In 2013, a small, French indie game company known has Shrio Games introduced a revolutionary title. Evoland took steam by storm, earning high praises for ingenuity. For those of you who aren’t aware, Evoland is an action RPG in which the world will literally evolve around you. The game starts out by throwing you into Game Boy style graphics and completely lacks music. As you play, you’ll find chests which unlock upgrades to graphics, sound, and gameplay. There was a feeling of nostalgia each time you opened a chest and a small change would occur right before your eyes, giving the game a special type of charm I’ve never seen in a game before. Despite most of the combat being reminiscent of JPRGs, changes were mostly centered around upgrading technology. This meant anyone who has been playing video games for at least fifteen years could say, “I remember how amazing that was when it first came out.”

When I heard Shiro Games was making a second Evoland, I already knew the developers wouldn’t be able to follow the same formula used in the first game without the new title feeling like a reskin. I had also read that Shiro Games planned to expand the genres shown in Evoland 2. This left me with more hype for the game because I had hoped the style of games which I grew up playing such as 3D platformers would appear or perhaps a more modern, western style RPG. When the game released, I avoided watching anything more than the intro to the game so I could have a fresh experience.

It is almost immediately clear, even for those unfamiliar with the development, that Evoland 2 will diverge from its ancestor.  Rather than small aspects evolving over time through chests collected on your adventure, the game is immediately set with 16-bit style graphics and music. In order to avoid the problem of Evoland 2 becoming a repeat of the first, Shiro Games decided to take on the approach of time travel. Your character is thrown about from time period to time period, with what is an average of 50 years game time between the jumps. This means that not only are the graphics and sound updating (or downgrading) each time you travel through time, so does the world itself. When the character travels to the future, you may encounter the descendants of people who you met in the present or in the past.

Unlike the original game, Evoland 2 is almost entirely played like a hack and slash adventure RPG, similar to A Link to the Past. The turn based combat system which was present through large portions of the first game have almost entirely been left by the wayside, with the exception of one small segment of the game. I spent the first half of the game becoming increasingly disappointed since the gameplay style didn’t seem to change at all as it had with the original game and there were no longer any chests strewn about, slowly changing the world in front of me. The first half of the game features large sections which are entirely a single time period in gaming history, never evolving until the next major jump within the in game timeline. The throwbacks and catering to nostalgia is almost entirely done through an overwhelming amount of easter eggs. At one point, I entered a sewer and the first thing that stood before me was a Mario question mark block. All I could think was that so far, the game was nothing more than a collection of easter eggs.

Half way through the game, the game play did finally change. You’re sent on a mission to collect items placed at different locations on the map and through time. In order to obtain these items, you must pass through challenges which are all a nod to a different genre. Unfortunately, most of these genres were not ones I could connect with on a personal level. Most of the genres were throwbacks to old arcade games and casual games with one exception. One section featured and old school punch em up style, another featured Street Fighter, and a third was similar to a modern version of Galaga, to name a few. As for the last one, I had to ask Pren what game I was thinking of since Galaga was before my time and I’ve only been in an arcade once or twice. The one and only genre to make an appearance which I didn’t have to grit my teeth through was a tactical RPG. For it being a small portion of the game, the development was thought out well enough and didn’t feel like I was simply spamming buttons as with some of the previous game play styles.

Evoland 2s story is well enough thought out, although as with most action RPGs, your influence on the story is negligible. Similar to the previous title, it’s the type of game in which you’re meant to sit back and enjoy the ride rather than carve your own path. While that worked wonderfully for the first title, I simply couldn’t bring myself to enjoy the ride. Perhaps it’s a result of not having grown up with many of the genres and references present, but that could also be considered a flaw on the developers part. Where as people of many ages could enjoy the first game so long as they’ve had an appreciation of games, Evoland 2 ultimately restricts itself to a select group of individuals.