Retrospective: Evoland

I got around to playing Evoland a couple of weeks ago, and I had some thoughts on it. Evoland focuses primarily on the cosmetic differences between generations of games in the action or turn based RPG genres. Pixels to textured, 3D models. This is all quite surface level, and Shiro Games missed out on a wonderful opportunity: Exploring game design through the generations. I believe that if they had instead used only one of the two aforementioned genres and centered the game around evolving design philosophies, Evoland would've been a finer product; or at least a more interesting one.

I see this hypothetical Evoland (hereon referred to as Hevoland) starting off as an ancient computer RPG, one that consists only of text. A basic parser allows the player to interact with the world. As the player progresses eventually they are blessed with wireframe graphics, and other small upgrades to the look and feel of the game. In time they are expected to allocate stat points upon an increase in level, and torches are required when entering a dark area. Characters will need to be fed at regular intervals, or risk starvation. NPCs offer little information, or in some cases confusing messages that will only become clear later in the game, and even upon the confusion lifting the player will still question why an elderly man in some town understood the gimmick to a specific boss battle. Hiccups and quirks aside, the player has a great deal of freedom. There are plenty of dungeons and quests available, and the order one completes them is entirely up to them.

Lets fast forward to a point where the game has reached a state on par with Final Fantasy. While many aspects of the game have improved dramatically(graphics, music, interface) the game has changed significantly in other ways as well. Manual stat allocation has been replaced with a system that awards certain stats (Strength, Defense, etc) each level based on the Class of the character. Hunger meters have been removed, along with the need to bear a torch when venturing inside a deep cave. The game will also become linear. Town A needs assistance with Dungeon A, and upon completion of Dungeon A the bridge to Town B will be cleared of obstruction. The text parser has now long since been abolished, and NPCs now just repeat a single message to the characters. As Hevoland continues, the quality of the story will improve just as steadily as the graphics and music do, but the game will become far easier. As new systems are introduced,(for example, lets say magic spells are now no longer learned at a specific level for each class, but instead the game has adopted a magic system similar to Materia from Final Fantasy VII) tutorials are dished out in various forms: Text windows addressing the player, starter dungeons, in-game text from player characters/NPCs or a mix of the above. The overall difficulty of monsters and bosses will drop quickly as well, greatly reducing the players need to "grind" their characters to higher levels. Eventually, except for the occasional optional boss, the player will be able to go from one dungeon to another without any grinding at all, so simplistic will the battles become. Voice overs will be introduced (with varying levels of quality) as cut-scenes become more prominent.

Lets jump forward again, this time by quite a ways. Hevoland is rapidly approaching the modern age. Beautifully rendered 3D worlds await the player (lets say it's on par with Final Fantasy XIII) along with professional voice acting and facial motion capture. While characters have fleshed out back-stories, motivations, and evolving relationships with their co-stars and enemies, other aspects of the game have become further simplified in order to focus on the story being told. Dungeons, which for some time have had convenient ladders or portals in the bosses room that provided an immediate exit to the dungeon have gone one step past that. As the game no longer has a world map or overworld to speak of, Hevoland is essentially one long, winding road. Upon defeating the final enemy at the end of one section the characters are brought to the next via some plot device that's revealed in a cutscene. In between our last jump forward in time and now the Materia-esque system has been changed to something closely resembling Final Fantasy XII's License Board, but now the game has once again favored simplicity over the complexity that customization resides alongside. Keeping with the example of Final Fantasy XIII, a system not too unlike the Crystarium is introduced, once again removing another element for the player to consider so they can focus on the dialog. To top it off, while all these changes are made to each and every part of the game in order to keep the player engaged with the tale being told, the story is in a precarious position. Certain plot points straddle the line between intricacy and convolution, and others struggle to remain straightforward but not transparent.

Now, this is all quite obviously something that Shiro Games wasn't capable of creating. The amount of money necessary to make a game of this size and scope was not in their budget, so trust me when I say I'm not disappointed that they didn't deliver something of the same scale as my hypothetical Evoland. But if they had zeroed in on the changing mechanics and design decisions made throughout the decades, it wouldn't have mattered at which point they began and ended in. The actual Evoland begins like an original Game Boy game and ends with something that one would see on a Nintendo DS, and the genre has seen massive changes in that time-frame alone. Ultimately, the final product felt like a mediocre mashup of genres, containing a bare-bones story and little challenge to speak of. The regular upgrade of cosmetic effects felt more like a cheap trick playing on nostalgia then "A short story of adventure video games evolution".

Final Thoughts: What if my hypothetical Evoland was played in reverse? Starting with the modern and ending in the ancient would not only be interesting in its own right, but the difficulty curve would make more sense(easy to hard rather than hard to easy). It would be easier for a larger audience to sit down and play, especially those with little to no experience of anything prior to RPGs on the SNES or Playstation. Actually, I think this way would be superior to my original ideas. To see a complicated story of political intrigue, religious dogma and megalomaniacal despots slowly reduced to the equivalent of defeating the evil wizard Mondain in Ultima would be a fascinating bit of storytelling, to say the least.

Also, as a question to any reading this, how do you see a hypothetical Evoland that is inspired purely by the action RPG (Legend of Zelda being their most obvious example) being created? Where would it start and end? What major changes would take place over the game? What games would you draw inspiration from, and why?

Thanks for reading. Any criticisms or expansions on my thoughts would be greatly appreciated.