I really want to give this a positive review but I just can't. This is so disappointing compared to the first game. It's still a good game but not one I can recommend unless you really enjoyed the first game and don't care much for story. This may be a bit biased since Everhood 1 is one of my favorite games.

It doesn't feel very gratifying to beat a battle. Since no-hit achievements from the first game don't exist, every battle has to loop. This is a welcome change and getting one-hit kills can be really fun to learn, but overall is very exhausting to now have to kill every character you fight with a one-hit if you want achievements, especially since it feels like a bit of a guessing game if your attack will one-shot them. Since they all have to loop and no-hitting isn't a priority anymore, a lot of the battles feel like it focuses more on color placements and visual spectacle. A lot of battles also have to be fought more than once now, especially near the end of the game; it's the same theme, same attack patterns, same everything besides maybe a hp boost. The main problem I encountered was fights can really become tedious after playing for a while, I had to take a few breaks while playing because learning all these fights just weren't that fun over time since there was the new layer of chaining attacks while also no-hitting to not lose your combo. There isn't much replay value to much of the battles either since a lot of them are done multiple times. The barrage segments were easily my least favorite part of the game since it was usually random encounters that you had to do multiple times, especially at the end; I never failed any of these segments but I never had a big amount of fun doing them, it was tedious and repetitive.

The story feels incredibly disjointed and random. I understand that it's supposed to be a trippy game with crazy sights and wacky encounters, but so was the first game and it managed to keep that feeling while still being very meaningful and introspective. Since a lot of the areas can be done in any order, it feels like characters just show up to be helpful or hinder you for a very short time. Nothing feels meaningful or memorable, it feels like you just go places because someone tells you to or because the door is there. It also feels like they add an overabundance of characters to pad out playtime, especially in the dancefloor segments with all the mushrooms; I understand there was a mushroom contest a few years ago but there's literally hundreds of them and it shows up multiple times in the game.

The Everhood 1 callback area was cute, I really enjoyed seeing all the characters I came to love and seeing the places I knew by heart, despite it having literally no impact on the story besides letting you reminisce and nostalgia bait. However, it made me realize that there's not that much to remember about Everhood 2. I won't remember basically any of these characters or locations, there's no reason to. They introduce characters so randomly and haphazardly, their impact on the story usually being negligible. The story itself is everywhere while having a lot of the characters you meet almost never show up again unlike the first game. I don't have a reason to care about these characters because they either show up for too little of a time, have no reason to show up, or are just placed randomly without basically any lore/story implications. There's so many questions that are left unanswered including ones asked in the first game. Who is Evren, they seem very acquainted with Sam and Irvine? How is Riley so knowledgeable about different universes and godhood? Who the hell is Dmitri and why does he barely have any impact on the story? Why can't we learn more about the other light beings like Lime? What else can we learn about Yellow and how did Lime get captured by it? Who and/or what is Shade? What's Raven's story? There's so much that was left in the dark and it's frustrating to leave us without answers to any of this. I want to care about the story and characters but I have nothing to go off of. The entire second half of the game's story feels like a kick in the teeth to people who liked the story of the first game and wanted something for this game. I understand it's a different game and won't be a repeat of the first one but at least give us a bit of what made the first game so good.

The ending left me feeling confused, slightly disappointed, and almost insulted. All of this buildup to becoming a god and Riley takes it instead, it's a very cool twist that they were planning to betray you after all this time. However, it was very short-lived, the whole Riley arc lasts less than 20 minutes. You get to do another annoying barrage segment with a few of your friends, do a bunch of refights with previous enemies, and get taken by Shade before you'd lose. They do a bunch of shenanigans and give you a speech (which you could skip), then throw you to the final area. Riley is as strong as ever, literally crushing Raven into slime before you, "this is going to be a fun battle" you think to yourself. The boss itself is short and is literally squashed in front of you by Shade right before beating them. No lore, no story, no telling what happens after, nothing. They get squashed and the credits roll. It's genuinely appalling. They give a jab at people who wanted something meaningful or worthwhile, even enough to purposefully misspell their names on the credits. It could be funny but just gives the impression that they needed to finish the game so they rushed an ending out no matter what it was. After the credits roll, Shade talks a little more and drags you to the Replay Battles area and...you get a rotoscoped dancing fight with Shade for...no reason? It's the true final boss of the game and has no story implication, no meaning to it, he doesn't die after this, and there's literally no reason for this fight. It truly feels like the devs stopped caring about the game in the last third of it, after the Everhood 1 segment. The gameplay takes a nosedive where a lot of the endgame content feels annoying more than fun to learn, the story becomes even more confusing and meaningless, and the ending is a genuine slap in the face.

I have a reason to return to Everhood 1; whether that be Insane mode runs, replay battles, or the creative ways people worked around the custom battle restrictions. Everhood 2 genuinely has no replay value besides the replay battles and I don't really have much reason to do that either. There isn't even really any hidden superbosses, so no crazy challenge to work towards. All I can hope for is that custom battles will be mindblowing as much as the first game. It's a fun game but not one I'll remember in two weeks time, it won't leave a mark on me like the first one, and I've left just a little disappointed. If you liked the first game, try this out but don't expect it to be anything like the first game, it ties up a couple loose ends while leaving countless more. It's only really worth it for the battles if that's your thing.

I really want to give this a positive review but I just can't. This is so disappointing compared to the first game. It's still a good game but not one I can recommend unless you really enjoyed the first game and don't care much for story. This may be a bit biased since Everhood 1 is one of my favorite games. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] It doesn't feel very gratifying to beat a battle. Since no-hit achievements from the first game don't exist, every battle has to loop. This is a welcome change and getting one-hit kills can be really fun to learn, but overall is very exhausting to now have to kill every character you fight with a one-hit if you want achievements, especially since it feels like a bit of a guessing game if your attack will one-shot them. Since they all have to loop and no-hitting isn't a priority anymore, a lot of the battles feel like it focuses more on color placements and visual spectacle. A lot of battles also have to be fought more than once now, especially near the end of the game; it's the same theme, same attack patterns, same everything besides maybe a hp boost. The main problem I encountered was fights can really become tedious after playing for a while, I had to take a few breaks while playing because learning all these fights just weren't that fun over time since there was the new layer of chaining attacks while also no-hitting to not lose your combo. There isn't much replay value to much of the battles either since a lot of them are done multiple times. The barrage segments were easily my least favorite part of the game since it was usually random encounters that you had to do multiple times, especially at the end; I never failed any of these segments but I never had a big amount of fun doing them, it was tedious and repetitive. [h1]Story[/h1] The story feels incredibly disjointed and random. I understand that it's supposed to be a trippy game with crazy sights and wacky encounters, but so was the first game and it managed to keep that feeling while still being very meaningful and introspective. Since a lot of the areas can be done in any order, it feels like characters just show up to be helpful or hinder you for a very short time. Nothing feels meaningful or memorable, it feels like you just go places because someone tells you to or because the door is there. It also feels like they add an overabundance of characters to pad out playtime, especially in the dancefloor segments with all the mushrooms; I understand there was a mushroom contest a few years ago but there's literally hundreds of them and it shows up multiple times in the game. [spoiler]The Everhood 1 callback area was cute, I really enjoyed seeing all the characters I came to love and seeing the places I knew by heart, despite it having literally no impact on the story besides letting you reminisce and nostalgia bait. However, it made me realize that there's not that much to remember about Everhood 2. I won't remember basically any of these characters or locations, there's no reason to. They introduce characters so randomly and haphazardly, their impact on the story usually being negligible. The story itself is everywhere while having a lot of the characters you meet almost never show up again unlike the first game. I don't have a reason to care about these characters because they either show up for too little of a time, have no reason to show up, or are just placed randomly without basically any lore/story implications. There's so many questions that are left unanswered including ones asked in the first game. Who is Evren, they seem very acquainted with Sam and Irvine? How is Riley so knowledgeable about different universes and godhood? Who the hell is Dmitri and why does he barely have any impact on the story? Why can't we learn more about the other light beings like Lime? What else can we learn about Yellow and how did Lime get captured by it? Who and/or what is Shade? What's Raven's story? There's so much that was left in the dark and it's frustrating to leave us without answers to any of this. I want to care about the story and characters but I have nothing to go off of. The entire second half of the game's story feels like a kick in the teeth to people who liked the story of the first game and wanted something for this game. I understand it's a different game and won't be a repeat of the first one but at least give us a bit of what made the first game so good.[/spoiler] [h1]The ending[/h1] [spoiler]The ending left me feeling confused, slightly disappointed, and almost insulted. All of this buildup to becoming a god and Riley takes it instead, it's a very cool twist that they were planning to betray you after all this time. However, it was very short-lived, the whole Riley arc lasts less than 20 minutes. You get to do another annoying barrage segment with a few of your friends, do a bunch of refights with previous enemies, and get taken by Shade before you'd lose. They do a bunch of shenanigans and give you a speech (which you could skip), then throw you to the final area. Riley is as strong as ever, literally crushing Raven into slime before you, "this is going to be a fun battle" you think to yourself. The boss itself is short and is literally squashed in front of you by Shade right before beating them. No lore, no story, no telling what happens after, nothing. They get squashed and the credits roll. It's genuinely appalling. They give a jab at people who wanted something meaningful or worthwhile, even enough to purposefully misspell their names on the credits. It could be funny but just gives the impression that they needed to finish the game so they rushed an ending out no matter what it was. After the credits roll, Shade talks a little more and drags you to the Replay Battles area and...you get a rotoscoped dancing fight with Shade for...no reason? It's the true final boss of the game and has no story implication, no meaning to it, he doesn't die after this, and there's literally no reason for this fight. It truly feels like the devs stopped caring about the game in the last third of it, after the Everhood 1 segment. The gameplay takes a nosedive where a lot of the endgame content feels annoying more than fun to learn, the story becomes even more confusing and meaningless, and the ending is a genuine slap in the face.[/spoiler] I have a [i]reason[/i] to return to Everhood 1; whether that be Insane mode runs, replay battles, or the creative ways people worked around the custom battle restrictions. Everhood 2 genuinely has no replay value besides the replay battles and I don't really have much reason to do that either. There isn't even really any hidden superbosses, so no crazy challenge to work towards. All I can hope for is that custom battles will be mindblowing as much as the first game. It's a fun game but not one I'll remember in two weeks time, it won't leave a mark on me like the first one, and I've left just a little disappointed. If you liked the first game, try this out but don't expect it to be anything like the first game, it ties up a couple loose ends while leaving countless more. It's only really worth it for the battles if that's your thing.