So what is this story?

[FlutterFeet Fetish]

The first game had a powerful message and thought provoking themes. It made me feel strong emotions and actually made me re-evaluate my outlook on life and fear death less. The entire journey felt like it had meaning and a very satisfying climactic end. There was cohesiveness and you could actually theory craft and figure out the blanks. In this game, it felt like I was being thrown around all over the place for no reason with no aim and it ends in an unsatisfying and abrupt end. I really don't get it

[Groversoup]

Everhood addressed fear of death by showing you a hypothetical alternate scenario, one where eternal life causes all action to lose meaning. The everhood's victims are placed in an endless self-inflicted torment that they're too scared to escape. Everhood 2 addresses fear of death by presenting you with circumstances closer to real life. For as absurd as its world is, everhood 2 is much more relatable to the human experience than the first game ever could be, because there IS no narrative. The overarching goal disappears as soon as Raven dips out of being your guide, and their plan to defeat the root of all evil was doomed from the beginning. Time after time you reach your stated goal and the game refuses to conclude, finally kneecapping you with an ending nobody would like on its own merits: turning your companion for the whole game into a brainwashed villain and sending them off with a joke death before literally walking you out of the credits and refusing to end the game even then. There is no ending.

The obvious question this inspires is "what was the point of all that?" And that's exactly the question the game is intending to impart. Real life isn't a narrative, you don't have a big bad to defeat and you don't have a satisfying ending, or any ending, at least not one that you'll be around for. What is the point of all this? From what do you derive value, if there isn't some grand revelation at the end of everything? Shade and the people that draw power from their influence believe that there is no point to living. All is vanity. And it's ultimately up to you if you agree with them. Is everhood 2 a worthwhile experience without an ending? Do you derive meaning from these characters and these experiences in the moment, even knowing it won't give you the conclusion you want? For me, the answer is yes.

That's one take anyway, this is a philosophically and thematically LOADED game and there's so much going on with shade specifically that I'm sure there are endless interpretations. For me, shade is a concentrated beacon of nihilism, driving people like Bobo to abandon their morals in pursuit of base entertainment at the expense of everything else, because nothing really matters in the end. Shade can never be defeated in the videogame Everhood 2, but they embody an ideology that can be defeated in the real world, by critically examining your own thoughts.

Now you can think everything I just said is completely wrong and insane, but the fact that there's this much discussion going toward what the game is even about makes me believe that the devs achieved what they wanted with this "ending." You are supposed to be asking questions- big ones- and don't stop until you find an answer you're satisfied with.

[Flint Webber]

So yeah, Groversoup really nailed it and lined up the beats for me for sure.

"I don't get it. - FlutterFeet Fetish.

But you did get it.
The game is a take on life.

Now for my own experience with the game. I was HONESTLY waiting for that other shoe to drop like in 1, but, never did.

And... I feel a weird laughter in me after this game and it's """ending"""

[MaxdamageAF]

Originally posted by Groversoup:

Quite like this take, thanks for sharing your thoughts

[FlutterFeet Fetish]

Originally posted by Groversoup:

Everhood addressed fear of death by showing you a hypothetical alternate scenario, one where eternal life causes all action to lose meaning. The everhood's victims are placed in an endless self-inflicted torment that they're too scared to escape. Everhood 2 addresses fear of death by presenting you with circumstances closer to real life. For as absurd as its world is, everhood 2 is much more relatable to the human experience than the first game ever could be, because there IS no narrative. The overarching goal disappears as soon as Raven dips out of being your guide, and their plan to defeat the root of all evil was doomed from the beginning. Time after time you reach your stated goal and the game refuses to conclude, finally kneecapping you with an ending nobody would like on its own merits: turning your companion for the whole game into a brainwashed villain and sending them off with a joke death before literally walking you out of the credits and refusing to end the game even then. There is no ending.

The obvious question this inspires is "what was the point of all that?" And that's exactly the question the game is intending to impart. Real life isn't a narrative, you don't have a big bad to defeat and you don't have a satisfying ending, or any ending, at least not one that you'll be around for. What is the point of all this? From what do you derive value, if there isn't some grand revelation at the end of everything? Shade and the people that draw power from their influence believe that there is no point to living. All is vanity. And it's ultimately up to you if you agree with them. Is everhood 2 a worthwhile experience without an ending? Do you derive meaning from these characters and these experiences in the moment, even knowing it won't give you the conclusion you want? For me, the answer is yes.

That's one take anyway, this is a philosophically and thematically LOADED game and there's so much going on with shade specifically that I'm sure there are endless interpretations. For me, shade is a concentrated beacon of nihilism, driving people like Bobo to abandon their morals in pursuit of base entertainment at the expense of everything else, because nothing really matters in the end. Shade can never be defeated in the videogame Everhood 2, but they embody an ideology that can be defeated in the real world, by critically examining your own thoughts.

Now you can think everything I just said is completely wrong and insane, but the fact that there's this much discussion going toward what the game is even about makes me believe that the devs achieved what they wanted with this "ending." You are supposed to be asking questions- big ones- and don't stop until you find an answer you're satisfied with.

It makes sense when you put it that way, thank you

[CotePathos_EpochToaster]

From the beginning, it was clear the world would end in comedy and fantasy.

Anyway, you're canonically god, so mod in your own ideal ending.

[BeanBoi]

another thing i think the game can be seen as is the nature of conflict and drive for power/wealth.

when you really think about it, there's no reason for us to be going after Shade. sure he attacks us that one time but after that we're going out of our way to find him and fight him.

think about every other area. we directly or indirectly cause 99% of the fights in the game, by invading other realities and instantly picking fights with the locals, or causing ♥♥♥♥ to go wrong with our presence We decide to invade the Vegetable Castle, we stick our noses into the slave stuff on the Alien World and keep going back, etc.

Are these things bad and should we have stopped it? yes. but we go out of our way to FIND the conflict.

And look at the others.

Irvine eats the fruit that turns him into a monster and almost destroys the SMEGA
Sam literally organized the attack on the Vegetable Castle for god sakes
why did both of them do this and similar things? Treasure. Even though they're already rich (see sams room)

the game basically spells it out but Shade and the Player are opposite sides of Conflict as a whole. Shade is always there in our journey, either directly or indirectly causing problems or more things for us to have to deal with. He is quite literally the representation of an Antagonist.

But does that mean he's directly evil? Sure, he does horrible things like genocide an entire planet, but so what? How many entities did we kill over the game, and then how many were actually self defense? Not many. We can see from his later scenes that he's really just more of a chill guy who likes to have fun, although said fun is being an Antagonist. He's in it for the love of the game.

Raven is easily the biggest offender though. The game even says this directly too that he's manipulating the player for his own ends. He is basically the only reason we go after Shade, even locking off other parts of the game to force us to do so. And we don't even know why besides Shade being 'evil'. Like how a leader sends soldiers off to fight a war they dont understand against an enemy they dont know.

[Bread 🍞]

Originally posted by CotePathos_EpochToaster:

Anyway, you're canonically god, so mod in your own ideal ending.

This is probably the best take away I've seen so far lol

[DrakhenVolf]

Hadn't considered it from Groversoup's perspective, but that's a pretty good take. I think the game's a good time and is trying to be a good time, I just think it's kinda clumsy about it. That and the stuff it sets up but never pays off. That's the bigger crime to me, all the stuff it doesn't follow through on.
I think it's best viewed as a cosmic road trip, but in this case you really, really need to tell yourself it's about the journey, not the destination.

[MANEATER]

I think Groversoup's analysis is a valid one, but I'd also like to point out that an analysis isn't what was originally being asked here. "What is the story?" is asking for a summary of the narrative, and the short answer is: there isn't one.

We can analyze the themes and "what it means" and "why the devs chose to make the game they did" until we're blue in the face, but that doesn't really change the fact that Everhood 2 does not have a clear, straight-forward narrative. There's not really plot beats. There's not really character motivations. Characters don't really grow or change in any meaningful way. There's not really any lore-related mysteries that get solved. You can't even really recount the plot beats by saying "A happened, therefore B happened, therefore C happened..."

You kinda just wander aimlessly through the multiverse until the game ends. That's pretty much it.

[Bastein]

This ending frustrates me to no end.

I agree with Grovesoups' analysis, but coming from the first game—where the story genuinely had a big impact on my outlook on life—this just feels like a huge letdown. "The point is that there is no point" feels like a hollow cop-out, and I'm sure many will say "That is the point!" and all, but that doesn't change the fact that I feel scammed out of what could've been.

If the point of the story is that nothing means anything, and it's an allegory for life being confusing and pointless, I feel like there's a way to tell that story without making those feelings the final note of the game. That just leaves a sour taste in my mouth after finishing.

A lot could've been done to mitigate that and leave players with the feeling that they didn't just waste six hours of game time and twenty bucks. Multiple endings, post-game content that isn't just a weekly high-score showcase, a final boss battle that actually feels epic—anything!

Suppose I'll go play the first one again, just to feel the contrast.

[Foxassassin]

So something that I noticed and I hope isn't the case;

Shade's smile is very close to Chris's from the Dev gnomes fight from the first one. Could be a stylistic choice but no other character has been depicted like that.

This would also lead to a parallel to the 'Entertainer' Shade calls himself to the 'Hero' we are supposedly, to the Creator of the game to the consumer. A sort of extra layer of meta commentary.

What it'd mean would be up for personal interpretation, but I hope it isn't going into a "You bought the game, and beat it and if you don't like it, too bad" kind of thing, like they were self-aware of how unsavory the ending let alone the journey would be.