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Goodness gracious!

As a huge fan of this strange action-RPG, daring to put it in my top 10 or even top 5 SNES games, I was elated to see this re-translation of a script that had all the hallmarks of an obscure RPG localized in what seemed like one or two afternoons. In this hack, essentially all of the nonsensical lines and odd turns of phrase have been stripped for (what I assume is) a more faithful delivery of the Japanese dialogue. And I have to say, my feelings are mixed!

To be clear, NLeseul has done great work here in giving us the unabridged version of E.V.O's story. Every line of dialogue is much more fleshed out and clear in its intent. Some characters have lines that convey much more intelligence, emotion, or seriousness. This especially applies to the game's already memorable bosses, who come off pretty oafish in the original but now deliver some pretty intimidating lines. In fact, almost every character comes off as an oaf in the original because the whole script seemed written by an 8 year-old. But now, appropriately, only the actual oafs sounds like oafs.

And of course, the names of things aren't complete head-scratchers anymore. E.V.O had a lot of creatures and evolutions named after nonexistent genus and species, which seems to be fixed here, though I'm no expert on the matter.

I wish I could say those positives lead to this version being objectively superior, but I simply can't bring myself to. This is for sure worth playing if you're a fan of E.V.O and want a good excuse to read all the dialogue again. But in the end, a lot of the "fleshing out" feels more like fluff, often feeling like work just to read. Many sentences seem to go on longer than necessary or are just worded in a way that, instead of being too simple, are strangely complex. Mix that with a new font that can often be a strain to read, and you have a version that I'm not sure I want to complete more than once. I only have so much patience for walls of text with awkwardly spaced lettering. It made me want to go back to the simple and fat dialogue of the original, filled with unintentionally funny and memorable lines.

Furthermore, although I am appreciative of the many lines that were restored or fixed, in playing the original you miss out on basically nothing as far as the main story beats. There are some lines that are clearly better at conveying ideas that were vague in the original, but at no point did I think "Oh, THAT's what they meant!" It's a pretty simple storyline with a few twists and turns that the original conveys just fine. Not a fault of the translation of course, just another reason I don't really need to go back to this version.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention an instance where I feel the original translation did a better job converting the Japanese into English. The trial that is "Eat or be eaten" ("弱肉強食") is translated too literally. Not only is "Survival of the fittest" (the line in the original translation) a comparable English phrase, it has direct relation to the Theory of Evolution and is thus very fitting. Although I didn't know the Japanese line until later research, "Eat or be eaten" seemed overly desperate to "restore" the original intent and put a nagging feeling in my mind for the rest of the playthrough that other lines may have been similarly mishandled.

Although I may sound harsh in my assessment of the new translation, I still commend the effort here greatly, and honestly feel enriched having read a more faithful script of my beloved E.V.O. And though for subsequent playthroughs I will choose the original for its easy reading and quirky charm, there will be times that I'm glad to know the full intent behind certain lines, especially a certain villain's intimidating biblical reference.