An important thing about media criticism, in our honest opinion, is to never review something based on what it isn’t rather than what it is. For E.V.O. -Search for Eden- this is a particularly difficult task.
Being a sequel to a game that we consider very special, 46 Okunen Monogatari -The Shinka Ron-, it is perhaps natural that we will compare the two. But the games could not be more different if they tried. While the original game is a turn-based RPG with a story about the nature of good and evil from the perspective of Earth’s evolutionary line, this sequel is an odd departure.
Search for Eden is a side-scrolling action RPG where you control a single life form, much like the original, evolving throughout the history of Earth. You’re guided by the voice of Gaia, with the goal of becoming her partner.
The evolution system has been completely revamped, now requiring the player to purchase upgrades for body parts rather than spending their experience on stats that guided the evolution. As a result, you no longer evolve into specific species but rather craft your own, piece by piece.
This is a fun mechanic, but sadly does not offer the amount of depth as it could have done. For most of the game there is one clear “right option” if one wishes to have any decent chance at progressing and despite being a game that expects you to grind a whole lot, there’s always a very low ceiling for how much you can upgrade yourself in each chapter.
This would be excusable if the body parts you acquire allowed for unique gameplay styles, but unfortunately the worst part of Search for Eden is the basic combat mechanics. You can bite, you can jump, you can tackle and for the most part that’s all you’ll be able to do.
The few variations there is includes swimming, which allows you to move up and down, flying, which works the same way but with a potential stun throwing you to the ground, and horns which allow you to bum-rush into enemies until said horn breaks.
For the 10 hours we spent playing through the game, the primary tactic we found viable was to just tackle enemies and hope they don’t get an opening to attack you between tackles. This is because enemies don’t tend to get stunned, just pushed backwards, while the player can be stun-locked with ease.
Truth be told, we had a very difficult time playing Search for Eden due to its immense difficulty spikes. The game asks a lot of you while giving you very little to work with in terms of controls and the aforementioned combat mechanics.
That is not to say that we dislike this game. It’s quite charming and we’d be lying if we said we didn’t enjoy our time with it. It’s just a major disappointment, both due to its own shortcomings and how much of a step down from the first game it ultimately is.
Visually, the game is gorgeous. The animals in the game all have a fun art style full of colour and expression, the body parts you upgrade all look distinct and memorable, the game really manages to convey a lot with its rather super-deformed approach to Earth’s life forms.
The music, as we mentioned in our review of the original game, is by notorious nationalist Sugiyama Koichi and is surprisingly really damn good in spite of this. Not sure why he did such a good job with both games in the E.V.O. series only to struggle to put out a single original tune in the last 30 years of his life.
The story is ultimately kind of pointless and there’s not much to it, which was a major disappointment after the grand narrative that the original game presented. But again, maybe there doesn’t need to be a big narrative for a game that is ultimately about building fun creatures and eating other creatures.
As a fan of the original game, Search for Eden is a disappointment and feels less like a sequel and more like a strange spin-off trying to curry favour with non-RPG fans. On its own, however, it is a deeply charming game with flaws that ultimately holds back its own potential. Perhaps that is why the E.V.O. series ended after this second instalment.
Score: 6/10
We played through the entirety of E.V.O. -Search for Eden- on stream for the Jurassic June 2025 event. You can watch it and many more streams on our YouTube channel!
Lesbiandrea! 