23.7 hours played
Written 15 days ago
Everhood feels like Undertale got dosed with something strong, stared at a disco ball for five hours, and went, "Bro... let's talk about, like, life and stuff. Why are we here, man?" Fair question, Everhood.
The comparisons to Undertale are obvious—from the scrappy pixel art and grumbly dialogue tones to the battle screen format. This is a surface-level comparison though; Everhood's remix of the formula is entirely its own. It's weird, it's musical, and it's chaotic. There are no random encounters here. Every fight is handcrafted, deliberate, and sonically unhinged. This means every boss fight is both a challenge and a vibe check to the player, and most of them go absolutely dummy.
The core rhythm mechanic is the exact opposite you'd expect: instead of hitting notes, you’re dodging them. The attacks are the music. You’re not performing the song—you’re surviving it. And when the tracks start layering in wild tempos, shifting lanes, or going full bullet hell, it becomes a kind of synesthetic storm of chaos. The gnome song? Fire. The frog song? Transcendent. Even when you're dodging for dear life, you're enraptured by the music.
Then halfway through, everything changes. I won't spoil it, but the moment you reclaim your arm is the moment Everhood truly begins. The way the gameplay flips from passive to aggressive is incredibly smart design, both thematically and mechanically. It reframes what you’ve been doing up to that point and subtly questions what your role in this world even is.
It's at this point that you're given agency, your first opportunity to choose in a world that's been scripted from the start. Whatever you choose, it's unclear exactly what repercussions you'll face, but the ambiguity is part of the game's charm. Are you doing the right thing? Can you? At the end of the day, all you can do is keep dancing through the madness.
Though this game is a fever dream in the best way, it leans into the surrealism a bit too hard at times. The story, while fascinating, is mostly told through cryptic whispers and disjointed visions, and while that leaves room for interpretation, it occasionally feels self-indulgent for its own sake. Still, the dream never breaks. The journey always feels worthwhile, even when you're not sure where it's headed.
It should be obvious by now that Everhood gets a fat recommendation. It's a bizarre, musical odyssey that knows what it is and what it wants to do. It's not Undertale 2, and it doesn't try to be. It has its own pulse, its own rhythm, its own soul. And it's absolutely worth the play.
Cinematic playthrough: https://youtu.be/kensvPEggZ0