Please, dismiss reviews that attempt to claim that "this is a Diablo/FF7/Zelda clone". I don't want to sound disrespectful to other reviewers but one must be really thick for sarcasm to think that "Boots of Vaal Undersoul" that gives you "+10 to hit & run tactics, for when the boss is just too strong" is an item that pertains to a game trying to pull the Diablo tone.

This game is, instead, a parody, or a humorous homage if you will. It changes its gaming style between dungeons rather quickly, starting from the most basic 2D game, and thens slowly evolving into FF7/Diablo/Zelda-like. This game doesn't give you any depth in any of these gameplay styles and that's why it is interesting: the focus is not in the combat, nor the graphics, nor the puzzles, the story, the character development, the plot... everything in this game is a parody. Take it or leave it boys, this is a parody. Got it?

The achievements are fun, I had to consult a guide to get some of them. It also works natively on Linux if you follow this guide, but be warned that it is not supported.

The only downside of the game is that Gamepad is not supported. Shame on you, Shiro Games, shame on you.

This game had a great concept, but it was poorly executed. The plot and characters are uninteresting , and gameplay is all over the place. Evoland tried to do too much and consequentially wound up being mediocre in the extreme.

What starts off as a promising concept falls badly flat. The first half of the game is all about unlocking more and more features, which is implemented very well, and would have made a great game if they'd stuck with it. But as soon as you unlock "3D" the game just becomes alternately a bad zelda clone and a bad FF clone. The concept of "unlocks" goes out the window, in favor of "whatever gimick we feel like giving you for a short while, then taking away".

The puzzles requiring you to switch between different "eras" are briliant. Pity that this idea was so sparingly and arbitrarily applied.

Bottom line: A great set of ideas looking for a better game.

A short, sweet, but well written love letter to the games of the 80s and 90s, Evoland is a must play for anyone who grew up on classic Zelda, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. There's even a Diablo level thrown in for good measure. Evoland is quite literally a walk through RPG history, starting with black and white 8-bit and ending with 6th gen level graphics. Nintendo's infamous "rule of 3" is in abundance, as are the frequent turn based FF/DQ battles. The game has a few bugs, and hit detection on some things is a bit off in the Zelda segments, but it's hardly game breaking. I have to stress that the game is short and has little to no replay value, but it's still well worth it for fans of the old school.

It's not often that I find myself really enjoying a game but agreeing wholeheartedly with the people who gave it a negative review. Yet, that's what I experienced with Evoland, an RPG that bills itself as a "journey through the history of action/adventure gaming".

Evoland exists more as unrealized potential than as a genuinely good RPG. The gameplay/story elements it gets right are amazing, but it also has many problems that keep it from being a standout in the genre.

The game itself takes heavy influences from the Final Fantasy games. You start out as an random knight in a forest, quickly gaining the ability to do basic things like walk in different directions, fight enemies and learn more about the plot (which is only there for the sake of an achievement joke). From there, you meet a young girl who aids you in your journey and you both set off to defeat the evil lord who's trying to take over the world. Pretty standard stuff.

More than anything else in the game, the plot (and by proxy, the introduction and jokes about various RPG concepts) is really only good for the first hour. Many of the gameplay elements fall apart the further you go into the game.

Chief among them is the random battle system. Not only is it incredibly annoying (you get attacked every few steps on the world map), but there's no real purpose for any of it. You can attack or heal, and you gain levels that give you more HP or magic power, but this doesn't translate to the rest of the game. There are three distinct battle systems - the standard RPG turn-based system, a Torchlight-inspired hack-n-slash with a health globe, and a Zelda-esque dungeon mode with heart containers. None of these systems have anything to do with each other, and there's no point grinding in the overworld.

The same goes for the collectibles you find. There are gamecards (based off Triple Triad/Triad Master from Final Fantasy) that are scattered throughout the world, but their purpose is never clear until halfway through, and playing games with them is pointless. There's a powerful magic attack that unlocks after a boss battle, but you have to wait a very, very long time to use it, and its only use is to kill trash mobs. You get a bunch of items dumped on you during the hack-n-slash dungeon, but most of them don't do anything at all, and the minimap you gain in said dungeon doesn't even work half the time.

It's frustrating, because when the game is firing on all cylinders, it's a wonderful experience. There was a moment where I was trying to figure out a puzzle in a forest, seamlessly switching between 2D Zelda-style graphics and a full 3D realization of the same forest, and marveling in awe at how fluid the transition was. Likewise, there are some amusing jokes and throwbacks to games like Final Fantasy VII and VIII that had me smirking as I played.

The best part of the game is the sense of achievement you get when you find a new chest, and open it for a random surprise. This runs the gamut from increased graphics to gameplay changes, new weapons and more. It's that sense of pursuit for the next unlock that drives my enjoyment of the game.

The gameplay itself is also enjoyable, and the constant belittling of the main characters by NPCs is quite amusing, especially when you can't speak to adults in the early game until you eat a magical seed that inexplicably causes you to age a decade and become an adult.

In the end, I felt that Evoland was a great experience in spite of the problems associated with it, and I'm excited to see what the developers will bring to the table for the sequel (also available on Steam). The evolving gameplay and charming characterization is what sets this apart from a lot of other RPGs.

Definitely worth checking out, if only for the first hour.

For more reviews, visit my Curator page, Alex's RPG Recommendations!

When I went into this game, I was really looking forward to it. A nostolgia trip that takes you through the best of top down adventure, RPG and turn based battles. What is actually here is a brief parody game poking fun at itself and tropes across two decades of game genres and technological advances.

To my dismay, Evoland bluntly tells you, you're in this era of RPGs. I guess its meant for comedy, but I just didn't care for it. You'll unlock different eras of games and different technologies, such as sound effects, music, 16 bit graphics, high definition textures, 3D battle systems and so on. Its all part of the joke. You'll see all the stereotypes and tropes here and the game will be quick to point them out to you so that you'll understand its a joke.

Evoland has great graphics, and some gameplay elements that would make for a great game. This feels like a good tech demo since every era is so brief with no depth. I can understand paying $5 if they use this engine to make a real full fledged game, but you'll breeze through this game with no challenge. I would say its the perfect game for kids, but with so much hinging on nostalgia, kids might not understand.

You'll play in top down Zelda segments, using a sword to cut down grass, bombs to blow up walls and arrows to transfer fire between lit and unlit candles. Eventually that top down will turn into a 3D version of itself which you can switch between using crystals. Its a nice system that I would have liked to see a lot more of if not be its own game. There are Final Fantasy 2 style towns, random battles and turn based combat, but there is no depth to combat. Its all turn based fighting where your main character has no skills. The secondary character has spells, but nothing lost for using the spells like a traditional turn based RPG would have. Eventually the old school RPG updates itself to be 3D later on in the game.

Eventually, you'll find a Final Fantasy 8 style town. After that you'll find a Diablo styled dungeon with gold, health orbs and loot dropping on the ground for you to collect. It felt like a button mashing chore to get through it. Nothing intelligent to the gameplay, just button mashing.

In the game you'll collect gold, cards and stars, but other than that, there's not much going on. There is little need for gold since there is barely anything to buy. The stars just go to an achievement. The cards lead to a Final Fantasy 8 inspired mini game that is nice to play where your cards have numbers on each of the four sides of the cards and you lay them down in a grid of 3 by 3 to determine who has the most cards once you've thrown down. It is a great feature to have and they went the extra mile to include it.

With that said, the game just feels so hollow, all style, no substance. There is no storyline twist, such as an evil wizard devolves the land once you've easily breezed through the evolutionary eras. I knew how far I had progressed based on what evolutionary stage I was on. It just felt disappointing. Since there is no depth, the combat is really just tedium if not button mashing. The focus was on making the game feel like the other games we know and love.

As a comedy game it missed its mark with me in the 3 hours it took to complete it. There were definitely highs and boring lows. If it was more difficult the game wouldn't be fun after the laughs wear off. I've gone through it twice now and disliked it more the second time.

Might not be the best RPG around in terms of story and lenght, but it features a very interesting concept of multiple environmental and combat systems which can be found througout the history of RPG games (i.e. Legend of Zelda, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Diablo game mechanics and graphics, among others). As you continue through the game, you'll unlock new mechanics and new graphic modes which resemble the next step in the genre's evolution - hence the name "Evoland". It's worth the price for a couple of hours of fun, a nice story and a look through the story of the genre.

Evoland is a charming tribute to the history of RPGs. Obviously influenced by The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Diablo, there's a lot to love in this indie gem. You'll traverse the annals of video game history as you move from early 8-bit games through 16-bit and 3D, gaining little bonuses along the way that poke fun at RPG stereotypes. I smiled on more than one occasion at the humor in the game, and I was always looking forward to the next technological progression of my character.

In a way, Evoland presents as a haphazard combination of themes. On the one hand, you have the excellent unlockable tributes to video game history. You unlock the ability to enter houses, you gain the ability to fight, and you'll be able to fight random enemies. All good, and all evenly and comically presented. However, the game eventually becomes a casual RPG with a light story that features frequent testaments to the major moments in RPG classics. While it is a little jarring to have your little world suddenly begin to be fleshed out, it makes sense mechanically and keeps the game moving.

As you journey on through this adventure, you'll play a collectible card game, solve Zelda-style puzzles, find optional collectible items, and enjoy many different modes of play. Evoland is something special, and anyone who looks upon the roots of RPGs fondly will enjoy this nostalgic love letter.

I feel bad giving this game a thumbs down, because it has (or had rather) lots of potential. What it turned out to be was a short, extremely underwhelming mishmash of classic games, dumbed down to the point where all of the enjoyment of the originals is gone.

How can one make a game that is part Zelda, part Final Fantasy, and part Diablo that sucks? Well, take 5 minutes worth of Zelda gameplay, make the controls slightly less responsive, and stretch it out for 30 minutes. Final Fantasy? Have 3 - and only 3 - different types of enemies that require the same amount of attacks to kill whether you're at level 1 or 5. And imagine Diablo with no difficulty and pointless item drops.

The whole game is an exercise in redundancy, filled with stolen famous one-liners from games we love, only to be regurgitated out of the context that made them memorable in the first place. Had the game been much, much longer, with more variation in enemies, items, and, well, basic gameplay, Evoland could have done well.

My opinion: Evoland was a good game, but I was expecting way too much from it.

I was sorely disappointed when the game ended. But that doesn't mean it was bad. On the contrary, it was, for the most part, pretty enjoyable. Evoland shows the history of game design (limited exclusively to adventure games) from it's very beginnings, but disappointingly stops short of modern day. This made the game surprisingly short, but they weren't kidding when they said 'A Short Story'. My major gripe with it, is that it's not the evolution of adventure games as much as it is 'The Evolution of The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy Games'. There's obviously more to adventure than that, and even though those two are both superb series in themselves, the spotlight could have been cast to others. And the fact that those two games are featured so predominately kind of makes the slight reference to Skyrim and League of Legends seem out of place.

But aside from the limited scope, that limited scope is done fantastically. Since this is a game about gameplay evolution, new mechanics and features are introduced constantly. But their introduced so seamlessly that it feels natural. You never have to take a pause to read instructions or do a tutorial, you just get it. That's where the game shines. It sets out to show gameplay evolution, and that's what it does. If you're an veteran of video games, you'll enjoy being able to relive some past experiences that you just don't get in AAA titles today. But, if you're a veteran gamer, then you'll be annoyed at some just as you smile at others.

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