I have mixed feelings about the original Everhood. I felt like there was potential there, but a lot of it was squandered with inconsistent characters, a failure to care properly about setup or payoff, and some of the worst messages I've seen in a video game ever (in particular, a suicidal character who praises you for killing them, stating they lacked the courage to do it themself). And yet I was still charmed by the music, the character designs and the feeling like the developers had a good message they wanted to share, only for them to fumble it. Despite all that I didn't like about the original, I had high hopes for the sequel.

I don't even know where to start with the sequel. I can't think of a single example of good setup and payoff. I can't think of a single character I found endearing, that I wanted to spend more time with. The whole thing just felt incoherent. Yes, I know the whole thing is supposed to be "psychadelic," but I just felt lost and confused the entire time, like I was waiting for the real game to start. There is so much that is just utterly devoid of anything substantial. I can't even really feel like I beat it. Everything was so hollow and unresolved that my brain refuses to accept it's over.

There are so many baffling decisions. It's like the devs' goal was to make sure no one could find the game fun.

There are random battles now, as if playing the same song five or eight or a dozen times is supposed to be fun. The combat system is frustrating, asking you to absorb dozens of the same color note in a row, with any mistakes (getting hit, absorbing a note of a different color) erasing your combo utterly. There were far too many cases where I would lose my combo for some stupid reason: the absorb button not responding like I expected to, some visual noise hiding a attack, or the cast button failing to respond in time.

The game's trailer makes a big deal out of "playing as your soul color," but this is determined by a pre-game personality quiz, and no relevance is ever given to what soul color you end up as. The game makes a big to-do out of letting you equip different weapons, but there are so few weapons, and I never felt like what weapon I was using mattered at all. You don't get a second weapon until a significant way into the game, at which point you're giving a choice of three weapons... only for two of those options to turn out to be fake, with the game always giving you the same weapon no matter what you chose. Why? What's the point?

In the end, you get four different weapons, all of which feel basically the same. The different attacks on the different weapons supposedly have different effects, but the game never bothers to explain what any of the statuses mean, and ultimately every weapon has a useless attack, a bad attack you can use in a pinch, and a good attack (that requires you to build a long and fragile combo chain).

The main way to become stronger is to acquire power gems. Your first quest makes it seem like power gems will be significant items, figuring into the setting in one way or another (e.g. being used to power a device, having a place of importance in a temple, etc.) But after that first quest, nearly all of the gems you find will just be in random treasure chests. Every chest in the game is either an increasingly meaningless amount of EXP, or a rare and limited way of upgrading your weapons. It's like they had a decent idea, but then got tired of it one area into the game.

Nothing ever felt like it made sense or was satisfying at all. You visit a Vegetable Kingdom and (after an interminable trudge through the desert followed by an interminable boat ride) end up getting looped into a plot to depose the Veggie King. But then you're caught while invading the castle, and are forced to enter a fighting tournament. You win the short and anti-climatic tournament, and that's it. There is no Veggie King. Nothing that happens in that sequence matters. The game just felt like one anti-climax after another. It all feels sloppy.

There was one character resolution I was interested in, and I accidentally triggered a sequence that forced me to leave the area where I could get that resolution, with no way to return. It feels like a sick joke.

There's no memorable song I can think of, not one memorable battle (aside from the stupidly hard battle the game keeps trying to force you into, before giving up and just letting the plot to progress regardless). There isn't one character who I felt like I enjoyed. There is no sequence I'd want to replay, no challenge I really enjoyed, no resolution I found satisfying, no cool beat I feel like sharing, no detail of the setting I'm curious to learn more about. There's a parade of betrayals in the game, and I could not care about any of them, because it never bothers to develop the characters or even make their relationships clear. It's nothing. It's all aggressively meaningless.

And on top of it all, it actively undoes the resolution at the end of Everhood 1. I genuinely don't understand who the devs thought this was for. With Everhood 1, it felt like the devs managed to stitch together a bunch of cool moments without giving proper thought to how to build up to those moments, or how to make sure characters had consistent motivations, or how to sell the metaphor of stagnation vs. death/change they clearly wanted to pursue. With Everhood 2... playing it feels like someone incoherently rambling about a setting they're trying to develop, forcing you to nod along. It's someone slamming their OCs together while yelling "DUALITY!!" at you.

I can't tell why this game was made. For people who didn't like Everhood 1, this game will make it look good by comparison. For people who did like Everhood 1, this game will laugh at you for thinking it had a meaningful conclusion. It's a game calibrated to piss you off at every turn and then mock you for thinking anything in it was ever going to matter.

It's not even bad in a fun way. It is not some deep meditation on nihilism. It's just tedious and pompous.

Edit: Upon further reflection, the ending is SO bad that I'm going to say the game actually, for a brief moment, becomes brilliant. What a perfect way to end a half-assed game than to drop down below quarter-ass for the finale.

If I give the devs the full force of my benefit of doubt -- more benefit of the doubt than I have ever afforded anyone in my life, even myself -- I _think_ I can glimpse a good message about rejecting nihilism and refusing to let others tell you what's meaningful. The game tries to come across as meaningless; but if you care, then you care, no matter what it says. I will forever be enamored with Rasta Beast showing up for the Reconciliation no matter what Everhood 2 has to say about Everhood 1.

...but that doesn't change the fact that the game feels incomplete, rushed and unwanted. It doesn't feel like the devs wanted to make it; it feels like they got pressured into doing it. The tedious battles, tepid soundtrack, hollow characters and incoherent plot don't suddenly become good because the game tells you it was always supposed to be terrible in the last minutes of the game. I think the "actually you're supposed to reject the nihilism presented by the game" theory would work better if the game were actually good. As it stands, the game doesn't give you a reason to reject the nihilism it presents. You're right, Shade. It was never going to mean anything.

I have mixed feelings about the original Everhood. I felt like there was potential there, but a lot of it was squandered with inconsistent characters, a failure to care properly about setup or payoff, and some of the worst messages I've seen in a video game ever (in particular, a suicidal character who praises you for killing them, stating they lacked the courage to do it themself). And yet I was still charmed by the music, the character designs and the feeling like the developers had a good message they wanted to share, only for them to fumble it. Despite all that I didn't like about the original, I had high hopes for the sequel. I don't even know where to start with the sequel. I can't think of a single example of good setup and payoff. I can't think of a single character I found endearing, that I wanted to spend more time with. The whole thing just felt incoherent. Yes, I know the whole thing is supposed to be "psychadelic," but I just felt lost and confused the entire time, like I was waiting for the real game to start. There is so much that is just utterly devoid of anything substantial. I can't even really feel like I beat it. Everything was so hollow and unresolved that my brain refuses to accept it's over. There are so many baffling decisions. It's like the devs' goal was to make sure no one could find the game fun. There are random battles now, as if playing the same song five or eight or a dozen times is supposed to be fun. The combat system is frustrating, asking you to absorb dozens of the same color note in a row, with any mistakes (getting hit, absorbing a note of a different color) erasing your combo utterly. There were far too many cases where I would lose my combo for some stupid reason: the absorb button not responding like I expected to, some visual noise hiding a attack, or the cast button failing to respond in time. The game's trailer makes a big deal out of "playing as your soul color," but this is determined by a pre-game personality quiz, and no relevance is ever given to what soul color you end up as. The game makes a big to-do out of letting you equip different weapons, but there are so few weapons, and I never felt like what weapon I was using mattered at all. You don't get a second weapon until a significant way into the game, at which point you're giving a choice of three weapons... only for two of those options to turn out to be fake, with the game always giving you the same weapon no matter what you chose. Why? What's the point? In the end, you get four different weapons, all of which feel basically the same. The different attacks on the different weapons supposedly have different effects, but the game never bothers to explain what any of the statuses mean, and ultimately every weapon has a useless attack, a bad attack you can use in a pinch, and a good attack (that requires you to build a long and fragile combo chain). The main way to become stronger is to acquire power gems. Your first quest makes it seem like power gems will be significant items, figuring into the setting in one way or another (e.g. being used to power a device, having a place of importance in a temple, etc.) But after that first quest, nearly all of the gems you find will just be in random treasure chests. Every chest in the game is either an increasingly meaningless amount of EXP, or a rare and limited way of upgrading your weapons. It's like they had a decent idea, but then got tired of it one area into the game. Nothing ever felt like it made sense or was satisfying at all. You visit a Vegetable Kingdom and (after an interminable trudge through the desert followed by an interminable boat ride) end up getting looped into a plot to depose the Veggie King. But then you're caught while invading the castle, and are forced to enter a fighting tournament. You win the short and anti-climatic tournament, and that's it. There is no Veggie King. Nothing that happens in that sequence matters. The game just felt like one anti-climax after another. It all feels sloppy. There was one character resolution I was interested in, and I accidentally triggered a sequence that forced me to leave the area where I could get that resolution, with no way to return. It feels like a sick joke. There's no memorable song I can think of, not one memorable battle (aside from the stupidly hard battle the game keeps trying to force you into, before giving up and just letting the plot to progress regardless). There isn't one character who I felt like I enjoyed. There is no sequence I'd want to replay, no challenge I really enjoyed, no resolution I found satisfying, no cool beat I feel like sharing, no detail of the setting I'm curious to learn more about. There's a parade of betrayals in the game, and I could not care about any of them, because it never bothers to develop the characters or even make their relationships clear. It's nothing. It's all aggressively meaningless. And on top of it all, it actively undoes the resolution at the end of Everhood 1. I genuinely don't understand who the devs thought this was for. With Everhood 1, it felt like the devs managed to stitch together a bunch of cool moments without giving proper thought to how to build up to those moments, or how to make sure characters had consistent motivations, or how to sell the metaphor of stagnation vs. death/change they clearly wanted to pursue. With Everhood 2... playing it feels like someone incoherently rambling about a setting they're trying to develop, forcing you to nod along. It's someone slamming their OCs together while yelling "DUALITY!!" at you. I can't tell why this game was made. For people who didn't like Everhood 1, this game will make it look good by comparison. For people who did like Everhood 1, this game will laugh at you for thinking it had a meaningful conclusion. It's a game calibrated to piss you off at every turn and then mock you for thinking anything in it was ever going to matter. It's not even bad in a fun way. It is not some deep meditation on nihilism. It's just tedious and pompous. Edit: Upon further reflection, the ending is SO bad that I'm going to say the game actually, for a brief moment, becomes brilliant. What a perfect way to end a half-assed game than to drop down below quarter-ass for the finale. If I give the devs the full force of my benefit of doubt -- more benefit of the doubt than I have ever afforded anyone in my life, even myself -- I _think_ I can glimpse a good message about rejecting nihilism and refusing to let others tell you what's meaningful. The game tries to come across as meaningless; but if you care, then you care, no matter what it says. I will forever be enamored with Rasta Beast showing up for the Reconciliation no matter what Everhood 2 has to say about Everhood 1. ...but that doesn't change the fact that the game feels incomplete, rushed and unwanted. It doesn't feel like the devs wanted to make it; it feels like they got pressured into doing it. The tedious battles, tepid soundtrack, hollow characters and incoherent plot don't suddenly become good because the game tells you it was always supposed to be terrible in the last minutes of the game. I think the "actually you're supposed to reject the nihilism presented by the game" theory would work better if the game were actually good. As it stands, the game doesn't give you a reason to reject the nihilism it presents. You're right, Shade. It was never going to mean anything.