In our early impressions piece we spoke of the RPG-lite nature of Evoland 2, with the game falling more on the adventure side of the line than the RPG side. While this remained the case through the rest of our time in-game, there were sections that introduced more strategic combat, implementing an Active Time Battle system reminiscent of the Final Fantasy series. This implementation didn’t come off as a light surface mechanic, but instead as a fully working system that introduced party combos and strategic battling that was so easy to learn, yet equally deep and satisfying.

And this one example proved to be the case with all of the morphing through classic gaming genres that Evoland 2 underwent throughout the adventure.

Another great example was a boss battle that took place as a Street Fighter/Tekken 2D fighting homage. Again, this wasn’t just a knowing wink, it was a full-blown fighting experience with button combos to learn; a complete game unto itself. So much so that it highlighted the lack of a solid 2D fighter on Apple TV, by showing how capably one could be played on the platform. If Shiro Games is listening, a spin-off fighter using Evoland 2’s characters as its roster would be a shut-up-and-take-my-money moment.

There is a rhythm game section, a restaurant management section, a bullet-hell shmup section, and so many others that makes trying to list off the individual characters, games, and genre references an insult to the many that would be missed, and would take up the entire word count of this review.

How then does Shiro Games tie all this together and still retain a compelling experience with so many disparate parts?

One key element to that success is the compelling story.

Time travel stories are not known for their clarity, and yet at no time within Evoland 2 did I get to the point where I stopped paying attention and just played through the rest of the game in ignorance. We’ve played through this story before – an unassuming hero wakes to find himself in a strange land he feels compelled to save, all the while being manipulated by machinations and forces that are somehow outside the world he inhabits – but as with the references and genre-shifting aspects of Evoland 2, the story that borrows heavily from the classics, also successfully manages to pay homage to them while still managing to stand on its own.

A small niggle is a lack of any sort of quest log, with little recaps of your conversations to help remind you where you’ll need to go to progress the story. At times I felt a little lost, doubling back to towns to make sure I hadn’t missed something.

With the current recognition of the Apple TV gaming platform being relatively obscure, Evoland 2 will of course be much more successful on mobile and tablet, and yet a console is where this masterpiece from Shiro Games truly belongs. You’ll require a controller for play on Apple TV, and when you boot it up on the platform and sink into its environment of constant evolution, you’ll discover a modern console classic knitted together from the bones of previous console classics, in a completely respectful way.

In A Nutshell:

Evoland 2, developed by Shiro Games and published by Playdigious, is a shining example of respectful acknowledgement of the past, used to create something new and fresh. A must-buy for your Apple TV console library.