While it's not possible to determine how much development progress this colossus underwent, its unused texture segment found in the PS3 data sheets only lists two textures, meaning Evis' model was likely in a primitive state, possibly explaining why its in-game model wasn't shown off in the artbook.
Its sketch portrays the boss as a quadruped with several bone protrusions and slight humanoid proportions. However, this design most likely wasn't the final one, as in the Artbook the concept is described as "This is a sketch of when we were coming up with the last boss". Using the representation of a human at the bottom of the sketch for scale, the boss was a tad higher than the 2nd colossus.
Strategy[]
No information on its strategy exists. The colossus was likely able to walk since a remnant of its path data is listed in the PS3 sheets, and wasn't a stationary boss like the 16th colossus, but other than that nothing else is known.
The current I1 model that can be found in the game wasn't modified much from being auto-generated by a height map. However, the surrounding quadrants, particularly A0 and H0, don't match with the model of I1, and have signs of having been hand-crafted. It is likely that its actual arena was removed from the game, and was replaced with an older model of the quadrant, in a similar fashion to Labyrinth, the arena of Buddha, being replaced with an older version of quadrant I7.
Development History[]
This colossus was the last one to be made for the game, being lightly tested sometime in the middle of 2004 in Stage 26.
Later in 2004, production on Evis was halted earlier than Sirius, Devil, Phoenix, Roc, and Yamori A, due to Evis being one of the few colossi to not have a volume control sheet in the PS3 Data Sheets. Besides Saru and Griffin obviously not having such sheets as they were cut much earlier, the others that did not possess it were Spider and Worm, with their production likely stopping around the same time as Evis. It's likely that the arena and the boss only existed in a very crude state, as there was not enough time to develop them.
After this previous idea of the final boss was cut, Buddha (the 16th colossus) was decided to become the new last colossus. Since Buddha was renamed into 'Evis', many of the old Evis-related sheets were likely replaced, erasing previous information. The only sheets that have the Evis name and are related to this colossus are the ones not used by the 16th colossus.
Trivia[]
The 16th colossus' idol in the E3 Demo, using the model of the 1st colossus' statue.
The idol statue of Evis was a copy of the 1st colossus' statue until the end of development, unlike most other unused colossi. It was then replaced with the statue of Buddha in the final version.
It having an idol statue, as well as having a spot on the map, suggests that it was still planned to be developed for a longer time, while Saru and Griffin were not.
Two songs from the soundtrack were likely to have been composed with the final boss in mind, before the 16th colossus took over due to their naming scheme. Gatekeeper of the Castle Ruins (M15P / Music 15 Pinch) and Final Battle (M15B / Music 15 Battle); as according to the files, they were meant to be played one after another in a fight. An example of songs meant to play one after another are Liberated Guardian (M13P) and A Despair-filled Farewell (M13B), which are mostly used for the smaller / faster colossi, such as the 11th and 14th.
Walkthrough