Everhood: The Musical RPG I Never Knew I Needed

within the rpgs it's become a pretty common trend to spice up the basic turn-based formula with something entirely new whether that just be added mechanics onto the already existing formula or twisting the formula with something unique as someone who doesn't mind sitting down to play a solid turn-based rpg it's always interesting seeing what people can come up with to breathe life into the formula but then there's those who throw it right out the window to create something never seen before it doesn't happen often however when it does the end product is definitely worth experiencing hello everyone this is the rpg monger and today i've got to tell you all about everhood having only found out about it days before it released everhood has some of the most unique gameplay i've seen in a long time at first glance it appears to be a rhythm game rpg but on closer inspection i wouldn't say that's an accurate description since when you actually get into it i'd say everhood is more of a music-based bullet hell of sorts the battle system revolving around you dodging attacks that come out in tune to the music although a lot of the time i did find myself dodging to the rhythm without realizing it basically everhood is a reverse guitar hero and like all great battle systems it's an incredibly simple premise that leaves a lot of room to add further mechanics but off the bat this game isn't exactly a walk in the park either unless you put it on easier difficulties everhood can provide a serious challenge the further you play through it mix again matching different attacks to keep you on your toes for instance with the normal attacks that come out alongside being able to dodge them it's also possible to jump over them the jump itself forcing you to time stuff perfectly as it doesn't leave much room for error though if you try dodging while jumping the protagonist performs a dodge roll of sorts allowing you to make it out alive when trapped under a wall of attacks all mechanics combined it creates a really fun take on music-based battle systems but that's only half of it as every character you fight receives their own unique battle theme every battle and everhood is distinct from the rest whether it be something simple like different attack patterns to coincide with the music or entirely new attacks altogether throughout playing the game one of the main things i consistently looked forward to was just how they could spice battles up further and man they did not disappoint plus on top of all that everhood has a tendency to hit you of some of the craziest visuals ever ned battle so just when you thought everything was going smoothly well too bad granted if you're prone to seizures this isn't the game for you in the slightest but if not you're in for one hell of a ride no joke compared to the many different battle systems i've seen everhoods immediately became one of my favorites in fact the game even comes with the tools for people to make their own battles which personally i think is really neat and while there's more to the battle system than that for the sake of not spoiling anyone we'll touch on that later because even though in my eyes this battle system already makes the game worth buying that's not all everhood has going for it as you'd expect with the game placing an emphasis on music everhood's soundtrack is the real deal being perfectly honest at multiple points of the game i was so floored by the music that i ended up losing fights because of it take my word it's so great not to mention everhood's story and characters aren't lacking either starting off simple with the plot premise of a wooden doll trying to get its arm back the characters you meet along the way are all very endearing the comedic moments spread throughout the journey not falling flat either however i will say there's much much more to this game than meets the eye like another game i talked about recently everhood is best experienced with next to no prior knowledge of the game i mean up until now i've mostly been showing gameplay that appears in the free demo of the game so believe me when i say there's so much more to see in turn if any of that caught your interest go get everhood it's not that expensive and i guarantee it'll be worth your time that being said now i have to go into the rest of the game enormous spoilers incoming from the moment you boot up everhood it's essentially established that the entire world of the game is inhabited by immortal beings what with the game making you agree to becoming one just to enter the realm and just before you take control of a seemingly broken wooden doll named red a little blue gnome steals one of its arms immediately setting up the initial goal of the game to retrieve it so a couple battles later and an encounter with an interesting masked figure red catches up to the blue thief their boss gold pig attempting to get rid of red by throwing them into the incinerator at this point while most of the game has been fairly easy to get you acclimated to the gameplay after red supposedly gets incinerated everhood takes off the training wheels like seriously after all the battles being relatively normal nothing grabs your attention more than a bunch of enigmatic gnomes dissolving reality itself hell even the devs of the game show up to mess with you however in the battle before you fight the gnomes a mysterious pink figure shows up towards the end of the fight they don't have any significance now but just keep them in mind anyways once red survives the gnome armageddon the same disembodied voice that welcomed you to everhood shows up again imparting the first of the cryptic absolute truths for this one it alludes to hard choices in red's immediate future essentially setting in stone that the retrieval of their lost arm might not be the main focus of the plot but just like that red's body in everhood is restored the doll happening upon an abandoned blue thief much like red blue is also in a predicament as gold pigs stole their legs uniting the two under the common goal of retrieving their body parts so now with the initial part of the game done things get a bit more interesting everhood adopting a sort of non-linear approach to plot progression while not all of them lead to more plot just yet the game gives you a hub world with various doors leading to different sections of the realm of note as opposed to all the doors that lead to new unique areas one of them just leads to a small dark room apparently inhabited by lost spirits much like the one that appeared earlier but we'll come back to them later going in the order i initially chose when i played through everhood first red goes to a cursed blue castle housing a variety of different characters personally my favorites here were definitely the slime brothers as them playing the air guitar and planks of wood was way funnier than it should have been for me oh and nosferatu's tennis game was a neat surprise as well but once you reach the top of the castle there's a mirror that leads to some pretty interesting dialogue none other than red speaking for the first time in the game apparently it seems like there's some other consciousness residing in red apart from the player that said consciousness evidently holding a deep hatred towards the player for controlling their body again even more foreshadowing to add to the pile after the castle next up is the lighthearted racetrack area complete with its own static movie theater i've gotta say props to the devs for retooling the battle system into a fully functioning racing mini game for this zone it really shows how much care was put into the game though once you leave the area red is tricked into entering the mushroom forest soon encountering the absolute best character in the entire game green mage springing back to life due to red returning his eye to him green mage immediately recognizes red and blue acting friendly to the duo despite calling red the enemy in turn despite helping them out by removing the boulder in their way green mage attacks red the battle introducing special attacks that deal double the damage but it doesn't last very long since once green mage realizes how strong red is they lose interest in fighting the doll their dialogue before they leave making it pretty apparent that they're not all too intact mentally so past that ride it's not long before red goes on another as after finding all the mushrooms of the forest a slim mushroom hidden by the forest spirit fittingly sends red on one of the most psychedelic battles of the game and thankfully it's pretty worth it with the same disembodied voice showing up to impart another absolute truth this one equally as cryptic as the last one though that's enough shrooms for now as red continues through the forest they stumble upon a mysterious rabbit leading them directly into the trap of professor orange a scientist who seems to also hold animosity towards red like green mage nevertheless much like everything else so far the scientist barely puts a dent in red's journey if anything's solely providing more solid tunes just look at his assistant grundle go anyhow with the mushroom forest segment completed the only accessible area left is through the midnight door leading to a small town by now reddit's basically met most of the characters that reside in everhood but they haven't really had the chance to get to know them outside of a few conversations so seeing that what better way to get attached to them than playing a game green mage being the gm of course honestly this segment is really great as it not only serves to provide more quality dialogue and comedy but it teaches you a new battle mechanic that might just be useful later on not to mention the battles during this part are pretty solid too one of my personal favorites being the dark knight that straight up ditches their sword to groove with you and at the end of the campaign green mage plays the main antagonist of the session seriously testing your ability to deflect red attacks thankfully right before red gets defeated rasta beast steps in to save the day resolving the campaign so now that you've formed an inseparable bond with the characters through the medium of role-playing games green mage rewards red with a piece of a door the other piece is red collected combining with it to form the only door left to go through while throughout everhood the devs have made use of unity in various ways from cool effects to 3d models the desert portion accessible past the shattered door genuinely caught me by surprise plus luckily for red and blue rasta beast set up a little campsite along the way allowing the two to rest before continuing on during their downtime red remains as silent as ever but weirdly enough the blue seems to be forgetting the whole reason they were on their journey in the first place everything put together it definitely feels like things are building towards a finale so after strolling through the desert some more to the tune of a really nice song red arrives at gold pig's fortress inside without a moment to spare the purple maid you saw earlier shows up resurrecting a zombie and a skeleton before fighting red themselves in an attempt to drive them away though just like their green counterpart they don't stand a chance the same thing happening with gold pig thus after a long journey and meeting a boatload of wacky characters it seems like everhood's story is coming to a close blue getting their legs back and gold pig allowing red to get their arm back however taking the gigantic amounts of foreshadowing we've received into account there may have been a larger reason for red's arm being stolen other than to satiate gold pig's greed but anyways once red finally retrieves it that's the end of everhood a pretty fun ride all around or at least that's what the game wants you to think because after cutting the credits short everhood unveils its latter half the rest of the game making the first half look like merely a tutorial because now as red is complete once more they've regained the ability to absorb and release attacks the froghood helped you out at the beginning of the game explaining that red's true purpose is to release the inhabitants of everhood from their immortality it's an incredibly dark turn no doubt about it but an understandable one at the same time as they describe the everhood's remaining denizens have existed for uncountable eons their lives having stagnated long before the players showed up and frog isn't the only one who holds that sentiment since once red walks back the lost souls show up reiterating that red must carry out the murderous task the thing is if you're someone like me who quickly gets attached to jumbles of pixels this plot twist was a hard pill to swallow the focus of my playthrough immediately shifting to see if i could somehow get out of killing to make matters worse when i was checking on the characters to see what dialogue changes there were the forest spirit that appears earlier on straight up asks red to vanquish them explaining further why immortality is suffering again i left the area to try to postpone the inevitable but little did i know that by doing that it reveals an entirely new door in the hub intrigued i checked to see the area inside meeting none other than frog again though unlike before they're not as friendly to red annoyed by the fact that they hadn't killed anything yet and soon that annoyance turns to rage frog taking it upon themselves to beat some sense into both red and the player let me say right now when i was going through my first run of the game stumbling upon this stuff by chance was absolutely insane and the fight that follows is quite possibly one of the biggest highlights of the entire experience off the bat the song that's playing slaps ultra hard but when frog ascends into an actual guitar deity pelting you with walls of attacks i've never been more equally hyped and scared in my life like for real just describing it here doesn't do this fight justice to how hard it goes i mean incredible music and challenge aside just the attention to detail as frog switches up the guitars they're playing throughout the song is so great he even plays the guitars differently depending on the part of the song throughout the game's fights there's loads of little details like these but the ones here are definitely my favorite but that's enough gushing for now after the fight pushes frog to their limits they eventually give up entirely begging an unseen power to free them from the never-ending suffering that is immortality that same disembodied voice reappearing to grant their wish removing them from everhood and shattering red interestingly enough this is technically one of everhood's endings although you can thankfully pick up where you left off if you reload the save so going back to the main plot from here the only thing left to do is kill all the characters you just spent the last few hours getting attached to granted many characters you killed do seem pretty indifferent to their lives ending if not flat out desire and get like the forest spirit which makes sense though at the same time there's an equal amount of characters who put up a fight whether it be solely due to a basic instinct to preserve their life or because they're just not ready yet regardless red does what has to be done the doors for each area pointing out which characters need to be offed for most of the characters their fights aren't any different from when you'd fought them without the arm but for those who receive entirely new fights that's where everhood truly shines going in the order i originally took first on the chopping block are the residents of the cursed castle many of them not putting up much of a fight until the slime brothers since when you defeat one of them the other flies into a blind rage bombarding red with attacks before being defeated as well even though by now i'd already understood why red needs to do this it also didn't soften the blow at all it being immensely painful to see all my favorite characters die but what caught me by surprise was as red goes up the castle stairs even the game's cursor turns against them somehow having one of the crazier fights in the game it's just those animations man they make things so much better then following that battle for the rest of the game the game's cursor is replaced by red's hand any narration also switching over to red which is mildly ominous to say the least however once red takes care of all the necessary characters in the castle there's a mysterious pink area you can go to that apparently leads to bubblegum land the path seemingly going on forever until you decide to leave it the only problem is i probably walked through it for 10 minutes thinking it would eventually lead to something which now that i think about it was essentially nothing compared to another part of the game and if you do decide to leave it only then does red reach bubblegum land gold pig himself taking refuge in the area to hide from red in the end it doesn't amount to much though as gold pig goes down just as easily as the rest next there's the mushroom forest or more specifically professor orange's lab where an elaborate obstacle course has been set up to keep red from killing them complete with a kind of banger theme too unfortunately for the professor they don't have many more defenses aside from that red making quick work of the lab's three residents it is worth pointing out before leaving the lab there's a note you can read that has a pretty massive lore drop but as i'll be devoting an entire section of this video to everhood's lore we'll come back to that later with two full areas down and next is the racetrack area most characters they are not really putting up a fight other than the constantly name-changing vampire you meet early on in the game rest in peace disco jimmy though speaking of discos now the only accessible zone left with characters inside is the very first area of the game nothing too notable happening aside from the constant death until you make your way towards where red originally was in the beginning because on the way reality literally melts and in this impromptu battle none other than the gnomes show up this time accompanied by strange multicolored beings another psychedelic trip to add to the pile i guess after that things do end up getting a bit sad again as blue has been waiting for red in the very same spot where they technically first met lamenting to red about their forgetful existence it's a pretty touching scene that only gets more so right before red kills them blue making sure to let red know that they trust them so with that soul-crushing scene done the only area left to liberate is midnight town which unsurprisingly has some of the best fights in the entire game two of which are in the town's flower shop the shopkeepers fight going way harder than it has any right to i mean putting it frankly you're just not getting the proper everhood experience if your screen isn't exploding in a flash of color as one of the game's best tracks plays in the background that my friend is how you make a memorable game and like i said that's not the only fight in the shop since if you complete brown mage's quest they give you a key that can be used at two locations one of them being the shop's chest in turn once you unlock the chest prepare to be blown away as the fight that ensues is no joke in fact the track for this fight is the only one in the game with actual vocals which was really neat when i myself was playing i couldn't focus too much on them though as this one is definitely on the harder end opening the fight with a scary amount of attacks and not letting up to make matters worse if you want to get an item to use later red needs to defeat the blue guy in this fight which unless you lower the difficulty can be even harder but now that the game has overloaded your senses back to back there's one more notable fight left the best lad in all of everhood green mage hiding away in their basement things take a turn for the darker as covering the walls are endless telly marks each one marking a year green mage has spent in everhood and it's not just a singular room since to the right of where green mage is there's a hallway that i kid you not takes three real hours to run through why do i know this well that's because i painstakingly went through it myself on my first playthrough at first it was just a blank hallway so things weren't too bad but after around an hour and a half rocks start appearing in the hallway forcing you to pay attention for the rest of the trek needless to say by the time i reach the end i think i understand why green mage lost a fair bit of their sanity 10 out of 10 game hell people actually did the math for how many telemarks there are across the entire basement and approximately green mage has been in everhood for over 6 million years definitely sheds a bit more light on why frog was so insistent about not wanting to wait for another human to arrive but more importantly at the end of the hallway is a massive mural of sorts filled with a variety of different scribbles and handwriting whether or not it serves any significance other than congratulating you for making it to the end i'm not entirely sure though past that there's a nice flower bed for red to rest on allowing you the player to recover from the corridor of suffering and honestly i needed it since the only fight left is with green mage initially starting out like their first fight but in typical green mage fashion being cut short so their final battle can be a true showdown they're not playing around either since green mage's last battle is another one of my all-time favorites like they straight up jam out with you mid-fight what's not to love though with that not only are they the last mage gone but according to the magic 8-ball you get early on there's only one entity left if you thought everhood was crazy so far the finale is something else entirely returning to the hub one more time red needs to confront the lost spirits the spirits guiding red to now kill the very doors within everhood permanently shutting out the realms areas so after that with barely anything left in neverhood the only thing left to kill is the very sun itself the ensuing battle fittingly being really intense above all it's the feeling of red zooming towards the sun that makes us fight truly unique the effect being achieved through attacks taking longer to reach you but obviously that's not all because once red extinguishes the sun they leave everhood entirely being confronted by all the lost spirits as it turns out the true identity of the spirits are characters who'd manage to die in everhood whether by their own hands through the incinerator or due to red before the events of the game all but confirming the somewhat cyclical nature of red's massacres plus they're not alone after the spirit's onslaught a ton of characters you'd kill throughout the game show up to attack the entire segment being one hell of a ride though then the battle grinds to a screeching halt as red abruptly comes apart that same pink figure that's shown up throughout the game emerging from the doll apparently the characters all seem to know pink and as pink's dialogue hints at their presence within the doll was most likely why it was able to take lives in the first place but with the doll gone the player can no longer aid pink to do what must be done at least until a piece of the doll's clothes return allowing us to help them out one final time and right before everything ends the game provides one final resting point none other than frog showing up again happy that you ended up granting his last wish frog explains they're in a sort of waiting room at the moment a transitory realm before you move on to the next plane of existence personally as i still felt a bit guilty for messing with frog earlier on this part was a big relief seeing them safe and sound so with that motivation it's time to put an end to everything and in true everhood fashion the game doesn't disappoint with its final battle pink literally facing off against reality itself the visuals and songs that accompany the battle going above and beyond without a doubt it's one of the most memorable finales i've seen in a game in recent times pink's attacks eventually shattering reality permanently closing off everhood forever in any other game if things cut the credits right then i'd honestly be perfectly fine but to give the player one last hurrah pink finds themselves in the final part of the waiting room surrounded by all their friends like i said before with frog i needed something like this so badly as after murdering all the characters i'd become attached to everhood giving me some proper closure washed away the guilt immediately granted i guess the game had told me from the start that what red was doing was right but still man i get attached way too easily anyways once pink gets the chance to say goodbye to everyone they've got to move on to with the game squeezing in one extra celebratory battle on top of the previous segment i really didn't expect everhood to create such a happy ending after some of the earlier events of the game it's all just a really nice scene everyone from blue thief to brownmage thanking pink for liberating them and with that as that same disembodied voice gives the player some parting words of its own the game comes to a close or at least it does after a three-eyed cat deity barges in and corrupts that save file however after you beat the game once everhood has a new game plus not having too many new aspects outside of a new superboss that same cat god appearing to challenge you if everhood left you wanting more challenge this fight will absolutely deliver it because on hard mode it honestly took me a collective two or so hours to win once it's not the only super boss in everhood either because if you collect three gems spread across the game the actual devs of the game show up to fight you their fight also curbs stomping me into infinity just a tip maybe don't fight them back to back like i did these two fights left my hands aching for days i swear the fact that people have already somehow beaten both these fights without taking a single bit of damage blows my mind you all are hyper talented though once you beat the cat god the area behind the boss has some pretty important stuff so with that let's address all of everhood's lore to make things as understandable as possible let's start with the actual nature of everhood and go from there originally being revealed in one of the notes an uncountable amount of years ago a group of humans discovered an entry point into everhood at first only a few who belonged to the institute who discovered it knew of its existence but after much debate those who'd initially found it shared it to the world to no one's surprise a great majority of the human population made the decision to become immortal only a few remaining behind due to age sickness or personal reasons after all everhood appeared to be a paradise who wouldn't want all their desires fulfilled endlessly in a perfect world the everhood would have remained as just that a paradise where everyone was happy forever but bringing it in from their previous societies a hierarchy would eventually take shape at the top were mages the beings who'd bonded their souls with special gems in exchange for magical power at the cost of one of their senses in the early days beings made of pure energy were the most powerful in the realm but as the game heavily implies the mages most likely got rid of them by force i mean just take the one red comes across not only were they locked away inside a chest but the only person who had access to it was brown mage meaning they're probably the one who trapped the being in the first place so clearly things didn't start out all that great in the everhood to make matters worse as the decades turned to centuries that after mentioned endless fun was starting to take a serious toll on the bodies of many immortals for some that were never human in the first place it didn't prove to be that much of a problem but for the millions of humans that chose immortality it certainly became a prevalent issue as a result to match the ever-growing desires of their immortal minds many began to alter their bodies through various means eventually not even resembling their original forms and in time with their desires growing more demented as people searched for new ways to have fun things began to devolve into chaos a great majority of everyone turning on each other out of pure boredom soon what was once a heavenly paradise for immortals became twisted into a hellish nightmare many figuring out ways to end their immortality and disappearing altogether the method most if not all of them using being the incinerator though that's only half of everhood's lore on the other hand there's pink the lore for them being much more spread out in comparison in terms of what we know about their past long ago it's heavily implied pink was a human and at some point they were hit by a car the thing is in the flashback where you see this if you go left or right you'll see one of the mysterious multicolored beings that appear in different parts of the game now to me this means that after dying those beings brought pink soul to the everhood explaining why they don't have a body admittedly i am kind of diving into theory territory now so i may be entirely off base but it does seem likely and if that is the case maybe the reason why pink has the power to liberate the souls in everhood was due to those same beings intervening regardless when they make it to everhood unlike the rest who arrived they had no body so as a temporary solution professor orange would make dolls for them to inhabit allowing them to live alongside the rest of everhood's inhabitants now at this point things become a bit less clear but some time after pink began inhabiting dolls they went on a killing spree throughout the realm most likely caused by an entity like the player also inhabiting the doll and channeling pink's abilities through it it's unclear whether this happened once or numerous times though when the game actually starts the characters you see are only an incredibly small fraction of how many used to inhabit the everhood in fact there's a good chance that frog was actually a victim of one of these killings what with red not being required to kill them in a run and their true form as a lost spirit briefly showing after you fight them in the game's pacifist route though to be fair i suppose they could have been one of the many that chose to go into the incinerator hell since it's been seen that anyone using pink's powers can physically obliterate whole areas there's a good chance everhood used to be far more vast than what we see of it in the game anyways whether it be due to pink's intervention being thrown into the incinerator or one of the characters defeating the doll the massacres in the past were cut short and eventually pink chose to keep the dolls they inhabit in pieces as to prevent another massacre from ever happening we all know now that with the events of the game that didn't really amount to much and whenever the doll would awake again with murderous intent it usually wouldn't make it past the incinerator so fast forwarding a bit to after the cat god fight a new game plus after being incinerated in a previously unknown incinerator pink emerges from the doll shaking off the player's influence in the process then like they've done many times the professor gives pink a new doll to inhabit this one colored yellow rather than red while the scene doesn't seem to have too much importance in the grand scheme of things it does shine a light on pink's existence and everhood professor orange continuously giving pink temporary bodies as they try to find a permanent solution for them interestingly if you've killed the professor before this point an alternate far more depressing ending plays where pink remains alone forever though with that that's about all the lore there is or at least all the lore i know of right now as of writing the script the game is only a bit over a week old and i'm confident people are gonna continue picking it apart and discovering new things like at the moment i could name a ton of things that could end up being pretty important for instance what's the importance of that grey wizard hat in the context of everhood it possibly refers to a mage who no longer resides in the realm maybe being one of the many who entered the incinerator personally my theory is that they became the lost spirit that helps red out towards the end as earlier on they call brown mage their old friend and what about irvine a rat character that's hidden away from you in the game after you chase them around they straight up open a portal out of everhood in its entirety meaning that there's a pretty good chance they're more powerful than even the mages plus don't even get me started on cat god whether they're the creator of everhood or just an entity that influences it is a whole other can of worms at the end of the day all this lore combined with the game's stellar plot makes the whole package truly compelling to call this game a roller coaster would be pretty apt as throughout my time with everhood it never stopped taking twists and turns to keep both the gameplay and story fresh seriously massive props to everyone who worked on this game from the devs to everyone who contributed music it really came together so well of course if you're someone who just doesn't enjoy bullet hells or music-centric games i can see how you wouldn't enjoy everhood in the slightest different preferences are different preferences after all but as someone who always looks for games with solid soundtracks everhood pretty much supplied me with everything i needed for a concept i've never seen done quite like this it did it super well because honestly that's what indie games are all about taking inspiration from already successful games combining it with a novel idea and creating something entirely new and unique in its own right and needless to say everhood succeeded on all those fronts as always if you want to keep up with what i'm working on with my channel make sure to follow me on twitter i've been pretty good about staying active on there recently don't worry by the way i'm still hard at work on the part 2 for my battle network video and now to those who've continued to help out the channel i'd like to give a heartfelt thank you to ali elman jules lee and everyone else who've decided to contribute you guys are the best if you want to help me continue keeping this channel alive and receive a special thank you amongst a lot of other cool stuff do check out my patreon link in the description oh and real quick i finally put together a youtube channel for my twitch vods do go check it out if you're interested in seeing stuff like my initial playthrough of everhood so that being said i'm the rpg monger and don't forget that each and every one of you are fantastic

Channel: The Rpg Monger

Views: 60,013

Keywords: Everhood, Review, Analysis, Explained, Explanation, Lore, Indie RPG, RPG, Indie, Game, The Rpg Monger, rpg monger

Id: fCljVCW9K7s

Length: 30min 3sec (1803 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 23 2021