E.V.O.: Search for Eden

A fish eats its way up the tree of life in E.V.O.: Search for Eden, spending points on jaws, legs, and horns. Givro and Almanic developed the side-scroller, and Enix published it in 1992. It is an evolution journey on the Super Nintendo, not a menu-driven role-playing game.

You scroll through successive eras, bite other creatures, and bank evolution points. Those points buy body parts that change the bite and the gait. A jaw may come before a leg, and a horn may wait until the frame can carry it.

Later stretches leave the water. The same creature continues, rebuilt, instead of handing you a new hero at a town gate. There is no equipment shop, because the body is the equipment.

Enix published the Givro and Almanic experiment. The scrolling fight and the edible landscape are the whole loop. Grow a body that matches the era, or get eaten by it.