Secret of Evermore (Super Nintendo)

No game for the Super Nintendo embodies the old “East meets West” conceit quite like Secret of Evermore. This 1995 action RPG was published by none other than Japanese RPG titan Square and is the lone product developed by the staff of their short-lived American satellite studio. Its gameplay is based closely on that of Secret of Mana, one of Square’s all-time classics for the system. Despite that, this is no Mana sequel. Its writing, aesthetics, and general design sensibilities are straight out of my own home city of Seattle.

Still, the mechanical similarities were sufficient to sow a fair amount of confusion and even misinformation among gamers of the day. It was speculated that Evermore was the game selected for international markets over Secret of Mana’s actual official follow-up, the brilliant Seiken Densetsu 3 (later known as Trials of Mana in English). There’s no truth whatsoever to that. The high cost of localization and the rise of the PlayStation and its next gen kin are what sealed Trials’ fate outside its home territory. But the damage was done, and Evermore’s reputation has yet to fully recover from this pre-Internet smear campaign.

Now, I wish I could tell you that this tragic misunderstanding is the sole reason Evermore isn’t held in just as high a regard as its storied predecessor. What a tidy little feel-good narrative that would be. Unfortunately, my recent playthrough (the first in over twenty years!) left me far too conflicted for that. It’s easily one of the most offbeat, amusing, and atmospheric console titles of its generation. At the same time, it’s needlessly grind-heavy and plagued by atrocious dungeon design.

First, the positives. Few games in this style were created outside Japan during the 16-bit era, and it shows here in some fascinating and entertaining ways. Take the plot, which opens with an average American boy and his dog investigating an abandoned mansion in their sleepy town of Podunk. They have no default names, so I named the boy after myself and the dog Dick. In honor of legendary character actor Dick Miller, naturally. Get your minds out of the gutter, people. Anyway, an encounter with a mysterious machine in the mansion’s depths sees the pair warped to a high-tech space station of all things. Hostile robots then force them to flee in an escape pod to the planet below, where they soon discover that they’re not in Podunk anymore. Or on Earth, for that matter. Instead, they’ve crash-landed in the middle of a prehistoric jungle teeming with cavemen, dinosaurs, and carnivorous plants. Odder still (if that’s possible), the dog has changed shape to match his savage surroundings, now appearing as a hulking dire wolf. There’s nothing else the boy can do except arm himself with the femur bone his canine companion was kind enough to fetch for him and strike out in search of a way home.

It’s a highly unorthodox setup, to be sure. The typical SNES RPG might introduce the lead character as a hero of prophecy destined to save the world or as a key player in a small, desperate rebellion against the overwhelming might of an evil empire. Evermore gleefully sidesteps all that cookie cutter gravitas in favor of a low-stakes, largely tongue-in-cheek romp that feels more inspired by vintage pulp adventure yarns and B movies than anything else. The writers aren’t coy about their inspirations, either. The boy’s defining character trait is his tendency to compare every strange new situation he finds himself caught up in to one of his favorite fictional cheeseball flicks. “Wow! This is like what happens in ‘The Pale People of Planet V.’ It’s about a bunch of astronauts who get stuck on an exact replica of Earth. Only it’s populated by zombie vampires and… Well, actually, this isn’t like that at all.” If that quote doesn’t get the tone across, nothing will. As essentially the adult version of this kid, I approve.

All this genuinely amusing and endearing writing is bolstered by a truly sublime audiovisual presentation. Evermore marked the professional debut of composer Jeremy Soule, then a mere nineteen years old. He’s best known these days for his work on the Elder Scrolls franchise, of course. Like many of you, I’ve spent hundreds of hours of my life listening to the man’s work, and it’s remarkable how much of his signature style was on display from the very beginning. This blend of carefully chosen ambient sounds punctuated by elegant, understated melodies is potent stuff and was literally unheard-of on the hardware. Factor in the detailed environmental pixel art, grittier and more grounded than Secret of Mana’s pastel wonderland, and the overall effect is seriously immersive.

As stated, the core gameplay hews closely to what was established in Mana, although it has been both simplified and refined to a degree. The number of playable characters is reduced from three to two. Namely, the boy and his dog. Only the boy has access to weapons, items, and magic. The dog is limited to his built-in bite attack. In practice, the dog hits a lot harder, but the boy’s greater flexibility means that he’s the one you’ll want to maintain manual control of the majority of the time. Multiplayer support is gone as well, so you’re always reliant on the rather dim CPU to back you up.

On the combat front, there’s been some welcome changes. The length of time combatants are stunned after taking damage has been shortened significantly and holding down the attack button to charge your weapons no longer hinders movement. Thus, cheap stun lock deaths are a thing of the past and nimble hit-and-run tactics the order of the day. Magic, or alchemy as it’s known in Evermore, is no longer limited by a pool of points that grows as you level up. Spells now draw on your inventory via an ingredient scheme lifted straight out of Ultima IV. You can toss Fireballs all day if you want, so long as you have a pinch of brimstone and two portions of ash on hand for each casting. Ingredients can be bought from merchants or found in the field, where they’re usually invisible. Pay close attention to where the dog is sniffing around. The nose knows.

Alas, not all of Evermore’s tweaks are for the better. One of Mana’s best features, its eight distinct weapon types, has been pared down to three: Swords, axes, and spears. Of the three, spears are the clear best choice due to their ability to be hurled at distant targets. I only used a sword when I had no other option (the bone you start with technically counts as one) and never once bothered equipping an axe unless it was to momentarily utilize their non-combat function of breaking through specific walls to progress. As if this paltry selection wasn’t underwhelming enough already, the boy’s accumulated weapon skill points don’t transfer between different weapons of the same class. Find a shiny new spear? Have fun losing access to your previously unlocked charge attacks until you can grind them up from scratch again! This one baffling choice sucks nearly all the fun out of weapon upgrades, normally one of the most satisfying elements of any action RPG. Ridiculous.

Sad as it is, the mangled weapon system would be forgivable to me on its own. What really drove me up the wall was the insipid dungeon layouts. If there’s one thing the team behind Secret of Evermore obviously loved, it was humongous repetitive labyrinths stocked with two or three enemy types, tops. Tired of that? Have a few dark mazes! All the mind-numbing tedium with none of the pleasing graphics! At one point, they have the gall to throw you into a dark teleporter maze, which I’m pretty sure is expressly banned under the Geneva Convention. We do get the rare high point, such as the Great Pyramid, where the boy and dog are forced to separate for a time in order to press switches and smash walls to open paths for each other. My hopes swelled when I reached this area, thinking that this fresh dynamic would surely be revisited and expanded upon later. Yeah, right. Back to the maze with you, rat!

Secret of Evermore is a one-of-a-kind game I instinctively like. It’s also one I sorely wish I could love. Its freewheeling approach to story and characterization is a breath of fresh air in such a broadly serious genre and its moment-to-moment action is decent on balance. Too bad the bulk of that charm evaporates the instant you’re facing down the next lazy slog of a dungeon. If I revisit this one again, and that’s a big if, I expect it won’t be for another two decades or so at minimum. That’s about how long it’ll take to get taste of its awful level design out of my mouth. A good half of Evermore is a real dog, and I’m not talking the furry kind.