The Wonder Years 3.20.08: Week 47 - Secret of Evermore

Posted by Owain J. Brimfield on 03.20.2008

Gaming's first B-movie themed RPG.

Welcome to the column where all gamers of a certain age come to wallow in 16-bit nostalgia. I'm your host, Owain J. Brimfield, and I'll be discussing some of the hidden gems and instant classics of gaming's golden era. Some of these games may crop up on the Wii's Virtual Console at some point, some may be consigned to the annals of history. Either way, they're worth tracking down if you missed them first time round, or replaying if you were lucky enough to catch them. Let's take a trip to:

SECRET OF EVERMORE

(Squaresoft, Super NES, 1995)

After delving into the world of Enix last week for a look at a game that never saw release in the US, we're taking an odd but pleasingly symmetrical look now at a game developed by their modern-day partners Square that was never released in the East. Secret of Evermore is generally thought of as the Western equivalent to Square's own Secret of Mana, but despite the vague similarity in name and a familiar gameplay mechanic with an emphasis on real-time battles and controlling multiple (well, two or three) characters, it's a unique and original RPG in its own right with much more of an EarthBound-y, western pop-culture feel to it. Apparently the original pitch was for a time-traveling RPG based around a boy and his faithful pet dog traveling through a world themed around various B-movies, and although the references aren't as overt as those in, say, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, it's certainly testament to Square USA that they managed to pull off an idiosyncratic adventure that manages to combine a decent rendition of that concept with a more traditional role-playing style. And by now of course, you should realize that when I use a word like "traditional" to describe an RPG, I don't mean it's played with pen and paper and a beardy guy with a 900-page rulebook.

The plot takes in some appropriately loopy science fiction themes, and centers on an anonymous chap and his pet dog (in a nice touch, the hero can be named with a massively long name, compared to your usual few letters, thus explaining my protagonist's name of Ragnar the Unstoppable Manbeast) in Podunk, USA in the 1960s. Our main guy and his hirsute companion stumble across a hidden laboratory in an abandoned mansion - you have to wonder why mad professors are never proud of their work - and through some sort of plot machination find themselves transported to the fantastical world of Evermore. It transpires that the Professor Ruffleberg, into whose laboratory the kids intruded, has become the victim of upgrading his robot butler's AI a step too far, resulting in a mad robot named Carltron taking over the parallel world and filling it with all sorts of nasty wee beasties. It's up to Ragnar (or whatever you may choose to name him) to adventure through the four worlds of Evermore - Omnitopia (future world), Prehistoria (stone-age world), Antiqua (Roman world) and Gothica (medieval world) - to rescue the professor's companions who have become embedded in this crazy alternate universe.

The game itself takes place in your usual Squaresoft RPG vein, and as mentioned before if you've ever played Secret of Mana you'll be right at home, right down to the real-time battles, swappable game characters (although only the boy and the dog here, as opposed to the trio in Mana) and the ring menu system. Thankfully, presumable due to Square USA's lack of immersion in Japanese gaming culture, Evermore throws a variety of neat twists into the works resulting in a remarkably fresh formula. Out goes your usual RPG currency (well, mostly) and in comes a system of barter through which goods can be obtained only via trading in commodities. Away with the typical magic / mana / spell points shtick and in with Alchemy - alchemical Formulas can be learned from the handful of Alchemists populating the game's worlds, and involve combining ingredients ranging from wax to ethanol in order to achieve their effects, which although tending to feel very similar to your usual spells and whatnot, feel fresh simply due to the methods of obtaining them. Combat too is pared down, with the boy capable of using only four types of four weapons (ranging from traditional swords to, gloriously, bazookas), while the dog (who shapeshifts from feral wolf to laser-firing K9-ripoff throughout the course of the game) can do what you'd expect. Well, with the exception of weeing on enemies.

There's a fair amount of wit in the game's script, with all sorts of characters from the hero himself (despite exhibiting an overwhelming naiveté) to minor NPCs displaying a sparkle in their dialogue - one particularly self-referential joke involves a prophet informing the boy that he's a videogame character, before offering the "powers that be" (ie. the player) the opportunity to strike him down. Not quit ingenious, I suppose, but certainly on the way there. Of note, too, is the game's soundtrack, which strays far and away from traditional epic RPG fare and takes a minimalist approach, employing ambient sound effects to great success - sometimes you do just want to take a break from the bombast of an overworld theme, and it's superbly engaging music. It's sad to say that the quest itself doesn't last especially long, and with the exception of a few rare pieces of alchemy there are few, if any, side quests to command and divert your attention. Still, any game in which the adversary is a mad robot gets my support regardless of its limitations

Evermore tends to be one of Square's most overlooked efforts, no doubt in large part because the title was seen as a much more lightweight version of the games you might expect from such a behemoth of a company, and the fact that it was only released in a few territories outside of the US itself. It's an unfair presumption to make - sure, there's nothing here the depth of a Final Fantasy or a Seiken Densetsu, but what there is is damn enjoyable, particularly if you're a fan of similarly original gaming fare. Lord knows whether the cartridge itself is still readily available - I've never seen a copy myself, but that's what living outside the States does for you. If you've had enough of the prosaic themes that you find in every other mediocre fantasy-based RPG, give Evermore a whirl and you might be pleasantly surprised. And if not, who cares, you've experienced a game in which the bad guy is called Carltron. Best. Robot name. Ever.


Secret of Evermore trivia

• The game was originally slated to be titled simply Evermore, but due to the way marketing works some sleazy executive decided to capitalize on the success of the company's Secret of Mana by tagging on the prefix.
  
• Evermore was the first game to be fully developed by Square's US subsidiary company.
  
• The game's soundtrack CD remains one of the rarest game-related albums to be released; hardly surprising given that those things only tend to sell in Japan.
  

The Videosphere

Let's take a look at this week's video highlight. I was all set to show you some in-game footage from one of the game's bosses, when I stumbled across this wonderfully surreal commercial for the game, complete with wolves emerging from each others' mouths and some haunting choral music, as well as one of the least-modest company taglines of all time.




Reactions and interactions

Posted by: Froze

"Terranigma is the third game in the SoulBlazer series, I really wish they would have ported this over to the States. SoulBlazer and Illusion of Gaia were excellent games and I think Terranigma would have been just as great. I hope they do put it on the Virtual Console, along with SoulBlazer and Illusion of Gaia...."

I always thought of those three games as more of a loosely connected series rather than an overt trilogy - I kinda hoped they would have done one of those PS2 collection deals where they revamped the three and put them on a single CD, but it's not surprising that didn't happen given the games' relative obscurity in the US. Terranigma was still the best one though, for my money.


General indulgences

Every week in this section I'll endeavor to provide you, the faithful readers, with a fascinating insight into the various forms of entertainment currently dominating my spare time.

This week, I have been mostly enjoying:

Guitar Hero 3 again, because ever since my friend Mantonia left my house I've been without PS3 access. Thankfully it's more fun to play without the crappy lag from the PS3 version, although Lou remains one of the hardest game bosses in recent memory. I'll get you one day, Lou!

Seventh Son of a Seventh Son by Iron Maiden, which always surprises me with how progressive (in a musical sense) it is - even if it's not as catchy as some of their other records, 'The Evil That Men Do' still has the most epic intro the band ever wrote.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy, which is just as haunting as I remember from the first read, and if it can be done as much justice in movie form as the author's own No Country for Old Men, we're in for a treat.

and working out! Yes, holy shit, I've started actually doing some exercise as a pre-emptive counteraction to the inevitable Easter chocolate binge, to celebrate baby Jesus being resurrected in bunny form, or something like that. Currently, the stomach is in much pain.


And finally…

As always, reader feedback and suggestions are welcome, I respond to everything so just drop me a line or leave a comment. You can also check out my science fiction column "The Flux Capacitor" over at 411 Movies. Next week in "The Wonder Years" - we're catching up with the least-cool videogame protagonist of all time. Until then - keep it real, keep it retro.