Everhood 2

I really, really, really wish I didn't have an overall negative opinion of this game, but just drafting on the positives and negatives, the negatives win out by a landslide. just to clear the air, I'm reviewing this as it's own game, and not "why isn't it Everhood again"... I tried so hard to like this game, and I do like a good chunk of it, but it makes so many baffling choices in gameplay and narrative. The game starts off with a pretty strongly motivated quest to slay the Mind Dragon, complete with a good amount of mystery and memorable moments in the first act, but even then cracks start to show... in all 3 initial areas, you have to refight a good handful of enemies many times over, which isn't a huge issue but is tedious. after the Mind Dragon quest is finished though, and the game begins the second act, i.e. the "tutorial" as the game calls it, everything sort of instantly dissolves, tone, pacing, and storytelling-wise, and it just... does not get better. the game becomes very tongue-in-cheek, which is typically an enjoyable thing. but, the crucial thing with a tongue-in-cheek tone is that if the game treats itself as clever and undercuts things with jokes, it makes me wonder "so why am I suffering through this very tedious part? did the game forget to be clever or funny, or is this a more subtle joke?" like with having to visit the alien area 5 or so times, with very similar if not the same groups of enemies... or the computer area, where there are only 3 unique enemies a dozen times over... I felt this sort of displeased confusion immensely in the second act of the game, my first time through less so, but that's because I missed quite a bit of content. that leads to the worst part though... upon "completing" the game in the third act, I learned I did not acquire two Soul Weapons, which I had no clue you could even acquire. this made the game reset itself with only my level saved. I thought this was a joke at first. my first 8 hour playthrough... was almost completely meaningless, and wiped over instantly with almost zero changes to the story after this loop. it's a novel concept, but peeling through the game again to find Soul Weapons, a process that took an additional 10 hours, just... sucked so bad, man. it felt like one big joke at the player's expense, and this feeling only grew more with the "real" ending, where Riley, a character you've had as a companion this whole time, becomes corrupt with power, and you must fight him. the battle ends prematurely, and then a little dance cutscene happens... and you get a little side note about light and dark and what's going on (vaguely) with the primary antagonist... it just feels so flat, like a huge waste of time... no roads lead anywhere meaningful and it makes the game feel so undercooked with it's characters and plot. it's really unfortunate, because there are really interesting concepts that are just never fleshed out, partly due to the open-ended nature of the story's progression. it really sucks because there's tiny hints of what the narrative might do, with Dmitri, with Lucy, with Bobo, with Sam and Irvine, even with the main antagonist, Shade, and essentially nothing happens. the entire moral, ending of the story is nothing happens. it's just... unsatisfying, to spend 18 hours to arrive at a conclusion like that. again, it hurts worse because there are really good qualities to this game. the music is great, the combat and visuals a huge improvement from Everhood, some of the story beats, such as the Mind Dragon, or Sam's little emotional arc in the alien world (which has no impact on the story at all and is easily missed)... the concept of being a sort of interdimensional being of a human, travelling through planes and realities and worlds, it's all so good and it all feels so wasted... I care about this game and the prior one a lot, and it makes me so sad to see the negative reviews, and know I feel similar. I spent some time in the arena where you refight enemies (now not a menu option and instead a diegetic in-game place that you reach near the end of the story, another baffling choice) to get a couple achievements, and I found the leaderboards had only 2-5 people on them depending on the fight. that just made my heart sink, knowing only me and a handful of others cared this much. I got a few high scores on my first try, I don't consider myself an expert or even very good at Everhood's combat, so that made me feel even more morose on the idea that I am one of the only people who cared enough about this game to interact with this. I've seen the little development documentary, I sympathize with the developers and love the world they've created alongside the music made... I just can't think of this game as anything other than a letdown. I get what they were going for with the inversion of Everhood's trust in it's mentors, to Everhood 2's everyone being wrong and flawed and lying and misguiding you all the time... it's an interesting concept, but the execution just leaves so much disappointment in me... I hope the spin-off in development is well received, because I can't imagine myself checking it out after getting my hopes up for this game only to end up lamenting on what it could be if they just narrowed down the scope and tried to make the pieces fit better together instead of adding more.

It's... a very *soft* recommend. People who've played the original Everhood might get something out of this, but I don't think others will. The story is sort of nonsensical, a lot of things feel unresolved & random. That said, a lot of the music is still fantastic, and it keeps the dance battle formula of the original while mixing things up. It's a strange one, but Everhood always is

i understood nothing and this time it wasnt my fault

It's a general quality improvement from the first game, but my recommendation is to go into it not expecting much from any story, that's where my main disappointment lies with the game. Aside from that though it's great fun!! Art is great, music is amazing and the fights enjoyable.

The story falls short, especially when compared to Everhood 1, BUT Everything else is incredible. The music? Still top notch The gameplay? Still a great time and improved with more ways to play with the music attacks The graphics? Still colorful, seizure inducing, and beautiful Don't let the lackluster story put you off from buying this game. It's still a ton of fun and worth playing if you've enjoyed Everhood 1

Se retrouver devant la porte donnant sur la dernière ligne droite du jeu, et ne pas pouvoir l'ouvrir parce qu'il fallait trouver une arme à un moment du jeu à côté de laquelle on peut passer sans s'en rendre compte, est déjà incroyablement frustrant de base. Mais la solution du jeu pour arranger ça est de faire repartir notre personnage dans le temps quasiment au début du jeu, et imposer de devoir rejouer TOUTES les heures qui vont à nouveau mener devant cette porte pour accéder à la fin ! Je veux bien avoir raté des quêtes, mais me voir imposer de refaire l'entièreté du jeu m'a vraiment dégouté, et je ne comprends même pas comment les devs ont pu se dire à un moment donné que c'était une bonne idée de faire perdre le temps des joueurs comme ça. J'ai quitté et désinstallé sans voir la fin qui était à littéralement quelques mètres derrière la porte, et honnêtement si je pouvais me le faire rembourser, je le ferais. Dommage car le reste du jeu est globalement bien.

I also played everhood 1 first and I guess built up false expectations for this game. I tried to go in with an open mind but the narrative is just a mess, I couldn't keep up. I got confused, quit, and eventually uninstalled.

Good game don't listen to the haters

boooooo

It's drastically less interesting than the first from a narrative standpoint (to the point that I'd say that the story's a waste of time and that's also Kind Of The Point), but better in regards to combat, music, and delivering the actual message the story's trying to convey. The plot moves mind-numbingly quickly and broadly Does Not Matter. Wouldn't recommend unless you REALLY liked the gameplay of the first game.