Eversion starts off as cute and cuddly. You're a heroic flower out to collect gems and Save the Princess by using the Goomba Stomp on happily smiling and running goomba expies. Then things get less cheerful as you everse into slightly darker and darker worlds, until...
(There are unmarked spoilers below.)
- The enemies changing as you evert. They start off as cute and cuddly... then they slowly become more and more terrifying. Eventually the enemies, including the game itself, drops the facade and the enemies change to their true forms in X-8.
- World 4-5. DEMONIC HANDS, "SKREEEEEEEEEEE"
- The ending; you may heavily regret saving the princess.
- The normal ending involves the princess changing into a demonic entity and killing you. To make matters worse, the game closes itself upon seeing the "GAME OVER" screen.
- The secret ending exclusive to the HD version changes you and the princess into X-4 statues. It's the only ending that doesn't shut the game off.
- The concept of Eversion itself. You're literally turning reality inside out, and just trying to imagine that concept in Real Life is creepy alone. Just imagine some random person finding a weak point in the universe and sending us all through worlds X-1 through X-8 and beyond.
- The beginning of World 4 is when the game begins to take a turn for the worst; hitting the smiley block at the beginning will instantly evert you from X-1 to X-5, with a loud "scroo" sound accompanying it.
- Have you noticed the animation when you hit that block? You're knocking its eyes out.
- The backgrounds in the HD edition range from bright and colorful to dark and terrifying. X-5 and onward represent the game's transition from cute to creepy.
- 8-1. At the end of the level there is a demonic hand that really isn't expected. It can't hurt you (unless you fiddle around enough); it's just there to make you fall over backwards in your chair one last time. It's quite terrifying.
- Greyish rocks appear in the later levels, but they never appear before 5-5, for some reason. X-6 makes them look edgier. X-7 causes them to turn a dark reddish purple colour and start walking around. X-8 turns them into downright monsters. The fact remains that the harmless rocks never appear before 5-5. 4-5, just before, is when demonic hands appear. 5-6, just after, is when flowers become deadly. This is the steady descent into darkness.
- The faces on the blocks. in X-1 and X-2, they are happy. In X-3 and X-4, they are neutral. X-5 makes them look freaked out, probably to amplify the terror of 4-5. In X-6, they're look like they're melting. In X-7, they become spirals, as if they're being warped into the red eyes we see in X-8.
- Think about it this way: Zee-Tee is chosen to go on a quest because of his everting powers. He knows that it's a bad idea to go beyond X-4, since that decay can creep into the happier worlds. As he ventures, he begins to lose his mind because he has to go to lower eversions to get though the worlds. As he loses his mind, he also loses control over the everting, loosing walls of death and blood and releasing those hands. Then, depending on version, there's 2 alternate stories from here:
- In the older version, when he gets all the gems, it unlocks the super-guarded X-8, which was protected because it was so supremely evil. Zee-Tee only collected the gems because his twisted mind WANTED to unleash the horrors of X-8. He then reaches X-8 and subsequently loses all control, everting rapidly between all the layers as he tries to reach the princess. Too bad his everting insanity has distorted both him and the princess!
- The new version is the same, but when he sees X-8, he has enough sanity remaining to try and escape, so he everts back to X-1, only to find that it's too late for them all, X-8 has already corrupted and taken over everything! Zee-Tee's sanity evaporates as he too succumbs to the forces of darkness.
- From X-5 and onward, there is a rare to common chance of the "READY!" screen changing into more cryptic messages which range from strange to pure Paranoia Fuel.
- I SEE YOU
- BEHIND YOU
- STOP.
- GIVE UP.
- READY! TO DIE
- MOTHER
- GAME OVER
- World 3, wherein you pass a checkpoint, and without any warning, you suddenly evert to World X-4 and a giant wall of blackness appears behind you, and if it hits you, you die. Made worse by the fact that, prior to this, most of the worlds had been, while ominous, not entirely scary. Possibly made worse by the fact that it's a checkpoint, so any time you start the game again, you're greeted by giant gaping shadow wall of death.
- You get another one in World 6... made of blood. This also takes you by surprise. Made worse is the fact that there are those hands popping out of everywhere.
- The game's soundtrack is pretty catchy, especially the X-3 tune! The soundtracks for X-5 and onward on the other hand...
- The interface gets pretty creepy and more minimalistic as you go up the layers. From X-1 to X-5, everything seems normal. At X-6, the score counter breaks and starts showing rapidly-cycling numbers. At X-7, when the gems turn into skulls, the "GEMS" in the gem counter changes to "????", as if the game was incapable of describing what the gems have turned into. At X-8, only the gem counter remains. Finally, in World 8-X, the HUD is completely gone. Thankfully, time attack mode averts this, displaying a time counter at all times.
- Pictured above, the giant red eye symbol that appears in the "good" and bad endings (though the former ending makes it sort of Lightmare Fuel), looming in the distance as the mutated princess walks toward you. For added pleasure, beating the game changes the title screen
◊ to have it stare at you, cheery music and all.- In the Steam version, the same eye symbol adorns your achievement list if you start a game with an edited level, with the achievement in question appropriately called "What Have You Done".
