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Trailer

Downloads

E.V.O.: The Theory of Evolution Complete (incl. Translation Patch & Manual) v1.1.2 – zip – 7776 download(s) – 24 MB

E.V.O.: The Theory of Evolution Lite (Patcher Only) v1.1.2 – zip – 2207 download(s) – 6 MB

E.V.O.: The Theory of Evolution Mac/Linux Patches v1.1.2 – zip – 912 download(s) – 507 KB

E.V.O.: The Theory of Evolution Manual v1.0.0 – zip – 1755 download(s) – 16 MB

Patches are provided in xdelta format for Mac/Linux users, and as an all-in-one patcher executable for Windows users.

We recommend the np21.exe executable of Neko Project II fmgen for emulation. See our PC-98 Emulation guide for more details.

anex86 and T98-Next cannot play the main HDI version of the game that you might find on the internet. This is due to the version of DOS that is being used with that particular HDI. If you want to use anex86 you’ll have to create your own HDI with DOS 3.3 (possibly others, but we’ve only tested with 3.3) and then copy the content of the prominent HDI (aside from the DOS system files) into this new one you’ve made. Also, builds of Neko Project II ending in “x11.exe” will freeze at the end of Chapter Four. We generally recommend you just play the game using the multiple floppy disk images.

Common Issues

1. I’m getting a checksum error on the User Disk of my FDI files?

This problem is a little more difficult to solve for all operating systems, but our present Patcher shouldn’t run into it on Windows. Linux and Mac, however, could run into the problem since they are still using full disk patches.

The way a User Disk works is that, normally you have to create your own User Disk using the System Disk that your game came with. It’s kind of like installing the game, except to another disk. So what happens is, most of the FDI files around the internet may have the same Disk B1 through B4, but they each might have a different User Disk made by different people at different times. It will be very difficult for us to create a patch for every single user disk out there. You may keep looking for a User Disk with the hashes given in the readme, but it may simply be easier to use the HDI or HDM patches, as these disks are available in a more standardized format.

2. The game fades to black after finishing Chapter 4, and never loads Chapter 5.

This bug seems to occur in versions of Neko Project II that end in x11.exe. We’re looking at this, but for now, we recommend using np21.exe from the np2fmgen emulator pack.

3. The patcher isn’t working?

We updated our patching process (1.1.1 – 2017/7/4) to use Pachy98, our new patching program, which should fix a lot of the compatibility problems the older patcher (1.1.0) was having. If you are still having issues patching, please, please, please report a bug. We are planning to use this patching system going forward with ALL of our releases so if we don’t get your issue sorted out now, you’ll have the same issues going forward.

Status

Completed on December 28th, 2016

Process: Mapping, Dumping, Translation, Reinsertion, Revision, Bugfixes, Image Reinsertion, Formatting, Finishing Touches, Manual Translation, Manual Layout, Beta Testing

About Game

E.V.O.: Search for Eden was released in the West on July 15th, 1993. It did okay, and became somewhat of a cult classic. So when we say the game that came before it called E.V.O.: The Theory of Evolution (46 Okunen Monogatari: The Shinkaron) published by Enix and released on the NEC PC-9801 system is more even more obscure, we might actually be understating how unknown it is outside of Japan.

E.V.O.: The Theory of Evolution is an RPG, about one step more primitive than the Dragon Quest games published by the same company. You control one character as they progress through the different eras of life on planet Earth, fighting turn-based battles with damage being based on stats that you control directly. Once you’ve pushed a stat to its uppermost limit, your character evolves into a completely different creature with different abilities in battle. The story itself is somewhat similar to Search for Eden, but much more fleshed out with a lot of different stories for each era that the game explores. And while Search for Eden ends with humanity as the pinnacle of evolution, The Theory of Evolution goes a bit further into the future…

You can read more about the game and its history on its Wikipedia article or over at Hardcore Gaming 101’s article about the E.V.O. series.

About Project

This is our first project as 46 OkuMen, as well as hollowaytape and kuoushi’s first romhacking project in general. So it’s been a long and exciting process.

Here are some fun things we discovered about the game and script along the way:

During the opening and ending cinematics, the game interprets any string starting with “A” as an image filename (ex. AV001.GDT), and crashes as a result.

The game supports a “brief pause” control code, but only incorporates it into the game script in the first chapter. The developers may have forgotten it existed while writing the rest of the game.

The science presented about the creatures in this game is actually quite accurate and well-sourced.

A few of the chapter titles reference specific things. One of these might not come through in the translation too well, but chapter one is actually a reference to the KAI-YU-KAN Aquarium in Osaka, Japan. The aquarium opened in the same year as E.V.O.: The Theory of Evolution‘s release in Japan, so they named the first chapter the KAI-YU-KI (or KAI-YU Period). The literal translation for those two characters is OCEAN-PLAY, which is how we came to the current translation in our patch. Another chapter title that underwent a small change was chapter two, which we have in the game as Coal Forest Period. The original Japanese, JU-RA-KI, is a sort of play on words with the two characters used for JU-RA referring to the forests spreading onto land, while the full JU-RA-KI also stands for the Jurassic Period based on the syllables alone. Unfortunately, chapter two doesn’t actually take place during the Jurassic, so it got tweaked.

The Teilhardorphus is named after the French Paleontologist, Philosopher, and Jesuit Priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who was one of the people responsible for the discovery of the Peking Man. This is one of many of the creatures named after real people, most of which were named after people who worked on the game such as the Sugiyaman, which is named after the game’s composer, Sugiyama Kouichi.

Not so much a note about the game, but if you wanted to see what the Japanese packaging for The Theory of Evolution and Search for Eden looked like, sonofashark /Ultimate scanned and uploaded that to his Flickr account.

(more notes to come at a future date)

Screenshots

Team

hollowaytape – Hacking

kuoushi – Translation, Editing, Trailer

SkyeWelse – Title Graphics, Promo Art, Manual Layout

Racoon Sam / SkyeWelse – Main Title Graphic

M-bot – Graphics Hacking

sonofashark / Ultimate – Manual Scans

not_log – Manual Scanlation

joseji – Special Thanks

cuba2006 – Special Thanks / Extra Bugtesting

Highwang, SkyeWelse, Arboreal, RadGalaxy, measuredincm, gonameyourself – Beta Testing