and rush into it now.


Our journey resumes at the base of this newly uncovered mountain. However, the overworld is misleading, as this seems to not be a mountain, but a pillar of ice! Perhaps the type that a "Pole Spirit" might reside at? Unfortunately, even the game itself doesn't seem to know what to make of this place. We approach the pillar with reckless abandon, but the moment our muzzle touches the ice pole, we are frozen in place! I can only imagine that we could not resist a lick, and are now paying for our actions.



Ohgod, what's going on? I've always wandered what exactly this line meant. Is it saying that the slave is coming to fetch us atop the ice pole, or that we have just arrived to be their new slave? Because we're all about having servants as we dominate the entire planet, but the latter possibility means that we are now honor-bound to dish out a lot of pain.


And, so, we are carried away into the sky. Suddenly, I am filled with a sense of regret over our abandoning our wings...


Fast Dinosaur Theme


We are rudely dropped upon the outer walls of the sky city, where the armored bird templars eye as with contempt. You know, finding some aliens with evolution guns above an asteroid belt was a pretty surprising turn of events for the game. But at least that was mixing science fiction with our science. But now, here we are, atop a flying city filled with armored bird folk. At this point, I don't think the game can surprise me anymore. A samurai robot could come storming at me, and I would just think, "Of course." Though that would be awesome.


These bird guards aren't too difficult, but they are annoying. They're basic pattern is to fly in, stab a couple times with their spears, then fly back to a fixed distance from us, hover a moment, then repeat. Ramming them off the castle so that they plummet into the abyss below is my favorite method of disposing of them.


The annoying part comes from the fact that they actually puts their spears to use, always trying to stop just outside the range of our bite and kick, so that they can stab at us from a safe distance. This makes the ram the safest way of dealing with them, except that it makes the fight cover a lot more ground, and if we wander much at all, the fight will carry over to their cavalry.


Yeah, we're fighting javelin-launching bird soldiers riding triceratops atop a sky castle. This might be the pinnacle of ridiculous for the game, but, believe it or not, there's still one or two things in the next chapter that could compete with this. Anyways, these guys are based on zoning, like their dismounted friends, but they're actually much easier to deal with. They can attack from further away than their friends, but they have no close-range capabilities, so if we draw in too close, their only option is to back away. However, when both enemies attack at once, we have to deal with frontline spearmen, and rear javelin-throwers, plus the possibility of the spearmen trapping us in a pincer attack. The damage is low, but you can end up with so much going on that it becomes pretty frustrating. Here, I tried to lure the first dino-rider back to the castle entrance, that I might delight at ramming him off the parapets. Sadly, it seems the game is designed to only let them wander as close to the edge as the last screen shows. I am disappointed.


So disappointed that I hurl myself from the castle! Surely another leap of faith is all it might take for us to get our wings back!


Believe it or not, leaping from the castle is actually the way you back out of the stage if you find yourself in over your head. This is a very real possibility, for reasons we'll see once we get inside. In the meantime, since we just dumped ourselves back on the world map, I decided to load up our flying file to confirm for everyone we're not missing out on anything. You can't fly to the castle on your own, and the sequence for us to be carried there won't trigger until we touch the side of the ice pole at any height. Most saddening, though, is the fact that an invisible wall prevents us from flying under the castle once we reach it. Lame!

The whole outer wall of the castle is 10 screens long, which is decently lengthy for this game. I made a nice mural of the entire epic storming of the castle, but it's a bit large. Feel free to view it here while listening to your favorite epic war music of choice. (Hmm, Photobucket seems to have shrunken it down...)


The usual pre-boss song.
Upon finally storming through the castle gates, we land quite suddenly within this brown stone and torchlight tileset. We receive more of the standard snobbery from the birdfolk. Stupid birdfolk, always looking down on us from their sky cities, defecating on our vehicles while wearing those smug expressions...

Inside the castle we encounter the royal guard. These guys are terrible. They hit hard, hit fast, and like to hover on top of us so that we can't fight back. Biting is the best attack for these guys. Ramming doesn't work so well, as they have a charge attack of their own they like to counter it with, as shown in the last screen there.


If you were wondering, the lancers gave 50 EVO.P, the cavalry gave 90, and the royal guard gives 100 each. They also restore 14 HP, but considering how much damage they do, fighting past them all is still going to be tough. However, after defeating this first one, the castle seems eerily quiet. If you were wondering, even as a bird, we can't fly out the way we came, though there is an exit later on. So, the only route is forward! This brings us to a small drop.


Or not so small. And a friend was waiting down there for us. Ugh.


I know we're going to die here, so let's get a free heal by way of evolution. Next up in the queue - the Horse Body requested by Deptford (Horse Body absent from menu because I screwed up and took a picture while it was flashing).

Hit Pts 40 < 50
Strength 06 < 10
Kick 08 < 23
Defense 02 < 04
Agility 05 < 08
Jumping 05 < 07

This is an all-around fantastic evolution. Our offense, survivability, and speed have all received noticeable boosts, but of course the key feature is our kicking ability, which has just been boosted to twenty-three. These hooves are absolute monstrosities. But enough talk, let's try them out! "Have at you!"

They are a delight. Our foes fly away at a satisfying velocity, as though they are blasting off again, one might say. The fight is still vicious (mainly due to trying to find a good spot for kicking the bird-man up into the shaft we fell from for this photo), but we persevere, and receive another downward shaft for our troubles. Hopefully this one isn't another death trap.


Coming from the next fall, we come to an intersection. This is the first part of what I love about this stage - your form could potentially play a big factor in how you tackle it. If we could still fly (or wanted to use our green crystal), we could explore the top path. If we have great agility, we could leap across, as shown in the second screen. But, if our agility is lacking, we cannot make the jump, and we are forced to simply fall below, as shown in the third screen. I say this could potentially play a big factor, because it's largely canceled out by this stage's main gimmick - those pixel-spraying platforms we encounter. I'm going the route of leaping straight across. A bird-man approaches, so let's see what happens if we leap inside!


A flash of white, a fade to/from black, and a restart of the stage's already repetitive song, and we're sure for plenty of teleporter puzzle frustration! Also, each teleporter does not send you back to the one that sent you to it, so it gets extra crazy if you try to map it out.


We encounter more of these damn birds in the following hall, before becoming to yet another pit. Here, we again encounter a restriction of form. Though our agility is high, so is our jumping, which causes us to hit our heads on the low ceiling, sending us to the depths below!


A lengthy hallway battling two angry birds, and we are forced into another teleporter, which sends us to one which we can exit going left or right, but once we make a choice, the other route then becomes blocked by the teleporter we came from (which makes a third option, I suppose). Not that any direction really means anything to us at this point.


We vote for the right, and it seems to have been a good choice, for it presents us with another choice of paths, and a green crystal! We're quick to use our old one to revert to Percy, allowing us some flying liberties should they seem prudent.


The option on the left certainly seems to stand out with its embedded teleporter, so we take it, dumping us in a teleporter room we'd been in before, resulting in a repeat hallway fight, resulting in our reaching the pit we fell into before. So, hey, our flying does get to be useful! I swear, I didn't plan this! Across, we of course encounter a teleporter. I am going to be quite upset if this turns out to be the same hallway teleporter we were zapped to a moment ago.


Fortunately, it is not! In fact, we have found our next red crystal! They did a pretty good job of tucking this one out of the way, making you not only jump over a difficult pit, but also giving us a tough angle to leap over another teleporter to reach it. Our flying comes through, and after a short wait, it expires, allowing us to claim our latest special bonus form!


This crystal will transform us into the largest pachyderm the elephant (phew, managed to squeeze a science! post in!), it's size varying according to our own. This form's perk is its survivability, having a large HP pool, and a ridiculous amount of defense. Despite being a mammal, it can't kick. It's offense is based on its horns and strength, but its agility and jumping are just completely embarrassing. Oh well, let's jump on this teleporter and find our way out of here.


Just. Completely. Embarrassing. ...sigh... Let's... just walk the rest of the way in...


This drops us into another hallway teleporter, and we again choose to head right. This allows us to tusk another feathery foe to death, and that's about it before our sluggish pace takes us out of commission. I really can't imagine this form ever being useful, due to how utterly slow it is.


By the way, our elephant death march was towards a dead end. Delightful. To take the edge off the frustration, I decide another evolution is in order. Kirin's requested rabbuck.

Biting 08 > 02
Strength 10 > 07
Kick 23 > 22
Agility 08 < 11
Jumping 05 < 10

This takes our offense down a bit, but our kick is still ferocious, and it gives a massive boost to our movement, making up for our slow-and-steady waste of time. We charge back down the hallway at breakneck speeds, ready to get the hell out of this maze.


We charge about fairly randomly, and, hey! It turns out there's a telporter that sends you back to the very beginning. What a delight. Alright, it's cartographer time.


And here's the complete map of the place, assuming I didn't screw something up. As you can see, the place doesn't really look that big when you map it out, but most of it looks so similar that getting your bearings can be difficult. Honestly, I ended up developing a pretty simple pattern for getting through this place when younger. I would just run right from the beginning until I hit C, then simply run in and out of my teleporter until it carried me to G, then hop left to H, drop down the pit to L, then hop back in the teleporter I came out of. So, I do just that. Hopefully all the fumbling around didn't agitate or bore anyone. Seriously let me know, because there's a larger dungeon than this in the next chapter.


We arrive in a chamber that is quite clearly the boss room. This teleporter can be used to take us back to J, but there's no way in hell we're going back into that labyrinth. However, if we're going to be taking on the leader of this tengu aviary, there's one very important change we need to make to ourselves: Horse Jaws.

Biting 02 < 03
Strength 07 < 09
Kick 22 < 25
Agility 11 < 13
Jumping 10 > 07

Our Jumping suffers a little, but there rest is improvements, and our hooves are now actually getting close to matching the ludicrous damage Percy can deal with his dragon jaws. Now, with are completed equine form, we are surely STRONG enough to defeat whatever enemy awaits us!

Naturally, the flying bird castle is ruled by a giant chicken mage. This makes perfect sense. I finally understand evolution completely.

Let us now roll back the clock to a certain hidden stage last chapter. When we were exploring the ruins above the River of Asteroid last chapter, we came across some flying dinosaurs which were having their intelligence boosted by an alien creature. This seems to be a part of what Bird-King is referring to. Furthermore, there were several crystals in those orbiting ruins, and the ruins themselves are the only place in the game to share the same tileset as this floating castle. The Bird-King has now posed a question to us. Do we wish to join him? The Bird-King awaits our response with frothing anticipation!



Ending #2: Bird-Man
A Glimpse Into The Future Theme

Okay, wait, what? So, we joined forces with the bird folk, and our mystical arts advanced enough that we were able to fly our sky castle to the moon, which is totally not a planet (but I guess at least this way we're not two-timing with one of Gaia's siblings), and built up an epic bird civilization upon the lunar surface? Wow. I want to make an FF4 or FF8 joke, or even a Lunar joke, but I'm just too stunned...


I really wanted to make some sort of Actraiser joke about Master coming down from the sky, but after the Nazca Plains popped up, I just knew I had to go with:

Freedan fighting bird boss in the Sky Garden over Nazca Plains totally has continuity with Bird-Man ending of E.V.O. (If anyone's wondering why the boss is a bird rather than some nonsense, it's because those screen are from the original Gaia Gensouki.)


As with our previous ending, once the images are complete, the game dumps us back on the world map. So, let's see what happens if we give this fowl wizard the scorn he deserves!
At last, the final battle between eagles and horses can begin!


Boss Theme
This is the easiest boss in the game, no joke. He'll generally hover about harmlessly for 2 or 3 seconds, and then pause, and do one of two attacks. The first, and more common, is the one you see here, in which we summons five spheres. This is down very slowly, one at a time, and he is quite vulnerable during this. However, if he actually manages to call all five to his side, he'll launch them at us, and every one does a ton of damage. If this attack hits you, you're dead, plain and simple (as I just demonstrated). If you've evolved into a slow creature, the main gimmick of the battle will be racing up the room's platforms to get in attack in on the boss before he gets this attack off.


His second attack is to simply stop where he is, and immediately fire two slightly less powerful spheres at you (these do 16 dmg to us rather than 21). A much deadlier attack, but less often used. He seems much more prone to using it when we're airborne (and uses it almost nonstop if we're a flying creature). His final method of attack is a follow-up. After doing this quick attack, if we're under him, he will drop to the ground, and despite the hollow bones of birds, this guy seems to be pretty heavy, doing a whopping 33 dmg with this attack. Though, again, this is something we'll never get hit with unless we're very slow (or getting images for an LP).


Though his attacks are pretty easy to avoid, we are pretty beat up after getting our photos, so we decide to go for another healing evolution. We purchase a Spiraled Horn, completing Strawberry Christ's request that we become a unicorn. Yay~!


And, time to kill this guy now. There's really no problems getting attacks in, since we can jump to where he is from anywhere, and his counterattacks come out much slower than those of most other bosses. So, we just wait for him to hover into the corner, and then juggle him with our hind legs until he becomes a meat explosion. Easiest boss.


Our delicious enchanted poultry dinner awards us a total of 1200 EVO.P extra, bringing us up to 2858. And we're going to need it very soon...


This seems to be our first proper boss that has studying the Big Book Of Villainy, for the instant he dies, his base begins to rumble and tremble with the same explosiveness of his own corpse (but without the deliciousness).
Also like most villainous base destructions, the base is set to not complete its detonation until the precise moment that the hero leaves. How convenient! This teleporter (which was turned off for the duration of the battle) will now send us directly to the world map!


Destroying civilizations is so satisfying.
This brings this update to a close. We'll be completing chapter 4 next time around, so look forward to it!

Next Time: Yeti Slayer and Home-Wrecker

Aw, he may have only lasted for like five screenshots, but he's adorable. And not a bad critter, with that pretty amazing jumping and kicking combo in his stats.

Naw, I think it balanced out nicely with the mid-level evolutions, enemy descriptions, and crystal shenanigans.

It was the most adorable thing I've ever made in E.V.O., so I really wanted to hold onto it, but with horse next on my evolution list, and having just watched that Youtube vid BIP linked the other day, I just had to evolve in time for the Eagles Are Turning People Into Horses reference. I probably should've played it up more.

I also really wanted to make a Harvey Bird-man joke, and conclude the update by commemorating our slaughter of all the birdfolk with an Earthbound image of Ness at the graveyard of all his Flying-men. But, I just couldn't fish up a screen of it.

I don't know what other evolution options we have, but more kitty.

By the way, this reminds me of yet another thing I failed to mention. I had every intention of creating a jackalope, but it turns out that when you have Rabbit Jaws, the Back of Head evolutions are disabled. I guess those ears just get in the way! I need to evolve a Back of Head now to see if the reverse is true as well...

Mane! Manes are cool.

It's a shame the elephant form is so terrible; I started getting all excited about making an elephant with moose antlers or something.

The more immediate issue there is that you cannot evolve red crystal forms.

Yeah, the red crystals are mainly used for very specific (temporary) transformations into creatures that wouldn't really work with E.V.O.'s Frankenstein Mix-'n'-Match Playset™. Still, it's awesome to change into a dragon or elephant or whatever, even though it'd be more awesome if you could make one.

Alright, let's bring this chapter of our story to a close! We have but a single stage remaining - the Hyenadon's lair, which ended in a massive door of ice when we last visited it. However! There's still a side path we've yet to take!


At the beginning of our life as a mammal, we overcame Mt. Snow by passing through the caverns within. Returning to the Exit of Mt. Snow, we attempt to now scale its precipices! However, the way is blocked! The exit was, true to name, designed for exit only! How annoying!


However, the caverns can be entered on either side. We ignore most of the cowering lower lifeforms as we travel the path we last wandered as a lowly rat. Things are different now! Make way for the majestic unicorn, chumps! We kick some dinosaurs around for fun, before emerging at the Entrance of Mt. Snow.


We scale the mountain glaring at the rodents we pass. In all our time of mystical evolution, they've made no progress at all. Shameful. However, upon completing our scaling of the mountain, something funny happens! The new stage is unlocked, but we're still located at the Exit of Mt. Snow on the world map!? What gives!? I'll tell you. This side of the top of Mt. Snow is just as glitched as the other. Which side of the mountain we appear at on the world map is determined solely by which side of the mountain we exit at ground level.


We enter the Exit to Mt.Snow again, run through the entire mountain range again, and this time, we make sure to exit at the absolute entrance. This gets us where we need to be, so that we can enter the Domain Paramis. It had better be worth it after all this running through hoops. LOOK, A SQUIRREL!!!!


The oldest squirrel fossil, Hesperopetes, is from the late Eocene, pretty much the end of this chapter's fold. Prospermophilus is my best guess as what Paramis is supposed to refer to. But the prehistoric squirrels are boring. They behave exactly like the rats, save that they jump further and faster. But how about the interesting stage of ice pillars ahead!? This area is the Domain of Prime Bird, which we've unfortunately encountered long ago at the Exit to Mt. Snow. However, I'll take this time to acknowledge that Neornithes, the class which all modern birds belong to, had become well-established already by 65 mya. But, the stage at least is a bit interesting. It involves some actual platforming, and if we'd come through here as a less athletic creature, all the birds pecking at us might make it a difficult journey! Falling between the pillars results in dumping us back on the world map, with the stage uncleared. But, for a unicorn, it's no trouble at all! But, what's that in the middle of the stage? Why, it's a green crystal!


We've already used Percy and a lizard this chapter, and we'd never get anywhere as a fish, so why not roll back the rock to the dawn of time, and go back to being a dinosaur for a while?


We rush on to the Domain of Hypnodon, eager to reach the boss of this chapter with as much time left on our active green crystal as possible. Sure enough, the door of ice has mysteriously disappeared, allowing us to travel into the isolated peninsula beyond!


The pre-boss theme begins the moment we pass through the doorway, accompanied by a steady sound effect. I can't quite describe it, so I'll list it as the guttural steady breathing of some sort of creature, as they seemed to be going for. As we travel on, we see the source of this sound: the much-feared (and surprisingly short) yeti, breathing in-and-out in rhythm with the sound we've been hearing! Primates may have appeared as far back as 65mya, but the Old World Monkeys didn't fully diverge from this group until 35mya at the latest. "The apes and Old World monkeys split from their New World monkey kin about 35 million years ago. The major catarrhine division occurred about 25 mya, with the gibbons separating from the great apes (including humans) about 15-19 mya." I guess that makes this a good conclusion to the chapter! His breathe draws in suddenly as we approach, and he studies us with a fearsome glare!
Seems like a rather happy fellow...
I really like the "Sir" he includes in there. Who knighted him, I wonder? At an rate, its good to know that there's some chivalry behind his desire for wanton destruction. Rather than our usual option of joining or rejecting him, we now get the option to either be condescending, or to lie to him! Surely, this is a sign of our continued evolution of character!


I wonder exactly what it is about the weak trying to become strong that he despises? Does he worry that someone might become a threat to him, or does he just really hate staple hero character perseverance? Or, seeing as how he is a knight, maybe he just feels that it disrespects the caste system.


Let's go with the first choice. Honesty is the best policy, and feigning concern is slightly more honest than stating an outright falsehood.


Ow! Clearly the wrong choice! This blow comes out extremely swiftly, packs quite a punch, and knocks us just out of biting range, but at the perfect distance for another one of his punches, which he immediately launches, followed by another. We die in under 2 seconds. Huzzah.


But what if we had simply lied to him? Well, it would've gone no differently. Stupid video game moot choices...


This boss has a simple pattern, but it's still a pain. He runs towards us rather swiftly, and upon reaching a distance just out of our biting range, he performs a speedy lunging punch at us, which knocks as back out of biting range, and we only recover from it as he's beginning his next leaping punch. As a dinosaur, our only options are to try to time our bites just so to catch him as he leaps towards us, which is quite a chore. Once we get to critical health from 3 punches, we take to coaxing him into a punch, backing away, and performing a running leap onto his skull as he lands. However, once we revert to a mammal, we find that once again, the kick is a saving grace.


So, as a mammal, we can battle this guy much more effectively, as it's much easy to catch him as he attacks with the kick. However, without our scaly dino-hide, he does a whopping 21 damage with each punch. Once we begin to get the timing for the kick down, we're in need of some healing, and so replace our horse jaw with that of the stoic rhino, even though they hadn't finished evolving by this time..

Strength 09 < 12
Kick 25 > 23
Agility 12 > 10
Jumping 07 > 05

Wow, that jaw cost twice as much as the horse's, and is pretty much worse. Fancy that.


Not to mention that I kind of let us get in a bad spot while taking the unseen photos of our attributes. We let ourselves get backed into a corner with this guy, which is pretty much instant death.

The doorway makes a nice little hole for us to get trapped in. This boss has no gripes with punching us into the doorway, and pretty much just hopping on top of us punching, ensuring that we're just cycling between collision and super punch damage. Fortunately, we die well before that stage of humiliation can set in, as our darling so sweetly informs us. On the bright side, the Hypnodon level is finally marked as completed, marking the only time in the game (I think) when we can see 100% of the stages on a map marked so.


Okay, playing was fun, but this guy's a one-trick yeti, and we've got the timing for that attack down now. When we come back for more, he strolls towards us confidently, only to receive a magical uni-rhino kick to the gut for his troubles. Unpictured, we immediately charged towards him, bouncing on his head to get on the other side of him, and gave him another good kick when he tried the same thing again. And then...


We have our revenge! Once we've kicked this poor fellow into death's door, there's no escape for him. No hope. Only an endless flurry of hooves and the number 23. It's a little sad, really.


Before long, this yeti every one spoke of in such fear is defeated. Talk about under-whelming! I'm actually a little surprised myself. Back int he day, I considered this guy a pretty real threat! But the truth of the matter is that it's just simple timing. All those rhythm games paid off!

We... we've made this poor albino Diddy Kong into an orphan! We've... we've evolved into a monster!


No, no, you have to be an arrogant, over-confident person until the bitter end! Stop trying to make us feel guilty for kicking you to death at your front door by having these final meaningful revelations! ;_;


Bwaa-hhha-ha... *sniffle* ..hehheh....
Sorry, sorry... I just...
It's sad the kid lost his dad, but I just can't help but bust out laughing at the kid's eyes bugging out as he sees his dad suddenly transform into a tasty pot roast or whatever.

Heh, heh~!


What are you saying, kid? You should hope that your father be tender as can be! It would just be disgraceful for a father make a tough, unappetizing meal! Actually, I am a bit disappointed. Only a measly single stake, though it is quite tasty and nutritious! I was expecting an explosion of delicious monkey meat! Up until now, bosses have only offered a single meat when they come as part of a series of bosses, like with the Tyranosaurs or the Mammoths. Hey, wait, what's the screen shaking for?


JEEZUS CHRIST AND ALL THAT IS HOLY HELL, WHAT IN MY BLUE HEAVEN IS THAT PINK MASCARA-WEARING SASQUATCH TERROR!?!?


Y-You mean... this is the yeti mother!? Here I thought the dad was a pretty strong father figure, but after seeing this beast of a lady, he suddenly seems more like the tiny man that ends up under the heel of his gigantic titan of a wife. I was planning on complaining that the game didn't give us an opportunity to devour the child so that he could be with his father, but that suddenly seems like a good thing...


Her embarrassment at her own blood lust used to just make her seem even weirder than she already did to me, but it's actually almost a little cute to me now. Rather, it would be...

If she didn't do psychotically ludicrous damage!!! Her husband is sort of a trainer for her basic efforts, but she's a little different. First, her basic attack is a double-slap rather than a punch, It's much more damaging, but it doesn't knock us back. If she catches us from behind, this is good, because we can simply kick her off of us, which is good. But if she catches our front, she'll probably get in another slap before we can do anything.


Her main new attack is an ice breath attack she likes to use when she's about a screen away from us, especially if we just landed a blow on her, as with the kick we just gave her. We're too late to avoid it here, and it hits for 8 damage multiple times. It would probably kill us, so we're going to preempt it with some more evolution. Moose Horns, completing the Rhino Jaw / Moose Horn request of Shivam and Jikkuryuu!

Hit Pts. 50 < 52
Strength 12 < 13
Defense 04 < 06

This is pretty much a minor survivability boost, raising our hit points by 2, and more importantly, our defense by 2. This might help a little with the ice breath, but, unfortunately, we can still be taken out with two hits of her double slap. The Yeti Mother is one of the toughest bosses in the game simply for the fact that she can take you from max health to dead in less than a second if you slip up.

The Ice Breath hits us for its full effect. It now only does 6 damage thanks to our new back-of-head, but it still hits us 4 times, for a total of 24 damage. Meaning that one slap will kill us again. ...sigh... Fortunately, we succeed in kicking her away this time. Landing a successful counter-kick on her is much more complicated than with her husband. But we'll get into that later. For now, we need to get out of this corner, so we leap upon her head to get to safety, causing a measly 6 damage to her, but giving us some room to work with. Of course, she was just struck, and we're close enough to a screen away that she launches her Ice Breath again.

You see, her breath moves at a very unpleasant angle, first sweeping along the ground, and then arching upward. This upward arch catches us here, and we take the full four hits again. This is not going well.


We pretty desperately need to heal now, but I think that our horn should be able to make some good offense for us. Charging at the Yeti Momma' after knocking her back is risky. Depending on how far we knock her back, and how swiftly we begin charging at her, she could begin either her breath or her slap attack, and both have a good chance of catching us if we're not fast. The horn gives us a good advantage, though, letting us just keep double-tapping towards her for assured damage. Until the obligatory horn break after a mere three stabs, anyways.


Of course, this is what we wanted. The horn breaking restores our HP completely, and we can resume trying to kick the yeti amazon to death. Unfortunately, we miss-time a counter-kick, and get double-slapped before we can react. That can happen pretty suddenly and easily with this boss. Gaia, dear, shut-up. Or at least be more consoling when we get squished between the manicured palms of a newly widowed yeti.


We restock a little EVO.P slaughtering the Hyenadons just outside, then attempt a repeat of our strategy against her husband. Unfortunately, she counter-attacks much swifter than her husband, being able to perform a slap without leaping, so we end up trading blows with her. Not wanting to die again so soon, lest we lose even more respect from our maternal necromancer, we run out into the open for some room, and set out to do some healing evolution (finally getting some use out of this gimmick, it seems). My plan was to simply remove our antlers, but it seems that losing them would cost just as much as replacing them with a beastly mane.


Biting 03 < 08
Strength 13 > 12
Defense 06 > 04

Biting improved, not that we'll be using that any. The only real change is our defense is down by two again, meaning that we can no longer survive 2 full hits of the Ice Breath. Of course, we get hit by this ferocious lady again almost instantly, and after kicking her away, resort to healing by losing the mane. For the remainder of this battle, we'll be constantly losing and gaining the mane, effectively casting Curaga on ourselves at the cost of 100 EVO.P a casting.

And we'll be doing a lot of that, as her hitbox is a tad larger than ours, making it pretty difficult to get a hit in without receiving one. By the way, I don't think I'd mentioned, but our vertical height gets locked when we kick in midair, which is why we seem suspended in the same spot in that GIF.


Here, you see us pulling out the "open the menu just as you hit zero HP, just barely evolving in time to avoid extinction! This is a thing you can do, but the window of time to do it is pretty small. We're running low on EVO.P now, but I'm finally working out what makes the timing for hitting her so difficult. While she'll normally hop towards us, if she gets close enough, instead of hopping, she will instead simply slide across the floor swiftly at us, for a much quicker attack. Once on top of us, this sliding slap is the attack she infinitely repeats. So, the trick is to estimate how close to us her hops will place her, then adjust our position to ensure that she won't land at that awkward distance that lets her use the deadlier sliding attack. We switch over to the less damaging ramming attack, as the stationary kick is near impossible to hit her with without her getting within range for the sliding attack, which is what's been messing us up for most of this battle. Using this new strategy, we're able to ram her all the way into the corner, and gain control!

I thought it was about time #TT was able to enjoy the glory of exploding meats. For the record, I calculated the male yeti as having 201-225 HP, and the yeti female as having 266 HP. Our meal brings us back up to 2294 EVO.P, and completes the final battle of Chapter 4! A little anticlimactic after the dramatic ending for Chapter 3...


Ah, here's he drama. Well, seems we were mistaken about making the poor lad an orphan the first time, but definitely not this time! As the sun sets, we sees his mother fall as well. The poor lad jogs across the screen, tears in his eyes, stopping every few steps to cry out for his devoured parents. It's the saddest thing. "Hey, kid. When your descendants grow up, if they still feel raw about it, I'll be waiting." He's a strong kid. He'll make it.


Once the revenge-bent orphan completes his escape, Gaia chimes in to let us know how proud she is, because she loves it when we murder adults, but hates it when we murder children.
Gaia's words actually do help to make me feel a little better... N-Not because I felt upset, or anything! I-I'm just glad I got to them before anyone else! Yeah! *sniffle* (See you around, kid.)


And so, we enter the Time-Trans, for an era in which Gaia is once again covered in lush greenery. As we leave this world of ice behind, the sun begins to shine upon his daughter once more, beginning the slow but steady melting of the snow that has covered her for as long as most of these creatures can remember. The Ice Age is now coming to an end. But what lies further on?

Next time: The Beginning of the End!

The final chapter, and the most epic. I'm going to estimate 6 updates remain, all quite large. Excitement!!!

I'm legitimately surprised that you're not offered the chance to put the orphan out of his misery, considering how you've Pac-Man-Fevered everything else in the game.

Wow, poor kid. You had to kill both of his parents. That's brutal.

And this is awesome. =D

All those gifs are moving at hyperspeed.

Firefox respects the frame delays coded into GIFs, unlike every other program that displays them. Most programs have a minimum frame duration (usually 100ms). So if you want your GIFs to display the same in every browser, set your frame durations to at least 100ms.

At least, this is what I gather from a couple minutes with google. I don't actually know anything about making GIFs.


And the little yeti boy always seemed out of place. You get this little scene that tries to tug on the heartstrings between two tough bosses. Any sympathy you have for the yeti family is demolished as Yeti Supermom claps 75% of your life off with her first attack. I know that I felt exactly zero sympathy for the lil guy on my 20th attempt.

I can't believe Enix pulled the old "...wait till you see his wife!" for two sets of bosses.

Yeah, this seems to have been the case, thanks. I thought Firefox was speeding my GIFs up, but actually, everything else was slowing them down. I've adjusted the timing and re-uploaded all the problematic GIFs, so hopefully they display in a slightly more pleasant manner now. (sidenote: seems that even Firefox will slow them to 100ms/frame if you try to set the speed as fast as 10ms/f)

Also, yeah, I always dreaded the yetis when younger. The dad was a hassle, but the mom was just a hideous nightmare.

Still loving this LP

But you changed your name? You sellout! What happened to the old days when it was all about the music?!

He'll always be pragmentalist to me.

I just couldn't take the pressure anymore, you guys. I'm a h4XX0rz. You can still call me p4g4n3l3m3nt5 if you want, though! Also, Adam - Thank you. That was the best. Dropped the pagan, dropped the 1337, and just going back-to-basics. Hope you guys enjoy the new update! It's thick with SCIENCE!

As this will be our last briefing from Gaia, I thought it was time that I allow everyone to enjoy her appearance more completely. I've always especially enjoyed that the sky scrolls through not only her hair, but her eyes as well.

SONG: Mother Earth
Having concluded Chapter 4, we are now on our way to the game's final chapter.
We began as a lowly fish, conquering the aquatic kingdom.
We then emerged as an amphibian on land when the atmosphere was newly oxygenated, and proved ourselves superior to our fellow amphibians, and the parasitic insects.
Afterwords, we completed our domination of land as a reptile, and even became a bird before destroying the greatest of dinosaurs.
And now, we have evolved into a warm-blooded mammal, and have established ourselves as superior to the birds, as well as the greatest of mammals the Ice Age offered.
In this final chapter, what higher forms can we hope to achieve? What greater foes can we hope to overcome?
You will not be disappointed.


Chapter 5 will easily be the most diverse, offering a plethora of new content, while simultaneously giving many nods to the long road we've traveled.





We've received a number of hints about the origins and purpose of the crystals that have been scattered over Gaia, influencing evolution. In this chapter, we will finally have all of that spelled out for us.

An ominous feeling, and final words of encouragement as we at last close upon the gates of Eden. And with that we enter the final chapter of our LP.

Chapter 5: Early Man (26~3 Million B.C.)

As this is the last chapter, let's try to be a little more epic. Rather than linking the usual world map music, here's a symphonic version that was performed by the Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra in 1992. You just enjoy that, because the most of this chapter just features old tunes. Also, I'll go going through most of the stages in this update quite quickly, as most of them are very simple left-to-right affairs.
This chapter roughly lines up with the Neogene Period, which spans 23.03 � 0.05 mya to 2.588 mya. To quote wikipedia, "The Neogene covers roughly 23 million years. During the Neogene mammals and birds evolved considerably. Most other forms were relatively unchanged. Some continental motion took place, the most significant event being the connection of North and South America in the late Pliocene. Climates cooled somewhat over the duration of the Neogene culminating in continental glaciations in the Quaternary Period that follows, and that saw the dawn of the genus Homo."


The first stage of this chapter is Final Step to Evolve. So-called, yet there's really no new information nor new evolutions available to us - it's just to sound cool. I should probably note, however, that there's no instructional information at the start of this chapter. No yellow crystal. In fact, no more of those in the game. No more red crystals either, sadly. Though, there are some special evolutions still available that can only be acquired under specific circumstances. But that's for the future! For now, just more boring squirrels to eat. At least there's a lot of them.


We leave Europe behind, and hop over to Greenland, which was actually quite distinctly so in the Neogene, it would seem. Greenland is the Domain of Sincerous, the most sincere moose you can find. My best guess is that this creature is Synthetoceras, a roughly 2 meter long creature that resembled the family containing deer and moose, but is in fact wholly unrelated. They lived during the Miocene, specifically, 13.6—5.33 Mya. However, they lived in North America. Meh.
And they have some information for us!
We thank them for their advice, and begin to move on, when they attack, revealing that their friendly advice was only a ruse to make us drop our guard!
They pack a bit of a punch, and only a well-timed bite can interrupt their ram - it goes right through kicks and our own rams. But, we have time to get right in their face before they' get aggressive, so as long as we're quick to strike, they'll never get the chance to attack. 70 EVO.P each. Not so bad. Not so good, either.


A bit parched from heavy meal of moose, we seek out a freshwater reservoir. This brings us to the Americas. I always thought of the upcoming lake stages as the Great Lakes, even though there's only three of them here, which seem to have been located wholly in Canada prior to Anno Domini. The first lake seems to be the Domain Of Fish of Prey. Chapter 5 marks our first opportunity to return to the waters as a mammal, providing us some adorable seal-like flippers. They look so adorable that the local fish can't resisting devouring them. Man, hasn't the average fish evolved to be harmless to land creatures yet? The subfamily of fish containing piranha has a very sparse fossil record, but the few that have been found are located both at the start and end of the Neogene.


But enough of that. Fortunately, an aquatic mammal can still kick just fine. Or... flip? Whatever. These guys swarm every couple of seconds, which means that in order to avoid an inconvenient nibbling, we need to see it coming, and leap out of the water when they move in. They'll then return to their dormant state for a few seconds, which allows us to strike back. If you care about the 30 EVO.P they offer. We don't.


Our next lake (Lake Superior?) the Domain of Sea Otter. But Sea Otters didn't really evolve until around 2 mya! And they started out in Hokkaido! But there were plenty of other otters that were only semi-aquatic well before that, so these must be what sufficed for "sea otters" back before they got hardcore about it. These adorable little critters seem to gravitate towards us, and upon seeing us, playfully float to the surface, and begin to show off and toss about seashells playfully. Aww~!


Ahh~!!! Sea otters are cruel creatures, and we are just another toy to them!!! And so we eat them all. Not much to note here. Their only method of attack is tossing shells, so we have no problems dodging their overly telegraphed, slow tosses, and quickly devouring them all. Onward!


The last of the Great Lakes (Lake... Michigan?), also known as Domain of Alligator? Most everyone knows that the alligator is something like a lingering dinosaur, having been around since the Mesozoic Era. But did you know they're the only non-avian creature known to only breathe in one direction? *shrug* We first had a stage in which leaping out of the water guaranteed our safety, and then a stage where the enemy would hurl projectiles at us from the water. Here, the alligators drop all pretense and just leap out of the lake, clamping their jaws onto our eyes! Why didn't we keep those Hippo Jaws!?


After we take out that first alligator, we come across a small island in the middle of the lake, where three more are peacefully sleeping. However, as we draw close, they awaken, and charge into the water after us! The gators have a pretty plain charge-retreat-charge pattern. Doesn't stress us one bit, nor do the two waiting at the end of the level. But our hooves are going to prune if they remain flippers any longer, so let's get back to dry land!

We press on into the northern US, the Domain of Grizzly. Many fish flip about desperately, while several Grizzly Bears sit about, happily devouring them. Grizzly bears didn't enter North America until about 100,000 years ago, and that's before evolving from more generic brown bears into grizzlies. However, the family Ursadae did appear around the start of this chapter's timeline, with various species all over the world, and the genus Ursus, which considers most everything we modern folk consider to be bears, finally developed around 5 mya.


Grizzly bears are very protective of their food!! Once we get close, the deadly ursa will slash at us with its powerful claws, which do a surprising amount of damage! These guys are probably the strongest regular enemy mammal in the game. Once their meal is interrupted, if we get within even a screen of them, their likely to come charging at us. They're not too hard to kick away, but just 4 hits from them will take us out, so we have to be careful! If we were still a flying creature, they would humorously leap to the very top of the screen and swat us down to the ground. Freakin' bears. But, they offer 150 EVO.P for their troubles, making this one of the prime grinding spots of this chapter. In fact, it's been some time since we've done any evolving, hasn't it!? Let's get to it!


We've been using the best herbivore jaws for mammals. Let's try the best carnivore jaws!

Biting 8 < 25 (+17)
Strength 12 > 7 (-5)
Kick 23 > 20 (-3)
Agility 10 > 8 (-2)

The Fierce Jaws are all about Biting power, rather than the more general stat improvements the Rhinocerous Jaws offer. Our kick remains decent, and our jaws are now better than our legs were, so I consider it an improvement.


Next up is an evolution for our body! The most expensive body, Ramothecus Shaped, has always been grayed out for us. If you'll recall, we couldn't evolve any Back-of-Head when we had Rabbit Jaws. Similarly, maybe specific criteria must be met to unlock this body? Either way, it's out of our price range for now, so let's settle for the priciest one we can actually get: the Rhinoceros Shaped Body.

Hit Pts 52 < 67 (+15)
Strength 7 < 10 (+3)
Kick 20 > 15 (-5)
Defense 4 < 8 (+4)
Agility 8 > 5 (-3)

Our survivability more than doubles, via our doubled defense, and a healthy addition to our HP. Our Strength also moves back up to double-digits, making it worthwhile again, but the loss of our powerful horse legs drops our kick down a bit more, making our jaws the weapon-of-choice for the first time in a while. This is overall a great improvement, though having a mediocre Agility is going to bum me out for a while.


Clearing the grizzlies unlocks our first optional stage of this chapter, the Forest of Segosaurus. Stegosaurus, in this day and age!? No. Stegosaurs were long dead. No links to wikipedia. You take my word for, or consider yourself an unlearned fool.
This is fairly moot. If we choose not to let them be, we can continue into the stage and devour them. However, if we decide to let them die out gradually, they'll show their gratitude.
I love how random the quote placement is. At any rate, we then fade to black, and are placed back on the world map. The reason I said the option was moot is that there's nothing stopping us from going back into the forest to devour them. However, perhaps we should think on what they said. A new sort of creature evolved using some of the earliest evolutions we had available to us? Must be pretty week! We'll continue evolving as we have for now, thank you!


We show our appreciation for the worthless information. What does an old fossil like this know about mammal evolution, anyways!? We begin to move on into Mexico, the Domain Eohip, as we all know. Eohippus is one of two names for a genus of speculated ancestral pre-horse, the more common being Hyracotherium. A case of two separate people discovering fossils for the same genus around the same time. However, if you can't decide which to call it, it is also called The Dawn Horse, which sounds much cooler, so you should go with that. However, these things are mainly from the Eocene - they had died out before this chapter started! As had various descendants! Miohippus finally died off just as Chapter 5 is beginning, which is when true equines began to appear.


These guys are kind of silly. Upon spotting us, they will neigh (the sound effect is a nice touch), charge us, then kick their legs in the air for no apparent reason for a bit, turn 180, and then finally kick us, which has an odd tendency to occasionally toss us into the horse itself for some collision damage. However, all the fanfare they make about kicking us means that they'll probably never succeed in doing it.


Maybe they're making such a big deal because they learned it from us. They're just fans. But we hate imitators, and we left that stuff behind. We devour them, and then decide to get yet another best evolution, this time the Bull Horns in the Back-of-Head category.

Hit Pts 67 < 70 (+3)
Biting 25 > 20 (-5)
Strength 10 < 15 (+5)
Defense 8 < 15 (+7)

Aww, our biting dropped by 5! Our strength is improved again, however, so we're approaching a more generalized attack set. Most importantly, however, our defense practically doubles yet again, making us quite the durable creature! Our defense is now the highest it's been in any natural form! It even matches most of our special evolutions. The large-bodied Elephant is the only form we've ever taken with a higher Defense!


Confident in our new form as a monster fashioned of razor-sharp bone and polished steel, we press on into South America, where the Domain of Saber Tiger awaits us. Our new armor immediately earns its keep, as what would have been a life-threatening stage is now simply a casual one. Sadly, I've no science for the saber-toothed kitties. That title covers far too large a range of creatures, from far too large a span of time (47 million years).


This stage, like the Stegosaur forest, has no music, and simply a forest ambience of insects buzzing, and various birds and animals chirping and trilling away. It's nice - I almost wish more of the game had gone for ambient tracks. But there's no time to consider that! The kitties attack swiftly, generally pouncing at us, occasionally standing on hind-legs to bat at us playfully. It's a little difficult to avoid them, but not at all difficult to land hits on them, so our armor lets us deal with them easily enough. We then head into the Andes, the Domain of Condor. Real condors didn't appear until a little after this chapter's timeline ended, but a close ancestor of theirs, which happens to be the largest flying bird ever, was around in the late millenia of this chapter! It actually took me a while to realize these weren't Prime Bird, since they behave almost exactly the same. Not notable. However, as we approach, they happily recite the local gossip before spiraling towards us beak-first.


Some sort of strange silver object? Flying? That is unidentified? Whatever could it be? What do you think, Talking Time? How far do you think this game will go?


We climb up the mountain with little resistance, as it is merely two screens tall, and find its summit laced in lizards!
These fellows seem to be the descendants of the Bull Ikustega we encountered in chapter 2, who also monitored the world's plant life. Though, now that I think on it, these guys have actually managed to find their way into chapters 2 - 5. This makes them the most common creature in the game, I suppose. This calls for culling.


We attempt to coerce the Amphibians to charge at us and hurl themselves from the precipice, but they seem to be coded to only charge at us if we're standing on the same plane as them. Drat! We are forced to eat them all instead. Their 15 EVO.P hides taste sour and unpleasant to us. But what is that, at the mountain's peak!? A blue crystal! 5000 EVO.P get! And what's the best use of 5000 EVO.P!?


DUAL HORNS!!!! \m/ I guess this is as close to finishing BEAT's request of a mammalian T-Rex as I'm going to be able to get. Technically it was more like a T-Rex before the horns. But if this is going to be my last mammal evolution for my little black record of evolution, then its also going to be the horniest one! But what of the flying silver creature? In order to investigate further, we must use our green crystal to call forth Percy once more. This is the first time in a long time that we've actually used a green crystal without a replacement immediately on hand. But it'll be worth it! We soar into the sky, and as we approach the sea of clouds, we hear whispers from above! It's been a while, sky whispers!
We already heard the whispers debating with each other about the ethics of their actions with the crystals in Chapter 2. Here, their motives are revealed - they have been attempting to guide the evolution of Gaia's creatures. But to avoid "the evolutionary mistakes" that their ancestors made? Doesn't that mean they consider themselves to be mistakes? Regardless, the most notable detail is at the end. We know that the crystals have the power to grant many creatures extremely powerful new forms. However, it now seems that there is more to them than that, and that something on Gaia may have discovered that something more! What will this mean for us? Time will tell. For now, let us soar higher. We were still a land-based creature every time we heard the whispers int he past. But, for now, we have a flying form, and we must seize the opportunity and give chase! Into the clouds above, we fly!

And there you have it. There it is. It was pretty clear by this point, but the whispers are aliens. The same aliens that we encountered above the river of asteroid, using intellect-enhancing devices on space pterodactyls. So... what do we do with it? The same thing we do to everything! BITE IT!!!


This thing must be made of some pretty strong stuff, as even our dragon jaws cause but a single point of damage to it! Yet, even so, the sight of a green dragon chomping away on their space shuttle puts our whispering alien friends into an apologetic panic. We are given the choice to either forgive them for their good intentions, or to not forgive them for creating almost every single boss we've had to face in the game. Well... let us first imagine what might happen were we to let them slide.


Wait, what!? I don't want to be abducted!!!


Ending #3: Aliens
SONG: A Glimpse Into The Future
I just don't know what to say anymore. We're traveling off to an alien planet. With aliens known as the Dino People. What do you say to that? They looked yellow before. There, how's that?
Over a billion years ago!? For the record, the Earth itself, er, Gaia, is speculated to be 4.54 billion years old. I guess this probably places these guys in the Mesoproterozoic Era, notable for the formation of the supercontinent Rodinia, which would later become Pangaea, as well as the evolution of sexual reproduction in cellular organisms. But, who cares! I don't want to see your planet! No, no nooooo~!!!

I've undergone dramatic evolution, circumnavigated the globe 4 times over, and traveled almost 500 million years through time trying to get to Eden! Does that sound like a story that should end in alien experiments to you!?


What? WHAT!? Whaaaaa~t!?!? They were Martians!? I guess these means they're form the... Noachian epoch of Mars?

I can't grok this. And what's this may come back safely!?
Truthfully, when I first played this game, I was hoping against hope that this meant I would get to play on Mars. A new world map? Maybe just one stage? Just one? I was already playing it in my mind when the game dumped me back on the world map. ...sigh...


Anyways, yeah, we need to make sure we don't let our imaginations get away from us like that anymore. We'll be having nightmares about this. And that's just one more reason not to forgive them. Yeah, I'm sure I'll do it, too, you punks. Get off our planet/woman.


Though we can cause little damage to the UFO, and it has already been proven to be sturdy enough to stand a space flight after our assault (or at least, we've imagined such), apparently they are a race that prizes honor, for the moment we refuse to forgive them, they apparently self-destruct and the tiny yellow Martians rain down to the surface of Gaia, bearing solemn expressions as they fall to their deaths. Good riddance. We've got another mountain to tackle. But, next time. All that interplanetary travel wore me out.

Now, I know what you're all thinking now.
Well, to this I say:

Check out that bottom save file. We're not even halfway through this chapter yet, despite how much of the map we've cleared. In addition, remember that each "area" counts as one whole environment from enter stage left to exit stage right (or vice versa). Three of these "areas" are gigantic maze dungeons. Yes, THREE of them. We just had a fantastic alien encounter, and there's only more crazy shenanigans to come. We have still not hit this game's bizarre threshold. That terror is further on. But, next time... MONKEYS! TONS OF MONKEYS! All of the monkeys.


But until then, here's some sleepy animals. <3

Could be the western interior seaway?

I always gave up on this game around the Yeti mama. I just couldn't figure out how to beat it! If I only knew that evolutions healed you back then, I could have won, too.

I also didn't know about the dash attack or what the green crystals did. Man, this game would have been so much easier if I would have had the manual...

Anyway, if alien dinosaurs aren't even the weirdest thing we're going to see in this game, I can't wait to see what's coming up. Godspeed you omnicidal rhino-lion monster!

Wow, never knew about that ending before... XD