Everhood has a lot of soul, a lot of creativity and talent and it is undeniably an interesting game with some incredible ideas. sadly, i'll probably remember it as a game with incredible ideas instead of an incredible game.

the core game is fresh and exciting, i loved the way it would add onto itself and evolve throughout. i love how the rhythm section twists to involve combat. one-off gimmicks like the racing, the cool visual tricks, the D&D bit. new encounters are exciting if only just to see what it'll add. i wanna stress how great the visuals are again, the way it plays with the camera itself and its psychedelic backgrounds rule. unfortunately every fucking location is just a black void with some scattered tiles and the world and environments of Everhood are thoroughly uninteresting.

i think Everhood's biggest failing is its writing. Everhood spends NO time establishing anything or anyone, none of the characters have introductions or lives or unique voices. not literal voices but why do the little gnome guy and the trucker slime boys talk so eloquently. to experience the story is experience an endless barrage of wacky one-note characters, some of which are fun, but none of them are developed in meaningful ways or feel important. i didn't care about anyone, which felt really weird when it came to the latter half of the narrative. it felt like the game expected me to get attached without doing any of the work to show me why i should like its characters. its larger thematic ideas are interesting but when the foundation of the story is so weak i didn't really care. it's like if Undertale's only character was Froggit a few dozen times over.