Secret of Evermore

"Watch the sparks fly as Vegita grapples with the English Language again! SWEET!!!"

Who says that dreams can't come true? That's what I thought to myself when I found out that Square of America had decided to make an apparent sequel to the impressive ''Secret of Mana'', a game that quickly became a favorite of mine in its own right. Having first discovered Secret of Mana at a friends' birthday party (he received it as a gift, and a group of 3 of us played it until 5 in the morning), I found the game's cartoonish charm and engrossing gameplay to be extremely pleasing; therefore, my discovery that a (supposed) sequel game was being made set me on ear. Upon the release of this game, I immediately set out and purchased it. Elated upon finding a copy of it at the local Best Buy (local in the sense that it was a good 30 miles away), I simply couldn't wait to get home and pop it into my SNES.

Now, for those of you whom don't know, the game Secret of Mana was actually the second game in a series known as the ''Seiken Densetsu'' games (the first, for the Gameboy, was misnamed ''Final Fantasy Adventure''). The game had you take on the role of 3 characters whom had to save the world using magic and mystical weapons. One of the most striking features of the game was the ability to plug in a multi-tap adaptor and have all 3 characters be player-controlled, allowing a trio of players to save the Earth. That, coupled with the overall fun gameplay and great music made me practically cry when I found out this game was coming out (ok, not really cry...).

Now, upon my arrival at home, I immediately popped the game into my SNES and sat down to play my newest procurement. After around 15 minutes of gameplay, I thought to myself ''Ok, so there's only 2 players - that's ok, I can still deal with this''. My brother, interested in this new game as well (he wasn't quite as intrigued as I was, though) decided to sit down and play with me. After about a half-hour of trying to make it work, we came to the realization that the game doesn't even have 2-player simultaneous action!

Thus rather dejected, I pressed onward into the game. Suffice to say, some of it was accurate - the magic, the different weapons with different levels of attack, etc. - but a lot of the game had been changed from what I enjoyed, thus leaving me with what appeared to be a sorry attempt at a sequel. Thankfully, the truth came to me later about what the TRUE sequel to SoM was (being Seiken Densetsu 3, which was only released in Japan) and how this was project developed solely on behalf of Square of America (instead of Square of Japan, who were the geniuses behind most of Squaresoft's work).

So, enough with my let-down in the form of this game, eh? Let's talk about the actual game!

The actual game:

You play the part of the boy (you name 'em, with one of the longest name-fields I've ever seen for a game), whom, along with his dog, have just gotten out of another bad science fiction movie. The Boy seems to be addicted to these movies, since - no matter how terrible the movies are - he seems to have them all memorized. His dog, ever faithful (if not actually more intelligent than the boy himself) tags along with him until he sees a cat. Powerful dog instincts kicking in, the Dog sets off after the feline, boy in tow chasing after his beloved pet and friend. They arrive at an abandoned old house, where it was believe old science experiments had been taking place. Sure enough, the Boy and his Dog enter a room with a giant generator, and inadvertently get sent into a parallel universe. The Boy and his Dog now have to set out and find their way home, using whatever weapons they can find on the ground.

The controls to the game are similar to its faux predecessor - you move about with the directional pad, and can Run, use Alchemy you've learned, Swing your Weapon of choice, or go to the menu screen. You can only run for a set amount of time before you grow weary and have to rest, so you can't use it all the time. When swinging your weapon, you can hold the button down and charge up a level of attack on the weapon, making it hit harder and with a different kind of attack - this is taken straight from the Seiken Densetsu games, and it accurate enough. Upon going to your menu, you can select from a variety of menus, such as equipping new items, using items, selecting magic, or checking you characters' status.

Now, the Alchemy section might require a little more explanation. In Secret of Mana, all you had to do was locate one of the 8 Spirits from across the world and you would gain their magical power. This game almost follows a similar style - you have to go from location to location in the game, seeking out people who can teach you various alchemy formulas. These act much like magical spells - you use a certain alchemy formula, you can cast a ''spell''. The difference is that instead of magic points (MP), which each ''spell'' would cost, you instead have to have a certain amount of ingredients which certain spells require. In other words: some formulas might take 1 piece of rock and 1 piece of flint to cast that ''spell'', so you can cast that ''spell'' as long as you have at least one piece of rock and flint. Certain formulas might require different ratios of components (2:1, 3:2, etc), while others might require a component that another formula uses as well (for instance - one formula uses Rocks and Flint, while another uses Rocks and Water). This creates a bit of strategy towards which ''spells'' you use and how often you use them, as some formulas and Alchemy components are extremely rare. Finally, just like Secret of Mana, you can build up your spells ''level'' through frequent use. By building up your Alchemy ''Spell'' for each formula will increase their effectiveness, giving you more bang for your buck.

Well, that's the basics of the game. Let's talk about the individual sections, yes?

Graphics:

Graphically speaking, the game excels in some points and lags in others. For starters, your character is pretty decently-drawn, exhibiting a slight caricature-like style to his actions and movements. His dog is the same, moving with a canine style at one point and a cartoonish-gaunt the next. Their surroundings, for the most part, are quite nicely-drawn as well. You get a definite feel for what kind of an area you have stumbled into, be it a prehistoric forest, a beach encroached by pirates, ancient temples, or even a city in the far-flung future. The point of the game that let me down a little were the graphics for monsters and bosses - some of them struck me as just plain silly looking, while others weren't very well drawn. Finally, there was actually quite a bit of palette-swapping from enemy to enemy, which just seems plain silly at this point in the video gaming world...c'mon, haven't we evolved past the need to simply change the colors of an enemy to make it stronger? We know the SNES has the capabilities to hold large quantities of information, so what's the deal with this?

Sound:

The sound effects for this game are great, lemme tell ya. Some are accurate and some are a little hokey, but for the most part the sounds in this game are spot-on. Heck, in some sections of the game (correction, MOST sections of the game) the sound effects actually replace the music. That's right - instead of music, you have background sound playing instead. Now, I would normally call this a stuipd move on Square's part, since music has become a staple of the gaming community - some games's music (and their composers) have become incredibly popular - so the removal of music from most the game comes off as a step backwards. However, the supplementing background sounds are quite good, doing a job that rivals that which music might have been able to do. Instead of moody, menacing tunes, the game brings forth sounds of a calm area, the only voices emitted being from crickets. In the Ancient Greece/Rome part of the world you will find that the marketplace is a bustling community, visually as well as audibly. You can hear the clamor of people moving around, buying and selling products, which only furthers the feeling of the location you are in. I say kudos to whoever came up with this idea, for the concept and execution were admirable.

The music for this game, despite its sparse role in the game, was still good. Depicting moody, temperamental feelings in areas which would emote the same, the music does its job quite well. Your battle music, when it actually plays, is fast-paced and has a good, steady beat, while still being fairly-well written. Its application to the situation at hand is quite good, as is its writing - and thus I can't see any reason to downplay the music just because of its low involvement for the game.

Gameplay:

Here's where the game took a nosedive, as I felt. Secret of Mana, and its predecessor, Final Fantasy Adventure (or Seiken Densetsu 1 and 2) had some rather formulaic elements, but this game seemed to take the good elements and turn them into bad ones! Allow me to explain - I've already talked of the lack of a 3-player (or even a 2-player) mode, so what else is there? Well, the Seiken Densetsu series is notorious for having multiple weaponry, each with different attacks that you can learn with them (after leveling up that weapon, that is). In Seiken Densetsu 1, you had at least 4 weapons (I'm fairly sure it's only 4, although I think there might have been more), with a few variations on what your weapons could do when powered up. This means that you had around 5 or 6 different abilities. The jump from Seiken Densetsu 1 to 2 was that there were 8 weapons in SD2 (or SoM, depending on which title you're more familiar with), and each weapon had 8 levels that they could power up to - giving a total of 64 weapon attacks. Secret of Evermore only has 4 styles of weapons, each with 3 levels of attack - and one of the weapons has one different attack, giving the entire game a grand total of 13 weapon attacks. Now, correct me if I'm wrong (which I'm not), but isn't going from 64 to a scant 13 too much of a drop? If anything Square should have included MORE weapons or weapon levels, thus at LEAST bringing the total up to that which it was before. By dropping the total, the game feels as if you're being limited right from the start. This lack of weaponry essentially makes you less-effective in battle, putting your emphasis on using Alchemy or running away entirely.

Running away doesn't get you experience, so that's out, so what about Alchemy? Alchemy is extremely limited, since quite a few formulas overlap in ingredients used. Because of this, you could feasibly use a certain Formula 99 times - because you have 99, the max, of each required component - however, if you wanted to use another Formula that required one of the same ingredients, then you obviously wouldn't be able to use as many of that spell as you wanted before. Also, the various ingredients tend to get very difficult to find, so you'll most likely find yourself resorting to much weaker ''spells'' than before, despite the fact that you've learned newer, more powerful spells. Also, it's extremely difficult to build up your more powerful spells, since their spell components cost so much. You use all of your components casting your spells to build up their power, but then you have to buy more components which takes all of your money, and leaves you right back where you started - fighting with your weapon to gain enough money to afford that which you wish to buy.

The enemies in the game aren't really that difficult, as long as you bother to gain a few levels to combat them. Even if you don't, many of them have simplistic patterns that allow you to effectively keep up with them without the use of magic - don't make any mistakes when fighting them. If you do, then you'll take too much damage to come back from. The bottom line - you have to use your weapons to build up a decent amount of money, then build up your Alchemy if you want to use them effectively. Otherwise, you're going to be stuck with your regular ol' weapon. And let's face it - by the time you've gotten enough cash to afford enough components to build your alchemy up to decent-enough levels, you're at a level high enough to take on most enemies anyways. This means practically one of the largest elements of the game is almost a flat-out waste of time!

Closure:

So let's be reasonable - the graphics, for the most part, were pretty good, while the music and sound were distinctly good. However, the meat of the game, the gameplay, dropped the overall worth of the game, placing you into a tedious trek through a series of somewhat interesting locations. Not even a brief cameo from Final Fantasy IV's Cecil (who gives you a rocket launcher, of all things) could save this game from boring-land.

---Final Score: 4---

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 01/14/02, Updated 01/14/02