A few years ago, Undertale took the world by storm with its unconventional approach to gameplay and storytelling within the RPG genre. Since then, other games have tried to capture that same magic but have been, at best, mildly successful at capturing the original spirit of the game. Until perhaps now… I hadn’t even heard of Everhood until about three days before its release on March 4th. Looking at the trailer, it seemed to be at the very least visually inspired by Undertale, using retro graphics. The trailer also featured some fun-looking rhythm-based gameplay and pretty awesome music. Is Everhood simply trying to jump on a bandwagon like so many others or does the team over at Foreign Gnomes have a deeper understanding of what made Undertale so special and using that to shape it into their own extraordinary experience? While I haven’t played Undertale myself, I have watched others’ entire playthroughs and I listen to the soundtrack on a semi-regular basis. I may have missed out on the early days of discovery for that game, but that is not the case for Everhood, and I’m excited to be a part of it!
A Warning
First and foremost I feel it’s important to state that if you suffer from any sort of photosensitivity, this may be a game to look into the accessibility options before diving into. There is a “photosensitive mode” but I cannot definitively say how effective it is. The game uses flashing imagery, lights, and subverts graphical expectations (aka gets really freaking weird at times) to enhance gameplay and effectively create some specific emotional states. While it works artistically, it is certainly a frequent presence of these potentially dangerous animations, and the game’s warning should be more prominently displayed.
My first impression of Everhood was that it was following in Undertale’s footsteps. The hi-pixel, yet oddly still Atari-esque, art direction intentionally uses colors, usually on a stark black background and a few details to establish the mood of an environment. This is contrasted by the times where the environments are fully realized, and even a time where it’s intentionally less realized. It’s all very well constructed and creates moments that will stick with me for years to come. There’s also heavy use of glowing neon effects, especially during combat segments. It really pops against the black and this is where the game separates itself visually from Undertale. While I’d argue the character designs aren’t quite as memorable and charming as they could be, I still loved them. Red, the player character, strongly reminds me of a red-cloaked Geno from Super Mario RPG. Other memorable characters include Zigg, The Blue Thief, The Gold Pig, and Noseferatchu.
While the flashing visuals didn’t really bother me, it is important to note, hence the warning at the beginning of this review. Some battles take the concept of things coming towards you on a track to the extreme as things twist, spin, and stretch to create some very weird and trippy moments. A few hours into the game, I did go into the settings and activated the color blind mode as I was having some trouble and that seemed to help my ability to clearly see what was coming towards me. As someone with red/purple and blue/green color blindness, I always appreciate the options. So if you find yourself struggling, try that first before giving up. I suspect even people without color-blindness may find this useful.
Unfortunately, we don’t really get to spend much time with any of these characters, and therefore don’t grow to love them. I did grow attached and I certainly like them, but that only takes you so far. By the end, it definitely felt like I was supposed to love these characters and feel more strongly, but I didn’t. This misstep kind of takes away from the game’s central themes of peace, acceptance, fear, death, and killing. Everhood starts out simple enough; Red awakens to find a gnome dressed in blue stealing his arm and running away. As you pursue, you’re greeted by a frog who introduces you to the gameplay. Once that is established, your mission is clear, get your arm back. However, it’s clear there is more to the story. The quest to arm yourself ultimately only takes up a portion of the story, and the story and gameplay take some shifts. The exploration of the central themes mentioned earlier starts to come into play. Expanding on the story of getting Red’s arm back and having more scenes of characters growing closer really could have made this game a powerhouse of emotion. As it stands though I still very much enjoyed it.
I won’t dig too much further into it as I think this a game worth experiencing, or at the very least watching, the story unfold for maximum impact. There are also a few grammatical errors throughout and those who recognize it could find themselves distracted by it.
One perhaps slightly spoilery thing that I’ll include is: make sure have a good amount of battery in your Switch if you choose to explore the long hallway.
Everhood approaches gameplay similarly to Guitar Hero. Red sits at the end of a track with five lanes. Enemy attacks come down the tracks to the beat of the song that you either jump or dodge until the song ends. Every fight offers its own challenge, and stringing together dodges and jumps becomes very satisfying. Incoming walls must be dodged and if you are hit too many times within a certain amount of time you are defeated and must retry. If you manage to get back in the groove and avoid getting hit your health will recover. The dev team’s intended difficulty for Everhood is Hard; this was the difficulty I went with and I’m glad I did. With a little playing around, it seems the biggest difference in other difficulties changes how fast your health recovers. The exceptions being Story where you can just play through to experience the tale and Insane which grants only 1 life to complete the game with.
Once Red’s arm is acquired, the gameplay changes to include the ability to catch incoming attacks. Catch two of the same color and send Red can fling an attack back at the foe. It’ll blast through a few of the floor attacks before stopping, and it will break an incoming wall but the attack will not continue through. Ultimately though the goal is to deal enough damage to defeat your opponent. This really helps keep the gameplay engaging as I suddenly was thinking about each encounter in a different way. I was strategizing colors and moments to ensure the attack found its mark, but also sometimes using it to save my skin. Some of the encounters are fairly short, while others are marathons. Either way, overcoming each one was exceptionally gratifying. There are also some special encounters where they play with established mechanics and patterns to keep it interesting.
Everhood is a great example of simple gameplay and complex execution.
It should be noted that performance-wise Everhood has some unexpectedly long load times. More than once I wondered if the game froze or crashed because I was just staring at a black screen for far longer than I expected. The game never did crash, and I never noticed any frame drops or other issues with the overall experience.
It would be a real shame to skip the music in a game where the music is so central to the gameplay as you spend hours and hours dodging and jumping around the visual representation of it. Every character you battle against has a unique song. The music spans multiple genres including jazz, hard rock, folk/bluegrass, and more all mixed with some really enjoyable and well-done glitch-core and EDM. I gladly added a few tracks to my Spotify library for regular listening! This is pretty crucial, I think, for a game where you may be stuck listening to a song many times as you attempt to overcome it. The game also knows when to be quiet; there’s a long stretch in the game where there’s no audio feedback at all, adding to the feeling of endlessness associated to the task.
I believe that Everhood will rise through the ranks and become one of those “you gotta play it” games. There’s just enough charm, the right amount of mystery, hearty laughs, and plenty of things to discover for this to become a cult classic. It creates a commentary on video game logic in a similar way that Nier: Automata and Undertale did. I think the story of Everhood could have used a bit more on the front end to make the impact of the backend more powerful, but overall it is still successful. Fun and challenging gameplay lift Everhood up into memorable territory as it is addictingly fun and challenging with everything tied to the story. I also know there are things I missed and I cannot wait to discover them on subsequent playthroughs.
I also am looking forward to other people’s reactions to Everhood. If you loved Undertale, or are looking for an RPG that’s unconventional, don’t sleep on this game. All I can do is hope I successfully explained Everhood without spoiling the reasons why I enjoyed it so much.
Learn more about Everhood on the official website or listing. The game is available for $14.99 USD on Switch or $9.99 USD on Steam. A digital code was provided for this review. Screenshots were taken using the native features of the Nintendo Switch. Gifs were provided through official press materials.
