Started off super promising, I loved the gameplay and watching it evolve. But go to a point where it stopped evolving and was just a super average game that I can't find the motivation to finish tbh. I got it on the steam sale and it was worth it for the first hour or two

cute game but too short :(

i grew up with the old 8 bit games like zelda and final fantasy. the nostalgia rocks in this game!

you have to imagine, you can feel the timelime of the games you played in just minutes from the 8 bit patterns to 3d graphics. this is also one negative point "in just minutes" , the game is really short, but i enjoyed the humour and i liked the idea of this game.

for example : at the beginning if a monster hit your character,the "game over" screen appear. after avoiding the monsters and get another treasure chest, you unlock the savepoint and you will be like "yeeeih savepoint wohoo :))"

short resumee:
+8 Bit Graphics
+References to old childhood games (FF, Zelda etc.)
+Humor

- it is short
- i get a sad flashback from the kaeris scene..

so i recommend this game, also for the youngsters to get a view of the past, where the "game over" screen was dangerously ;-)

Love how the game changes the more you play

Perhaps Evoland 2 will be better but this game coasted off of kitchy video game references and very little substance. The game has one or two zones that are actually interesting Zelda-like Puzzles, but abruptly shifts gears and the game ends.

Good ideas and amusing gameplay.
Runs out of steam very quickly.

I enjoyed seeing a genre grow before my eyes.

Strongly reccommend this game for new and old gamers since for the first is gonna be a gaming history class and for the second really nostalgic! Beautiful game :)

When I saw this game come out, I though “Man, that’s a cool concept, I should buy this when it’s on a sale”. However, I never did. I dunno why, but I just forgot about this game. Now, I can play it thanks to the glory of Family Sharing and… Well, I’m f#cking disappointed. The game has one of the best concepts for a game I've seen in years and then just decides to turn those ideas to a human form and shoot it on the head with a sawed off shotgun at point blank range.

The biggest problem this game has is the parody it tries to be. It starts okay, being an affectionate parody to the original Legend of Zelda games, but soon enough it starts to deviate from the cool concept of recreating history and stays making a rather fanboy-looking parody of just two games: Zelda and Final Fantasy VII. The game calls itself for going through videogame history, so WHY THE HELL IT SPENDS SO MUCH TIME JUST MAKING PARODIES OF THE SAME TWO GAMES OVER AND OVER!? Not only it makes no sense, but if you don’t love EITHER of those two games, you’ll get extremely tired of the game, really fast. And while I like the 2D Zelda games, I do NOT like FFVII, I find it to be popular because, for most people, it was their first RPG, it’s characters are mostly lackluster, two dimensional, and quite honestly lame as hell. WELL GREAT, BECAUSE THE MAIN CHARACTER IS A PARODY OF CLOUD, THE SECOND MAIN CHARACTER IS A LITERAL COPY-PASTE OF AERITH AND IT EVEN HAS A CID IN BETWEEN. And if that wasn't enough, the villain is - YOU GOT IT, AN EDGIER SEPHIROTH, the only difference being that it's design takes from - YOU GOT IT AGAIN, LEGEND OF ZELDA, by looking like Ganondorf and even being defeated by deflecting slow moving balls of magic back at him. Oh, and want to know the best part of it all? The game doesn't even have an ending. You kill the Ganonroth-wannabe, credits roll off and that's it. You get absolutely nothing, although to this point it's what I expected.

I’m not joking here, the game is short, barely 2 hours long, but yet it spends most of its time trying to be a poor-taste Final Fantasy wannabe. I was happy as hell when the game suddenly changed and finally decided to parody something that wasn’t a Nintendo game or FFVII, and it turned out that it was just a dungeon inspired in Diablo, which had special controls just for it while the rest goes back to the same crap over and over. I have to say, for a game that's supposed to be about the history of games, neither it references many different games neither it stays at just games. It just feels out of place when the game suddenly throws multiple references of Lord of the Rings, and it's even INSULTING when the villain QUITE LITERALLY THROWS A KAMEHAMEHA FOR NO REASON DURING A FIGHT. And I don't mean a similar looking attack, no. He even said "Ka-me-ha-me-ha" and posed the same way. It's THAT lame.

Oh, and not only the parodies are boring and uninspired and the story lackluster and predictable, but it also has a few bugs. Textures stretching up to infinity and looking ugly, the game crashing when opening a chest (something you’ll be doing for half the game and that has happend to me twice on the two hours of game), that kind of stuff. You can also keep going when the Aerith-wannabe leaves to learn spells and go into the next dungeon, where you’re somehow able to play as her even though she’s NOT coming with you.

But does the game has good stuff however? Yeah. Somehow. Changing the genre of the game constantly is a good way to keep it both interesting and original, even though it doesn’t happen nearly as enough and having the final battle suddenly be something completely different feels quite stupid.

The idea of a game evolving is also a really cool concept, and it’s quite fun to go back and revisit previous areas, see how they look now that instead of SNES graphics we got PSX graphics. Sadly the devs kinda messed that up, as previous places stay with the graphics you saw them, meaning if you've unlocked beautiful 3D graphics, the first town will still have SNES graphics FOR NO REASON WHAT SO EVER.

The soundtrack should also be commended, as it manages to capture the feeling of the eras it tries to represent, and some of the themes are catchy enough.

Is the game worth it? That’s a tough question that ultimately boils down to it’s price. 10€ is nowhere a good price for this 2 hours travesty, it’s a repetitive experience that probably only fans of either Zelda, FFVII or both will like, as the game CONSTANTLY makes fun of both. I didn’t have to pay anything thanks to Family Sharing, and I still feel disappointed by this, it’s an extremely good concept gone to hell and back, and I bet that it’s all because the writer (or writers) left their inner fanboy run rampant. I mean come on, there were other RPG games other than f#cking FFVII that made an impact! What about Earthbound, for example? NO, LET’S INSTEAD MAKE REFERENCES TO SKYRIM AND IT’S F#CKING ARROW IN THE KNEE.

Don't buy this. Don't look at it. Don't even think about it. Unless you can get it for a single € or you get it as a gift, I don't see why you should even purchase and play this. This has some of the WORST writing I've seen on my entire life playing games, and that's quite an achievement.

TL;DR Edition: A 10€-worth nerdgasm about Zelda and Final Fantasy VII, the games that the writer/s liked the most. If you don’t hold both of them as the pinnacle of human creation, you might wanna look away from this. Maybe the sequel is better, but I don’t care to this point.

Quite an interesting approach on the visualisation of evolution of the virtual RPG standarts over time.

When I just heard about this project, I thought "wow, cool, must've been smth worth to look at!". Then I bought it - probably at some sell event or in the bundle, as I'm sure I was not buying it the moment it got out of Greenlight. And then... I haven't touched it until now. Two years passed by, the game achieved positive background and its devs even released Evoland 2, which is basically just one more try to do the same trick - but better... So yeah, now there are some reviews which points to the Evoland 2 immidiately, like the first one Evoland is obsolete now. Is it? Nope.
I have to say, one of the things that kept me away from Evoland was the fear that the devs will mess something on my "so precious" gaming experience over all those years. It's the same thing as touching the HD remakes of Heroes of Might and Magic 3 or Baldur's Gate - which I haven't done yet - just to not mess the memoires of good old times with another portion of disorder every reinstallation usually creates.

Happily, I have to state, that's not an issue of Evoland.

While it ceratinly does just as promises - showing you the evolution of trends and game mechanics in some part of virtual role-playing - it does not insists that it was Strictly That Way. You know, as it usually goes with history lessons - like when Soviets poses like it was them who beats all the Nazies - and forgetting totally about Lendlease. Or like Americans poses it was them who finished Hitler and all around - oh yeah, and with K/D ratio of 10, above all... Sorry, I'm slipping away.

So, have I enjoyed the game? Certainly. Could I recommend it to buy? Only if you're already used to play wanna be jRPG projects (like RPG Maker stuff), as Evoland generally follows the "evolution" on the eastern tread: Legend of Zelda mixes with early Final Fantasy tunes, whereas the promised reminiscence to the Diablo feels... just slightly common. Anyway, as of "evolution" theme, Evoland concentrates basically on the technological stuff - like adding more and more pixels on the screen and more tones to the sound, while the story and other most basical RPG elements remains on the level of the games in early 90's.

So! As of overall, speaking of "cultural value" of Evoland, I can say it's a good tribute, which is worth your attention, if you've been long on the gaming stage. However, if you're expecting a very good RPG experience from Evoland itself, I'm sorry, I can't see, how this can be done in project like this, with all that mixture of styles, game mechanics and other stuff! Were that game any longer, I must add, it could have been even worse than it is now. Because tribute - is always just a tribute. If you want authentic taste - you obviously need to play all those classics like Diablo or Zelda by yourself.

My mark for Evoland is 7.5/10. Nice project, and easy gold on achevements. Worth its price.

Don't play it, play Evoland 2 instead. 1 out of 5 stars.