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

Aww snap, you just got picked up by Martians! That's ... unexpected.

Woohoo! I've been loving this LP, but mostly because it's a fun stroll down memory lane AND because your writing and presentation are delightful. But that UFO you just ran into is actually, for whatever reason, the first thing in this LP I've never seen myself, in any of my times through the game. Got me curious if there are any other surprises to look forward to between now and the end...

Wow, there's a hidden UFO there? I never noticed that before, though to be fair you do need to fly to get to it, and you really wouldn't think of wasting a crystal or putting up with the flying dinosaur form's weaker stats for that long.

Maybe it's just me, but I think that after my first beating of the game, the very next thing I did is play through the whole game as a flying creature, exploring all of the skies which I'd missed out on before. Then came the playthrough as a regular dino until the end, which is pretty much just hard-mode, I admit (though you'll have so much spare EVO.P that healing is never an issue).

Yeah, while I knew about the aliens, I don't think I ever actually got the Mars ending (or the simultaneously horrible/adorable alien mass suicide).

I do know at least one more completely ludicrous scenario coming up on this map, and I look forward to it greatly!

I love that you named the doublehorn critter after me

It would have the most distinct skull, so it only seemed right.

After a brief rest to recuperate from or extraterrestrial encounter, we move on to the looming mountain of Brazil.

This is the Cave of Monkey Human. So... not quite monkey, not quite human? This is still a pretty rough scientific area. It's currently theorized that the three groups of gorillas , chimpanzees , and humans split in the late Miocene. I don't want to get too into it just yet, but let's just say that there are several suspected creatures in the path from there to humans. A happy little fellow stands at the mouth of the cave to welcome visitors.

Upon hearing this, we furrow our beastly brow at the simian creature and ask, "Don't the crystals themselves count as tools?" However, this primitive creature will not stand for logic to attack its way of life!

Oh, heck no, that monkey didn't just chunk a pebble at us! It's on like Donkey Kong now!


SONG: Amphibian's Land
We charge into the cave after our assailant, and are greeted by the return of the standard stage theme from Chapter 2. This song has always annoyed me, so it's like an additional slap in the face. Fortunately, our aggressor seems to have already forgotten about us, and is now enjoying a nice dinner of roasted fish with his friend. So engrossed in their conversation are they, that they do not even see the horned death that approaches!


The monkeys are fairly weak in most every way, if the pithy damage from that initial pebble toss didn't tip you off. The little prankster goes down quickly, striking an amusing pose as he is flung into the lap of his friend. But his friend isn't going to take this assault sitting down! He's gonna' flip out! Do some screeching acrobatic ninja twirls onto the ceiling, even!

This cave contains nothing but monkeys, but there's actually three different kinds. This is the first kind, the Campfire Ninja Monkey (I named it myself). The CNM is always found gathered around a flame, bragging to its friends about its latest successes in stealing fish and tossing rocks at organic death machines. Once we draw close, they will proceed to flip about while screeching. They will always move at a 45 degree angle, pause on the next surface they contact (be it wall or ceiling), then proceed to bounce at another 45 degree angle until they die or (more often) fly off screen. The easiest prey of the monkeys.


Regardless of its type, every monkey grants 50 EVO.P. Not that we really care, being at the peak of evolution and all! Continuing further into the cave we came to a strange area, where the floor is made of wood, bound together with vines! Most curious! At the other side of this contraption, stands another monkey, who can't resist bragging about this technological feat.
This is... a little more sophisticated than I was expecting from the tools of the monkey men. Oogi. So, awesome, elevators predate the wheel. I'll bet you didn't know that. Science! Take that, Archimedes (you hack)! Curiouser, is the creature to the East. We receive no description, but, whatever this creature is, it's at least intelligent enough to have figured out how to make elevators. Hmm, our alien "friends" had also been worrying about signs that there might be creatures on our planet that were capable of fully understanding and using the crystals. Hmm... Well, Eden lies to the East, so we'll find out soon enough. Let's give this thing a try!


Whenever standing atop an elevator, simply tapping up or down on the directional pad will cause the device to crank in the pressed direction until reaching the next floor. This particular elevator can only go up, however, but that takes us to another hallway that extends both left and right, and taking the elevator higher still brings us to the curious chamber at the top, containing several monkeys lugging huge boulders about, perhaps continuing their excavation?


The circle of stones the primate refers to can be seen on the world map just south of our current location. Given all that's happened lately, my guess is that the aliens got him? We inform the hard-working fellow that such is the case, and express our sympathies that his friend was not able to fulfill his role in the grand scheme of things as one of the many meals of The Great Destroyer (that's us, silly).


They do not take the news well! Also, let us note: the damage of a monkey-thrown pebble is proportionate to the size of said pebble. These boulder-tossing monkeys are the only real threat in this stage for us. The BTM's are programmed to walk in our general direction, and upon getting close enough, will pause briefly, and then hurl boulders at us, after which they leap about in place, overjoyed with the thought of bragging about this success to their rival CNM's. There's four elevators in this cave, and three of them have these boulder traps at the top, where the BTM's are pre-placed so that they can attack the moment we arrive. You'll note that we actually took 30 damage, 15 from each boulder. There's a third monkey up top, but he's so far up there that his boulder tends to disappear into the ether when he tosses it. These guys are normally harmless after using up their weapon, but these ones are frustratingly out of reach!


I suppose this is as good a time as any to unveil my map for the cave. Like most dungeons in EVO, it looks pretty simple on paper, but the larger size of everything in-game makes getting your bearings a bit more difficult, still, this is probably the most straight-forward stage since the Cave of Zinichyths in Chapter 1. Heck, at the first elevator, the most probable path of up-right-up will finish the stage for you. But, we never turn down an opportunity to spelunk, particularly when there's crystals to be had!


At the top of the leftmost elevator, we get this additional bit of discourse. It's a confusing mobius logic. The crystals make you smart, so we need to get smart so we can get the crystals and be smart! Also, more build-up for the creatures in the east (now lowercase again). That's our final dungeon, if you hadn't guessed. Oh, hey, boulders.


We're ready for it this time, and rush to the left, slamming our nose into the wall in our panic, but at least avoiding the boulder! Damn our impenetrable flesh of steel, and Gaia's fat gravity pulling us to her, that we cannot sink our fangs into our aggressor, as well as his hidden bananas!! Oh well, let's see what's at the bottom of this elevator.


I'm sure we all felt quite naked without a green crystal on hand! Though, to be honest, they're mostly past their point of utility for us now. Our current form is equal to most all of our red crystal forms. At this point, the green crystals are just a free heal unless we use them to either switch out to one of our super-speedy forms, or more likely, Percy for his powerful jaws and flight abilities. Still, always good to have the option.

By the way, the last type of monkey is the Guerrilla Stoner Gorilla (because I like puns). The monkey that told us about the elevator was actually one of these. They simply walk towards us, toss a single pebble, and then run from us. These ones are just infuriating. The angle of their pebbles is a little tough to avoid, and if it hits us, he monkey is fast enough that it usually gets away before we're un-stunned. If we chase them to a wall or elevator shaft, they'll turn around and flee in the other direction. However, you can rarely chase them down, because you'll normally run into a quarry worker whose quite anxious to unload his burden on you. Chasing the GSG's actually gets us nailed by the BTM's a few times, and our health is low enough that we might need to start fearing for our health. Monkey Meat restores but a single point of health. Thankfully, the rare flashing meat restores a rather large sum (36 or so, I think it was), and we can also eat the camp side baked fish for +5 HP each.


By the way, should you move quickly enough to strike one of the boulder monkeys before they begin their endless leaping of joy, the blow will cause them to drop the boulder and be crushed under the weight of it. This is both quite humorous, and a little surprising for this game. At the top of yet another shaft, we receive more clues from the Monkey Humans.
Oh, good, so no more monkeys mysteriously disappearing, more for us to eat! But then, these guys are so annoying that-!!! Who sealed it?
NO.

Surely, they died out so long ago. I mean, obviously the creatures we see before us must be the descendants of the lone yeti child, mustn't they? They bear no grudge towards us. Surely, even if some creature exists that lies closer to the family tree of the Yeti, it would have forgotten of us as well by now. But our guilty past still haunts us... At least until we delight at discovering a room full of bananas!

Finally taking the fourth elevator to the top, we arrive at the final hallway of the cave. It contains every type of monkey. The boulder tossers are especially tricky in corridors, as they hesitate a bit before tossing, which tends to throw my timing off. Furthermore, they toss it quickly, it its angle is always specially calculate to be as frustrating as possible. However, we succeed in eating our way through the small fry with little damage, and proceed to the mountain's summit.




SONG: Sorrow Theme
At the top of the mountain is a somber scene. A crystalline chamber, adorned with crimson torches, and a stone monument depicting two humanoid figures - perhaps the yeti parents we devoured so long ago. Crouching beside this monument, we find the leader of the Monkey Humans, and the last of the Yeti. Hmm, looking back, maybe I should have covered prehistoric primates with the first Yeti, new world primates with this dungeon's enemies, and old world primates on this boss... Oh, well. He comes out of his meditation as we approach, and his eyes turn to us, an accusation burning within them.
No, I wasn't kidding. We have just desecrated the burial ground of the parents we murdered so long ago, and now their great grandson is here for revenge. This game really isn't pulling its punches about trying to make us feel horrible about that, is it? Furthermore, this kid's so overflowing with hero complex that I'd feel pretty bad beating him down...

SONG: Boss Theme

Oh shit, he's a boxer, too!? If you didn't catch it, the kid hops about both to-and-fro, and once within about a third of a screen of us, he'll pick a random moment to dash in for 3 jabs, followed by a wicked uppercut. 3 dmg per jab, 20 for the uppercut, for a total of 29 damage. I'm sure I don't need to tell you how painful this would be without our rhino hide. But I will anyways. With no defense, this combo alone would do 89 damage. So, yeah, the kid's a wrecking machine.


So, just to recap, the kid's family was at the top of the world, when a horned creature chosen by Gaia descended from its time in space, destroying all present civilizations, and murdering its parents. The child was then able to flee, and its descendants spent the next thousand years training as monks, always remembering their slaughtered ancestors, and training in unarmed combat that they would be able to avenge themselves when The Great Destroy next returned. We are a JRPG villain, and this kid is the protagonist.

...

Fair enough. Let's see what else you've got, kid!


Since we took a beating from that first combo, we decide to charge in with our horns, planning to break them off in the young upstart, thus restoring our own health. However, this is one of the few bosses in the game that you can not charge straight at with your horns. You will get punched. As we did. Fortunately, I managed to open the menu in time to save us with an evolution. I won't go for the horns, as it would just be a waste to toss aside the expensive set we're currently sporting. I can't do back-of-head, because we need the defense boost of our Bull Horns. So, the most viable option seems to be the neck, which makes us look much more like a horny rhino.


We actually git off a good combo then, spearing him with our horns before he ninja twirls away from us. Fortunately, his leap is actually about the same speed as us, we if we're quick we can catch him when he lands, as we did here with a swift kick.


However, he recovers swiftly, instantly delivering another combo to us. Much like his parents, once he start's letting loose, our priority is to put distance between us, or else he'll never let up. Fortunately, we manage to leap over one of his Balrog/M.Bison dash uppercuts, and get our neck back. I honestly have a hard time figuring this guy's patterns out. In addition to his basic back-and-forth stance and his dash attacks, he might also randomly do his ninja twirl at any moment to try to get to the other side of us, especially if we're charging at him.

After extending our next once more to heal, we decide to try a leaping attack. He'll normally catch us on the way down with an uppercut if we try this, but if angled properly...


We can successfully bounce off his head! Not the best attack, but it always has its advantages. Getting ourselves into a corner probably isn't one of them, though! However, I kinda' planned for this. I wanted to get in close with him, you see.


All the better to ram my horns into your face, you fool! We finally succeed in gouging the poor fellow's eyes out. We get in three quick horn stabs here, as our horns returned to max durability when we altered our neck! We then bounced off the boy's head when we moved for a counter-attack. Sensing that he was on the ropes, we made a last desperate leap!

The Fist of the Yeti Hero
versus
The Jaws of the Great Destroyer


And the hero falls. Your humiliation is now complete. At least your body's already at the burial ground! Oh, right, we were feeling guilty about all that, weren't we? Hmm. Well, he'd lived a tortured life of shame. He's with his ancestors now. At long last, he can realize what jerks they were, and realize that they deserved it. But his fighting spirit will live on! As part of our daily nutritional diet! And with that battle concluded, we are finally free of any guilt we might have about tragedies we caused in Chapter 4. Yup. Our conscience is clean. So clean. Mr. Clean and Buddha get together to rub each other's bald heads and chat us up.


But we're not done yet! Returning to the world map unveils three whole new stages unveiled! One seems to lead back into the ocean, and one is unreachable, in southern Africa. The last is within the circle of stones the Monkey Humans were disappearing at before the Yeti sealed them with his crystal. But now that he is no more, we can investigate! This brings us to the Domain of Ditryma. I can't find a good Engrish relative, but I'm leaning towards this being a relative of Moa. Most large, flightless birds are ratites, which are distinguished from other flightless birds by not having the bone anchors in their sternum for the powerful wing muscles most birds have. There's debate on when and where the originated, the classic theory being that they originated in Gondwanaland in the Cretaceous (Chapter 3), while more modern theories think their history is much more complicated, with the divergence of the modern variants being much more recent.
[I]Edit: But Kahran042 identified them as [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastornis"]Gastornis, formerly known as Diatryma. All these "former" titles are turning into a real headache! Thanks, Kahran!
SONG: Sorrow Theme
Ah, geez. You want me to feel bad about rejecting the offer of friendship from Bird-King? He only offered because after he tried to enslave us, we murdered most of his followers! Why should we feel bad?


Noooo~ ;_; These crestfallen creatures wander the wasteland aimlessly. Their talons scrape upon the rough terrain as they make their pitiful paces across the barren ground. They can wander but a few paces before the pain becomes too much for their feet, and they pause for a brief moment of rest. In these moments, they cannot help but glance at the field of blue overhead. The kingdom that was once theirs, so long ago. A time of plenty they will never know again. Enix, you are cruel. Will this chapter be naught but regret!?


The birds are too depressed and lifeless to muster any sort of aggression towards us. However, they move very slowly, so if we ignore them, it's still possible to end up having one walk through us, causing annoying collision damage. Extra annoying if they stop to cry on our shoulder. So we eat them. They actually have a decent bit of HP, and can survive one attack from us, after which they will leap at us for pithy damage, and then resume their pathos promenade.

This stage is exactly four screens long, and as it looks a bit more interesting than most stages, I've provided the panoramic view. Hmm, but the stage end unremarkably! We collide into an invisible wall at the end. Huh, so, that's it, time for the ocean stage, I suppose. What a let down! We begin to leap back through the stage, when suddenly..!

The world around us begins to wave and warp, and melt around us, and as the world around us fades to darkness, the only thought we can muster is, "Please, don't let it be aliens again..."
It's not aliens.

I guess I'll wrap it up here for now. Probably post a mini-update in a day or two.
Next Time: An Old Foe Returns!

So... evidently the monkeys have had elevators figured out for a while now, but only recently have they learned how to make elevators that can go down.

I may have explained that poorly. I just meant that while the elevators can normally go up or down, at that point, we were at the ground floor, and so, going up was our only option.

Nitpicking: chimpanzees are also old-world primates.

Yeah, it makes sense now, in hindsight, but come on, they're called elevators, not eleva-descenderators.

Stupid monkeys.

This is very true, and that was very silly for me to have said. Thank you for fighting for good science.

I'll openly admit, I loled at Yeti Fantasy V.

Whoops double post nothing to see here.

What bodies? Aren't we eating all the damned things?

It's not your explanation that confused me so much as the monkey's explanation. A special elevator? That can take you up or down depending upon which direction you choose? What did elevators do before the monkeys made them special?

EDIT:

That was a beautiful thing and Elements should be proud of it.

Actually, I think that Ditryma is more likely based on Diatryma, if only because of the name.

Hmm...
Yeah, looks right to me! LP edited with correct data! Your donation to science is appreciated!

Wait, what's this?
!!!
That would be the the "Dawn Horse" we encountered but a few stages ago! Well, here's your reward for this discovery:




Terrifying.

Ahh...I sense the hidden Chocobo reference!

A tip to all Monkey Humans:
When your female companion asks if got "protection" don't reply with. "It's on like Donkey Kong!"

Oh my god it's a bird that can eat antelopes.

The past is terrifying!

YES HE SHOULD BE.

The Final Fantasy games take place in alternate realities where the Gastornis succeeded in wiping out all early horses, ensuring that it would be they, the giant birds, who became mankind's riding animal of choice. This also somehow caused magic to be real.

The horses! They stole the magic!

I wonder where they are keeping it though?

Gastornis:


Chocobo:


Gastornis:


Chocobo:


Chocornis:


Why yes, I did once complete the outline of a paper claiming we needed to breed seriemas into terror birds so we could fight the Final Fantasy world on its own terms some day in the future when our holosuites went haywire and brought them to life.

I suspect Chocobos got their inspiration elsewhere.



It'd hardly be the first thing Japanese game developers have taken from Nausicaa.

Well, if we're trying to be accurate and factual and unfun* and whatnot, I should point out that at least one of those pictures (the Chocornis) is probably Titanis Walleri, a member of Phorusrhacinae and not a Gastornis in any way.

Now for some reason I'm wondering if there's any ground sloths in EVO.

*I don't actually consider science unfun.

Inside their horns, which are safely hidden underground. All horses are secretly unicorns, you see.

That's why most horns break after three charge attacks, after all. Once they're restored with E.V.O. P, the horse magic takes effect and restores you to full health!

...Except it's not just limited to horse horns. And not just limited to horns, either. Horse magic was pretty screwy in the olden days.