E.V.O.: Search for Eden (SNES)

I ripped this from my tourney post cuz I put a lot of effort into this, haha. These are only tips if you want them. You don't have to read them, and the fun is coming up with strats yourself. Plus I could very well be way wrong anyway. New, post-tourney developments in orange.

This game is absolutely brutal to run. I still don't know what a perfect time would look like. There is a TAS with bird, which is the fastest, in 40.5 minutes of input. The TAS and the discussion in this post are for new game, not new game plus. With new game plus, you can bring in saved forms, although you can't turn into a form that is only playable in a chapter later than the one you're in. This is still ridiculously good, as you can turn into a top-tier amphibian at the start of ch2 (instead of a fish), top-tier bird at the start of ch3, and so on.

Here are some assorted tips. This won't cover everything since there are a lot of uncommon situations that occur, and you really just need a lot of experience to deal with them intuitively.

- Evolving and using green crystal recover full HP. You can cheat death at 0 HP if you're fast too.
- You can hit R to return to the overworld. This is a key trick that needs to be used whenever applicable, but it isn't extremely obvious. I'll say exactly when to use it in the guide below.
- You can hit B to skip the stage titles. You have to be careful and time this right or you will do an unwanted jump. In general, whether advancing text or whatever, you have to be careful with your mashes.
- If you hold down the jump button, you will fall through platforms. So tap or let go if you want to climb up.
- When using the bird, falling should be faster than flying downwards.
- Learn when to bite (Y) and when to gulp (X). Gulping resets a jump (as does hitting the edge of the screen), allowing double bouncing. It also doesn't move you forward, and it can be useful for eating food at the right height. Gulping eats food at the end of its animation, which means that unlike biting, you can queue up the gulp for maximum optimization.
- Just some terminology. I use bite (Y), ram (dash with horn), bounce (B jump and land on top like Mario), kick (A with mammal), and charge (dash A). Bite does bite damage, ram does horn damage (most horns break in 3 uses, get recharged by evolving just like HP), bounce does strength / 2 damage rounded down but at least 1, kick does kick damage, charge does strength damage. Strike replaces bite for humans and does strike damage.
- You can only hold one green crystal at a time. I relearned this the hard way.
- Dash jumping is generally fastest, and bouncing is very desirable when you can do it. It's more important than always holding on to forward.
- When in water, traveling along the top is useful because you can jump out the top out of the water.
- Immediately after performing an action, say gulping, while underwater, you must move before you can dash. So the easiest way is to just triple tap instead of double tap to dash underwater.
- One potential spot of luck is with the meat the t-rexes drop. I never seem to get green meat, but you can, and it's worth 1000 instead of 250! This route is designed for all 250's, but if you get lucky, you might be able to afford some crazy crap like tyra jaws or longtail bird tail or something. Just make sure you have this in mind so you don't panic if you get some green meat.

Here is my mammal route. It takes exactly 0 time fighting anyone who isn't necessary. My bird route is outlined after the mammal route below.

ch1

- Once I did the whole chapter without triggering the jellyfish dialogue. That was way too luck-based for the comp, but I could see it for SDA.
- Eat the yellow crystal and immediately R exit. BTW this is the only yellow crystal you need to eat in the whole game.
- Eat the red crystal and hope for the eel instead of the ray. I reset if I get ray, it's up to you though. R exit.
- Kill dudes in the undersea volcano and if you get 2 green meat, you'll have 500 before you run out of eel. If you don't, it's up to you if you want to restart, but it's not a catastrophe. Evolve kura fin. Try to stay near either edge, preferably at the top. You can exit out either side ASAP when the volcano erupts, doesn't have to be to the right.
- Go to the right in the cave and get the 500 blue crystal. Evolve tackle fin. Go back and clear the cave. Try to limit the number of dashes you have to make. There's really an art to it that comes from experience. Good luck and watch out at the volcano part. It's like Gradius nostalgia.
- If you have both upgrades, you can dash past the nautiloids. Otherwise you either need to lure them like upsidedown thwomps from Mario, or kill them if you need the exp to reach 500. If you still don't have enough, kill a shark or two.
- The way I kill the shark boss is to charge. You can lure him to charge at you and whiff, and then punish. Or you can actually get him in a loop. There's food if you really need it, and it's easy if you're not being reckless, but unfortunately speedrunning is reckless business. Something to keep in mind is that it's his thrashing tail that hurts you, so try to hit his head instead. Sometimes it's better to just wait until he finishes thrashing wildly than to mess up a charge and die, but it is early on.
- Evolve kura tail and spiraled horn with all your exp (yeah, even horns have a use in this run) and save in slot 1 (saving your form of course, not the game itself) with no name.

ch2

- Go and get the green crystal.
- I turn into fish at the start of the last stage before the boss stage. Fish can't bounce! Keep this in mind.
- Your first order of business is to jump onto the slightly raised platform. Now since you are above the boss, he will never spit, just jump. Use fish and lock him in a charge cycle as he jumps over you to the left and right. To speed up the process a bit, you can ram him for 10 a pop. As he has 60 hp, this kills half his health, meaning you only have to charge 5 times instead of 10. When he's dead, which will be very soon, there's a specific spot to stand on to trigger the thankful dude and little kid. Don't jump over that.
- Use fish until it runs out. When it does, spend 300 of your 400 exp on Kerll.
- Go to the bee cave and eat the dying dude for great justice. Evolve spring tail and tusking jaws. Kill all the larvae. Try to stay to the right so you can attack the king bee when he comes out. Bite the crap out of him. When he's in the air, jump bite to get him down on the ground.
- Evolve jumping fin. Bounce on the dragonfly for lulz and speed on the way out. Thanks little guy.
- Pick up the green crystal in the desert. It should be right where you land anyway.
- Beat queen bee the same way you beat king bee, in a frenzied primal biting call of the wild. Evolve fierce jaws. The way the math works out vs the upcoming frog boss, with the old route IIRC, you could just ram it 6 times it to death (90 dmg). Currently with big horn, you ram 3 times (45 dmg) and then bite 7 (35 dmg), but with fierce jaws, you bite 8 times (80 dmg). You have 600 leftover exp, so you could evolve feeler horn, but I don't see the point. Save amphibian to slot 1, overwriting fish.

ch3

- Transform into amphibian immediately. Whenever it runs out, transform right back into it again using the green crystal you get from taking the south path. Time is precious, so blaze through the stages.
- When you get to the frog boss (very reminiscent of Umihara Kawase actually), bite like mad. This is where the route starts to branch off depending on what final evolution you want. I'll continue with mammal and list less in detail for other animals later.
- Afterwards, it's evolution party time. You get a ton of exp, 2000 in fact. Keep on going with amphibian, and when it runs out, evolve phonocos jaws, edasaurus fin, and snake tail.
- When entering the t-rex domain, grab the green crystal. Then start biting t-rexes, you need to kill 10. One t-rex bite kills you from full, so this bite method is much dicier than charging, but it is faster. If you get lucky, or maybe there's some skill, you can attack 2 t-rexes simultaneously if they overlap.
- Anyway, once you get 1000, evolve 2 legs once. Reptile gets both 2 legs evolutions and it is hella sexy with agility and jump, but the purpose here is to keep you in place while biting. You end up with some extra exp, which you can spend as you like. I get spiraled horn since it can be useful against the bird king given that we're skipping the elephant in the bird fort. An alternative is another "evolve 2 legs" and ptenodon's crest for an additional +4 agi and +4 jump. Then save your reptile on slot 2.

ch4

- Go into the cave and turn into a mammal. Exit and then R exit.
- Next cave, enter and exit, then R exit.
- Take the path through the mountain, not over it. Both have green crystals, but IIRC you can only get one or the other, even if you backtrack. Anyway, jump up to the green crystal and transform to amphibian right before you eat it.
- Go as far as you can with amphibian until it runs out. This happens to me near the seal in the north pole. Then green crystal again, this time into reptile.
- Get up in the first mammoth's face. Just start biting the crap out of him like your life depends on it (which it does). With 2 legs, your bite keeps you in place, allowing for chain biting. As soon as one mammoth is dead, jump to the left until trigger, then land back to the right next to the next mammoth. Then bite away again.
- Worst celebration party ever. All you get is rabbit jaws. Don't fight the girl mammoth obviously (ps I love how females in this game are always pink).
- Jump up and touch the ice as high as possible for a split-second time savings, oh boy.
- The first flying swordsbird can be run past. If they are the same height you should jump, and if they are charging with sword, jump back and do it early. Path you take is actually the fastest one you can do with your current form, no shortcuts, but funny enough, this takes you right by a green crystal that you eat. The path is forward, right down left, right down left, same teleporter.
- Let's fight this guy with reptile. Try to get the bird king against the wall on the left and chain bite. It doesn't work so well here as mammoths. Give yourself a bit of distance but you still might be knocked down.
- With 2000 exp gained, evolve horse jaws and horse body. Now you are a little awesome kicking machine who runs like the wind.
- Fight the yetis. Mr. Yeti is an absolute joke with current form. He'll just keep jumping at you like some scrubby sf4 player. Anti-air him over and over again with kick lock until he is dead. Or, you could just kick lock him in the corner.
- Mrs. Yeti has jugs. She's actually an infinitely tougher boss due to insane clap attack as well as ice breath. What you need to do here is lure her to the edge and kick lock. You can also kick her over there by jumping and then using a bit of the resulting invincibility to kick. That's useful in general I guess. Evolve bull horn after the fight. If you can't do it now, just do it whenever you can. It's not terribly important but it does help out a lot (+5 str, +5 hp, +7 def).

ch5

- Blaze through all these stages. As a mammal, I think you have to go in the water for each water stage. Horse bouncing is particularly hilarious.
- Grizzlies are something to watch out for since they jump high. Just be careful and realize they're not as easy as most of the other animals while dash jumping. Forget chain bouncing. You need to pass them near the apex of your jumps.
- Skip the 5000 exp blue crystal in condor land. You don't need it. You can exit this to the left, by the way.
- I was kinda afraid monkey and dino caves would be hard without bird but actually they're not. Make your way to the yeti. He's kinda tough but again the trick is to kick lock him next to the screen edge. To get him there, you can charge when he whiffs his set of punches or lure him. If you need to, now you have the exp to add or remove mane to recover full hp for 100.
- Go into the ocean. Sadly, no exp for mermaid available, but it's not needed plus you don't need to sit through all the transformations that make it slower.
- Rogon boss is cake. Who cares if you get hit by the blinding light, it only does 1 damage and vision is unnecessary here. Kick him and he will go flying towards the bottom left of the map. Go there and it's an easy kick lock. Make sure to R exit after talking to the whale.
- No need to fight the queen bee of course.
- Against cro-magnon, jump bite to get up in his face and then kick lock him at the entrance of the cave. If he escapes, it's an easy deal, just tap left and continue kick locking.
- Final boss time, guy looks like a huge cell or paramecium or whatever. Now it's time to become a tank like in a Metal Warriors run. Evolve fierce jaws, mane, rhinocerous body, extend neck, increase body size. If you are super pro and never getting hit and have balls of steel, you can stay with horse body or keep body size since it's faster, but yeah I really don't recommend that. Use your remaining exp to detach (and reattach if you need to bite) mane for hp recovery.
- Final boss sits there with its phallic nose. Position yourself perfectly, remember this is an SNES game so the hitbox is what you see. Then jump up and bite. In his down stages, the boss takes four hits of any damage. If you have balls of steel, you can score two hits at a time by bounce biting. All the substages will have to be cycled through and the order is random. At times, the boss will take male enhancement pills and super extend its nose. This is dangerous since you will be preoccupied, but the best way to handle this is to kick since kick comes out quickly plus protects your backside while you are busy.
- Some enemies are cake like the dino and birdman, which you chain bite. For the first amphibian boss, kick locking is best even though you're not a horse anymore. You can try biting but he loves to spit gunk at you. You can chain bite in the corner though. Jump bite the jellyfish. For the fish, first get it to the ground by jump biting or whatever. Then it will swim towards you on the ground and you can do a rudimentary kick lock a la Mr Yeti style. Or again, chain bite in the corner if possible.
- Giant cockroach is the hardest one I'd say. Bite it whenever you can. I don't know of a really fast way to do this since it takes to the air after every hit. I did find a method though. Bite a couple times, then it flies in a circle. Don't move, just time your bite and the way the hitboxes work, you will get the hit. Then just repeat.
- Final boss is dead. Wait forever for it to die. Then go to the right and collect your prize (Gaia). This part was really hilarious with bird and 90% of the forms, but the final form is actually kinda normal looking.

Ok, I typed so much I don't feel like explaining the rest in detail. Human takes forever. Reptile has huge problems with later bosses such as the yetis especially. Here are some bird tips though.

- I don't do any of the bird-exclusive stuff like cloud maze (get dragon and green crystal), cloud maze + asteroids (get 9999 exp, maybe gargoyle or green crystal), etc. Although tempting (instant tyra jaws, longtail bird tail, pronesaurus fin, ptenodon's crest) it takes way too long and isn't necessary IMHO.
- Although birds fly, fastest means of travel is still dash jump bouncing. Flying is very useful for certain things though, like shortcut in bird fort, skipping elevators, not having to go into the water, flying over dangerous stuff, and rocky terrain. You'd be surprised at all the little ways you can save time with bird.
- Most bosses are way easier with bird for normal play, but not necessarily easier or faster while running. You can hover in the air and enemies will treat you differently. Bite locking and repeated charging work really well. The bird's extreme speed is a little tricky to deal with too.

- Follow the mammal route until you beat the frog boss. Now you want to spend your exp to get pitsaurus jaws, segosaurus fin, snake tail, and ptenodon's crest (uses 1200 of 2000, but nothing else is better). Use this speedy reptile to clear the eastern route all the way up until the t-rex stage. Then go back and do the bird path.
- As bird, go to the t-rex stage and pick up the green crystal immediately. Then change into amphibian and kill as many t-rexes as you can with your powerful bite. When that runs out, evolve pronesaurus fin, snake tail, and ptenodon's crest. Prioritize them in that order, and if you don't have enough for all of them, evolve what you can and add the rest as soon as you're able.
- At this point, you can ignore all future green crystals as they won't be any more useful than what you already have.
- Still take the ch4 route through the mountain.
- Chain charge the mammoths. If you knock them away from the edges, that's good because you won't have to deal with the bubbles.
- Remember to touch the ice wall as high as possible, because you fly faster than the guy who picks you up.
- New route for bird fort is forward, same teleporter, right up left.
- Bird king is no joke because of those orbs. You might have to charge, dodge orbs by moving down and up, repeat. Now you can get an awesome upgrade: longtail bird tail. Your agility is now a sick 20, the highest possible in the entire game.
- Charge lock yetis.
- Since it's more expensive being a bird, do get the 5000 exp blue crystal in condor land. Evolve tyrasaurus jaws and extend neck. Now you're as good at biting as any dinosaur. Your agility is down to 17, but it's worth it.
- Bite lock the yeti.
- Bite lock the rogon king. Now that you have the exp, you might as well work that body work that body, make sure you don't hurt nobody. You can get armor body (+4 str, +5 def, -2 agi) or feather body (+2 str, +3 def). I go for feather because I'm like a bird, I'll only fly away.
- Bite lock cro-magnon. He gives an absolute motherload of exp (5000), which means that if you don't need to bite until the final boss, you could skip the condor blue crystal, but the biting does get in there. Since there's nothing really to spend it on, I save the exp for hp recovery, which is three times as expensive with the bird compared to the mammal. Really the cheapest thing you can do is remove and add the ptenodon's crest (600).

Happy evolving!