Earlier than reviewing Everhood Eternity Version, I hadn’t heard of it earlier than. I wish to assume that I sustain with sport chatter, and have a finger near the heartbeat of what’s thought-about good or not. I’m a video games journalist in spite of everything. However Everhood and its Eternity Version have by no means come up, and I needed to know why. As a result of that is an absolute gem, a textbook cult sport within the making, and I simply can’t consider that the world has collectively chosen to disregard it.
I’ve received some theories. When it first launched on different methods, it looks as if it had a rocky technical street. There was persistent lag and a few loading screens that caught round eternally. It was additionally loaded with typos, apparently, which made it onerous to know what’s occurring. However none of those are current in Everhood Eternity Version. That ‘Eternity Version’ is presumably shorthand for ‘we kicked the bugs’ asses and now we’ve received a greater sport’.
One other principle is that, again in 2021 when Everhood first got here out, it was just a bit too shut in proximity to Undertale. As a result of there are some clear parallels between the 2 video games. This has that basic pressured perspective, a forged of eccentric monsters with very human points, and a behavior of twisting fight into minigame-like shapes. Maybe it received dismissed as an Undertale clone. Which is flawed, as a result of it’s a lot greater than that. However hey, regressive comparisons are simple to make.
We’d wish to set the file straight: Everhood Eternity Version is a sport that will get us reaching for the ‘one of many X of the yr’ plaudits. It’s one of the ingenious video games of the yr, maybe nestling simply behind Inscryption. It’s one of many funniest video games of the yr, meting out each intelligent and juvenile jokes at an equal tempo. And when it finds its stride, when music, story and character are all at peak synchronicity, it could actually create a few of the most memorable moments of the yr. Frankly, this can be a should purchase.
We should always in all probability do it the service of describing it. Everhood Eternity Version is the story of Crimson, a doll who wakes up crumpled on the ground with out an arm. That arm has been stolen by a dwarven thief, and also you’re damned for those who’re going to let him get away with it. So that you give chase, however he’s nimble and manages to get it to Gold Pig, the primary dangerous man of Everhood. He needs the arm for his assortment, and makes use of his Infinity Gauntlet-copying weapon to manhandle you into an incinerator. You appear performed for, till you’re introduced again to life – once more – by some type of existential being.
That is the cue for an Odyssian journey that encompasses the various henchmen that Gold Pig sends after you, a number of weirdo areas, and loads of endearing and misshapen characters who flip up repeatedly, as in the event that they’re a fanclub who’s tagging alongside. When you get previous the opening moments, the construction is slightly hub-and-spokey, as you journey by means of doorways to areas and are available again with bits and items that may open up extra doorways and new chains of areas.
It’s all an absolute pleasure* to discover, with that asterisk being a qualifier that it may be darkish, horrific, unsettling, sudden and surreal in varied measures. This isn’t the straightforward play that Undertale typically was: that is one which retains you on edge. And that’s solely enhanced by the likelihood that fight is across the nook. That fight isn’t one thing you could half-play in a relaxed daze.
In most cases, fight is a rhythm motion sport. Besides, this being Everhood Eternity Version, the rhythm actioning is inverted. You’re not making an attempt to hit the beats; you are trying to keep away from them. Just like the bullet-hell of a shoot ’em up, your opponent is firing volleys of bullets and soundwaves to the music, and your job is to keep away from them.
That’s easy sufficient, as you could have a quick-as-a-flash sidestep with the analogue stick, and a leap that skips you over the low-flying beats. However my gosh do the beats come at a ridiculous, DragonForce-like tempo. It will possibly really feel unimaginable, as they rush headlong in the direction of you with barely a millimetre hole so that you can sneak into. However Everhood Eternity Version has your again in many various methods. There’s a beneficiant well being system, which regens so long as you’re not hit once more inside a number of seconds. You get some immunity frames that imply you don’t get hit repeatedly, and a problem slider may be prodded everytime you need. Plus – and we see you doing it, Everhood Eternity Version – the sport dynamically shifts problem when it thinks you’re not trying. We all know what you’re doing, International Gnomes.
It’s madcap, thrilling stuff, made all of the extra tense by the wave sample shifting continually and in real-time. You’ll be able to’t memorise the assault patterns as there’s not a lot of a sample to memorise. Plus, this isn’t a celebration sport: you’re enjoying every opponent as soon as after which the story is barreling onwards. In some cases, for those who fail, that’s it: the sport continues down its personal branching path. You need to reside within the second, and that’s each thrilling and terrifying.
However what makes these fight sequences so gripping is how they appear to cowl each human sense. The ears are completely handled by the bombastic big-beat soundtrack, delivered by greats like Chipzel and David Sensible. They lean closely on to dubstep-like drops to make the songs surging, percussive beasts. The eyes are given a exercise by immediately shifting views (fight turns into barely harder if you’re spinning spherical in a circle, or the controls are inverted) and musical visualisations that really feel like they’re burning subliminal messages into your mind. And we felt the hearts thrumming in our chest, as that is all performed at breakneck speeds. It’s testomony to the balancing that we accomplished so many ranges by a whisker, holding onto the final crimson pixels of our well being bar.
If there are flaws it’s within the story, which is so surreal and flighty that it could actually typically really feel extra like strolling into an improv comedy routine than a fastidiously constructed narrative. We suspect that the packaged in additional missions are solely making this extra of an issue: we discovered ourselves in an extended Dungeons & Dragons journey, midway by means of, and we suspected this digression was added in final minute. The final moments of Everhood Eternity Version additionally demand that you take care of characters who’re extra like cameos by means of the course of the sport. There’s merely not sufficient funding within the characters for this to work, so we half-shrugged and performed on. We don’t assume that was the designers’ intention.
However who cares when Everhood Eternity Version is so kaleidoscopic, a macabre Fantasia that massages the eyes, ears and nerves. No person is speaking about it however all people ought to: it’s a cult hit within the making, and now’s your probability to be the one who says ‘I performed it earlier than it was cool’.
