Evoland 2, A Slight Case of Spacetime Continuum Disorder

The game is... good. Alright. Cute. Most gameplay stuff that it adds isn't very deep and you might groan at some but when you realise just how short they can be, you won't feel that bad. Although some of the 3d dungeons can feel a little... meh. But at these prices? Yeah, it's nice.

It has been a long time since I've played an RPG as good as this one. It has an adventure setting so you can take your time and enjoy the journey. I prefer my games to have very little challenge. Life is challenging enough, I'm not interested in my entertainment being the same way. I hope they create a third in this series. Evo II is 100 times better than the first.

The core idea of switching gameplay is fine, it could totally work. Problem is, none of the modes the game goes through is ever good. It always keeps being annoying, just barely crossing that line between parody and an actual bad game. Zelda-like mode is super generic zelda-like, platforming mode is super generic platfromer. The movement in the overworld is just slow enough to annoy me, dialogues go slow even if you mash buttons, cutscenes can't be skipped, hitboxes in combat are inaccurate and controls in general are bad. The roleplay system that kind of permeates through all modes is so generic and bland that I could easily forget that it even exists. I can't help but think that it was done on purpose, because you can't create something this generic unless you are absolutely unable to be creative. But the developers of the game came up with the whole premise that sounds so exciting, can it really when their creativity ran out? I personally love parodies, I love games that recreate others' experience, I even love games that overdose with references - all of which this game does. But it can't do anything if the gameplay itself is so annoying, generic and just uninteresting.

TL;DR: This game is an ARPG with minigames. Get this game if you're interested in the gimmick and don't mind grinding, otherwise you'll get frustrated by it. Never have I seen a game so mediocre that it annoyed me into writing a review (this is the first that I have every written) The concept of integrating many game types is interesting on its face, but if you think about it, you'll realise is also inherently flawed. This is because regardless of how good the execution is, every person will be good at/like some games types and be bad at/hate other. By cramming as many game types as humanly possible into a single game, the developers have guaranteed that there will be massive difficulty spikes and parts of the game that users will hate, so be ready for that. Now, this on its own isn't unsolvable, and the way it's done here, using an adjustable difficulty slider, is actually a pretty good option, as far as I'm concerned. But here's the thing: you still have to make a good game. How the developers managed to make EVERY SINGLE aspect of the game feel mediocre is actually baffling to me. The graphics aren't bad, they're not good either. The story isn't great, but it's not terrible either. (Also, why a silent protagonist???) The gameplay in every single minigame is bare-bones, but functional. The controls are not floaty per se, but also not tight by arcade standards. I don't know about the music - I usually turn it off unless the the soundtrack is stellar, which it wasn't. You're in for about ~20h of gameplay, which would be pretty good if moving between levels (until the last hours) and dialog wasn't so slow. What's absolutely mind-bogging is that nothing about this game is outright bad either. Sure, you have difficulty spikes when you're faced against mode you're unfamiliar with, there's fun to be had in overcoming them. My only complaint about that is that you spend whay too much time in ARPG mode, which gets tedious after a while. Damn the 2k character limit

I felt the first game was a charming mix of Final Fantasy and Zelda, and wanted more of the same. This game turned out to be 80% Mario and 20% everything else the developers could cram into the engine. The writing starts off okay, but after awhile it seems the writers wanted to play Bingo with as many pop culture references as possible, no matter how silly. There are also too many pointless Yes/No dialogue prompts. However, there are minor rewards for exploration through different NPCs having tidbits of moderately interesting, world-building lore. The biggest problem is the various mini-games, where your character is dropped into a wholly different game format, usually without warning. Some are well-chosen in the context of the story. Some of them are even amusing. But most of them lack the basic polish, care, and attention to detail that made their original/template games actually good. The result is enormous difficulty spikes in unexpected places, most of which block progression for the sake of an out-of-context gimmick. The platforming is particularly awful. A better game might let you unlock a double jump, or take less damage from spikes, or think your way around the environment to avoid jumps entirely. But none of those things exist here. And so, practically every other area, you will be forced to make absurdly precise jumps to continue the game. If you are even a pixel too close to spikes or poison or lava or whatever, you die instantly. And for a game that plays up its RPG elements, it makes no sense to frequently have sections where your level, your equipment, and your items are completely useless.