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Everhood 2 Review

Alex Prakken — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 11:05:00 +0000

Life, Secrets, And Death

HIGH Creative, thought-provoking worldbuilding that I will not soon forget.

LOW A music-based game that forces players to dodge off beat still feels counter-intuitive.

WTF Videogamedunkey is in this??

When I first started writing for GameCritics, one of the first titles I had the pleasure of reviewing was a strange looking title called Everhood.

In my time with it, I was flabbergasted by Everhood’s commitment to storytelling, larger than life philosophical themes, and moral ambiguity — all of which have stuck with me. Four years later, when I saw Everhood was receiving a sequel, I jumped at the chance to see what else developers Jordi Roca and Chris Nordgren had up their sleeves. I’m happy to say, Everhood II takes all the successful elements of its predecessor, dials them up to eleven, and creates a superb experience that oozes with personality, comedy, and mystery.

Everhood II takes its protagonist into a realm past death, riddled with danger and mind-bending realities. The player will befriend an enigmatic raven who encourages them to defeat an entity known as the Mind Dragon in order to escape this perilous dimension. Along the way, the player will travel across space and time, meet zany characters, and make critical decisions that will impact not just their story, but the entire cosmos.

Though all of this sounds far-fetched, one of Everhood II’s greatest strengths is its cryptic, yet thought-provoking worldbuilding. Each of the realities the protagonist will visit feel lived-in, and are filled with memorable characters. From a battlefield decimated by the war between fruits and vegetables, to a digital circuit board riddled with viruses, exploring each setting without knowing who was truly friend or foe always kept me engaged.

The main hook at the start is fighting against the initially-overpowered Mind Dragon, and upon the player’s defeat, traveling back to previously-visited worlds that will allow the protagonist to get stronger and more prepared for an inevitable rematch. However, each time a world is revisited, it changes drastically. Whether it’s the passage of 1000 years, or a town that once celebrated you as a hero but has now come to see you as the enemy, the choices made in-game will greatly affect the setting of the next environment, and perhaps the overall arc of the story itself, highly encouraging multiple playthroughs!

Music-based combat as a concept remains mostly unchanged from the first Everhood. The player is on a five-note grid, and will have to dodge, absorb, and reflect incoming notes from their enemy. Though I found the musical tracks in the first installment to be mildly underwhelming, Everhood 2’s soundtrack is filled with psychedelic tunes that get the blood pumping with synth-based choruses when they’re not perfectly reflecting the personality of the opposing foe.

However, the main issue I had with the first Everhood‘s battle system remains unchanged here in the sequel. Though the opponent is hurling notes in time with the music, it’s the player’s responsibility to dodge these notes when they arrive, and they’re usually off beat. There were times where I felt it was difficult to fully resonate with the music because I intuitively wanted to press buttons in time with the tunes, but succumbing to this urge would lead to my untimely death.

Also, for an experience so entangled in its philosophical themes, music isn’t central to the plot, so it begs the question of why this combat system was picked in the first place.

Apart from my modest frustrations with the combat system and a few too many time-shattering events to keep track of by the time I made it to the endgame, Everhood II is a triumphant follow-up to an already strong title. I will not soon forget the chaotic worlds visited, the eccentric friends made along the way, and the thought-provoking questions raised by my travels through the spirals of time.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Jordi Roca and Chris Nordgren and published by Foreign Gnomes. It is currently available on Switch and PC. Copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Switch. Approximately 12 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game was rated E+10 by the ESRB, and it contains Fantasy violence and mild blood. Themes of death, conflict, morality, and philosophy are intricately woven into the game’s core. I wouldn’t recommend the title to anyone younger than their early teens.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes, but there is an image sensitivity mode for those who might be sensitive to flashing lights or bright colors.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game is fully subtitled. Though the speed of the text can be changed, the size cannot. The game is music-based, and though one could get away with playing it without sound, that lack of audio input adds another level of difficulty to the combat.

Remappable Controls: No, the game’s controls are not remappable.

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Goodbye World Review

Taylor Pryor — Sun, 16 Jul 2023 11:00:00 +0000

My Heart Is On My Sleeves

High Sweet, simple, compelling storytelling.

Low Metagames sometimes break up the narrative flow.

WTF WHY CAN’T I SOLVE THESE PUZZLES?!?

YOFUJII and Isolation Studio’s Goodbye World traces the origin of Kanii and Kumade’s friendship and chronicles their gamedev adventures including the good, the bad, and the not-so-bad.

Their unlikely partnership is forged after Kanii has an argument with another student about a videogame project design choice. Although the two immediately foster an interesting friendship, their inability to make ends meet as a gamedev twosome tests their relationship.

The crux of Goodbye World, a narrative adventure game with visual novel elements, centers on Kanii’s struggle to stay true to her artistic vision and create a game that can draw the interest of developers while keeping her friendship with Kumade intact.

Goodbye World is split into twelve parts, each accompanied by one of Kanii’s deceptively complex meta-games. Each one is modeled as a pixelated side-scroller similar to the “real world” that Kanii and her sweet companion, Kumade, inhabit. These metagames also mirror the trials and tribulations the two face throughout Goodbye World’s duration, a detail that added a fair bit of nuance to the narrative.

That being said, the metagames are a bit tedious, and I dreaded completing them. The purpose of each is to locate a key in order to progress to the next level, but players can only access the key by breaking, creating, and dodging blocks to reach them. As the story continues on, the metagames become more difficult, and players must finish each metagame within three tries or risk failing. Players can restart each level if they’d like, but doing so will cost players one of their lives. Much to my delight, however, failing the metagames does not prevent game progression; life goes on, even when one fails.

The controls are remappable, but I nevertheless struggled. The amount of times I passed away is truly embarrassing – like, it’s bad. As time passed and I became more frustrated, I began yeeting myself into spikes and letting the killer frogs devour me to continue the story. These tough moments would momentarily sever my connection to Goodbye World’s narrative flow, but the heartfelt story nevertheless transcended my abysmal meta-game skills.

Indeed, where Goodbye World really sings is the tale of the precarious relationship between Kumade and Kanii. Their intimate connection is heartening, and following their journey was my favorite part of the experience. The in-game dialogue is simple yet resonant, and Kanii has a struggle with mental health that is portrayed with care. I won’t spoil anything here, but Goodbye World’s ending is beautifully done, and I found myself feeling satisfied.

All in all, I genuinely enjoyed Goodbye World’s narrative landscape. Although the metagames were a pain to get through, the poignant storytelling, charming characters and beautiful design more than made up for it. Kanii’s and Kumade’s connection was palpable, and it was a treat to spend time with them.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

– Taylor Pryor

Disclosures: This game is developed by YOFUJII and Isolation Studio and published by PM Studios, Flyhigh Works, and IndieArk. It is currently available on Switch, PS4/5, PC, XBO/X/S. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 3 hours of play were devoted to this game, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E and contains Mild Fantasy Violence. The violence takes place in the metagames where players are expected to defeat non-intimidating baddies to progress through the story. There are some moments where Kanii is depicted struggling with her mental health, but nothing too graphic or traumatic.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Goodbye World offers subtitles, but they cannot be resized. Audio cues are not necessary for game progression. Therefore, the game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: This game’s controls are remappable. The game does not contain a control map diagram, but it does have a button mapping diagram. Every command in the game can be remapped to any button on the PS5 controller.

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YIIK: A Postmodern RPG Review

Eugene Sax — Tue, 26 Feb 2019 07:57:50 +0000

Nothing Is As It Seems

HIGH A well-realized story I connected with deeply.

LOW It’s about 10 hours longer than necessary.

WTF The entire game.

YIIK (pronounced why-two-kay) is a turn-based JRPG where players follow a year in the life of Alex, a twentysomething coming back home from college. Upon his return, Alex finds things are not quite as they seem. He soon meets a girl in a run-down factory who is then ripped out of this world by strange star creatures. Alex teams up with old friends and internet strangers to find the girl and figure out the story behind the mysterious beings.

It’s clear that this game is inspired by the ’90s, and although I haven’t played it, reliable sources tell me it’s borrowing heavily from cult SNES classic Earthbound via its real-world setting. Players explore rural towns, malls, and gas stations instead of castles and forests. Characters use records, cameras, and foam weapons to fight underpaid cashiers and stop signs. Players explore a mall with shops like “Goth Topic” and record stores with songs from the “Backalley Boiz.” It’s all wonderfully strange yet ‘realistically’ familiar while avoiding the usual high fantasy or futuristic sci-fi themes I’m used to.

In a way, I felt like I was exploring my old hometown while playing. I knew the rich neighborhood, the downtrodden trailer park, and the downtown ‘trendy’ city area. Many story beats come from logging into the slow dial-up internet on Alex’s PC and being in chat rooms. Items to restore health are things like cheeseburgers or soda. Everything seems so… normal.

Going into restaurants, local stores, or pawn shops will give players access to new items and weapons, and combat is one of the unique quirks of YIIK. Most attacks are rhythmic minigames where players must press a button in time. When controlling Alex, players will have to hit colored sections of a spinning record. Another character spins a hula hoop. Some special attacks use bullet-hell shooting or 2D platforming. It’s a unique spin on JRPG combat that gives some much needed spice since every character has a different set of games to internalize.

While YIIK takes inspiration from older RPGs, it does include some quality-of-life improvements such as a hint option to remind players how to get back on track if they lose their place. While there are a small number of random encounters, grinding isn’t necessary to complete the game. There’s an assist mode which gives players an unlimited time meter to make sure they’re able to hit every attack and dodge every enemy during combat minigames. Unfortunately, while YIIK gets these things right, it makes mistakes in other areas.

For example, leveling up is a staple in RPG, but to do it in YIIK, players must find a phone, use it go into a separate area, and then assign an attribute to a door which Alex then goes into to level up that specific stat. While this doesn’t seem like a bad thing on the surface, leveling up shouldn’t take such a significant amount of time to do. Each level takes about 20-30 seconds, which translates to about 30-40 minutes over the course of the game which could have been spent with other content.

While combat is unique, it takes ages to get through a battle because the controls aren’t responsive enough. There were many times when I’d hit the button to dodge an attack, but the button press wouldn’t register for a moment or two, causing me to miss the mark, and each missed mark caused me to get a game over and replay longer battles. This also happens during attacking as well, causing many misses and dragging encounters out. On Switch in particular, the load times are appalling — it takes up to 20 seconds to go between locations or to go from the overworld into battle and back. At least 3-4 hours of my total playtime was just loading.

Like the game design, the story also makes some poor choices. A faux-online forum board where players can obtain sidequests and world lore also has posts that are just as toxic as anything on the internet today — one in particular had multiple users commenting that a poster should kill himself. YIIK also goes out of its way to stage a scene where a black character remarks on how funny it would be if ‘the black guy’ could pick a lock. Another scene has Alex talking referring to a different character as “vaguely ethnic”. The character comments back that he shouldn’t mention race again, and I couldn’t agree more.

Despite those distasteful aspects, YIIK kept my attention because so much of it echoes experiences I’ve had in real life. I knew people similar to the in-game photography enthusiast with a positive outlook, and the skeptical musician. I’ve hung out with friends at the local burger joint and spent time at the mall with a crew. For better or worse, I also saw some of myself in the main character of Alex — frankly, he’s rude, selfish, and has a ‘better than you’ attitude because he has a degree. He’s also self-centered to a fault, and tries to use flowery language to seem different and above everyone else. The similarities were uncomfortable, but I wanted to see the game through since the growth Alex shows over the course of the campaign echoed things in my own life.

As for the story itself, it wasn’t just about finding clues to a strange mystery, but it was also about how Alex grows throughout this strange year in his life. While the main focus is Alex, most of the narrative is carried by side characters and how they cope with things like the loss of a loved one, or big life changes like going to college. While highly unusual, the story does close with a ending that put my anxieties at ease.

YIIK: A Postmodern RPG is a bizarre title that connected with me on several levels despite a number of issues, and it kept me coming back until credits rolled. While it did take a significant amount of time to get to the ending, the characters and the themes of coping with loss and Alex’s growth made the investment of time worth the effort.That said, I don’t know if I would recommend this game to anyone but myself, yet it’s so strange and offbeat that I think there’s something worthwhile here to check out for everyone who’s not me. Rating: 7 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Acck Studios and published by Ysbryd Games. It is currently available on Steam and Switch. This game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on Switch. Approximately 30 hours were spent in single player mode, and the game was completed. This game includes no multiplayer.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Violence and Strong Language. Don’t let kids play this game. Many F*** and S*** are said between all of the characters. There’s plenty of violence, but it’s more the talking about suicide and language that seem to warrant most of the rating.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All dialogue in this game is in text boxes. There are no audio cues necessary for play.

Remappable Controls:The game offers no remappable controls.There is no control diagram. Players move with the analogue stick, hit “A” to confirm choices, and hit “B” to cancel or go back a screen.

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Night In The Woods (Switch) Review

Andrew King — Fri, 16 Feb 2018 08:23:58 +0000

The Cat’s Meow

HIGH Possibly the funniest, most poignant writing I’ve seen in a game — and I reviewed Dream Daddy!

LOW The minimal interactivity of the climactic third act.

WTF All of NitW’s characters are talking animals, but there are also regular, non-talking animals???

Night in the Woods, which made its Switch debut this month, is the best Twine game I’ve ever played and the fact that it isn’t actually a Twine game makes it even more impressive. Infinite Fall built the Kickstarted project’s extensive dialogue system in Yarn–an open-source Twine-like engine that they created–and then grafted that branching narrative onto the skeleton of a 2-D platformer.

The player takes on the role of Mae Borowski, a 20-year-old anthropomorphic cat returning home from college after abruptly dropping out. Each day Mae finds Mae running and jumping through Possum Springs, her economically depressed hometown. She tightrope walks along power lines and chats up the locals on her way to meet-ups with her high school friends, Gregg, Bea and Angus.

This port to the Switch is excellent and comprehensive, and includes Longest Night and Lost Constellation, two standalone adventures originally released in the run-up to Night in the Woods‘ launch. The only downside I was able to see when comparing the Switch port to the PC and PS4 versions is that load times are slightly extended, maybe a second or two longer. Otherwise, NitW is an ideal contender for portable play.

The structure–broken up into days, like a story-heavy Stardew Valley–makes it the perfect thing to play before bed. Each morning, players will wake up and mess around in Mae’s room, plucking out rhythm mini-games on Mae’s bass guitar (a showcase for NitW‘s terrific soundtrack), dungeon crawling through a Hyper Light Drifter clone on her laptop, and setting up plans for the afternoon with her friends via IM.

Mae’s days are bookended by interactions with her parents, who are both affectionate and likable characters. In the morning, Mae talks with her mom in the kitchen. At night, she chats with her dad as he watches TV on the couch.

In between all this, Mae travels around, speaking with townspeople on the way. As others have noted, Infinite Falls smartly placed Gregg, Bea and Angus’ workplaces on the opposite side of town, pushing the player to explore Possum Springs and getting to know its residents.

As they take in the sights, players will find shuttered buildings littered throughout the gorgeously animated city. A restaurant Mae loved is closed. The local grocery store has been replaced. Mae’s friends, who have kept their high school band together through the years, hold practices in an abandoned party store. Possum Springs, like boomtowns gone bust across America, is haunted by the specter of its industrial coal-mining past.

The town is populated with well-written characters, each with a narrative arc that the player can only experience in its entirety if they choose to speak with them each day. I religiously sought out Kate, the local pastor. She’s a generous and hardworking woman trying to open up a section of the church as housing for a local homeless man before winter hits. Kate’s storyline deftly explores the nature of faith and doubt, and is a microcosm of what makes NITW work.

Possum Springs serves as the knotty center for a tangle of thematic threads, and each character brings certain themes to the fore — Pastor Kate and Angus, an atheist, give dueling perspectives on religion. Bea, who runs her family’s store and Mae, who treasures her immaturity, represent different points on the journey to adulthood. Gregg’s manic anxiety shows us the difficulty of learning to live with mental health issues.

Night in the Woods is a collection of character studies which give us a portrait of rural America in decline. It has all the depth of a narrative-focused game like Depression Quest or Dear Esther, but places its rich story within the structure of richer gameplay. In fact, the lowest points in Night in the Woods are the moments that it forgets this and forces players into segments that take agency away in favor of larger exposition dumps. The climax, which is, narratively, the most exciting point in the game, is by far the least mechanically interesting as it reduces gameplay to scrolling through text for nearly an hour.

NitW could also do more with its platforming. Five minutes in, the game tutorializes its jumping, and that tutorial is more challenging than any section that follows throughout the rest of its ten hour runtime.

Ultimately, though, those issues do little to detract from the excellent characters and story at the heart of Infinite Fall’s debut. Night in the Woods’ story is the main attraction, and its superb execution was enough to keep me hooked. Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Disclosures: Night in the Woods is developed by Infinite Fall and published by Finji. It is available on Mac, PC, Linux, PS4, Xbox One and Switch. This copy was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on Switch. Approximately 12 hours were devoted to the game, and the main story and all extra content were completed.

Parents: Night in the Woods received an ESRB rating of T for Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood, Sexual Themes, Drug Reference, Language, Crude Humor, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco. None of this is too intense, but the game is dark and deals with mental health issues. Young ones might be attracted to the visual style, but it’s aimed squarely at older players.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All dialogue is communicated solely through text, so nothing important should be missed. A recurring section tasks the player with finding four musicians and the soundtrack builds as each musician is discovered, but this is signposted pretty well visually, however, and shouldn’t pose a problem. It’s fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: This game’s controls are not remappable.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

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