izigame.me

Everhood 2: Vapid Vanity


I am writing this right off finishing the game and this may be the angriest an ending has made me in half a decade. I wish Steam had a mixed option cause I would give the game that but alas.

Let us start with the positives. There are a few.

Gameplay (Positive)

The gameplay on the whole slaps, I have some misgivings about it but first we are starting with positives. One hit challenges are mostly engaging and there are several mechanics that are not clear at first. My personal favorite being that weapons do not share a charge, allowing you to absorb one color for a large attack, and then switch weapons to absorb other colors defensively, or even charge multiple attacks at once.

This is a genuinely sick mechanic, with a lot of potential for quick thinking and speedruns.

On the whole there isn't a ton to say aside from gameplay aligning well with the banger sound track. It is simple and effective for the most part.

We will get to my gripes later.

Characters

The characters are all likable and charming, and while not very well elaborated on, what we do get makes you grow attached to your closest allies in spite of their flaws.

However, they are lacking in depth so this second is as brief as the joy they brought you.

Soundtrack

It speaks for itself really.

Now for the negatives.

Gameplay (Negative)

There are a few issues with the gameplay, particularly with doing the one hit kills.

First of all: LEAVE MY CAMERA THE FUCK ALONE!

I cannot put into words the blood boiling anger caused by building a large combo for the one shot only for the camera to get all fucky and lose said combo. There were many incidents where I lost my combo, not to lack of skill, but because I genuinely could not see what was happening. I get it, crazy visuals are part of Everhood, but this happens way to frequently to be anything but grating.

Second you cannot absorb attacks quickly after landing from a jump. This seems small, a pointless footnote even, but it had a very large impact as the game will put an unabsorbable note followed by an absorbable note CONSTANTLY and it can be very hard to tell when to jump to be able to absorb the second note safely. Often it can feel unfair when you safely jump the first and then try to absorb the second and the game just says "no". The timing on something the game asks of you so frequently is unreasonably tight.

Enemies in the Arena where you can rematch them often have more health than they do out in the world, making them even harder to one shot in the Arena, and by extension, making the Arena useless.

The moment to moment gameplay, outside of one hit kills, is easy even on hard mode, and rarely supplies a proper challenge, along with repeat encounters rapidly becoming tedious. Some areas play one track play the entire time you're there and all enemies in that instance will use the same track. Which while cool, does not help the tedium factor.

Story

Hoo boy here we go boys, girls, and non binary pals!

The story is fucking terrible.

Spoilers abound.

So at the start of the game we are given a quiz that determines our soul color (this does not matter much) and are told "not all choices effect the outcome but some do" (this is a boldfaced lied). We are then told to slay the Mind Dragon by a figure known as Raven and later defeat the Root of All Evil. So after many smaller self contained worlds, sooner or later, we do just that.

The Mind Dragon is said to be a manifestation of our trauma and all holding us back. Maybe the game is about self reflection? That could really resonate with and help some people. Surely this will be elaborated on! (It won't)

Off to the root of all evil, right? Sure just go to the mushrooms and...

Oh... they just sorta dipped and Raven dipped too.

Well that's OK we have a few friends who can help us. Sam, Irvine, and Riley. So what's the plan fellas?

Head to Pandemonium and meet god?

Uhhhh, kinda a weird turn but sure not like I have a choice.

OK so let's gather Death Coins to the ritual and go.

Oh it failed.

Oh we see the area of Everhood 1 again.

Oh we do the journey on our boat again. Hey why are there Rileys of different colors anyways? I'm sure it'll be explained later.

After some people telling us to stop we reach a door we meet God, who is Bobo (a side character from throughout the journey), but not really. After beating him we run into Shade.

Shade is the Root of All Evil from before.

OK back on track! Let's go and...

OK so we talk to Shade for a bit and we are a God already? Now we need to open a door for Riley, who has never betrayed our trust at any point. I am sure this won't be a sudden unexplained heel turn aaaaand Riley is God and evil now.

Sure why not?

So we have to stop Riley despite how out of character this is.

Riley after a long sequence with our friends Sam and Irvine helping us out, is bested.

Maybe the story is about how the bonds we forge make the seemingly meaninglessness of the world meaningful?

Nope Riley is rambling about how all is vanity and now they're dead.

Oh Shade is back!

Shade explains that they are an entertainer, our friends are dead, and we can play forever in the arena. Nothing matters and never did.

He then asks to spar with us.

...

I don't want to spar with Shade at this point.

The story's aimlessness was not by my choice.

The game criticizes its own futility and spouts nihilistic slop that does nothing but undermine its own existence.

"All is vanity this game is pointless" MY BROTHER IN CHRIST! YOU MADE THE FUCKING GAME!

Instead of something deep and resonant, something that can help people, everyone we care about dies, the game spouts slop about how nothing matters and loops us back to before the end.

What a negative and worthless ending and theme. There is nothing of value here in this game's message of nihilistic shit. (In fact fun fact the creator of the ideology spent his later life trying to debunk it).

I did not want to spar with Shade at the end.

I deeply.

Wanted to FUCKING kill him.

He killed our friends, corrupted Riley with godhood and made the residents of the Everhood suffer for amusement.

We are told we are a god and vain, Shade and us two halves of a whole but we did not choose this. We are never given a chance to change our mind or correct this alleged mistake.

The game just ends on this nihilistic note that has no thematic value whatsoever and laughs at you for caring.

We could have explored self improvement or the value of bonds or even an ending where we give up our power so Shade can't hurt people anymore. A message of "if you can't handle power you should give up your power". These are things that could have helped people but no, we are spouted nihilistic pointless nothingness by the narrative, the characters we are about betray us and die, and that's that.

This theme is a nothing burger at best and poison for the soul at worst.

Granted I may be projecting my own hatred for nihilism as an ideology but as this is my opinion I will carry on anyways.

Rings hollow to say the least. Hypocritical even (y'all still made the game).

The ending takes all you cared about in the story and Shade keeps his shit eating grin as if you should be amused by this.

If Shade is an entertainer, with how I felt by the ending he's really shit at his job.

I did not want to spare with Shade.

I wanted him fucking dead.

At least give us the closure of destroying this evil.

I know about the themes of duality and how Shade and us are one and the same, but I stand by it could have been an ending of us giving up our power for the greater good.

Fuck this game and fuck this ending.

TLDR: Gameplay good, plot is empty at best and hypocritical at worst.