Mikkelson's Place of Happiness, such cliché.

You know, my iPhone 5s, which has been working like a dream since I first got it 2 years and 8 months ago. Well I have replaced the battery myself, twice. Now the sweat of those chinese factoryworkers that’s in my new battery has started to lose it’s steadiness.

It first happened a week ago on thursday, when my iPhone started to shut off whenever it felt like it. And you know what? It fell into a temporary coma. Yep, I couldn’t get it on at all, no matter how I waited beside it’s deathbed and waited. Well the phone started working an hour later, but that’s not important! What’s important is what I went through my mind during all this..

“Oh boohoo! You had to part with your smartphone for a little while? Get a life!”

No, it’s not really about that. I know people who would’ve gotten real mad when their phones don’t work like they should. Mainly myself, I was confused. “Why now? Why so sudden? It worked fine like twelve hours ago, so what happened?” I was not in sorrow that my phone may have died, I got money to buy a new one. Or preferably, an used one. Of course I got a little lonely that I could not contact anyone and make google searches (like seriously, Google is my notebook! Whatever comes in my mind, I Google it.), but I was mostly worried ‘cause I was currently working on my shift. I am a janitor, weird right! I write all these game reviews and make videos about.. Um.. Being the janitor, I guess? But yeah, my work requires me being able to answer my phone for work tasks.

(HERE’S FOR THE TITLE, sorry to keep you reading)

I was really concerned that was I able to recover my photos and chat conversations with my girlfriend, friends, group chats and all that? Now that I think of it, why do we save chat records anyway? I finally caught up with the new generation (I’m 19 btw) and downloaded Snapchat. Wow, a shock, yah. What I didn’t like about it though was the fact that it didn’t automatically save all the snaps and chats you were getting and giving. Though at that point I thought.. “Why do we keep chat history anyway? It’s not like (at least in my case) I’m gonna read through the whole thing, with today’s chat habits, there are thousands and thousands of them!” Me being kind of a minimalistic person, I really wondered why was I so worried about losing conversations that I ain’t gonna read anyway. You can just save the most important ones, like the ones that you can use to remind you of something or some love letters for example. That’s what I do, just save the most important ones, why should I care about the rest? I’m always stressing out about passing of time, so I think it’s a waste to stay in the past.

Sometimes I find the difficulty of letting things go.. Well, difficult.

This thought was triggered by a reddit post of someone asking how to save their chat history worth of tens of thousands of messages.

Feels good to be back. This is a review I started still when I was reviewing and never finished. Let this be a welcome back gift.

Games are always changing. As new technology and more powerful processing makes it’s way to reality, video games can be played differently and they look even more realistic by the year. Some of the games today, you can’t really tell you’re looking at a 3D model or a real human (or whatever it may be). But what about the past of gaming? Remember the step between 8 and 16 bit graphics? How about when they introduced us 3D polygons?

Evoland is the kind of game that reminds us of these things. It’s a short adventure through the history of video game elements and visuals. Evoland actually kind of reminded me of DLC Quest with it’s similiar gameplay, but instead of buying all the upgrades, you find them scattered all over in chests.

Story: It’s not really memorable, buy average whatsoever.

We are Clink (Link basically, at least that’s what it reminds me of) and we are set from nowhere to save the world. Got that? Okay, sounds simple enough. We’ll team up with a girl named Kaeris and suddenly we have to save her village from the monsters, too? Behind all these monsters is this baddie, Zephyros. Sorry if I spoil it to you but it’s really not an original plot. Basically we are the good guy and Zephyros is the bad guy.

Gameplay: Your standard turn-based combat RPG fun, for the most part. Upgrades made it worthwhile.

In Evoland, you start as a sharp-edged pixelboy in a black and white land with no sounds or anything whatsoever. You find chests, and what do these chests include? The evolution of gaming, of course. The beginning of the game is really interesting because of all the graphic enhancements. Unfortunately, you’ll most likely acquire all the upgrades within the first hour which leaves you the last few hours of common adventure/action/rpg gameplay. It’s really quite a disappoinment and waste of potential when you’re rushing through the element which makes the game special. Fortunately, Evoland was not ruined with extensive gameplay hours. With it’s price and amount of content, it was a nice and brief experience.

Anyways, this game is a mix of The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy (Some sources include Diablo as well, but I’ve never played it). As soon as you acquire a weapon, you’re ready to slash all the bats and umm.. Piranha Plants, around the field. As every game, this also has collectables and secrets. You may find stars and “Double Twin”-cards. What cards?

Double Twin is an in-game card game which includes a number of moster cards with different values on each side of the card. In turns, both players fill a 3-by-3 grid with the cards you own and hope to defeat your opponents monsters by comparing the adjacent values. This was a simple fun card game that could’ve made it’s way beyond Evoland.

Graphics: A mix of everything. The game hops way too quickly to the 3D graphics, which lasts for the rest of the game.

As hinted everywhere, this is why you want to play this game. I can’t think of anything that hasn’t been stated already. The evolution makes the graphics renew nicely. The 3D quality actually surprised me a bit, just a little bit. Just a shame we couldn’t enjoy more of the older era pixels. I’ve never been complaining about the quality of graphics, so I’ve got no real complaints about how the game looks like itself. I always appreciate when they use colors.

Soundtrack: A few memorable tracks. Sound effects were nothing special.

One thing I got to point out is that the Field Theme in this game really reminds me of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. Otherwise, I think the developers did a good job with this soundtrack overall. Must I say, though, that the songs could’ve been longer.

Cinematics: –

Conclusion: 8 out of 10. A fun short adventure with an unique idea and satisfacting music, I would not play for it’s storyline.

I still wish Double Twin to become a thing, though. Can’t wait to try Evoland 2.

Purchase the game and watch the trailer here.