Everhood | Nintendo Switch Review
Everhood is a strange beast. It’s an adventure game with rhythm battles. I’m talking about a note highway and everything. It’s filled with a quirky cast and an esoteric atmosphere. It is clearly an indie game living in a post-Undertale world. The influences of that indie juggernaut are felt throughout the entire runtime of Everhood.
There are No Strings on Me
You play as Red, a living doll who has been robbed of his arm by the nefarious Gold Pig. It only gets stranger from there. There are talking trash cans, toilet paper as quest items, a playable D&D world, and many more odd things. Where I fault Everhood, however, is that I didn’t feel the heart in this weirdness. I realize this is heavily subjective, but the charm just didn’t come across to me. Midway through the game there’s a huge twist that makes things more interesting going forward, but something about the atmosphere in this title just never landed for me.
More interesting is the combat system. Any time you stare a foe down for combat, your character shows up on a note highway. You can step side to side and jump, and this is primarily how you interact with the music notes coming your way. This was already enough to hook me on playing Everhood, but the creativity and innovation put on display by the developers is simply unbelievable.
The Hip Hop and Ya Don’t Stop
The uniqueness starts as simple as mirroring your control schemes or rotating the playspace, but it eventually gives way to much more interesting concepts. There’s a racing minigame on the note highway, for crying out loud! It gets even trickier as you’ll eventually have to catch the notes themselves to fling back at your enemies to inflict damage, and this was constantly exhilarating.
Of course it helps that Everhood is loaded with jams, which you would hope for out of a musical game. So many of the songs are foot-tappingly catchy and, thankfully for a man like me, devoid of lyrics. Considering the retro nature of the title, it’s quite surprising how many different genres of music come across clearly. Hats off to everyone that contributed to the game’s soundtrack.
Bless These Musical Brethren
It’s completely out of character for me, but I recommend Everhood for its gameplay alone. I wish I could say the story or setting stuck with me, but it simply missed the mark. It felt weird for the sake of being weird, and I was incredibly disappointed with that. However, the ingenuity in all things music-related puts Everhood in a very unique position among recent releases. Just know going in that the characters and story won’t stick with you, and there can be a lot to like about the game.
To hear me talk more about Everhood, be sure to listen to Episode 336 of The Gaming Outsider Podcast.
This review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy of Everhood provided by Stride PR for coverage purposes. It is also available on Steam.
Everyhood
$14.99
Pros
- Clever Use of Note Highways
- Killer Soundtrack
- Interesting Mid-Game Twist
Cons
- Forgettable Story and Characters
- Trying Too Hard to Be Weird
