izigame.me

The story of Everhood 2 is putrid. It is horrendous. It is shockingly awful.

The basic tenets of storytelling are "setup" and "payoff." However, Everhood 2 has setups with no payoffs, payoffs with no setups, and a lot of shit that just seems to happen for no reason at all. Characters are wildly inconsistent, goals are unclear, the rules of the world seem to switch on a dime, and hardly anything manages to leave more of an impression than "That was weird" or "That was awful."

I don't mind a game having a simple story (à la Super Mario Bros.). I don't mind a game having no story (à la Beat Saber). But when a game has a story this hopelessly incompetent, that's when I get really pissed off.

So, because it's been three days since I beat this thing, and I'm still mad, here is an extensive, but by no means complete list of the many reasons the plot of the game fails on every single level:

First of all, our character has no motivation to start their journey. At first, we're just doing whatever Raven tells us to do, with the game giving us no reason why our character would want to listen to Raven other than "It makes the game progress." Then, shortly after the first act, the game drops all pretense by having Raven leave the game for a good chunk of time, leaving us to flounder on our own. Characters keep talking about you "meeting God," but there's never any communication as to what that means or why it's important. The fact that our character has no motivation to do anything is actually subtly flagged in the game's Steam description, where it advertises that we embark on a "transcendental journey." Okay? Most games would say, "Embark on a quest to save the land!" or "Embark on a quest to save the princess!" or whatever. But this game just says, "transcendental journey." To do what? Even Steam doesn't know.

If you're a light being like Pink, why can't you kill anyone the way Pink can? Even if you drain a character's HP down to nothing, they're still fine (if a little winded) after the battle. Even the characters in the Veggie Kingdom, who go splat when you beat them, are still able to talk and stuff afterward. Why can Pink (and Lime) kill people and you can't? Never explained.

What was up the Mushroom Bureau? Why did Raven bring you there? Why were they disappointed at the end of the Divine Mushroom fight? What did they expect to happen that didn't happen? What did it mean when they said you were a tribute? All of the characters afterward, including Raven, talk as though Raven "betrayed you." How did they betray you? I have no idea.

Sam (I think) at one point says the mushrooms have "their own agenda." What did they mean by that? The mushrooms have no agenda that we ever learn about. All they do is party on a series of dance floors all day.

It's established that Sam and Irvine have the power to travel between dimensions. How did they get this power? How long have they been traveling? How can they just create new dimensional doors whenever they want? Never explained.

At the very beginning of the game, was that Riley who carried the pocket watch away from the ruins of Frog's house? Why were they doing that? Did they want the pocket watch for themselves? Why did they never try to get it from you? Why did the Shade attack right then? Shade clearly doesn't possess Riley until later, so there's no reason for the Shade to attack you for the watch.

Why are there randomly actual historical figures in the Hillbert Hotel? Why do they have purple skin? Never explained.

At one point, the Shade tells you that Sam and Irvine "are just too good-hearted." That's just blatantly not true. Sam and Irvine are both very selfish people, who scam, steal, and use people for profit. They basically use their multidimensional powers to gain wealth and indulge their own hedonistic desires. Them fighting alongside you to the Boatman doesn't make their characters seem nuanced; it just makes them feel inconsistent. There's no arc between them being selfish scammers and thieves to them putting their lives on the line. Maybe if we had an important reason to want to protect the Boatman or even had a clear goal, then them risking their lives would be worth it, but see point #1 for why we don't have that.

Speaking of, why did Riley want to find the Boatman so bad anyway? Did they want to meet God? Why? What does "meeting God" even mean?

In fact, the next few points are going to be about Riley, because their character is one of the most botched of them all, and the mishandling of their plot line is one of the main reasons the ending sucks so hard. The moment where Riley betrays you should have been a huge, affective turning point in the game's story, like the scene where Atlas betrays you in BioShock or the scene where Wheatley goes mad with power in Portal 2. However, the reaction most people have when this scene happens is, "Oh, uh, I guess we're doing this now." As a twist, it absolutely thuds because Riley had no established character or relationship with the protagonist. Their only character traits were "cute" and "kind of helpful, i guess." In the first game, Blue had a character, an arc, and a reason to align with you (because they and Red both had a common enemy, and Blue couldn't walk). Riley, by contrast, has a completely static personality right up until their heel turn and just kind of invites themselves along with you for no good reason.

Give that scene some credit, though. It was the first time in the game we had a clear goal with clear stakes. "Stop Riley's reign of terror" is a motivation I can at least comprehend, unlike all the other vapid noise about "duality" and "meeting God." Too bad that clear goal only appears in the very last act of the game.

What few traits we do get from Riley before their heel turn are inconsistent as well. As kind of a background gag, in the Veggie Castle, we see that Riley is one of the previous Veggie Champions, which is kind of funny in the moment. But later (at least, it was later in my play through) we see Riley being cornered by thugs in the mines and we have to rescue them. If Riley can fight, why don't they? Why do we have to protect them? Why don't they help on the defense missions if they're strong enough to win this tournament?

This ties heavily into point #9, but was becoming a god what Riley wanted all along or were they just corrupted by the Shade in the moment? I expected them to reveal Riley's motives by the end of the game, but they never did. Were they just using you the whole time to gain power for themselves or were they an unfortunate soul turned to evil against their will? I have no idea, and the game doesn't seem to care. The game's utter indifference on this point is especially horrendous because this is very last fight before you go to the credits, and, as I said above, it's also the first time we have clear stakes. But we have no idea why Riley did this or whether they planned it or even who they are.