‘Eden Genesis’ Review: The Prognosis Is Rad

The hardcore 2D speedrunning platformer Eden Genesis gleefully puts its raison d’etre out there within minutes: “The laws of physics do not work the same way here as in the real world.” Your character, Leah Anderson, is told that by an AI named CORA while standing within a virtual representation of her own mind, which she has entered as part of an experimental procedure meant to help her literally fight the synthetic neurodegeneration (SND) within her. The result is the most enjoyable (and gamified) medical evaluation you’re ever likely to receive, a gravity-defying romp that has you shooting a Debugger and swinging a Bifocal Pulse Sword instead of peeing into a cup and coughing for a stethoscope.

Eden Genesis takes its name from a game-within-a-game that Leah used to play, an instance of which has been used as the hub setting for your viral countermeasures. Now, alongside the neon-lit advertisements of the East District, the classic-trendy aesthetics of New Asia, and the grassy parks and fancy fountains of the upper-crust’s expensive online housing in Xanadu, Leah can collect yellow cubes and fight enemies that represent the passive and aggressive manifestations of her SND. By clearing each specific treatment, indicated by doorways in the hub, Leah can purge her memory cores of illness, which in turn allows her to bypass the firewalls that are quarantining her from the other infected parts of her brain.

The game’s narrative does an exceptional job building out the setting, and to its significant credit, there’s more to Eden Genesis than a series of puzzling combat gauntlets and acrobatic traversal challenges. Leah is a powerful hacker and, in between treatments, she’s also interacting with the game’s NPCs, gathering collectibles that reveal the hidden history of the game-within-a-game and its connection to the rise of SND, and doing light button-matching hacking minigames to figure out if CORA is as benign an AI as she claims to be.

The game also proudly wears its inspirations on its sleeve, whether subtly (those Ghost in the Shell-like posters in the background), overtly (the motorbike you use for fast travel is modeled after the ones from Akira), or obliquely, as your character’s last name is almost certainly a tip of the hat to Keanu Reeves’s civilian name from The Matrix. The result is a cyberpunk riff on Dustforce, a similar momentum-driven game that the creators have cited as an influence.

The aerial acrobatics in Eden Genesis are addictive, driving players back through each minute-long level as many times as it takes in search of a perfect S+ evaluation. Players only need to get an A in order to earn the memory cores required to progress, but it’s genuinely thrilling to smoothly chain together moves so that you’re not just clearing a treatment but also collecting all the SND fast enough to keep your Synchro meter maxed out, all while not being hit.

Replaying a stage in Eden Genesis rarely grows tiresome, as it’s a blast to figure out how to more efficiently shave seconds off your score, even on the hardest, longest levels. Players who consistently S rank their way through a level will generate enough memory cores to skip some of the levels, but the quality design of each level means they won’t want to.

While the plot is occasionally predictable and the voice acting is a bit of a letdown, none of this takes away from the overall charm and mystery of Eden Genesis. Even when the final area, Node Zero, strips away all of the glamor of Eden’s districts, reducing things to a wireframe orange, it’s never anything less than exhilarating to find ways around obstacles, running along the safe underbelly of a fiery platform in order to double-jump up and slash through an enemy on the other side of it before finding another safe ceiling. If this is mental degeneration, then Disturbed had it right back in 2000: “Get up, come on get down with the sickness.”

This game was reviewed with code purchased by the reviewer.