On June 11th, Maitan69 released its new game called Evan’s Remains. A game in which you will play as Dysis, a girl that has to go on a search and rescue mission for the lost boy genius Evan. During the game, you will need to solve different puzzles in order to find out what happened and how you can bring Evan back home. The game started as a Kickstarter project only last year and now, it has been released on almost every platform. So let’s have a look and see what Maitan69 did with the money they got from the Kickstarter and if it’s worth it to rescue Evan.
What we liked!
- Interesting story: Evan’s Remains features a really intriguing and lovely story. The story and puzzle parts of the game are really nicely divided and follow each other up at a good pace. Although the story parts are usually longer than the average time that it takes to complete a puzzle. But back to the story. Like I already mentioned in the intro, you are playing as Dysis, a girl who receives a letter that instructs her to go look for the lost boy genius Evan. While I was playing, I found out that the story was far more interesting than it first appeared to be. But for the price of only € 5,69 I believe it’s definitely worth it if you are into this kind of game.
- Look: Straight from the start you will notice that the pixel art in the game is absolutely stunning. Every new environment you encounter is eye candy and makes you want to progress in the game even further to discover new scenes. But not only the background is nicely executed, but the same also goes for the movement of the character, which is very detailed. When you run or jump in-game, Dysis hair flies in the wind. So in the end, it’s easy to say, Maitan69 really did a good job graphic and style-wise in Evan’s Remains.
Somewhere between
- Puzzles: At one point during my playthrough of the game, I got the feeling that I didn’t really know if the puzzle factor of the game was that important. Every puzzle was really easy and fast to solve (you just need to jump on/over certain obstacles in order to progress) and if you are really lazy and just want to follow the story you can just skip the puzzle and progress… The game advertises itself as a puzzle platformer, but there isn’t much to solve in the puzzles and you can easily skip them. Yes, they are there so you can call the game a puzzle platformer, but to me, it feels more like just a story game with some distractions from the major story.
- Short: Another thing that left me in the middle, was that the game is short. Like really, really short. If you are playing the game and solve every puzzle yourself, it takes around 3,5 to 4 hours in order to complete it. But if you skip every puzzle and just want to follow the story, the game is 2,5 to 3 hours long. So if you think about it, there’s like 30 to 60 minutes of actual gameplay involved, if you can call it that. It’s good if you love story games, but if you’re thinking about buying the game for the puzzle aspect of it, just don’t and save for another one.
What we disliked
- Dialogs: At the last point, we came to the conclusion that the game is more of a story than an actual platformer. But it’s hell to click through all the conversations. Nothing goes automatically or is voice acted (not the biggest problem, but worth mentioning). It’s just terrible. Maybe the big puzzle is to actually click you through the whole story??? A lot of it is the same and although the story is an intriguing one, the storytelling could and maybe should have been a bit better than this, to be honest.
Evan’s Remains is a fun storytelling/puzzle platforming game that has a story that is definitely worth it. Yet, if you are going for the puzzle aspect of the game, you might want to skip this title and wait for another game that is worth the money. The design of the game is really good and everything works flawlessly, the scenes change properly and there are no buggy controls so that’s good. To conclude, if you love story games, it’s a must-have but if you don’t, just skip it and wait for something else.
