Really bizarre game and concept overall, not dissimilar to something like Spore except much earlier. There are times where it feels a bit too grindy, and the bosses are much harder than the actual stages, but ultimately I think it survives the weight of its ambitions. I enjoyed this pretty thoroughly, even if it was rough around the edges and not exactly amazing. I thought it was very fun and rewarding to experiment with all the different evolutionary traits it provides your character. By the end of the game I had become this weird lion-horse hybrid of sorts.

It'll definitely take some patience, especially without savestates, but I would recommend this one. There's not really anything like it from the time.

Eu como biólogo sou muito fã desse jogo e o tenho como uma grande referência e inspiração por ter o prazer de ter jogado na minha infância. Uma das maiores obras-primas dos videogames, jóia raríssima perdida no super nintendo, mais uma que merecia um reconhecimento maior pelo seu caráter único e execução magnífica. Além de ser de um tema que gosto muito, a jogabilidade é incrível, as opções de evoluções são variadas, passando por vários estágios evolutivos que certamente não são tão precisos, apesar de didáticos, porém equilibram bem a diversão com a veracidade e deixam vc montar o seu próprio ser vivo do jeito que preferir. A imersão é sem dúvidas um ponto forte que te põe bem nos trilhos do caminho da maravilhosa história da vida na terra, te guiando por todas as fases da evolução e com um final épico e desafiador. Um dos jogos da minha vida que com certeza irei zerar mais vezes de tempos em tempos.

Ok I'm pretty chuffed that in the course of playing this game I thought several times "hey, this soundtrack sounds pretty Dragon Quest-y", and when I get to the credits it turns out than a certain Mr Sugiyama did the music for this.

There's a lot of things I like about this - I'm just really amused that this evolution-themed game also includes the Garden of Eden, and thanks to its outlandishly nonsensical plot would probably piss off both evolutionists and creationists. Seriously, as far as I can tell, the plot is "primitive fish evolves into mammal and then enters the Garden of Eden to have kids with Earth-chan and give rise to civilization". WHAT?!

On a more serious note, E.V.O. boasts a pretty robust (if scientifically inaccurate) evolution system especially considering the hardware constraints of the time. Eating fallen enemies nets you 'evolution points' which you can use to modify various parts of your body to create any number of mix-and-match forms, and there is no one 'best' build especially in the later eras where you can either be a bird, mammal, or even stay as a dinosaur from the previous era! I also like the presence of 'prestige classes' (like the human and mermaid) that are difficult but not impossible to evolve into and involve a noticeably different approach and playstyle.

The game's main weakness is in its general structure - the stages are generally very easy and the bosses brutally difficult, meaning that you will need a lot of evolution points to spend on upgrades which translates into a lot of time spent in the stages finding an easy, frictionless (and boring) spot to grind. The game also has other issues that are commonplace in early 16-bit games: wonky hit detection that makes certain boss fights an even bigger pain in the ass, and a clumsy translation that robs many 'wham' scenes of their narrative heft.

Unrefined as a lot of it was, I do see a lot of potential in this game and wish it would get a remake or at least a spiritual sequel on a current-gen console that would do the premise justice. Such an interesting and unique idea deserves more than to just be an evolutionary dead end.

It's kind of sad how this game turned out considering how cool the idea is.

My problem with E.V.O is that the majority of the gameplay consists of grinding, only a handful of levels are interesting in any capacity gameplay wise, and all of those said levels are mazes... so not the most exciting. The existence of most levels is meant to let you grind more, but the ONLY payoff for grinding is either faster/easier grinding or a boss fight.

This might've been fine if the bosses themselves were good but they just weren't. At least when going through the game as a bird, most of the fights just felt like "how do you cheese the hitstun" and not much else. This persists with the combat in general but I guess I could understand it for normal enemies to not make grinding unbearable, but when the focus of your gameplay is bosses those bosses better be damn good or else your game just turns very bland.

I liked the concept, the potential replayability is there but I just do not see myself going through this one again. I probably wouldn't have finished it if I didn't have a friend urging me to.

excellent game to play while something else is running in the background. it's grindy at times, but this is a journey of life across a billion years. what better excuse is there for a grind?

I would think less of E.V.O. if I didn't enjoy the concept of it so much. hopping around and chomping at stuff doesn't actually feel that great, which is accentuated on the boss fights. I was mostly looking forward to seeing how each evolution would change my primordial pal's stats/abilities and more importantly how he looked. can't think of many other games that let me have a horse-bodied, hippo-jawed, antler-having brachiosaurus.

In theory, this sounds like an amazing game. In practice, this unfortunately isn't the case.
Controls feel a little rough, hitboxes are sometimes weird, the puzzle by the end of the game felt more annoying than satisfactory to beat, the difficulty seems to be inconsistent and there is a fair amount of grinding.
On the positive side, the choices you have at your disposal add plenty of replay value and cater to different types of playstyles.
This game would've really benefitted from being released in the era of the PS1 or PS2 rather than the SNES.

Otro de mis juegos favoritos de la SNES.

Iremos a través de la historia del planeta Tierra, evolucionando con el resto de las especies. En sí en su platformer con toques de RPG. Es muy simple: Tu puedes saltar, morder o atacar dependiendo de las habilidades que tenga la especie que hayas creado.

Lamentablemente tiene cosas que considero "baratas" en un juego así, como la posibilidad de que 2 enemigos te "tranquen" y quedes en un loop siendo golpeado hasta morir.

De todas formas me parece un juego muy divertido y que además tiene muchos secretos (el cómo desbloquear la transformación en Ave es épico).

E.V.O. : Search for Eden is a really interesting game conceptually, but it's not very good in practice. The thing that ruins the game for me is the hit detection. The game feels unfinished because of how lousy it feels at times. It's incredibly hard to hit enemies, but they can hit you extremely easily. It feels like whenever I die, it's not my fault, which is when you know the game isn't very good. I love challenging games, but this one just sucks. Plus, the underwater sections are very repetitive, and the hit detection issues are at their most rampant in those parts. I'd avoid this one.