Secret of Evermore

"The Frankenstein's Monster of Video Games"

If there was ever a game that belies all dignity and originality for the sake of cashing in on a more popular and enjoyable title, Secret of Evermore takes the cake. What it does, it doesn't do well, and what it takes from other games isn't put to effective use. In essence, it's a failure. It's no secret that Squaresoft USA came through with this title in an effort to break into the market. It's also not going to be news to anyone to discover that a great deal of the game was stolen from the original Squaresoft's SNES title Secret of Mana, right down to the 'Secret' prefix in what can only be described as a parasitical attempt to leech off of its popularity. It's probably not going to surprise anyone either that Secret of Evermore was served as compensation for neglecting to translate Seiken Densetsu 3, the sequel to the game Secret of Evermore took so much from. Before we even start looking into the nitty gritty, it's fairly clear that the Western world got the shorter end of the stick in this deal; hell, we haven't got any stick.

So basically, Secret of Evermore is just a shameless knock-off of Secret of Mana. But what is it that makes the latter considerably better than the former? Some indescribable quality that most would simply regard as 'charm' or 'nostalgia'? Nope. See, Secret of Evermore basically rips apart the mechanics of Secret of Mana, haphazardly wedges the pieces back together and pours enough glue over the top to ensure it retains a 6 year old's perspective of being 'good as new'.

Here's how it all goes down. There's this boy and his dog. With me so far? Anyhow, the kid's lousy mutt chases after this cat, leading them both to this old mansion which just happened to be involved in this experiment thirty odd years ago. Turns out this guy called Dr Ruffleberg got caught up in the fast paced world of teleporters and parallel universes, and a few unlucky assistants of his ended up stuck in lands of their own creation. A few more stupid mistakes later, and the boy and the dog find themselves whisked off to the alternate dimension known as Evermore. With no immediate way to return home, they set off to journey across the lands to find a way home, helping restore Evermore to its peaceful state by dealing with the pesky clones of the assistants involved in the original experiment.

Not overly interesting, in fact, it's pretty damn boring and not really told all too well, but it begins to shape the possibility for having characters with decent depth outside of the main ones. See, the four lands of Evermore are shaped from the individuals who created them. One would expect Squaresoft USA to plug a fair amount into these characters to illustrate their own history, the worlds they developed, their relationships and so forth. In fact, these characters only appear a few times throughout the entire game. The fact that these individuals are severely under utilised in plot development makes their appearances feel little more than a cameo, and something of a disappointment.

So that's strike two. Surely the main characters would be able to save this train wreck of a plot? Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding 'no'. The emphasis placed on the boy and his dog in outlining the plot wasn't undermining the degree of the core story by any means. You literally only will ever have the boy and his dog in your party. The dog, in all fairness, is just a dog. Barks a lot, sniffs around; the usual. No breakthrough character development going on there. The boy meanwhile can contribute vocally towards conversations, but as we promptly discover, he should probably keep his mouth shut. Not because of some plot device where his big mouth gets him into trouble at every corner; no, this is because he's just plain annoying. His dialogue is rife with allusions to non-existent movies and inane comments that just aren't funny or interesting. As his character is established, he's just an average (in every regard) boy. No more, no less.

What plot exists in Secret of Evermore is only carried by the scarcely appearing co-stars in this oft dull venture; sadly, the main characters act detrimentally towards any storyline and provide a cheap distraction in between any slightly interesting moments.

On the table is a real time RPG. Gone are the tedious turn based battles of yore, and instead you're pitted in a free moving environment where you hack, slash and bash your way through anything that so much as looks at you funnily. It's been done before, and it'll be done again; the concept isn't new, and in particular with Secret of Evermore, you'll find it plays at first glance fairly identically to Secret of Mana. So why only 'fairly identically'? Where did the issues begin? Well, to be perfectly honest, we begin right at its core with the battle system.

When the game can't even get down weapon attack animations, you know it's going to be difficult to swallow. Let this be made clear now; a real time RPG, nay, any RPG, needs an effective battling system to work with, otherwise there's essentially nothing to work with to ensure that the immersive world is brought into reality. An issue you'll be sure to notice quickly is that your weapon doesn't connect with enemies, even though you lined up the hit perfectly. This doesn't have anything to do with evade or accuracy; the game just doesn't register the hit, and you'll have to retreat momentarily before you can have another crack at bashing in the enemy's head. Beyond an issue with hit detection, Secret of Evermore manages to hold a modest level of difficulty, that whilst isn't exactly pulling-out-hair challenging, will require some decent levelling in parts to ensure you can keep treading water.

On offer are a few different types of weaponry, but due to statistical reasons, you're only going to ever be using the more powerful weapon. Generally speaking, there isn't a world of difference between wielding a Sword and swinging an Axe or stabbing a Spear. Levelling weapons becomes little more than just a repetitive chore, as when you eventually find a new Sword-type weapon, you're going to be starting from scratch to build it up to the levels your older Sword was at.

In an attempt at bringing something original to the table, Secret of Evermore has a fair go at establishing a different style of magic system known in the game as Alchemy. This entails mixing various ingredients to be able to cast a spell. Unfortunately, factoring in cost and scarcity of a lot of the resources means that levelling up your Alchemy is an exceedingly long and arduous task. A good deal of Alchemy spells are just plain useless as soon as you get them to boot, and others require excessive levelling to keep up with the enemies to ensure your weapons can be matched. In a lot of cases, you'll find it's much more efficient and sanity preserving to just ignore a lot of the Alchemy. Beyond this is the Call Bead system, a highly ineffectual and pointless method of casting other spells. Obviously, you cast a spell by using one of the Call Beads. Due to the limited amount of Call Beads in the game, you're going to be playing them extremely conservatively so much to the point where you actually just don't use them in expectation that you might need one a little bit further down the track.

So it has thieved itself terribly from Secret of Mana; it couldn't possibly be all bad. Surely the famed Secret of Mana-style multiplayer ensures a degree of replayability to salvage the game from the mess it is fast getting itself stuck in. At least, it would be if there actually were a multiplayer option. See, in all the excitement of being able to replicate their very own Frankenstein's monster experiment, it seems Squaresoft USA forgot some crucial organs and left their corpse on the verge of rotting. Your party only ever has a maximum of two characters, but for some unknown reason, the ability to have a second player take control of the other character was omitted. In short, you're going to be enduring this title by yourself from start to finish. Not the most inviting of games, is it?

Despite it's metaphorical beast form of playability, it has a deceptively sharp surface of which it allures players to the rocky shores of mediocrity. Evermore itself is modestly designed, offering various landscapes for the characters to navigate. The environments tend to suffer from being a little too bland and uninteresting though. Due to the nasty habit of combining maze-like areas and repeating textures with gusto, it's something of a bore to wander about the lands of Evermore. A bunch of areas become difficult to navigate purely on the basis that it is impossible to distinguish one section from the next. The four segments of Evermore do break away from each other, each providing a different style of design to the table, but in short, the dreary colours and lack of detail poison the individuality behind each land.

Characters are fairly well animated, and most of their designs are pretty detailed and interesting. A lot of the NPC villager designs though end up being reused excessively; in some cases their design is replicated amongst enemies almost lazily, without even a simple attempt to alter the colour palette at the very least. Enemies aren't quite so easy to judge, as a bunch of them have pretty decent designs. With the good though comes a whole lot of bad, as there are a fair load of just uninteresting concepts. Mosquitoes and small frogs, for instance, don't quite provide the same thrill as the skeleton monsters in the tar pits. Bosses incorporate a massive leap in quality from the rest of the game's characters, being epic affairs consisting of enormous monsters that only manage to begin to highlight the original design Secret of Evermore was capable of reaching.

The oft unbearable landscapes and dungeons are somewhat enriched by the music, which breaks from the sheer mediocrity of the game and provides a range of decent tracks that manage to set the mood well. Some in particular are pretty spectacular. The atmosphere is well kept throughout largely due to the mildly entertaining soundtrack, and ensures that the somewhat dimly constructed plot at least has a decent setting. A few times the quality tends to dip poorly, but it can usually be overcome with one of the more pleasing tracks around the corner. Conversely, sound effects are a little grainy in places, and a selection are used over and over in different contexts, revealing a truly lazy nature behind just one more part of the overall title. If your waning tolerance for life doesn't drive you insane, the dog's incessant barking will get you.

It's for the same reason a child shouldn't be given pointy objects that Squaresoft USA shouldn't be allowed to make games. Chances are, they're going to hurt themselves and everyone they come into contact with. As has been well-established, Secret of Evermore is a poor man's Secret of Mana; Squaresoft USA's own stab at making a gem and only managing to spawn out a monster. It is of the most unfortunate dealing that this blemish of a title is so frequently tied to Secret of Mana in recognition. The 'nicer' aspects of Secret of Evermore are few and far in between, making the game as a whole just not worth the trouble. Outweighed significantly by an overwhelming sense of mediocrity, Secret of Evermore is definitely a title you can afford to pass up until you're resorting to scraping the figurative RPG-barrel for SNES games.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 03/27/06, Updated 07/20/06