Retro never felt so fresh.
Epic box art
Story
The story starts off with a slight introduction to establish how the real world was linked to evermore, to put it bluntly a scientist created a machine that created a world based on what a single person imagined. If you liked say ... cheese, it would create a world of cheese people or people who only ate cheese. You get the general idea but the basic premise makes you wonder apon a few things as you play through the story of the game. The scientist decides to test the machine with a few close friends and famliy and after some fancy sounds they disapear. Your character stumbles apon the machine years later. After leaving a movie theater his dog quickly chases a nearby cat. Your character then takes chase which leads him to the mansion (now abandoned) and after some stumbling about, finds the machine and gets teleported into evermore as well as his dog.
Beyond that I don't want to spoil too much but you generally end up running around a bunch of 'zones' or parts of evermore, each part is shaped around the imagination of one of the people who first tested the machine with the scientist. The test was only supost to last a few hours but has since lasted a few years, leave them trapped in a world of their design. You generally fix their problems whilst trying to find your way back home. Saying anymore would spoil the story but there is plenty of twists, turns and quite entertaining dialoge through the entire game.
Gameplay
The RPG system really isn't overly amazing, its entirely simple and consists of you trying to get he best armour you can and leveling. Weapons are obtained as you defeat bosses and armour doesn't effect things to a massive degree so you don't have to stress too much there, you will basically get armour over the course of the game. Leveling basically gives you more HP and makes you hit a little harder, there is a stat system but its completely back seat and can nearly be totally forgotten at most points. The only leveling is through alchemy and weapon skills.
Weapon skills
The game has 3 basic weapon types, with 1 special weapon type for the bazooka you get near the end. The 3 weapon types are Sword, Axe and Spear. With each having 4 different weapons in each, which brings up the weakness of the system in general. As you kill an enemy with a given weapon, it levels up one point. Once you reach 100 points the weapon gains a level, which then means you can charge the attack and do a stronger attack. There is only 3 weapon skill levels per weapon, you have to level each weapon individually which brings out the weakness. Once you level your first spear to level 3 you can use it till nearly the end of the game, it is a huge hassle to level a weapon outside of the starting area and untill the end of the game you cannot go back to level newer weapons. So untill the end of the game you are basically using the same spear unless you want to level more weapon skills.
The other weapons are of very little use, once my spear hit level 3 I didn't even touch them. I never leveled a sword to level 3 so I cannot tell you what the charge attacks do. For an axe, level 2 charge causes you to do two attacks that are stronger than a level 1 attack, and level 3 charge causes the axe to basically circle around you. With a spear, level 1 charge causes a normal stab, level 2 charge causes you to do a weak throw and level 3 causes you to do a very strong throw.
Alchemy
Spells level up as you use them, much like weapons but without charge levels. The more you use a spell the more powerfull it gets, you can also target one or every enemy on the screen with a spell (but they are much weaker if you hit all targets). The spell system is simple, easy to understand and works very well. At later stages of the game its cheap and easy to buy ingredients so spells are never in short supply.
Your dog basically follows you around, attacks creatures and helps you find ingredients. You can also switch characters to the dog and play as him if you want and on some stages of the story you are forced to play as the dog when you get seperated. Your dog levels up with you and also has a weapon skill, the same as any other weapon with 3 charge levels and 100 kills to level it up. The dog also changes look depending on the zone you are in, more asthetic than anything.
Graphics
Sound
Some of the music in Secret of Evermore isn't too memorable, while some of it is. I enjoyed all the music regardless its just some of the songs have a repetative nature that continues to drill into your skull, alot of wilderness area's actually have no music, instead they are filled with the sounds of wildlife and general forest like sounds.
Conclusion
Would I recomend this do anyone? With its age and the way gaming has evolved since then, I would say yes. The system in my oppinion has aged quite well, the reason for it being that it hasn't been replicated from what I have seen. The story is one of a kind and full of B-grade movie comedy, the main character being a B-grade movie buff always relates to wierd 'and fake' movies during conversations. The writing is nearly top notch and the combat never got boring, you always wanted to see what was over the next hill and the ending felt like a conclusion. Anyone looking to go for a trip down memory lane, or see this style of gaming at its best should definatly check out Secret of Evermore.
