Secret Of Evermore by xent on August 24, 2008
The story starts with a young boy who follows his dog into an abandoned mansion after watching the latest B-movie in the theaters. Inside is an strange machine. The result is the boy and his dog are sent through what appears to be time, but really ends up being another world. This is the world of Evermore. The boy must escape Evermore with the aid of his newly transformed dog and figure out how to stop the evil that got everyone stuck there in the first place.
I'm not going to disparage the story, but the interesting part was that it was really a man-made world separated into segments, representing the fantasy environments of each of the four residents'. There's the prehistoric jungle, an ancient Greco-Roman society, a medieval world and a futuristic space station. The locales are interesting enough, and I can't say I've seen too many Roman civilizations in Japanese RPGs.
While I didn't like this game immediately because I was expecting a turned based game like Final Fantasy, I learned to appreciate the game for what it was.
Now I'm going to go ahead and praise the game for what it is.
The marketplace and dialogue where magnificent, it was fun, rewarding and cleverly designed. There were one-time trades that you could make, provided you didn't insult the vendor. The din of the crowd in the background was done well to actually make an accurate representation of being in a marketplace (as opposed to unfitting music). On a minor note the many hidden alchemy teachers that taught you random obscure spells was fun too.
The environments were really well done, but felt a bit claustrophobic. It's more to do with the way backgrounds were drawn and how paths were designed like small mazes, even in cities. Final Fantasy graphics were more simplistic. Here towns were depicted as being full of small alleyways and long narrow corridors.
The difficulty level was disappointing because at times the game is unforgiving in odd places (particularly in a few areas like the Rat boss and some fights that require a thrown spear in the beginning) and at other times completely easy. The easiest area in the game overall is actually the final area. Or rather, it was designed in such a way that avoiding the really difficult stuff was easy. Once I reached the space station I think I only got two levels before taking on the last boss. With the energizer spell you get right before this fight and the proper defense buffs, it's a pitifully easy fight.
The music is fantastic at setting the mood for the game. Jeremy Soule is a great composer and his songs are often hauntingly sad. They fit the backgrounds and towns whose colors are vibrant. The entire world has a nice melancholy atmosphere. The Ivor Tower/Ebon Keep songs as well as a handful of others strike me as incredibly depressing. I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but thematically it makes sense. Evermore is a world gone wrong where people are trapped within their own creations, as beautiful as they are. And ultimately when the game concludes and Evermore collapses in on itself, you can't help but feel a bit of sorrow and regret.
I still play this game from time to time, because real-time RPGs are a lot of fun to play and sadly there aren't nearly as many of them as there ought to be, or at least fun as the Secret of Mana/Evermore games.
