The majority of the game's fighting system revolves around real-time fighting from a top-down angle. The game will often shift to new genres of play at predetermined points in the story, such as a sidescrolling platform game, a match-3 puzzle game, a turn-based role-playing game, a vertically-scrolling shooting game, and a 2D fighting game. During the story campaign, players can also attempt to find hidden items scattered around the game world, such as Maana or Orikon Ore to upgrade Kuro and his party, and stars that act as bonus collectibles. Additionally, there is a minigame involving cards that one can play as a sidequest, with players able to collect new cards by finding them in chests and winning them from opponents.
Plot
In the year 999, a boy awakens in the home of a girl named Fina, who found him near her village. As he cannot remember anything, she decides to call him Kuro. The two explore the nearby forest to find clues to Kuro's identity, but encounter a demon named Reno, who seeks to destroy humanity. While attempting to stop him, Kuro and Fina inadvertently activate a Magilith relic and are sent back in time 50 years, during a war between the human Empire and the demon kingdom of Demonia. The two protect a small demon girl from imperial soldiers and are imprisoned, but escape with the help of Demonian prince Menos. They regroup at a Demonian military camp, but are ambushed by the Empire and are pulled through time by another Magilith while trying to escape.
The three emerge in the year 1049, finding that an event called "the Great Disaster" wiped out most of the world 50 years prior, including Fina's village. Seeking to prevent this, the group uses another Magilith to return to 999, though Menos is accidentally left in the future. In his place, Kuro and Fina are joined by Velvet, a researcher studying the Magiliths and their creators, the ancient Magi civilization. Velvet takes them to the mad scientist Professor Giro's laboratory, where they fight and defeat Reno, revealed to be Menos's son who seeks revenge for his father's disappearance. In the lab, they discover a doomsday weapon created by Giro, but Kuro loses control of his body and is compelled to activate it, triggering the Great Disaster.
The three are saved and brought to 1049 by Ceres, the demon girl they previously saved. Ceres explains that the only way to prevent the disaster is by finding the five fragments of the Magi Key, a relic that can remove Giro's weapon from the time stream. Reuniting with Menos, the party travels across time in search of the fragments. While exploring, the group brings the war to a peaceful end, preventing the demons' extinction, and discover that Fina is descended from the Sylphs, a race that exists outside of time. They also travel back 1000 years to the Magi era, learning that both Kuro and the demon race are artificial beings created by the Magi.
After collecting all the fragments, Kuro and his friends give the completed key to Ceres, who uses it to undo the Great Disaster. She also explains she was born with supernatural powers, which Professor Giro stole from her as a child to power the weapon, but she sent him through a time portal and escaped, implying Kuro and Giro are one and the same. With her powers restored, she now plans to destroy time itself. Kuro and friends chase her into a time anomaly, where she reveals the Magi built a device that would prevent the end of time by creating a time loop. Hoping to break the endless cycle and allow time to progress, Ceres now seeks to destroy the project, at the risk of potentially destroying the time stream in the process. Kuro confronts Ceres alone, defeating her, but the project is damaged in their battle. Hoping this will be enough to move the timeline forward, Ceres apologizes to Kuro for everything and the two disappear. In the aftermath, the rest of the party returns to 942, where Menos and Velvet have a baby, Ceres, while Fina uses the equipment in Giro's lab to bring Kuro back.
In a post-credits scene, Kuro is shown awakening in Fina's house, suggesting that time has looped once more.
Development and release
Following the success of Evoland, Shiro Games began development on a sequel, seeking to expand the scope and improve on the original's shortcomings. This included extending the length of the game, placing a stronger emphasis on the storytelling and characters, and implementing additional genres and play styles into the gameplay. Evoland 2 was released on PC in August 2015,, followed by a port for OS X four months later. A mobile port was released in 2018 for iOS, Apple TV and Android devices by Playdigious, another French video game company. On January 24, 2019, Shiro Games announced that Evoland and Evoland 2 would be packaged together in a single release, titled Evoland: Legendary Edition, and released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, OS X and Linux the following February.
Reception
Evoland 2 received generally positive critical reception, with aggregate site Metacritic giving the game an average rating of 74 out of 100 for Microsoft Windows and 76 out of 100 for iOS. Reviewers praised the game for its extended campaign compared to its predecessor, and for its use of references to other video games. RPGamer stated "Evoland 2 came up with a good way of integrating its graphical changes into the narrative, and succeeds at being a full-fledged game that shifts between the eras of RPGs." However, some have also criticized the game for relying too heavily on nostalgia.
Evoland 2 was awarded the Innovation Award at 2015's European Indie Game Days.
