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[R^2]

Let's do something a little lighter and breezier than a Playstation-era Square RPG, shall we?

This one takes me back, man. I read the review in Nintendo Power back... well, when the game was new. I bugged my mother about it until she, longsuffering as she was, drove across town to some video rental place to get it for me for the weekend. It was the nineties, we had things like print magazines and video rental stores back then.

Several years later, replaying the game had me wondering exactly what all the evolutions did. The original game had a pack-in poster that told you, but I didn't have it -- so I did things the hard way, evolving and tracking each stat in turn.

The end result was one of the first game guides I wrote, which in turn has led more or less directly into all these Let's Plays I've been doing.

History, man.

Anyway.


This was back before papa Sol put his youngest child up for adoption for crossing over Neptune's orbit one time too many.


Most of the planets are whirling around, but Gaia just sits at the bottom like a useless sixteen-septillion-ton lump of semimolten iron.

The Sun: From this time forward, every 1 billion years, you will have children called "Life". One of them will be able to help you to build a new era. Each child must endure a difficult trial. You might think it's too severe, but it is necessary.

Because you do things the Sun's ways and you like it, girl.

The Sun: The trial is a test of Nature: "The survival of the fittest". If he passes, I will allow him to be your partner and to enter Eden.


If this were an LP of SimEarth, the process of turning from a barren ball of rock into a hospitable planet would probably take the first several pages of Let's Play to complete. Here it's part of the intro.

Anyway, Let's Play

[R^2]

Of course Gaia is a naked anime chick. Because Japan.

Gaia: ...life, including you. You will journey through many periods of time on this planet. A journey of change.


Gaia: ...survive. This is a trial given by my father. I hope you can survive this trial and meet me in Eden. This will be the end of your journey.

Aww, I bet you say that to all the protozoa.

Gaia: Well the time has come. You may go now. You are already a fish.

Oh. I guess we can skip the protozoa phase, which would have taken another three or four pages if this were a SimEarth LP.

Gaia: It took 3 billion years for your body to evolve. You must travel alone. Please be careful. Good luck!




This is a map screen. If there were more than one place to go than the intro level, I could swim around and choose which level to enter from here. But there's only the one yet, and my little fishy icon is sitting on top of it.

[R^2]

Here we are in the Ocean of Origin.

EVO Search For Eden Soundtrack - The Ocean
I'm probably not going to link much to the music in this game, because most of it is variations of the same awful melody. This is probably one of the best tracks on the soundtrack, and they blow it on the opening chapter.


There you're!

Jellyfish: Welcome to the world, where the rule is only the fittest shall survive. Look newcomer! You better listen to the rules of this world. There are the three. One - "Fight for survival and for food." Two - "Only move forward never back." The last is "Evolve and become strong." Well, this is a very dangerous world isn't it? Are you afraid of it? The weak and flabby will be easy to defeat. What about you, newcomer?

Hey! I don't have to take any lip from an invertebrate!


TINYFISH used BITE!


Jellyfish have 2 HP, so it takes two chomps with my tiny, weak jaws to fell one. But once I do, it inexplicably turns into an on-bone roast! And jellyfish don't even have bones! Or meat!


Eating the jellyfish corpse nets me +10 EP (the white number) and heals +2 HP (the red number). EP are evolution points, which I can cash in for new body parts.


Plants are easy targets, since they don't move and can't attack, but only restore HP.


Starting status. Pretty weak.
Classification is what kind of animal you are.
Hit point max is pretty self-explanatory. As you evolve different parts, your maximum will go up.
Biting power, strength, kick, strike, and horn are different attacks. I can bite for Bite damage and tackle enemies for Strength damage if I get a decent running start. Needless to say, horn and kick attacks will have to wait until I have a horn or feet.
Defense power is damage reduction. When hit, your defense is subtracted from the damage you take. Oddly, it is also reduced from any healing you get from eating meat or plants.
Agility determines how fast I can swim.
Jumping ability determines how far I can jump should I swim up to the water's surface and leap out of it.


Which isn't much.


Jellyfish to 1 HP of collision damage, and 2 HP if they successfully snap with a tentacle. It took some doing to get this screenshot; I'm not actually getting beaten half to death by jellyfish.


Anyway, a crash course on Darwinism-via-Japanese is the most interesting thing in the Ocean of Origin, so moving on...

[R^2]

What cave? I don't see no cave.


Oh.


Like a hovercraft, the cave is full of eels.


Which are a bit more dangerous than jellyfish and have a whole 3 HP, but are worth a little more when devoured.


Cucumber A: The Angler's horn attracts enemies because of it's great light!
Cucumber B: They say we can't return here if we cross the third volcano in the sea. It is Gaia's plan to lead the fish to a new world.
Cucumber... A? C? Who cares, they're cucumbers: Hmm... A new world.

This game makes SaGa Frontier's translation look spot-on, so I'm copying it directly, typos and all. That "it's" there appears in-game, it's not my mistake.


Anyway, it'll be a few million years before schwarma and pita bread and yogurt will be invented, so I go ahead and eat the cucumbers.


Then the yellow orb that was floating near the cave wall.


Something In Your Body: How are you progressing? Don't worry I will help you evolve. You may call me crystal. I will give you advice on how to evolve. Evolving your jaws will increase your biting strength. Evolving your body will increase your defensive power. Evolving your horns will increase your attack power. Evolving your hands, feet and dorsal fin as well as your tail, will increase your Hit Point level, agility and strength. Be careful, evolving one part of your body may decrease another part.

Apparently it'll also be a few million years before anyone invents the Oxford comma.


That's it. I'm out.

[R^2]

It's full of sea slugs.


Sea slugs drift around lazily until attacked, at which point they split into two tiny, vicious offspring.


Whoever is talking: ...evolve into a strange creature.


Seems legit.








Whoaaaaaaaaa


Holy crap, I'm delicious. Better be careful in this form.


The eel is wicked fast -- almost absurdly so. This crystal can also turn you into a manta ray, which is slower but stronger. I have no idea what determines which form the crystal grants.


Anyway, after a few moments of eating sea slugs, the crystal wears off and I'm back to being a regular fish.

[R^2]

So, let's see what my options are.


As advertises, evolving jaws increases bitey damage.


Growing a horn lets me use gore attacks.


A new body (technically new skin in most options, but eh) increases defense. Growing to a large size gives bonus HP and Strength, but decreases Agility.


Fins boost Agility and Strength.


Dorsal fins boost Agility, Strength, and HP.


Tails boost Agility, HP, and Jump. Why they bothered boosting Jump for an aquatic-only form is anyone's guess.


There's also a cosmetic change for each new body part. Here are the Kuraselache's Jaws.


And the Original Fin. He looks like he's sporting an angry look and a mohawk. How punk rock!


Bite power is now 3 damage, Strength and Agility are a point higher each, and I've got six extra HP. Yay.

[R^2]

Strapping a boning knife to my face might look intimidating, but... well, horns suck. They're expensive in EP to grow...


...and while they give a bitchin' charge attack...


...they break after they hit three times.

[R^2]

Ah, fresh meat.


Hey! You can't run away! That's against the rules the jellyfish told me!


You can try to catch up to the Terodus by evolving some Agility boosts, or...


...grow the only non-attack horn in the game.


As you may have heard, the glow of the Angler's Horn attracts some of the more gullible fish to swim in place in front of you.


Generally right within biting range.


So this part of the sea is an all-you-can-eat buffet now. Sometimes a piece of meat will glow green, but against all common sense that's a good thing. Green meat is worth extra EP and HP!


You can't even leave! Just hang around and chow down!


Until...


dramatic line break


Athewhodawhatnow?


Argh! Rocks!


Really hot rocks!


Outta here!

Man, those Terodus were screwed anyway.

[R^2]

Safely away from the eruption, I took a bunch of screenshots of the new body parts, but I guess it'd be a bit tedious to go through all of them. Some highlights:


The Swordfish Horn comes with its own set of jaws, too. Your Horn and Bite attack are both set to 3. The Swordfish Horn never breaks, and if you remove it you revert to the jaws you had before you evolved the horn.


A horn that will pierce the heavens!




Most new skins come with their own color schemes.

So anyway. I head back to the Terodus and eat them for virtually free HP, fleeing each time the volcano erupts. And by the time I'm done...


Yeah, buddy. That's the Zinichthy's Jaws, Shell Body (large size), Kuraselache's Dorsal Fin, Tackle Fins, and... only the Tiratisu's tail. Oh well. There's still more ocean to kill and eat, anyway.

[R^2]

On to the next cave. Those guys look familiar! They are in fact the Zinichthy whose jaws I currently have growing out of my head. They're one of the few enemies in the game to have their own Defense value, so they take less damage from my attacks than my Bite or Strength would suggest. After this first chapter, most enemies just get more HP to be tougher.


With my Bite at 5 but my Strength at 7, I do more damage ramming than I do chomping.


A crystal that doesn't come with a tutorial! I wonder what will happen!


Yellow crystals are informative, red crystals give you a superpowered form for a little while, and blue crystals are free EP.


Trilobites crawl along the seabed until you get close, at which point they curl up into a ball and ricochet around. If you're swimming close to the seafloor and one gets below you, they can bounce off your underside and the floor several times before you can react, draining your HP pretty fast. Um, assuming you don't have a Shell Body so they only do 1 damage anyway.


There's a brief volcano section on the way out of this cavern. Shit Gaia, get it together.

[R^2]

Cepalas are anti-Terodus. They're aggressive, and will ram you repeatedly as soon as they come onscreen.


They're suckers for the Angler's Horn, though.


That was the third volcano? I didn't even have to dodge a shower of exploding rocks! There's no going back now.

[Zaratustra]

Did you find Nemo yet

(this game is awesome and you're awesome for playing it)

[R^2]

There's squids in the cave. They swim straight up when you go over them, trying to impale you with their cuttlebones.


OW, RIGHT IN THE... wait, fish don't even have external genitalia.


Seaweed: Friends, the Strolites are trying to create a new world using oxygen.

Gross! Isn't that stuff corrosive?! I use that chemical to get stains out of my clothes!

Seaweed: They are having trouble because the Kuraselaches keep interfering with them.


"Kuraselache" means "shark".


Strolite A: If we could move along the bottom of the sea without sticking, we would not have to be ruled by the Kuraselache.
Strolite B: Shhh! Speak quietly or the leader in the cave will hear you!


Leader in the cave, huh.

[R^2]

Well, it's got nothing to do with me.




Look at this stuff! Rocks! Plants! Dry things! Outside the water! How weird is that?




Aww! I got feet! I can walk around on


OH GOD FUCK OW WHY DO I HAVE FEET AND NOT LUNGS

Oh right, there's no air yet, and the game isn't clever enough to work around lifeforms that breathe mostly nitrogen.


All right, fiiiiine.


I'll go in your stupid cave.

[R^2]

Wow, a bigger fish than me. Don't see that often.


King Kuraselache: Kuraselache, King of the Sea, why are you here? Are you not trying to help the Strolites build a new world?

Nope. Has nothing to do with me.

King Kuraselache: The Sea is the only world!

I agree wholeheartedly. Nice and cool, plenty of food, only occasional volcanoes... it's pretty sweet.

King Kuraselache: I will defeat anyone who helps the Strolites!

Great. I'm gonna go eat some squid.


Ow! You dick!


I'm not going to take that kind of treatment lying down!

Well, fish can't really lie down. You know what I mean!


For all his berserker aggression, the King Kuraselache is a klutz. If you can get out of the way and let him smack his face into a wall when he charges you, he's stunned for several seconds. Time to chew him up!


His damage output is high (13 HP from a bite attack is a lot, especially considering I'm at maximum Defense), but if you start running out of HP? Just evolve something.


Every time you evolve, all your HP are restored to your new maximum. Cheap horns are good for this, because when they break and get removed, that also counts as having evolved and restores your HP.


Yeah! Stabbed right in the ass!


Eventually you bite the King Shark so hard he explodes.


Into nigiri-sushi.


Delicious and nutritious.

[R^2]

Ew, strolite farts.


Strolite: ...oxygen is being born. The entrance is here.


This had better work this time.


Yeah, seems okay.


Gaia: ...years. As it ended it gave way to the beginning of a new world. One filled with oxygen. It is called the "Land Age"

If your fish age lasts for more than 4 million years, contact a fishsician.

Gaia: The Strolites and plants have already begun living here to prepare a better place for those who choose to follow. Here is a present for surviving the Fish Age. It is the body of an Amphibian. You have lungs so that you may breathe and you may also move about the ground freely.

Yeah! I still got some leftover fins and stuff but I'll iron those out. As long as I got my jaws and my scales I'll eat everything in sight and be through the Amphibian age before you know it!

Gaia: A new adventure awaits your new body. So----.


YEAH! MY BODY IS READY


GO AMPHIBIAN POWER


...

WHAT

[R^2]

wait no hold up


NO dammit we need to talk about this what have you done


GAIA DAMMIT


THIS ISN'T OVER


THIS


ISN'T


OVERRRRRRRRR...!!

[R^2]

Your face is the age of Amphibians I hate you. 


Gaia: ...arrive have already lived on land. There should be a lot of large plants growing there, but something is wrong.

[Zaratustra]

I like that the 'bite' button serves to eat most things in the game. In fact, they should have removed the "eat" button altogether.

[Niku]

evo is the best game this is a fact of science

man i miss snes era enix