Because it feels like an exploit, it feels like that shouldn't work that way considering it lets me pop a ton of heals during real time combat at extremely little risk to myself, and even at times when I'm at 0HP. Because, owing to some of the ways it can be used, it's extremely cheap and plentiful for a full heal. I know RPGs have heals, though typically it's from a resource that's finite, or takes a turn to pop or time to use or whatever so you put some risk on yourself using it or have to weigh up the risks, evolving your health back is extremely plentiful with minimal and near enough instant. I'm not sure why so many people are confused that I feel it exploits the games systems, it's so absolutely busted that I can't imagine it's unreasonable to feel it's an exploit. Let me ask, even if it is an intentional design choice, it's still a very strange aspect of the game surely? Besides all of that, it adds the vibe, feeling, and narrative I felt was generated while playing through the game, which is what these videos are about.
@@Tehsnakerer I don't know. It just feels like some of the boss fights are too hard without healing yourself, especially for a kid, and your evo points do go down by at least 200 when you evolve. When I played through I never really had that many to be able to just spam heal myself other than a few times in a row. Also, it specifically mentions that you heal to full when evolving in the instruction booklet :P
Fair enough, not an unintended exploit, but I disagree, I still feel it's busted, it's so on tap. Plus games of the era could be absurdly hard, for kids or not.
I always figured it's because you yourself wouldn't evolve in a way that would leave you with a spiritual body after Lucifer crushes you into paste, but your explanation also makes a funny amount of sense, especially with the SNES version being taken into account.
Should've just said "it wasn't me" "But she saw the children in Mars." "Wasn't me." "She found a football in Venus." "Wasn't me." "She found you packing a rocket to Jupiter!" "Wasn't me."
The beginning of the game: you are a fish and you must survive The end of the game: you are a xenosaga character and ascend into a ball of incorporeal light and fight the devil after she breaks out of the moon by throwing dinosaur energy at her
There is one thing I did that I've never seen a single UA-camr player or reviewer do in any of the EVO videos I've seen. And its this: In the ice age, arrive as a bird, and stay as a bird, never become a mammal. Evenually you will reach a mountain where you will hear some misterious voices. As a mammal that's it. But as a bird, you can fly and you will see a UFO flying well above the ground. Attack it, and two martians will beg for you not to kill them. They will confess that the crystals were their doing, not Gaia's. And they promise they will remove all the crystals from the world, and also take you to mars. You are then taken to a little cutscene where you see mars and the martians, and after a while they take you back to Earth to continue your quest. After that, all of the crystals in the game are gone for good.
Yes. I'm not saying it was aliens... But Martians... Too bad Tehsnakerer never covered this aspect. And blaming Gaia of course for the crystals. I don't recall this secret section triggers a different ending, though.
That Jellyfish be like, "Ahhh, another one, roused from the sleep of death? Well, you're not alone. We Unkindled are worthless. Can't even die right. Gives me conniptions. And they'd have us seek the Lords of Cinder, and return them to their *moulding thrones.* But we're talking *true legends* with the mettle to link the fire. We're not fit to lick their boots"
4:22 In retrospect, having beaten the game a few times now, I think when the Jellyfish says to always go forward and never back, I think he's talking about evolution. He knows about the crystals that can revert you to an earlier form and I think he is against that idea. A lot of stuff that creatures say is either opinionated or straight up deception.
This is literally a NatGeo documentary that evolves into pure fucking anime Then there's the Endurance ending which just becomes Mobile Suit Gundam's UC timeline
I dunno about the spirit science stuff, but the stranger evolution aspects of EVO seem straight from some well known 1980s sci-fi novels. "what if dinos were people tho?" is West of Eden by Harry Harrison and the "what if aliens in the past became elves and gnomes while living alongside ramapithecus?" is The Many Coloured Land by Julian May both are great reads btw if you find the concepts interesting
@@customsongmaker i always thought she spent too much time talking about dresses, but i forgave her because tolkien spent too much time talking about trees and writing out full songs loll
Gaia in the remake: - Basically Earth Chan - Doesn’t actually kill anybody directly - Lots of revival Gaia in the original: - All blue - Will absolutely kill you - Also has the original girl Lucifer as a rival
Of course, original!Gaia decides to inspire plants with her beauty, doesn't realize she's killed an unknown number of creatures in the process, and thinks it's not obvious that she's the Earth. She comes off as a fair bit ditzier than the remake's version.
-Lucifel- Lucifer: "Wait, it took you idiots HOW long to realize it was a typo?!? Oh myself, if I'd known you were this stupid I'd have destroyed Earth a long time ago."
@@Lex_Araden I'd have to play through it in Japanese to see exactly how they portrayed it (possibly using kanji, switching between hiragana and katakana, using timing tricks in the language (the lower case (for lack of better term) tsu, for example), or making a distinction between Rushifaa and Rushiferu (this one seems likely, I've seen it elsewhere)) however, in ancient Japanese they actually did have a differentiation between R and L sounds. The first sovereign emperor banned 5 words from being spoken: La, Li, Lu, Le, and Lo (I forget what exactly these words mean, but I do remember one of them meant prosperity) (incidentally, la-li-lu-le-lo was used as a codephrase by allied forces to weed out Japanese spies in WW2 due to the difficulty of pronouncing it. Even further back in history, ra-ri-ru-re-ro was used as a codephrase against Korean spies in Japan-Korea conflicts.) why he did so is lost to history but it may have been due to a speech impediment (wouldn't be the first or last time in history a language is restricted for such a reason). The kana for these sounds likely never existed, but the kanji did
This was the wildest ride. At no point until it happened, did I expect a Lucifer Moth to break out of the moon and do battle with an immortal chosen of Gaia using the power of extinct fish.
Me at the beginning: "Oh, so its just a side-scrolling adventure game based on different evolutionary eras?" Half an hour later: "Wait, wtf is going on?"
I'm gonna be honest the first time I found the Spirit Science channel and the main video, I was like "wow this is some great worldbuilding" before realizing it was their genuine belief system and a lot of the shit they said was crazy as hell.
- A wild dinosaurs appear! - Goblin throws a rock! - It reminds him of the mass extinction of its kind. It seems traumatized. It seems catatonic. - It's super effective!
Y'know, in your first battle with Lady Lucifer at Stonehenge, I think you actually found the intended solution. She's using the powers of despair, hatred, and betrayal - your strongest healing power, granted by the tablets, is "love". You defeat the worst of humanity and it's emotional impact not by fighting it with violence, but with love that though she might try, the Devil cannot overcome. That seems oddly appropriate, somehow.
The manual actually hints something like "if only you had a way to stun her!" and I tried but must have had the worst luck, the spell always failed, so I'm not sure if my path was intended, but hey, it did the trick! Means I killed the devil in a single hit! (thematically the love aspect works really well too)
@@Tehsnakerer I feel like the fight with Lucifer kinda represents life itself, I mean you were doing the best possible choices for rather your survival not your prosperity and you were barely making it alive. Just like in real life, doing the right things sometimes it doesn't feel like anybody notices them or drastically change your life but rather rewards you with the fact that you are still alive. And when you dealt only one hit everybody ends up seeing it and everybody will end up saying "oh that guy defeated Lucifer with only one hit, he is so powerful" where in reality you were just a nobody with a strategy. But it sucks when people submissively over exaggerate such events to the point where they give you a bigger or overrated meaning of life whereas in reality it's nothing more than a mere survival (in my opinion)
@@ヴァリ-z3e I don't know, it sounds to me that he was making a point that survival and love do not need to be adversaries. That love is not necessarily some sort of thing reserved only for the chosen ones, but for even total nobodies and it can be legit tool against evil. His comment seemed to be that people raise nobody to the level of godhood when the power he used was within the grasp of anyone, just hidden. One could say love is the tool for long-winded survival as its adversaries only bring short-sighted survival which eventually would lead to even worse conditions rendering survival existantially pointless struggle.
@@1Hol1Tiger One does not need to look at direct science to disprove a lot of esoteric stuff, but at history. Most myths and religion is founded on some form of history. The Abrahamic religions are based on Zoroastrianism, which had a lot of practical elements to it. Also, this "spiritual energy" likely does not occur in a bubble. Most of these "incidents" are based on the same myths and stories that everyone else is. It is the same reason why alien abductees all claim to see the same creature, a creature that is both way to human and way to inhuman to be likely or even possible.
Homo dinosapien is one of the greatest gaming creatures I've ever seen in my whole life. As someone who really loves prehistory as a child. This really fascinated me from start to finish.
@@gabriellittle2827 You say that, the lizardman are from space with ships that look like aztecan pyramids, if you are ever curious, look up lizardman tabletop miniatures.
E.V.O: The Theory of Evolution needs a remake or atleast an official translation and port to modern systems, the way this game begins as a lifeform simulator and ends like some Shin megami Tensei game is fucking hilarious.
"You became a massive shimmering being and flew into space." I gotta say, I would not have expected a game that starts with you killing jellyfish to end like that.
If this has been mentioned already, sorry. If not: they probably use 'defeated' instead of 'killed' because it looks like they took the direct translation of 'taosuru' from Japanese which does mean defeated but is used in the same context as we use 'killed' in English.
It was because of Nintendo of America's policy to not have literal references to death in the English games. Kill. Died, etc, always needed "creative" alternates.
Although if playing fair helps surviving then this will be a trait that is passed on. And I would argue that this is the case for humans, when they played relatively fair with each other to form communities because being a dick means being alone and that won't increase your ability to pass on your "being a dick" genes.
So glad a channel with high production values covered this game. I almost fit a brief mention in one of my larger videos, but sadly had to chop it out of the script due to length reasons. Great content, man! Keep it up!
Lol you think this channel has high production value?! dude.....its 99% recorded gameplay footage with absolutely no post production other than the occasional zoom in.. not even hating, i enjoy some of his content obviously as i'm watching this, but there is absolutely no high production on this channel lol
I see fish gameplay, think: "Thats cute" and skip to the end. Suddenly theres aliens fighting satan in a pokemon style combat setting. Thank you Japan.
I was wondering how there was still so much after the end of EVO during the video. My God. I could not have expected a more bonkers plot from the other game.
From a purely philosophical standpoint, we could say evolution has a definite endpoint - when a species has complete control over their environment, and no longer needs an adapted body plan to survive because they can adapt the environment to all of their biological needs.
@@manospondylus thats not even taking into account artificial evolution that an advance species would be capable of. after all, whats easier, spending tons of resources making a entire desert planet more habitable for humans, or changing a few humans dna to be adapted to a desert planet?
At that point natural selection is still happening. Costly processesses that the body uses to survive in the wild would slowly get phased out as we take care of it for ourselves, until we end up becoming dependent on technology to make up for our biological shortcomings. Unless you make an immortal group of people who use identical clones or refuse to procreate, this process won't stop.
a more theoretical endpoint for evolution would be a species that can survive and thrive in literally every possible enviroment (and i do mean every possible one, the surface of neutron stars and such included), which i called "theoretical" for a reason
We have adapted the environment into one that does not meet our needs any more, but due to how we have adapted thus far it seems fine even though it's harmful. Uh oh
19:36 Fun fact! The bird trivializes the boss of the Dinosaur era - it's time-based, so all you have to do is fly to the top of the stage and hover out of reach until the apocalypse happens.
@@goreobsessed2308 and he does so whilst holding off 4 dark "gods" and powering the astronomican which killed the most power human psyker after big emps
Big memories of renting EVO on the SNES as a kid because it had cool dinosaurs on the boxart and then feeling cheated because the game just had a bunch of stupid fish. I thought the rental place had given me the wrong game and was really upset about it. Tried it again a bunch of years later and fell in love with it. The amount of cosmetic changes, while kind of pointless in a lot of cases, is really special for a SNES game. So there's always a hook to keep you going until you can afford the next change. And the one after. And the one after that.
1:09:30 - Most viewers will recognize this tune as being Dragon Quest's theme. Fun fact, the director of the studio that developed this game Takashi Yoneda, previously worked for Enix. He was likely given permission to use the song for this reason.
1:19:40 according to tv tropes the endurance ending is bad because the ending has the player wonder whether they made the right decision, and regret that it's too late to change course, having repeated the same mistakes as the Lunarians. It's implied that Lucifer is coming back to destroy the Earth in revenge, and then kill all the offworld colonies as well, which you can't stop because you don't have enough Wisdom.
I don't know if you ever looked into it, but the reason this is that good is that he's made up of many small sprites which slide around each other during his animation. It's a fairly standard way to get around the SNES' restricted sprite dimensions
18:20 that frog actually kinda has an equivalent in real life, it’s called the Surinam toad. It looks flat as a pancake and they produce by having their eggs embed into their backs until they’re ready to hatch, in which the burst out of the back egg thing into the world. Basically anyone with Trypophobia (basically the fear of small holes and stuff close together) worst nightmare.
Heh, them making the human attack effective but making combat extremely dangerous is pretty on-point. That's pretty much how it worked for early hominids, too. We relied almost entirely on gathering, and only hunted rarely due to the very high risk of injury and limited benefits. Our superpower, though, is something they probably wouldn't put in a game. We evolved weird (compared to other animals) sex, with no mating season, no ability to determine when females were fertile (not even the females themselves know), and a drive that led to sex being used primarily for social cohesion. People stayed in tribes to retain access to sex partners, which gave them protection, made hunting more valuable (on your own you can't do much with a 200 pound dead antelope), and introduced the complexity of social dynamics. They made brain development important, which led to tons of brain expansion, which enabled us to develop language and at that point we were off to the races.
Uh oh animal kingdom, I just evolved to run for days and throw rocks! I guess your entire evolutionary arms race is just fucked! THIS IS MY PLANET NOW!
Ah, the grand superpower of accidental genetic malformities that should've guaranteed a fast death somehow working out. Of all the things people point to in history as reasons we statistically shouldn't exist, fur-less apes managing to even survive a single generation is probably the most important to our history and our least likely, the fact it happened twice is just icing on the cake.
You think a woman grooming a kid to be her perfect husband is creepy? How about the very spirit of the planet doing that, but starting when you were only a primordial fish creature?
Hey Teh. This's a comment directly for you and about this video. I revisit this video every so often and it's probably one of my favorite videos on youtube, partly due to how amazingly interesting it is, and just my general love for this game that has been planted ever since I first saw this video. I don't think I could properly formulate the words. I'm sure I'll keep revisiting it over the years and even now I'm bound for a re-watch even when I wanted just to stop by and leave a comment. - Thanks for all the dinosaurs. Bug.
This might sound silly, but this is seriously my favorite game review of all time, from any creator. I have a lot of nostalgia for E.V.O. from my childhood, so it hits me first with that, and with the excitement you get when someone talks about a cherished memory in depth. But the twist hit me out of the blue, because I never knew the other game existed, and the fact that well over half of the review is devoted to it sort of thrust me into this parallel reality where I was watching something I wasn't familiar with which was nevertheless somehow tangentially nostalgic. It was like being in a dream where you have the sensation you're in some place familiar but it doesn't look like any place familiar. It threw me for a loop, expanded my appreciation of the game I *did* play, and of the original source material, and just sort of let me recontextualize the whole experience. Thank you for going above and beyond with this.
Ok that "people of earth, lend me your energy!" shit at the end was rad. This is a great example of one of those stories that can only really exist in videogames. I like seeing that, when they leverage gameplay mechanics and the format of the medium to tell a story instead of trying to be another form of media they aren't.
God, PC-98 pixel art is just goddamn cool, I really kinda want to learn that pixel art someday. Great video! I really didn't know about that rpg but now I want to check it out for sure, it's kinda dragon quest-ish but I'll be honest the plot is much more interesting than the Dragon Quests of the time. And again, the goddamn art, there's just something charming about it to me.
So just something I wanted to note about Bolbox, the final boss of Search for Eden. It's not a man, in fact its origin is in its name which the localization screwed up. Its actual name is Volvox, which means it's an algae cell. That's why it's the final boss. A singular cell of algae, the most simple, on its own harmless cell in the world, absorbed the crystals and hyper-evolved into the most powerful being in the world, something that shouldn't have self-awareness but does, and thus THINKS it's a human even though it isn't. Which, maybe I'm wrong, but I think the final boss is just an Akira reference, from that one speech in the jail "Ryu told me about it once. He said that Akira is absolute energy. Humans do all kinds of things during their lifetime, right? Discovering things, building things... Things like houses, motorcycles, bridges, cities, and rockets... All that knowledge and energy... Where do you suppose it comes from? Humans were like monkeys once, right? And before that, like reptiles and fish. And before that, plankton and amoebas. Even creatures like those have incredible energy inside them. And even before that, maybe there were genes in the water and air. Even in space dust, too, I bet. If that's true, what memories are hidden in it? The beginning of the universe, maybe. Or maybe even before that. Maybe everyone has those memories. What if there were some mistake and the progression went wrong, and something like an amoeba were given power like a human's? Amoebas don't build their own houses and bridges, do they? They just devour all the food they can find around them."
The things mistranslations can reveal/suggest, huh? This is not only plausible, but reminds me of how in RE:0, I thought for years the final boss was actually a reincarnation of Dr. Marcus (what with the magical nature of viruses in that video game universe) rather than a human form leech that just THINKS it is Dr. Marcus. In retrospect, it transforming suddenly back to a Leech like creature makes sense, it’s not some mystical battle ready mutation, but just its original form beefed up to human proportions for effect.
I don't know why this video has become such a comfort thing for me. Like, I feel sick af right now and just put it on again and have felt cozy and happy for the last thirty minutes. Also "aerated at the lack of air" lmao
Spoiler because you HAVE to experience the moment I had before reading this fresh: It's a crime that you couldn't hear how much I laughed at 1:08:18 Snakerer. I was literally wheezing for 2 minutes; I was already primed with "Homo Dinosapien" and chuckling a little. Then I had to pause because I couldn't understand words anymore. Both you and the jank you find are treasures, eldritch, sanity-destroying treasures and I love every second of it, from discovery to unveiling.
I always had a faint idea about how the PC-98 game is supposed to be the true EVO experience, but man, before seeing this video, I wouldn't have guessed how far off the deep end it could get. I had regular spit-laughs when you were talking about the last few chapters, it's *exactly* the sort of bonkers game where the weird scenes are fascinating, engaging and hilarious, largely because how cohesive it still gets to be. I can only imagine how the gameplay isn't the smoothest things ever made (that 90 degree turning shenanigan had me about as annoyed as I were playing the game), but the PC-98 version is like one of the poster childs of why I playing and reading about and/or watching obscure, often Japanese-developed games, because you never know when will you bump into something not necessarily polished, yet still very inspired and amazing to experience. I already would have liked the video if it would have ended with the SNES game, but the PC-98 segment elevated it into one of your bests - not just the subject matter, but the way you describe it an informative yet not lulling way, despite how complex the concept and its execution can get. Thanks for the upload!
If you preserve your flight ability, in one of the zones, you can fly WAAAAAY up and acquire a Dragon EVO and save it. It's killer against the final boss.
I always thought that the SNES E.V.O. game needed a remake or some sort of remaster, but after seeing that the older game had a showdown with fucking Fem-Satan turning into a giant moon demon after you turn into a godlike entity cause of the energy from 4 billion years worth of all natural life in order to brawl in space... Yeah I think I know which of these has a higher priority in terms of getting a remake.
HappyBeezerStudios - by Lord_Mogul yeah people are just meming I know but it seems like people don’t care for what actually is interesting and grounded, or at least has the potential to be. They just care for whatever is the most ridiculous and weird.
Yeah they couldn't have brought that to SNES, American censors would have had kittens. Screaming and gnashing of teeth. Worse than a Winnie the Pooh cosplayer lost in Beijing.
Huh. I like the plot of the original EVO better than the remake as outlandish as it is. And it inspired my friend a bit. He's talking my ear off right now about the dino sapiens and that split evolutionary path. How would humanity fare with another intelligent species side by side us? If he does write and illustrate his story I can't wait to do some editing.
I like the way the Mass Effect series put it, where humanity enters an intergalactic council but aren't super warmly welcomed because they're kinda douchebags and total noobs in the best of situations. A lot more Sci-fi has done this, but Mass Effect's an easy example for gamers.
There's a lot of stories that involve the idea of dinosaurs evolving into sapient life forms, and even some where they interact with humans. Some people have already mentioned West of Eden by Harry Harrison. But is it weird that the first place my mind went was Chrono Cross? And the second was the Super Mario Bros. movie? ...Wait a minute, Chrono Cross also claimed that the "demihumans" were descended from the alternate-universe dinosaur-people...like how this game has fantasy creatures like goblins, elves, and gnomes descended from the alternate dinosaur evolution paths...did Chrono Cross rip off this game?
@@sirioguidoandreapreziosi3836 right. About that... Recently his grandmother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and is going through chemo. Due to this, he hasn't been able to write. Hells he hasn't really had much time to himself he's been drowning in extra chores. I barely got a single page out of him to work with since this diagnosis happened.
I played The Search for Eden a lot as a kid, first as a rental then on an emulator. It was one of my favorite games, the way you could upgrade yourself and visually see what parts you had blew me away all those years ago. I never had any idea that The Theory of Evolution existed, and it looks so cool, even with all the grind. Learning about it means a lot to me as a fan of the SNES game. I actually don't know how to properly express how thankful I am that you made this video? It means a lot in that nostalgic sort of way. You know, learning more about a favorite thing you thought you already knew everything about. Did not expect this after subscribing for the WinBack video. Love how thoughtful you are when examining these old games; keep it up :>
Man, you showing off those "Spiritology" videos just reminded me of the time I stumbled into those videos years ago. I initially clicked on them because I was a huge fan of Extra Credits at the time, and the patchwork cartoon host reminded me of that. Other fun bits from those videos: -The pyramids are actually super-weapons meant to fight off aliens. One lady recently (as within the past 10 years) was called into a secret chamber where she used a device to "Make all the aliens sick" and stop the invasion. -The CIA and US government are trying to place army bases on Ley Lines to influence the global human subconscious. -Jesus was secretly Buddhist. He learned all about it during the timeskip between his childhood and when he was baptized.
Putting it all together, I think not even the best of acid trips compares to how creative and memorable this video and its content has been. With his writing and wit, these games have been an absolute treat to hear him talk about. I love how many flavors of emotion and inspiration the story and writing has on both games, but especially the pc98 version. I've been watching UA-cam since 2007 and this is by far one of the best videos on this website.
"what a surprise. someoen talks about EVO on the SNES. Cant wait to see what they think" man i was not prepared for what happened after you finished reviewing the game. the PC98 version is so much more creative and entertaining tho so that one grasped me way more.
I got really excited when I saw the video title, but I got even more excited 30 minutes in when I realized you were covering Theory of Evolution as well. I read a few wiki articles on these games months back, but they couldn't even begin to prepare me for seeing them in action. Thank you so much for covering them!
Sad news; the composer of the game Koichi Sugiyama has just passed away. I mean this is an odd game to remember him for but one that still had great music. Farewell good sir.
I'm so glad this was a random recommendation for me. I almost didn't click it but my nostalgia for the snes game, made me do it. Man what a journey. The snes review was a great setup but the meat of this review is the second half. Thank you so much for making this!
The disappointment with SPORE wasn't, as you said, that your _imagination_ ran away with what the game would be - It's that they _showed_ us what the game would be and then pulled a switcheroo and made it completely something that wasn't that.
@@sergeantbanzai2462 Yeah, ironicly, knowing as little as possible about the game aside from the core concept made Spore a really fun game for me. Though I do realize that the game is higly flawed, it can still be a good time.
@@93camping I always lose interest in Spore after the Creature stage. Making horrible abominations of evolution with like 6 eyes, arm-ears and slug butts is the best part of the game for me.
Creature stage was easily the zenith and space stage the nadir of Spore's gameplay. Shoot, if there was a version that was nothing but creature stage but more fleshed out with more nuanced mechanics and parts, that'd be a massive hit.
You know I remember seeing that spirit science video with a couple friends and we spent the time making fun of it while also saying how “this would make a great JRPG story”. Little did we know…
I can only guess that the reason the "To the Stars" ending was a bad ending... is that there is some implication that our people were corrupted by Lucifer... but I am SERIOUSLY stretching things.
No I bet it's because the creator isn't a fan of that path (and that he also needs to shoehorn that New Age nonsense, or stretch the game out further, or both)
it's because Lucifer is undefeated. In this case you can think of it as game over but you won, sort of (kind of like the rejection ending in Mass Effect 3, you know, the only one that feels satisfying but is treated as a non-standard game over). Humanity will reach the stars but the devil remains, still able to corrupt people, planets, galaxies
Now with Evo done, Sim Earth next? A game where you basically play a planet trying to find a healthy balance between all the different natural variables and push evolution forward. But watch out, clams could become the dominant race and just chill for an eternity without anything happening.
@@ChibiKami I mean, it seems implied she is, but is there anything to back it up? I played the game too but I don't think she's ever even made reference to.
God I love that Search for Eden's translators didn't know anything whatsoever about the subject matter. Like yeah, buddy, Pange is definitely what they were going for.
The SNES version held little surprise for me, I thought the PC98 wouldn't either, but humanity being led astray from our true dinosaur heritage made my week. Thanks for delving so deep into this rabbithole.
I don't know why but for about 3 years now I've continually come back to this video by choice. The humor and the way its formulated and how the game is criticized and praised. I've watched it a lot of times and it's a video with a fair bit of depth which is always appreciated. Truly a marvel of content.
@@Smogne all the times I've been at fiumicino airport walking to and from the city this has been playing in my earbuds. it almost brings a sense of familiarity to a place I'm not familiar with but idk it kinda helps me remember the place better. I was surprised when I was there again just how much I remembered how and where to walk to get to certain stores I'd just been to once many months before. shi even now I think I can draw the route I walked and where some stores are and where I stopped playing the vid to like talk with some people share cigs and converse.
There is something downright addictive about this video, I must've watched it at least a dozen times already and I just can't stop coming back to it. Fascinating games and equally brilliant presentation.
Why do you keep calling healing from evo an exploit? lol
Because it feels like an exploit, it feels like that shouldn't work that way considering it lets me pop a ton of heals during real time combat at extremely little risk to myself, and even at times when I'm at 0HP. Because, owing to some of the ways it can be used, it's extremely cheap and plentiful for a full heal.
I know RPGs have heals, though typically it's from a resource that's finite, or takes a turn to pop or time to use or whatever so you put some risk on yourself using it or have to weigh up the risks, evolving your health back is extremely plentiful with minimal and near enough instant.
I'm not sure why so many people are confused that I feel it exploits the games systems, it's so absolutely busted that I can't imagine it's unreasonable to feel it's an exploit.
Let me ask, even if it is an intentional design choice, it's still a very strange aspect of the game surely? Besides all of that, it adds the vibe, feeling, and narrative I felt was generated while playing through the game, which is what these videos are about.
@@Tehsnakerer I don't know. It just feels like some of the boss fights are too hard without healing yourself, especially for a kid, and your evo points do go down by at least 200 when you evolve. When I played through I never really had that many to be able to just spam heal myself other than a few times in a row. Also, it specifically mentions that you heal to full when evolving in the instruction booklet :P
Fair enough, not an unintended exploit, but I disagree, I still feel it's busted, it's so on tap. Plus games of the era could be absurdly hard, for kids or not.
Am I able to play dis on a windows pavilion computer
@@Tehsnakerer I don't remember these bosses being that hard....just the final one in human form that form sucks
I was confused why there was an hour left after the end of the game, boy that was a wild ride
Literally me rn lmaooo
I thought EVO was fun but weird when I played it way back... didn't know it was a remake of an even weirder and really dumb game...
Yeah, I was ready to go to something else, looked at the time and saw I wasn't even halfway done.
I'm glad I'm not the only one, strapping in now!
@@planescaped I personally like the older one way better then the new one.
The reason the endurance ending is a bad end is because you cheated on earth with other planets
Space chad
Creator you're right
I always figured it's because you yourself wouldn't evolve in a way that would leave you with a spiritual body after Lucifer crushes you into paste, but your explanation also makes a funny amount of sense, especially with the SNES version being taken into account.
Should've just said "it wasn't me"
"But she saw the children in Mars." "Wasn't me."
"She found a football in Venus." "Wasn't me."
"She found you packing a rocket to Jupiter!" "Wasn't me."
@@vizi02 I think it has more to do with the devs' insane spirit science beliefs, lol.
Why yes UA-cam, I will watch a stranger talk about a niche video game title for an hour and a half
Why can I relate so hard to this.
And apparently the whole video.
Have to delete my comment, this here is the perfect phrasing...
The algorithm has brought us all here together. I have never even watched a video from this channel... I think.
@@johnivanoplimo5172 this littirally just happend to me
The beginning of the game: you are a fish and you must survive
The end of the game: you are a xenosaga character and ascend into a ball of incorporeal light and fight the devil after she breaks out of the moon by throwing dinosaur energy at her
Basically Xenogears going to fight Deus.
going from the chad thelodus to the absolute lad god-emperor of mankind
Xenosaga and EVO. Two games I loved the hell out of but never had the patience to complete.
with the same 3 songs remixed over and over again
i can't escape you, on tfw or youtube
"You will evolve into Goblin"
SHIT WENT FROM 0-100 REAL FUCKIN QUICK
There is one thing I did that I've never seen a single UA-camr player or reviewer do in any of the EVO videos I've seen. And its this: In the ice age, arrive as a bird, and stay as a bird, never become a mammal. Evenually you will reach a mountain where you will hear some misterious voices. As a mammal that's it. But as a bird, you can fly and you will see a UFO flying well above the ground. Attack it, and two martians will beg for you not to kill them. They will confess that the crystals were their doing, not Gaia's. And they promise they will remove all the crystals from the world, and also take you to mars. You are then taken to a little cutscene where you see mars and the martians, and after a while they take you back to Earth to continue your quest. After that, all of the crystals in the game are gone for good.
Yes. I'm not saying it was aliens... But Martians...
Too bad Tehsnakerer never covered this aspect. And blaming Gaia of course for the crystals. I don't recall this secret section triggers a different ending, though.
Yes, you had to fly around a cloud maze... Crazy
I found that "ending" about a 1.5 decades after originally playing the game.
I couldn't find any videos of it no matter what I searched.
@@Sara3346 Dude, no, seriously, I've never seen anyone do this in any playthrough ever. I haven't watched any playthroughs, but still
"You became a massive, shimmering being and flew into space." is probably my favorite line from an RPG.
It's fucking up there as far as lines blowing me away goes
Close second:
"Where the acid rain never stops"
ROW! ROW! FIGHT THE POWER!
That one line does so much world building and it makes me cry.
God I wish that were me
That Jellyfish be like,
"Ahhh, another one, roused from the sleep of death?
Well, you're not alone. We Unkindled are worthless. Can't even die right. Gives me conniptions.
And they'd have us seek the Lords of Cinder, and return them to their *moulding thrones.*
But we're talking *true legends* with the mettle to link the fire. We're not fit to lick their boots"
Then you eat him alive.
*conniptions*
Gives me *C O N N I P T I O N S*
oh conniptions
someone used the word of the day from the calendar
@@catnium i think you need to see this to understand the joke. m.ua-cam.com/video/Ffytnbix07U/v-deo.html
4:22 In retrospect, having beaten the game a few times now, I think when the Jellyfish says to always go forward and never back, I think he's talking about evolution. He knows about the crystals that can revert you to an earlier form and I think he is against that idea. A lot of stuff that creatures say is either opinionated or straight up deception.
That bit with the flightless birds eternally grieving for the greatness that was taken from them was really haunting.
"So, I gained wisdom; but also racked up a bunch of insanity points"
GREAT ONE'S KNOWLEDGE OBTAINED
FRENZY RESISTANCE LOWERED
@blizk24 That's true. Now I know that I am not clumsy, there was just this tentacle in front of my doorstep that made me trip all the time.
Thats not only my take away from this video but from life
gimme them eyes on the inside
As you once did for vacuous Rom... grant us eyes, grant us eyes!!!
Fear the old blood.
I saw the Atlantis and Mu stuff coming because of the name of the era and that I could see them on the overland map. I was not prepared for Goblin.
nobody was prepared for goblin
There were many different species of humanoid, some actually were dwarf like and elf like.
Nobody expects the -spanish inquisition- goblin
That moment where he finishes the final boss and starts summing up the whole game... and then you look and there's still an hour left in the video
This is literally a NatGeo documentary that evolves into pure fucking anime
Then there's the Endurance ending which just becomes Mobile Suit Gundam's UC timeline
@@OfficerHotpants Well we do get aliens, in a time that could be described as very ancient.
True
I can imagine Sugiyama composing the music for Theory of Evolution and suddently turning to the dev team and saying: "MAKE ME A DINOSAUR IN THE GAME"
"Which is an interesting-"
G O B L I N
I dunno about the spirit science stuff, but the stranger evolution aspects of EVO seem straight from some well known 1980s sci-fi novels.
"what if dinos were people tho?" is West of Eden by Harry Harrison
and the "what if aliens in the past became elves and gnomes while living alongside ramapithecus?" is The Many Coloured Land by Julian May
both are great reads btw if you find the concepts interesting
Thanks for the recs.
"Harry Harrison" is quite a name
Julian May ended up making that a 7-book series that was one of my favorite epics
There was also the Dinoman which was presented at the time as a plausible version of an intelligent dinosaur which magazines ate up.
@@customsongmaker i always thought she spent too much time talking about dresses, but i forgave her because tolkien spent too much time talking about trees and writing out full songs loll
"You will evolve into Goblin" got me pretty good
finaly , we now know goblin slayers mission , to finish what the meteor started
I see
I love how the recently evolved Goblin is sporting a sword and a full set of leather armor as soon as he comes into being.
@@jor4114 that's how goblins be
@@sinsoftheswamp8346 Ah, I see you're well versed in the matter of goblins. Especially those of the mind variety.
"Every animal on earth flows through you" KARS THE ULTIMATE LIFEFORM AS THE HERO NICE
If you want Ultimate Kars as a protagonist, I'd recommend the Jorge Joestar novel. It's a wild ride, even by JJBA standards.
@@epickduk Jorge Joestar is fanfiction gone wrong .
Gaia in the remake:
- Basically Earth Chan
- Doesn’t actually kill anybody directly
- Lots of revival
Gaia in the original:
- All blue
- Will absolutely kill you
- Also has the original girl Lucifer as a rival
I am Gaia
@@giovanni9497 So you're voiced by Whoopi Goldberg?
@@SageofStars or possibly SpaceHamster
@@AitoJaOikeaNippeliFaktaa Miniature Giant Space Hamster?
Of course, original!Gaia decides to inspire plants with her beauty, doesn't realize she's killed an unknown number of creatures in the process, and thinks it's not obvious that she's the Earth. She comes off as a fair bit ditzier than the remake's version.
"I've been thinking. The God Lucifel... That must be Lucifer!" - Big Brain Lunarian.
The whole thing is even more of a farce considering that Japanese does not distinguish between L and R sounds.
Well, that explains why he made them their leader. He's the only one with more than 2 brain cells to his name!
-Lucifel- Lucifer: "Wait, it took you idiots HOW long to realize it was a typo?!? Oh myself, if I'd known you were this stupid I'd have destroyed Earth a long time ago."
@@Lex_Araden
I'd have to play through it in Japanese to see exactly how they portrayed it (possibly using kanji, switching between hiragana and katakana, using timing tricks in the language (the lower case (for lack of better term) tsu, for example), or making a distinction between Rushifaa and Rushiferu (this one seems likely, I've seen it elsewhere))
however, in ancient Japanese they actually did have a differentiation between R and L sounds. The first sovereign emperor banned 5 words from being spoken: La, Li, Lu, Le, and Lo (I forget what exactly these words mean, but I do remember one of them meant prosperity) (incidentally, la-li-lu-le-lo was used as a codephrase by allied forces to weed out Japanese spies in WW2 due to the difficulty of pronouncing it. Even further back in history, ra-ri-ru-re-ro was used as a codephrase against Korean spies in Japan-Korea conflicts.)
why he did so is lost to history but it may have been due to a speech impediment (wouldn't be the first or last time in history a language is restricted for such a reason). The kana for these sounds likely never existed, but the kanji did
@@ChibiKami I suddenly understand Metal Gear Solid more.
This was the wildest ride. At no point until it happened, did I expect a Lucifer Moth to break out of the moon and do battle with an immortal chosen of Gaia using the power of extinct fish.
Only in Japan.
Me at the beginning: "Oh, so its just a side-scrolling adventure game based on different evolutionary eras?"
Half an hour later: "Wait, wtf is going on?"
I thought nobody would ever talk about the PC-88 version, but there it is.
"I'm a Goddamn Goblin." Best line in this review of 2 games following the theoretical evolutionary timeline of our universe.
I'm gonna be honest the first time I found the Spirit Science channel and the main video, I was like "wow this is some great worldbuilding" before realizing it was their genuine belief system and a lot of the shit they said was crazy as hell.
We need those guys to give up the con and start teaching world building classes
I like treating cults as "worldbuilding." That's going to be my word for the next crazy one I see
Dude that guy is so psycho. Also he turned out to be a rapist..
😊
Reminds me of the flat earther map, looks awesome for a DnD adventure.
I was not expecting a Spirit Science segment, pleasantly surprised
I paused just to check if I accidentally ended up in a fair use bear stream, because that gave me flashbacks.
The Glass Man Ah yes the not a bully stream bear
- A wild dinosaurs appear!
- Goblin throws a rock!
- It reminds him of the mass extinction of its kind. It seems traumatized. It seems catatonic.
- It's super effective!
R.i.p
The dinosaur has the serious negative effect of “Shellshock”
@@sirknave4794 "Rockshock"
Daka! Ork Boyz throw big rock at weak, soon to be, humies.
Y'know, in your first battle with Lady Lucifer at Stonehenge, I think you actually found the intended solution. She's using the powers of despair, hatred, and betrayal - your strongest healing power, granted by the tablets, is "love". You defeat the worst of humanity and it's emotional impact not by fighting it with violence, but with love that though she might try, the Devil cannot overcome. That seems oddly appropriate, somehow.
The manual actually hints something like "if only you had a way to stun her!" and I tried but must have had the worst luck, the spell always failed, so I'm not sure if my path was intended, but hey, it did the trick! Means I killed the devil in a single hit! (thematically the love aspect works really well too)
@@Tehsnakerer I feel like the fight with Lucifer kinda represents life itself, I mean you were doing the best possible choices for rather your survival not your prosperity and you were barely making it alive. Just like in real life, doing the right things sometimes it doesn't feel like anybody notices them or drastically change your life but rather rewards you with the fact that you are still alive. And when you dealt only one hit everybody ends up seeing it and everybody will end up saying "oh that guy defeated Lucifer with only one hit, he is so powerful" where in reality you were just a nobody with a strategy. But it sucks when people submissively over exaggerate such events to the point where they give you a bigger or overrated meaning of life whereas in reality it's nothing more than a mere survival (in my opinion)
@@canisterbottournament I love when people are so afraid of confrontation (or reflection!) they will stick imo on anything lol
@@ヴァリ-z3e I love when people just assume the worst in others for no apparent reason lol
@@ヴァリ-z3e I don't know, it sounds to me that he was making a point that survival and love do not need to be adversaries. That love is not necessarily some sort of thing reserved only for the chosen ones, but for even total nobodies and it can be legit tool against evil.
His comment seemed to be that people raise nobody to the level of godhood when the power he used was within the grasp of anyone, just hidden. One could say love is the tool for long-winded survival as its adversaries only bring short-sighted survival which eventually would lead to even worse conditions rendering survival existantially pointless struggle.
Did not expect to see Spirit science show up damn
dread it, run from it, destiny still arrives.
That guy who made the nun game
When you think you've left that thing in the past it just slaps you in the face, but with a force hand!
@@1Hol1Tiger Around 1:11:00
@@1Hol1Tiger One does not need to look at direct science to disprove a lot of esoteric stuff, but at history. Most myths and religion is founded on some form of history. The Abrahamic religions are based on Zoroastrianism, which had a lot of practical elements to it. Also, this "spiritual energy" likely does not occur in a bubble. Most of these "incidents" are based on the same myths and stories that everyone else is. It is the same reason why alien abductees all claim to see the same creature, a creature that is both way to human and way to inhuman to be likely or even possible.
Your little "wot?" after summarizing the Endurance ending gets me every time I watch this.
Homo dinosapien is one of the greatest gaming creatures I've ever seen in my whole life. As someone who really loves prehistory as a child. This really fascinated me from start to finish.
So you interested in learning about dinopeople?
ever heard of something called warhammer fantasy?
@@Tucher97 By the Emperor’s will, can the Xenos get any bigger?-TheRussianBadger, 2019
@@gabriellittle2827 You say that, the lizardman are from space with ships that look like aztecan pyramids, if you are ever curious, look up lizardman tabletop miniatures.
They are real too. They just hide amongst us, disguised.
E.V.O: The Theory of Evolution needs a remake or atleast an official translation and port to modern systems, the way this game begins as a lifeform simulator and ends like some Shin megami Tensei game is fucking hilarious.
This comment made me realize how much I'd like to see a E.V.O: TTOE remake done by Atlus.
I saw it as more like the Devilman manga but SMT also drew inspiration from that so it makes sense.
REMAAAAKE. TAKE MY MONEY NOW FASTER PICK IT UP WHERES MY GAAAAME
@@SeruraRenge11 based Go Nagai follower
@@SeruraRenge11 I was reminded the most of the end of Getter Robo Go (manga).
"You became a massive shimmering being and flew into space."
I gotta say, I would not have expected a game that starts with you killing jellyfish to end like that.
G'old power creep, the eternal curse of japanese writting
The kt extinction was the dinosaurs fighting sephiroth to prevent him from wounding the lifestream with a meteor and becoming
I take it Sephiroth won.
If this has been mentioned already, sorry. If not: they probably use 'defeated' instead of 'killed' because it looks like they took the direct translation of 'taosuru' from Japanese which does mean defeated but is used in the same context as we use 'killed' in English.
“Felled” would be an appropriate replacement, I think.
I feel like most of the translation errors might just be caused by a too literal translation.
It was because of Nintendo of America's policy to not have literal references to death in the English games.
Kill. Died, etc, always needed "creative" alternates.
"But on the bright side, most of France is also missing." almost choked on my cofffee hearing that ;)
Honestly I think cheating fits the theme perfectly, life/evolution isn't about playing "fair" but doing whatever it takes to survive.
That's why I call the weeds in my yard and the fleas on my dog "cheating bastards that get rich off of the work of higher lifefroms"
Although if playing fair helps surviving then this will be a trait that is passed on. And I would argue that this is the case for humans, when they played relatively fair with each other to form communities because being a dick means being alone and that won't increase your ability to pass on your "being a dick" genes.
@@capthavic No, not all the time. You have to cooperate because otherwise you will achieve nothing. I also stand by MY statement.
1:08:48 "...we're interacting with real creatures like australopithecus and the yeti" - gave me a hearty chuckle
There’s one thing wrong with that scentence
@@milesfoster8190 Yes, thats the joke.
So glad a channel with high production values covered this game. I almost fit a brief mention in one of my larger videos, but sadly had to chop it out of the script due to length reasons. Great content, man! Keep it up!
Thanks very much, glad you enjoyed the vid!
"Almost"
@@TheVonCesaw wait what?
@@TheVonCesaw Who? Indigo?
Lol you think this channel has high production value?! dude.....its 99% recorded gameplay footage with absolutely no post production other than the occasional zoom in.. not even hating, i enjoy some of his content obviously as i'm watching this, but there is absolutely no high production on this channel lol
Not gonna lie, that last showdown was actually kinda thrilling. Go Earth!
It had some real shonen battle manga energy, in the best way. (Well, as much of the best as its technical limitations allow.)
Hooray for Earth!
I see fish gameplay, think: "Thats cute" and skip to the end. Suddenly theres aliens fighting satan in a pokemon style combat setting. Thank you Japan.
Evolution of gameplay as you play
The game ends at 33:00
What you saw is its predecessor
you a mom?🤔
Bruh, check out the end battle of ecco the dolphin
Old Japanese gaming has so many absolute bangers that never made it across the continents. It's a wondrous world.
I really appreciate you doubling down on the "fair fight vs a fast rock" joke.
He did the same thing with the "coelacanth giving up on evolution" joke, too.
I was wondering how there was still so much after the end of EVO during the video. My God. I could not have expected a more bonkers plot from the other game.
From a purely philosophical standpoint, we could say evolution has a definite endpoint - when a species has complete control over their environment, and no longer needs an adapted body plan to survive because they can adapt the environment to all of their biological needs.
I think even at that point there would still be selection forces stemming from the species’ own societal pressures, such as sexual selection
@@manospondylus thats not even taking into account artificial evolution that an advance species would be capable of.
after all, whats easier, spending tons of resources making a entire desert planet more habitable for humans, or changing a few humans dna to be adapted to a desert planet?
At that point natural selection is still happening. Costly processesses that the body uses to survive in the wild would slowly get phased out as we take care of it for ourselves, until we end up becoming dependent on technology to make up for our biological shortcomings. Unless you make an immortal group of people who use identical clones or refuse to procreate, this process won't stop.
a more theoretical endpoint for evolution would be a species that can survive and thrive in literally every possible enviroment (and i do mean every possible one, the surface of neutron stars and such included), which i called "theoretical" for a reason
We have adapted the environment into one that does not meet our needs any more, but due to how we have adapted thus far it seems fine even though it's harmful. Uh oh
19:36
Fun fact!
The bird trivializes the boss of the Dinosaur era - it's time-based, so all you have to do is fly to the top of the stage and hover out of reach until the apocalypse happens.
I find it hilarious that the pre-final form of the protagonist looks like the Japanese version of the Emperor of Mankind.
It's been mentioned that Big E has taken many different forms during his journey to rightful masterdom over us.
@@arnantphongsatha7906 The Emperor protects!
or how he is basically wearing the Zeon officer uniform from gundam with big pauldrons and a cool cape
@@borischan5252 the emperor slowly dies on a chair 😝
@@goreobsessed2308 and he does so whilst holding off 4 dark "gods" and powering the astronomican which killed the most power human psyker after big emps
I love how the journey ends with you fighting ultra satan in space and then humanity ascending to godhood.
I need more videogames like this in my life
Big memories of renting EVO on the SNES as a kid because it had cool dinosaurs on the boxart and then feeling cheated because the game just had a bunch of stupid fish. I thought the rental place had given me the wrong game and was really upset about it.
Tried it again a bunch of years later and fell in love with it. The amount of cosmetic changes, while kind of pointless in a lot of cases, is really special for a SNES game. So there's always a hook to keep you going until you can afford the next change. And the one after. And the one after that.
1:09:30 - Most viewers will recognize this tune as being Dragon Quest's theme. Fun fact, the director of the studio that developed this game Takashi Yoneda, previously worked for Enix. He was likely given permission to use the song for this reason.
Pretty cool
I like my theory that Sugiyama was working on the game's OST and suddenly said "Hey, can I be a dinosaur in your game?"
1:19:40 according to tv tropes the endurance ending is bad because the ending has the player wonder whether they made the right decision, and regret that it's too late to change course, having repeated the same mistakes as the Lunarians. It's implied that Lucifer is coming back to destroy the Earth in revenge, and then kill all the offworld colonies as well, which you can't stop because you don't have enough Wisdom.
_"You have entered deeply into the infested starport, but something is wrong. There isn't enough large plants."_
DooM ;)
30:56 is it just me or is the animation of the "cro-maine" swinging his club mind-blowingly smooth for 1993 on the SNES?
I don't know if you ever looked into it, but the reason this is that good is that he's made up of many small sprites which slide around each other during his animation.
It's a fairly standard way to get around the SNES' restricted sprite dimensions
@@Red-yt2dk never knew about that, I'll look into some other instancess of this in games
You pausing when gaia's text box cuts off is such a genius bit. These small things are one of many reasons why I'm always excited to see you upload.
which part?
@@peppermillers8361 10:30
18:20 that frog actually kinda has an equivalent in real life, it’s called the Surinam toad. It looks flat as a pancake and they produce by having their eggs embed into their backs until they’re ready to hatch, in which the burst out of the back egg thing into the world. Basically anyone with Trypophobia (basically the fear of small holes and stuff close together) worst nightmare.
Heh, them making the human attack effective but making combat extremely dangerous is pretty on-point. That's pretty much how it worked for early hominids, too. We relied almost entirely on gathering, and only hunted rarely due to the very high risk of injury and limited benefits. Our superpower, though, is something they probably wouldn't put in a game. We evolved weird (compared to other animals) sex, with no mating season, no ability to determine when females were fertile (not even the females themselves know), and a drive that led to sex being used primarily for social cohesion. People stayed in tribes to retain access to sex partners, which gave them protection, made hunting more valuable (on your own you can't do much with a 200 pound dead antelope), and introduced the complexity of social dynamics. They made brain development important, which led to tons of brain expansion, which enabled us to develop language and at that point we were off to the races.
That’s a mega 🤔 comment.
Uh oh animal kingdom, I just evolved to run for days and throw rocks!
I guess your entire evolutionary arms race is just fucked!
THIS IS MY PLANET NOW!
the superpower of sex has been put in plenty of videogames
Ah, the grand superpower of accidental genetic malformities that should've guaranteed a fast death somehow working out. Of all the things people point to in history as reasons we statistically shouldn't exist, fur-less apes managing to even survive a single generation is probably the most important to our history and our least likely, the fact it happened twice is just icing on the cake.
Yeah, because the hyper-sexual bonobos also reached human levels of intelligence...
"Real creatures like the Yeti" at 1:09:50
Ah I see we have found out some new Info about Snake, like how he's a cryptid believer.
We saw how it scared the dinosaur
@@Tehsnakerer it scared me. I broke my phone.
None of this video went where I was expecting it to go. Also, the moon is hollow.
IT'S FILLED WITH HYDRAULICS
@@Tehsnakerer So THAT'S why the Nazis made their moon base there!
Of course it's hollow someone ate all of the cheese that was there
You FOOLS! it’s actually filled with a giant evil squid monster.
@@Tehsnakerer Lucifer was inside the moon all along obviously
Survival of the fitness was code for "Cute Husband"
You think a woman grooming a kid to be her perfect husband is creepy? How about the very spirit of the planet doing that, but starting when you were only a primordial fish creature?
@@katamariroller2837 dude you just blown my mind
Hey Teh. This's a comment directly for you and about this video.
I revisit this video every so often and it's probably one of my favorite videos on youtube, partly due to how amazingly interesting it is, and just my general love for this game that has been planted ever since I first saw this video. I don't think I could properly formulate the words.
I'm sure I'll keep revisiting it over the years and even now I'm bound for a re-watch even when I wanted just to stop by and leave a comment.
- Thanks for all the dinosaurs.
Bug.
I do this too lol
lmfao nigga signed his username 💀
Same here:)
This might sound silly, but this is seriously my favorite game review of all time, from any creator. I have a lot of nostalgia for E.V.O. from my childhood, so it hits me first with that, and with the excitement you get when someone talks about a cherished memory in depth. But the twist hit me out of the blue, because I never knew the other game existed, and the fact that well over half of the review is devoted to it sort of thrust me into this parallel reality where I was watching something I wasn't familiar with which was nevertheless somehow tangentially nostalgic. It was like being in a dream where you have the sensation you're in some place familiar but it doesn't look like any place familiar. It threw me for a loop, expanded my appreciation of the game I *did* play, and of the original source material, and just sort of let me recontextualize the whole experience.
Thank you for going above and beyond with this.
Your comedy stylings are getting quite sharp snakerer
Cheers
Ok that "people of earth, lend me your energy!" shit at the end was rad. This is a great example of one of those stories that can only really exist in videogames. I like seeing that, when they leverage gameplay mechanics and the format of the medium to tell a story instead of trying to be another form of media they aren't.
God, PC-98 pixel art is just goddamn cool, I really kinda want to learn that pixel art someday.
Great video! I really didn't know about that rpg but now I want to check it out for sure, it's kinda dragon quest-ish but I'll be honest the plot is much more interesting than the Dragon Quests of the time. And again, the goddamn art, there's just something charming about it to me.
Yeah, makes you wanna fuck the Earth in the most ecologically friendly way possible
I'm actually so sad he never mentioned how nice the art was, some scenes were seconds long but the portrait was vivid
So just something I wanted to note about Bolbox, the final boss of Search for Eden. It's not a man, in fact its origin is in its name which the localization screwed up. Its actual name is Volvox, which means it's an algae cell. That's why it's the final boss. A singular cell of algae, the most simple, on its own harmless cell in the world, absorbed the crystals and hyper-evolved into the most powerful being in the world, something that shouldn't have self-awareness but does, and thus THINKS it's a human even though it isn't. Which, maybe I'm wrong, but I think the final boss is just an Akira reference, from that one speech in the jail
"Ryu told me about it once. He said that Akira is absolute energy. Humans do all kinds of things during their lifetime, right? Discovering things, building things... Things like houses, motorcycles, bridges, cities, and rockets...
All that knowledge and energy... Where do you suppose it comes from? Humans were like monkeys once, right? And before that, like reptiles and fish. And before that, plankton and amoebas.
Even creatures like those have incredible energy inside them. And even before that, maybe there were genes in the water and air. Even in space dust, too, I bet. If that's true, what memories are hidden in it? The beginning of the universe, maybe. Or maybe even before that. Maybe everyone has those memories. What if there were some mistake and the progression went wrong, and something like an amoeba were given power like a human's? Amoebas don't build their own houses and bridges, do they? They just devour all the food they can find around them."
The things mistranslations can reveal/suggest, huh?
This is not only plausible, but reminds me of how in RE:0, I thought for years the final boss was actually a reincarnation of Dr. Marcus (what with the magical nature of viruses in that video game universe) rather than a human form leech that just THINKS it is Dr. Marcus.
In retrospect, it transforming suddenly back to a Leech like creature makes sense, it’s not some mystical battle ready mutation, but just its original form beefed up to human proportions for effect.
I don't know why this video has become such a comfort thing for me. Like, I feel sick af right now and just put it on again and have felt cozy and happy for the last thirty minutes.
Also "aerated at the lack of air" lmao
Spoiler because you HAVE to experience the moment I had before reading this fresh:
It's a crime that you couldn't hear how much I laughed at 1:08:18 Snakerer. I was literally wheezing for 2 minutes; I was already primed with "Homo Dinosapien" and chuckling a little. Then I had to pause because I couldn't understand words anymore.
Both you and the jank you find are treasures, eldritch, sanity-destroying treasures and I love every second of it, from discovery to unveiling.
The setup for the Holy War chapter was looking like Japanese WH40k, but ended up being even better
I always had a faint idea about how the PC-98 game is supposed to be the true EVO experience, but man, before seeing this video, I wouldn't have guessed how far off the deep end it could get. I had regular spit-laughs when you were talking about the last few chapters, it's *exactly* the sort of bonkers game where the weird scenes are fascinating, engaging and hilarious, largely because how cohesive it still gets to be. I can only imagine how the gameplay isn't the smoothest things ever made (that 90 degree turning shenanigan had me about as annoyed as I were playing the game), but the PC-98 version is like one of the poster childs of why I playing and reading about and/or watching obscure, often Japanese-developed games, because you never know when will you bump into something not necessarily polished, yet still very inspired and amazing to experience.
I already would have liked the video if it would have ended with the SNES game, but the PC-98 segment elevated it into one of your bests - not just the subject matter, but the way you describe it an informative yet not lulling way, despite how complex the concept and its execution can get. Thanks for the upload!
If you preserve your flight ability, in one of the zones, you can fly WAAAAAY up and acquire a Dragon EVO and save it. It's killer against the final boss.
he mentioned that after he beat the first game
I always thought that the SNES E.V.O. game needed a remake or some sort of remaster, but after seeing that the older game had a showdown with fucking Fem-Satan turning into a giant moon demon after you turn into a godlike entity cause of the energy from 4 billion years worth of all natural life in order to brawl in space...
Yeah I think I know which of these has a higher priority in terms of getting a remake.
Sounds like the average cosmic backplot and climax of a typical jrpg
HappyBeezerStudios - by Lord_Mogul yeah people are just meming I know but it seems like people don’t care for what actually is interesting and grounded, or at least has the potential to be. They just care for whatever is the most ridiculous and weird.
Yeah they couldn't have brought that to SNES, American censors would have had kittens. Screaming and gnashing of teeth. Worse than a Winnie the Pooh cosplayer lost in Beijing.
First.
@@Nathan-rb3qp Cursed.
Huh. I like the plot of the original EVO better than the remake as outlandish as it is. And it inspired my friend a bit. He's talking my ear off right now about the dino sapiens and that split evolutionary path. How would humanity fare with another intelligent species side by side us? If he does write and illustrate his story I can't wait to do some editing.
Link it when you're both done, sounds pretty dope.
I like the way the Mass Effect series put it, where humanity enters an intergalactic council but aren't super warmly welcomed because they're kinda douchebags and total noobs in the best of situations.
A lot more Sci-fi has done this, but Mass Effect's an easy example for gamers.
There's a lot of stories that involve the idea of dinosaurs evolving into sapient life forms, and even some where they interact with humans. Some people have already mentioned West of Eden by Harry Harrison. But is it weird that the first place my mind went was Chrono Cross? And the second was the Super Mario Bros. movie?
...Wait a minute, Chrono Cross also claimed that the "demihumans" were descended from the alternate-universe dinosaur-people...like how this game has fantasy creatures like goblins, elves, and gnomes descended from the alternate dinosaur evolution paths...did Chrono Cross rip off this game?
Still waiting for your friend's story, Phantomile! The Homodinoerectus deserves an artistic representation!
@@sirioguidoandreapreziosi3836 right. About that... Recently his grandmother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and is going through chemo. Due to this, he hasn't been able to write. Hells he hasn't really had much time to himself he's been drowning in extra chores. I barely got a single page out of him to work with since this diagnosis happened.
Once the Goblin part came up i just started laughing my ass off. Game went from educative learning to Warhammer meets Devilman and Evangelion
I played The Search for Eden a lot as a kid, first as a rental then on an emulator. It was one of my favorite games, the way you could upgrade yourself and visually see what parts you had blew me away all those years ago.
I never had any idea that The Theory of Evolution existed, and it looks so cool, even with all the grind. Learning about it means a lot to me as a fan of the SNES game. I actually don't know how to properly express how thankful I am that you made this video? It means a lot in that nostalgic sort of way. You know, learning more about a favorite thing you thought you already knew everything about.
Did not expect this after subscribing for the WinBack video. Love how thoughtful you are when examining these old games; keep it up :>
Man, you showing off those "Spiritology" videos just reminded me of the time I stumbled into those videos years ago. I initially clicked on them because I was a huge fan of Extra Credits at the time, and the patchwork cartoon host reminded me of that.
Other fun bits from those videos:
-The pyramids are actually super-weapons meant to fight off aliens. One lady recently (as within the past 10 years) was called into a secret chamber where she used a device to "Make all the aliens sick" and stop the invasion.
-The CIA and US government are trying to place army bases on Ley Lines to influence the global human subconscious.
-Jesus was secretly Buddhist. He learned all about it during the timeskip between his childhood and when he was baptized.
well at least that explains that weird timeskip.
Funny enough, the guy who started that channel began as a Newgrounds flash animator/ game maker. Plenty of his stuff is still online.
@@aidanbrown4851 Have you got link please?
@@blahblah7720 oneyplays.fandom.com/wiki/Spirit_Science
@@aidanbrown4851 Apparently he became a born-again Christian and argues against it? The madlad.
Putting it all together, I think not even the best of acid trips compares to how creative and memorable this video and its content has been. With his writing and wit, these games have been an absolute treat to hear him talk about. I love how many flavors of emotion and inspiration the story and writing has on both games, but especially the pc98 version.
I've been watching UA-cam since 2007 and this is by far one of the best videos on this website.
That 2nd game has the most Shounen anime story progression I've ever seen. That last fight is straight out of Gurren Lagann
"what a surprise. someoen talks about EVO on the SNES. Cant wait to see what they think"
man i was not prepared for what happened after you finished reviewing the game. the PC98 version is so much more creative and entertaining tho so that one grasped me way more.
"I am the fish roof" -Tehsnakerer 2020
I can kill any aquatic creature
Noooooo you're not supposed to add context to my stupid quote ; . ;
@@ozunaredch.7159 I can maim them
It is unbelievably ominous to nearly fall asleep and then see a notification on my phone that just says "I can maim them".
It's actually pretty clever, because Ichtyostega does indeed mean "Fish roof" :P
I got really excited when I saw the video title, but I got even more excited 30 minutes in when I realized you were covering Theory of Evolution as well. I read a few wiki articles on these games months back, but they couldn't even begin to prepare me for seeing them in action. Thank you so much for covering them!
Sad news; the composer of the game Koichi Sugiyama has just passed away. I mean this is an odd game to remember him for but one that still had great music. Farewell good sir.
i literally was saying "this is some spirit science shit" and not kidding 30 seconds later you rbing up spirit science i lost my shit
I'm so glad this was a random recommendation for me. I almost didn't click it but my nostalgia for the snes game, made me do it. Man what a journey. The snes review was a great setup but the meat of this review is the second half. Thank you so much for making this!
never thought hearing the words "I'm a god damned goblin" would make me laugh so hard.
The disappointment with SPORE wasn't, as you said, that your _imagination_ ran away with what the game would be - It's that they _showed_ us what the game would be and then pulled a switcheroo and made it completely something that wasn't that.
Going in knowing almost nothing of the game made me enjoy it though. But I can see how everyone else was offended by its' cut content.
@@sergeantbanzai2462 I like it too
@@sergeantbanzai2462 Yeah, ironicly, knowing as little as possible about the game aside from the core concept made Spore a really fun game for me. Though I do realize that the game is higly flawed, it can still be a good time.
@@93camping I always lose interest in Spore after the Creature stage. Making horrible abominations of evolution with like 6 eyes, arm-ears and slug butts is the best part of the game for me.
Creature stage was easily the zenith and space stage the nadir of Spore's gameplay. Shoot, if there was a version that was nothing but creature stage but more fleshed out with more nuanced mechanics and parts, that'd be a massive hit.
You know I remember seeing that spirit science video with a couple friends and we spent the time making fun of it while also saying how “this would make a great JRPG story”. Little did we know…
I can only guess that the reason the "To the Stars" ending was a bad ending... is that there is some implication that our people were corrupted by Lucifer... but I am SERIOUSLY stretching things.
No I bet it's because the creator isn't a fan of that path (and that he also needs to shoehorn that New Age nonsense, or stretch the game out further, or both)
it's because Lucifer is undefeated. In this case you can think of it as game over but you won, sort of (kind of like the rejection ending in Mass Effect 3, you know, the only one that feels satisfying but is treated as a non-standard game over). Humanity will reach the stars but the devil remains, still able to corrupt people, planets, galaxies
I can see that, though it seems to be pretty poorly explained if that was the intent.
I remember a friend of mine showed this to me on an emulator years ago.
Very interesting game.
Now with Evo done, Sim Earth next? A game where you basically play a planet trying to find a healthy balance between all the different natural variables and push evolution forward.
But watch out, clams could become the dominant race and just chill for an eternity without anything happening.
God I forgot about sim earth
@@manputty933 You can play it in the browser nowadays :)
Wasn't expecting a dinosaur to suddenly start singing the Dragon Quest main theme.
Also really wished I didn't have to hear about Spirit Science again
I noticed that too! Glad someone else did too
Nah its cool.
The dino is based on the composer Sugiyama, which was also the Dragon Quest games composer.
Wait... WAIT. Is the Thelodus girl who "senses a great power within us"... Is she the woman we marry before the final chapter?
in fact she is. Her soul had its own evolutionary journey to meet you at the end.
@@ChibiKami I mean, it seems implied she is, but is there anything to back it up? I played the game too but I don't think she's ever even made reference to.
God I love that Search for Eden's translators didn't know anything whatsoever about the subject matter. Like yeah, buddy, Pange is definitely what they were going for.
I read somewhere that may just be space limitations why everything is shortened . Doesn’t make much sense, but idk.
The SNES version held little surprise for me, I thought the PC98 wouldn't either, but humanity being led astray from our true dinosaur heritage made my week. Thanks for delving so deep into this rabbithole.
Anime: The Apex of Evolution
That's one of those lines you should read while swirling a glass of wine.
The end of evolution
Is that for real? if its not... why is it not real
I definitely would watch the anime show. From animals into beings.
Lucifer was the Anti-Spiral all along
The anime "Human" form reminds me of a not buff "God Emperor of Mankind" from Warhammer.
I don't know why but for about 3 years now I've continually come back to this video by choice. The humor and the way its formulated and how the game is criticized and praised. I've watched it a lot of times and it's a video with a fair bit of depth which is always appreciated. Truly a marvel of content.
I'm on the same boat... it's almost like "comfort food". It is genuinely a great video - a mini journey every time I watch.
@@Smogne all the times I've been at fiumicino airport walking to and from the city this has been playing in my earbuds. it almost brings a sense of familiarity to a place I'm not familiar with but idk it kinda helps me remember the place better. I was surprised when I was there again just how much I remembered how and where to walk to get to certain stores I'd just been to once many months before. shi even now I think I can draw the route I walked and where some stores are and where I stopped playing the vid to like talk with some people share cigs and converse.
There is something downright addictive about this video, I must've watched it at least a dozen times already and I just can't stop coming back to it. Fascinating games and equally brilliant presentation.
Isn't humans evolving from Lizards the plot to the super mario brothers movie
I don't exactly know what you just uncovered, but that seem huge.
Aw yiss, the orginial Earth Waifu game.
Earth-chan is NOT flat!
FlameStormer2000V2 Earth bitches be wet
@Olathian Whiskey including you and I?
@Olathian Whiskey But we're not talking. We are typing
We should commitdienow
I was thinking about spirit science during the whole second half of this video. Needless to say I was unreasonably excited when you brought it up.
I have no clue why but I've watched this over 4 times now and each time I wait less and less to come back to watch this