Getting up despite illness

The hardcore 2D speedrunning platformer Eden Genesis gleefully lays out its raison d’être within minutes: “The laws of physics work differently here than in the real world.” Her character, Leah Anderson, learns this from an AI called CORA while standing in a virtual representation of her own mind, which she’s entered as part of an experimental procedure designed to literally help her fight the synthetic neurodegeneration (SND) inside her. The result is the most entertaining (and playful) medical exam you’ll ever receive, a gravity-defying romp that has you shooting a debugger and wielding a bifocal pulse sword instead of peeing in a cup and coughing for a stethoscope.

Eden Genesis takes its name from a game within the game Leah used to play, an instance of which was used as a hub setting for your viral countermeasures. Now, alongside the neon-lit billboards of the East District, the classic-trendy aesthetic of New Asia, and the grassy parks and fancy fountains of the expensive online apartments of the upper class in Xanadu, Leah can collect yellow cubes and fight enemies that represent the passive and aggressive manifestations of her SND. By completing each specific treatment indicated by doors in the hub, Leah can clear her memory cores of disease, which in turn allows her to bypass the firewalls that isolate her from the other infected parts of her brain.

The game’s narrative does an excellent job of setting up the setting, and to its great credit, there is still more to Eden Genesis as a series of enigmatic combat gauntlets and acrobatic traversal challenges. A powerful hacker, Leah also interacts with the game’s NPCs between treatments, collecting collectibles that reveal the game’s hidden history within the game and its connection to the rise of SND, and playing light button-matching hacking mini-games to discover if CORA is as harmless an AI as she claims.

The game also proudly displays its inspirations, whether subtle (the Ghost in the Shell-like posters in the background), obviously (the motorcycle you use for fast travel is similar to those of Akira), or indirectly, since your character’s last name is almost certainly a reference to Keanu Reeves’ real name from The MatrixThe result is a cyberpunk riff on Dust powera similar dynamic-driven game that the developers have cited as an influence.

The aerial acrobatics in Eden Genesis are addictive, forcing players to run through each minute-long level as many times as necessary in search of a perfect S+ rating. Players only need to get an A to earn the memory cores needed to advance, but there’s something really exciting about stringing together moves smoothly so that you not only complete a treat, but also collect all the SND quickly enough to keep your Synchro Meter full without getting hit.

Repeating a level in Eden Genesis rarely gets boring, as it’s a lot of fun to figure out how to more efficiently shave seconds off your score in even the most difficult and longest levels. Players who consistently beat a level at S-rank will generate enough memory cores to skip some of the levels, but the high quality design of each level means they won’t want to.

Although the plot is sometimes predictable and the dubbing is a little disappointing, this does not detract from the game’s charm and mystery. Eden Genesis. Even if the final area, Node Zero, strips away all the glory of the Eden precincts and reduces everything to an orange wireframe, it’s still exciting to find ways around obstacles, to run along the safe underside of a fiery platform to double jump up and smash through an enemy on the other side before finding another safe ceiling. If this is mental degeneration, then Disturbed said it right back in 2000: “Rise up, come and leave the sickness behind.”

This game was reviewed using a code purchased by the reviewer.