Evoland Legendary Edition

Get it. Two games (1 & 2) for the low price of 22$ (CAD) or 4.40 on sale. I LOVED the first one as it got me from classic 8-bit (or lower) to Diablo era on PC, all on a single journey. Second one is good too, but it includes bullet-hell type of gaming that I'll need to work on if I want to 100% (both 2 and Legendary).

Evoland Legendary Edition is a nostalgic and clever tribute to the history of video games. From pixelated black-and-white beginnings to full 3D, it constantly evolves in style and gameplay. Evoland 1 is short but charming, while Evoland 2 offers a deeper, more polished experience with tons of genre shifts and fun references. A must-play for retro fans and anyone who loves creative, evolving game design.

Evoland: Legendary Edition contains the games Evoland 1 and Evoland 2. Evoland 1: Charming and simple love letter to some classic JRPGs like the Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy. The story is simple with lots of nods to other JRPG games, even going as far as to include a Triple Triad (FF8) esque card game to play around with and collect cards around the world. Collectable stars can be found just for the clout. Overall, a pleasant experience. Though, the game definitely feels more like a proof of concept rather than a solid, standalone game as things sort of just happen and there is little depth to the story that you haven't seen in other RPGs. Evoland 2: This game evolves from a simple parody/love letter as shown in Evoland 1 to tell its own story. This game takes more cues from Legend of Zelda and Chrono Trigger, using time travel to change the graphics based on the Era you're in. The story is a lot longer than the first game and is generally an alright story that ends in a sort of Paradox/Time Loop. However, this game stressed me out so much more than Evoland 1. Where Evoland 1 takes inspiration from a few JRPGs, Evoland 2 throws whatever game genre it feels like it wants to use at the time. The worst offenders being: Fighting Games ala Street Fighter, Side-Scrolling Platformers Metroidvanias, Side-scrolling Air Combat Arcade games, Top down Air Combat Arcade games, and Beatem Ups. The Legend of Zelda style gameplay takes up about 80% of the game you're doing where the other 20% is a mashup of a bunch of arcade classics (there's even a section where you play games like Snake, Pong, etc. to open doors). This is where I feel Evoland deviates from its roots, and feel it should have stuck to its JRPG inspirations and leaned a bit more heavily on the Turn-based aspects or other RPG staples to draw from instead of Arcade Cabinets. There is a good Tactics segment in the game that is like your Fire Emblem/ Shining Force type beat that I enjoyed. The top-down flying shooter segment is 3 bosses long in between regular segments of shooting enemies. That part alone would prevent me from replaying this game. That absolutely sucked. In order to enjoy Evoland 2 at its fullest, you're really going to have to be a fan of all games. I personally, do not like the flying segments as I can't stand bullet hell/flying shooter games which came as a point of major stress when playing the game. I did manage to complete the game, but while I enjoyed getting the stars and collectables of Evoland 1, I could not be bothered to do the same for Evoland 2 because of the scale and seemingly random spots it decides to put them. Would I recommend Evoland? Yes, but maybe only for Evoland 1 specifically. Evoland 2 has its moments of cool stuff, but I feel it really deviated from its roots too much and some segments were artifically extended by the type of gameplay you're subjected to at any point. I got this game on sale (it was cheaper than buying the two separately).

This is not a very good game The ideas behind it are really good and it's competently made when it comes to certain graphical styles but if I could be absolutely blunt it kind of takes the worst of all of the classic JRPGS that you grew up playing and almost idle them Like you start the game on with that the ability to say and if you die you have to start the game over again then when you do unlock the ability to save each time you die rather than loading your last save like a normal game should instead forces you to go to the title screen and then load your save. One of the worst things about it is the story seems almost like a joke It references other games in a very matrix 4 kind of way and I don't know how else to explain

TL;DR Evoland 2 is a pretty good game, but you should buy it standalone rather than this quote unquote "remaster". The first game isn't worth the time you spend playing it and the legendary edition of 2 is somehow less stable than the Android port. With that being said... I played Evoland 2 something like 8 years ago on a Kindle Fire when I was a teenager. At the time I had only ever really played shitty mobile games and flash games. Stumbling across Evoland 2 was experiencing a sampler platter of what gaming truly has to offer. It introduced me to multiple games I'm still in love with today, and generally broadened my horizons for what I could expect out of my games going forward. However times change, and I changed. I grew up and experienced a lot more of the wider world. So when I saw old Evoland 2 on sale I feared it wouldn't live up to my nostalgic memories... I'm glad to say I was wrong! I had a lot of fun playing through it again and on sale at $4 I would easily recommend it to anyone curious. It's such a broad range of experiences that you're bound to walk away with some parts you like. Though that same broadness is also a weakness, there will also be sections you do NOT like. Pros: - Experience a vast range of games you may or may not be familiar with. Who knows, you might be like me and come out of it with a new love for a new game! - Generally very lighthearted and playful, great for just kicking back and having a good time. - The artstyle of the present ("16-bit" era) is gorgeous. - Music is generally very catchy, and a few tracks are good enough that they've been added to my collection for future listening. - While most sections are directly based on other games, two sections near the end are truly original, drawing directly from the game's constant shifting to create some great puzzles (and one jank-ass boss). - There are also a few sections that, while not 100% original, do take existing concepts and put new spins on them, which a part of me honestly wishes could have been fleshed out into larger subsections. Cons: - Due to the constant genre shifting, some sections will feel woefully cut short. - Conversely, some other sections will drag on for way too long, though this is at least partially mitigated by a decent bit of it being optional. - The artstyle of the future (3d era) is not nearly as good as the other two. It's not unplayable bad, but the transition is ALWAYS jarring no matter how many times you go through it, and it's impossible for me to take some of the more sincere cutscenes seriously partly because of how goofy everything looks. - The music is good, but the tracks are almost all short (like, a minute long) and loop way too much. In certain sections this is fine as you'll be switching tracks frequently, but in others you'll be hearing the same thing for an hour and it will grate to hell and back. The standalone game has a music slider so you can stop this. The legendary edition does NOT. Buy it standalone. - The story is passable and nothing more. It's not even close to as bad as something like Sea of Stars, but it's probably not going to be enough to keep you going on its own. It doesn't help that, not only is the plot about time travel, it's about a specific form of time travel which is extra mind-bendy, so don't think about it too hard if you value your sanity. - The auto-scrolling Cobra section sucks. - The match-3 section SUCKS. - The Street Fighter bossfight SUCKS SO UNBELIEVABLY HARD WHY DID YOU MAKE THIS!? Overall, I'd say Evoland 2 is a decent game which you should try if it's on sale for cheap. However, I'm giving this product a "not recommends" review. Why? Because this product isn't Evoland 2, it's "Evoland Legendary Edition". As I was playing through the second game, I ran into a lot of bugs I didn't remember encountering 8 years ago on my Kindle Fire. The audio engine spazzes out whenever too many sound effects play at once. I got softlocked a couple of times. And, to top it all off, the game crashed during the ending cutscene. A short amount of digging later and my best guess is this legendary edition doesn't include some stability patches from post-release. Which is completely baffling, and more than enough of a reason for me to recommend you buy the second game standalone. Trust me, you won't be missing much by not getting the first game bundled, the original Evoland is about 2 hours long and almost completely devoid of anything I found fun in the sequel. And if you REALLY want it, you can still buy it for an additional $2, which imo is worth the extra stability you get on the second game. In conclusion, fun if flawed game, bad remaster, buy the original Evoland 2, skip this shit.

I am giving this a pretty sour thumbs up. While many Gen-X and millennial will find the the visual and many references and easter eggs from so many retro games of their childhood very charming, the reality is the first one, is short, VERY short, and yet still somehow manages to cover a broader spectrum of evolution than the second one and though it is short, it more fun. The second one suffers from the modern era's over use of time travel and while they use it to justify the changes in graphics, the reality is that it gets old FAST and you will quickly find yourself just wanting the game to be over with so you can shelve it, to never be played again.

Very innovative and great execution. Good job evoland

4/5 star

peak