Secret of Evermore
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| Secret of Evermore | |
| Developer(s) | Square USA |
| Publisher(s) | Squaresoft |
| Release date(s) | 1995 |
| Genre | Action Adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Kids to Adults |
| Platform(s) | SNES |
Secret of Evermore, released in North America on September 18, 1995, is a role playing video game for the Super Nintendo video game system. The game was created by Square, Co. Ltd.'s new development house, Square USA. Evermore was not met with warm criticism, believed by many to have been the reason for Seiken Densetsu 3's lack of translation and release to the stateside market.
Secret of Evermore's creation was Square, Co. Ltd.'s primary reason for opening Square USA. This new team of developers was responsible for working on the game while their existing American subsidiary Squaresoft operated as normal, handling the translation of Super Mario RPG among other tasks. Squaresoft was also responsible for the marketing of Evermore.
In February 1996 the game saw release in the PAL territories of Australia and Europe. For the non-English-speaking market, it was translated into the French, German, and Spanish languages.
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Introduction
The game follows a teenage boy with a penchant for B-movies and his dog as they try to make their way home from an unknown world known as Evermore. The game shares two major surface similarities with Secret of Mana: It uses a freshly-coded interpretation of that game's ring-based menu system, and it requires the player to control multiple characters one-at-a-time. The player guides both the boy and his shapeshifting dog through Evermore, free to switch between characters and sometimes forced to do so to solve various puzzles.
Secret of Evermore is unique in that it often uses ambient background sounds instead of music. For example, rather than hearing a majestic Roman tune in the background of a classical marketplace, players hear muffled banter, clucking chickens, and various other tones reminiscent of a bazaar. When the game's original music is played, it is often rather royal and melancholic at the same time.
Another unique element to Secret of Evermore is its system of magic. Rather than using a traditional system of collecting magic points and using them to cast learned spells, the boy must, with the help of his trusty dog's nose, find various ingredients that may be used to perform alchemic formulas which the alchemists across Evermore teach him. Some ingredients are rarer than others, making players turn back to previous areas to collect them in order to cast various spells.
The "Secret of" prefix was tacked on shortly prior to the game's release. Until then, it was known simply as "Evermore." It was the marketing department's suggestion that the title be tweaked, perhaps to take advantage of those hoping that it was the sequel to Secret of Mana.
Although both the boy and his dog are playable characters for the majority of the game, Secret of Evermore is a single-player game. To remedy that, a member of the emulation community created a patch file that allows for two players to play the game at the same time, one controlling each character à la Secret of Mana.
The game's central themes of a boy and his dog and campy B-movies were dictated from overseas and fleshed out by Square USA, resulting in dialogue and themes uncharacteristically American for any previous console RPG. Due to copyright issues, all of the boy's references to B-movies had to be imaginary (the writers often poked fun at B film titles, such as when the main character observes that a gladiator battle reminds him of a scene from Blood, Dirt, Sweat, and Togas).
Controversy and Seiken Densetsu 3
There is an unfortunately strong misconception among video game fans that this game was released in lieu of an English language version of Seiken Densetsu 3, the follow-up to Secret of Mana. These ill feelings probably stem from titular and mechanical similarities.
The reality is that Secret of Evermore did not occur instead of or bear any effect on any translations of Square's Japanese titles. The decision of its parent company, Square, Co. Ltd., to add a new development team to its existing Squaresoft office in Redmond had absolutely no effect on any such translations and did not tie up any of the people involved in translation. It was the parent company's decision not to continue translating titles, including the would-be "Secret of Mana 2".
Furthermore, Secret of Evermore was not made instead of any new titles in any existing series: Its team was specifically hired to create it and they would not have been assembled otherwise.
Plot
The story of Secret of Evermore revolves around an anonymous boy and his dog, whom the player may assign names of up to fifteen characters each. In the beginning of the game, the boy, a fan of B-movies, is leaving with his dog from a matinee in a small town called Podunk, USA. Upon leaving the theatre, the dog begins to chase after a cat in the street. The boy hurriedly follows his best friend, finally reaching a large, abandoned mansion. When the dog begins to chew on some wires in a hidden laboratory, the pair soon find theselves transported to the mysterious world of Evermore.
Throughout the course of the game, the player explores Evermore's main areas, many corresponding to different epochs of Earth's history: Prehistoria is an area with dense jungle and primitive men; Crustacia is land of pirates; Nobilia remembers the Roman empire; Gothica resembles a town of Victorian England; and Omnitopia is a futuristic space station.
Wending the world of Evermore, the dog's body transforms in a manner that corresponds to the theme of the area in which players find themselves. For example, in the world of Prehistoria, the formerly friendly mutt is transformed into a feral wolf, while in the Nobilian region he becomes a majestic greyhound.
External links
- Road to Evermore (http://www.geocities.com/vanbrain/) - Fansite with a FAQ, walkthrough, and more.