Secret of Evermore

"For no real reason, a rare blunder by Squaresoft"

Secret of Evermore was a Squaresoft release in 1995. You play as a boy who's on his way home from a cheesy B-movie when his dog chases a cat to a spooky mansion. Apparently not learning a damn thing from all these B-movies he's supposedly seen, our unnamed protagonist decides to investigate....and things go horribly wrong.

Graphics: 7/10- The graphics are quite nice, with lots of color and detail that nonetheless fits. The prehistoric area, for instance, has lots of dark greens to go with the trees and bushes. The whole area looks, well, very prehistoric.
Everything is also animated well, and you can tell what it is the characters are supposed to be doing. The characters have a more ''realistic'' look to them than most RPGs of the time, which had characters that almost looked ''super-deformed'', with big heads on small bodies. The bosses, most of them anyway, are simply huge, and likewise are well animated.

Sound: 5/10- Strangely, there are parts of the game where there is no music whatsoever. All you hear are sound effects of the environment--birds chirping, wind blowing, etc. The problem is that this really doesn't do a good job of conveying the atmosphere intended; Rather, you'll be wondering where the music is. What music is there is pretty nice, I guess, but not up to usual memorable Squaresoft standards.
The sound effects, thankfully, fare better than the music. Everything is pretty close to what it's supposed to be, such as your dog barking, and sound of weapons swishing through the air. There is, however, that strange effect of taking damage, that sounds kind of like the last water being let out of a Super Soaker.

Control: 7/10- The controls do their job, and do it pretty well, actually. Your character responds well to any command you give him, and the ring-based menu system is quite easy to navigate (I sometimes wonder why more games don't use it). Also, whatever instructions you give the character you aren't controlling will generally be followed. So no major problems here.

Gameplay: 4/10- Ugh. It's not so much that the game plays ''badly''--it actually has a lot in its favor--but it's simply not any fun. What's worse is that I can't for the life of me figure out why this is. Maybe it's just not my game. But anyway, the game uses the Secret of Mana game engine. This means that the game is essentially an action/adventure game with some RPG elements to it. The battles are real-time, and you have to find switches and solve puzzles in order to move on.
The game takes place in four worlds--a prehistoric one, an Ancient Roman-type place, a medieval period, and a futuristic world. Through each of these, you control two characters, the Boy, and his Dog who changes appearances based on the world you're in (I like the Future world's Robo-Dog myself). While the prehistoric setting is a little unusual, the more traditional middle two worlds will get you in a nice groove before you hit the futuristic Omnitopia.
The magic system in the game is a tad unusual, in that you must buy ingredients in order to cast magic--and you can only cast spells as long as you have the proper ingredients (Think Ultima: Quest of the Avatar to get a good idea of what I'm talking about). This can be a minor annoyance, but unlike Final Fantasy 8's horribly unintuitive Junction System, does not in and of itself defeat the game's goal of being fun.
Yet somehow, the game fails to deliver. I can't pinpoint it, but for some reason I simply do not want to play this game for any extended period of time. It's really very mysterious.

Story: 7/10- The beginning to the story is pretty neat. You're a kid who is on his way home from seeing a Mystery Science Theater 3000-quality movie. You're raving to no one in particular about it, when a cat darts by your path. Your dog, being the sleek hunting animal he is, takes off after it and leads you to a creepy mansion. Not being the most intelligent kid around, rather than simply go out and get another dog, you follow him and the cat into the mansion. To make a long story short, you end up getting zapped into the first prehistoric world. Squaresoft were trying to do something different with this game, and they succeeded in the Story department.

Challenge: 8/10- The game is harder than its predecessor-in-engine-only Secret of Mana, because the enemies here are quite a bit more aggressive, and more accurate too. But the game is unbalanced as a whole. What I mean is that no matter how good your equipment is, chances are you'll end up playing as the Dog because his Defense rating goes through the roof. And let's face it, the idea of playing as a dog is pretty cool. This is especially true of Robo-Dog in the future world.
But the puzzles are also a challenge--I got hung up early in the game because I couldn't figure out what to do to save my life. Chances are that if you don't know what you're doing, you'll get stuck too.

Replay Value: 3/10- The game is difficult enough to play through the first time, let alone replaying it. It's just a boring experience all-around, such that you won't want to play it again. The lack of any real secrets, side quests, or things like that also hurts this game.

Overall: 4/10- It's frustrating enough when you buy a bad game. But try as I might, I simply can't figure out why this game is not all it's cracked up to be. It's a shame, because the game really has a lot going for it--nice graphics, good control, a unique story, and the Secret of Mana play engine. But somehow, at best, the game is definitely less than the sum of its parts. At it's worst, it's simply a snooze.
I'll give the game this much: It did load on my Super Nintendo (Albeit after 3 attempts, probably due to my SNES' old age). The game does function, thus giving it an edge over that first shipment of rereleased Final Fantasy Tactics games. But other than that, the Gameplay is, for some inexplicable reason, not up to par with what you know from Squaresoft, or a lot of other companies for that matter. I simply cannot recommend it.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 08/31/01, Updated 08/31/01