Retro Review - Secret of Evermore

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I don't think I've said it, but Secret Of Mana is one of my favorite video games, it's a game that knew at the time how to tell a simple story, but in a way that is very entertaining, good music and graphics with great color and details. The game I'm going to tell you about here takes inspiration from a lot of the main features of Secret Of Mana and it's no wonder, since both games belong to the same developer, the famous SquareSoft, currently Square Enix.

That's why today's Retro Review is about: Secret of Evermore.

Just at the beginning of the game, they show us a vision of the past, where in the year 1965 in a fictitious village in the United States called Pudunk, there is a big mansion that has a laboratory on its roof, but product of a failure in some experiment, the whole place and around the mansion is consumed by a big white light and that's how the vision ends.

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After this we are 30 years into the future and that is where our main protagonist comes on stage, he doesn't have a name of his own and we as a player must give him the name of our preference, therefore, our "hero" (as I'm going to call him from now on), after leaving the cinema where he was with his dog, but at the entrance of the cinema they meet a cat, so the mascot, like every dog chases the poor cat, our hero chases his pet (that we can also give him the name we want) until the big mansion that they showed us at the beginning, already inside the mansion and after entering it they discover the laboratory and they find a big machine, and as many will be able to suppose, at this moment the problems begin for our protagonist, since his dog, (whom I will call doggy), begins to chew the cables of this machine that makes it activate and immediately they are transported to another world, a world completely different from his, a world that has the name Evermore.

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And so begins the story of our hero and doggy, where we will travel in different times of time and different locations living great adventures, making friends and overcoming many enemies, but always with the purpose of returning to our home.

Secret of Evermore is one of those games that with only its simplicity and good care in the use of colors and drawing scenarios, is able to create a game atmosphere perfectly suitable for us as a player, we feel part of the environment in which our main character is, and may sound exaggerated, but to some extent you can get to feel that aspect with this game, and with many games from this same company.

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If you have previously played Secret Of Mana you will feel familiar with the graphical aspect of this game, since being from the same developer maintains that special feature of many of their games, however, as we know more thoroughly each of these titles, we can notice that they have their own personality, despite having very similar graphic styles.

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This type of games is characterized by using very bright colors, so that every scenario where we go is going to feel is full of life, in addition to the character design, which also have an excellent design and modeling, despite the obvious limitations of the time, Secret of Evermore has sprite of characters very well developed, drawn and animated.

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At this point of the review and being one of my favorite aspects of video games in general, it's no surprise to say that: Secret of Evermore has an excellent catalogue of melodies, but of course, it's not something of a to miss being a video game coming from the company that represents it, as is known SquareSoft was characterized by its to maintain in almost all its games a great level of composition of in its melodies, in such a way that these melodies to the being composed of very professional way we can automatically, to relate them with the game without need to have an image in view of it, and although Secret of Evermore doesn't have the best soundtrack in the world. Its quality is high enough for it to be considered good enough.

Video Author Classic Vgm Soundtracks

Secret of Evermore is an Action RPG, so this type of RPG are in which we must make best use of our skills, an Action RPG to explain it in the simplest possible way, is similar to what we can find in the old games of the saga The Legend Of Zelda, where we will have total control over our character, in such a way that through the use of our skills we will move our main character in the large number of scenarios that has this game to offer, defeating any enemy that faces us or overcoming some challenge or puzzle.

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Secret of Evermore is a game that implements features already seen in other games, for example, in this title battles are not by turn and are in real time, therefore our enemies appear in real time on the scene and we can attack them whenever we want, we can also dodge them and avoid some battle, but we could not always do it, sometimes the battles were mandatory, but likewise, each battle we have were very well rewarded.

One of the characteristics that this game has, is the use of "magic", although not specifically it is magic, but if it fulfills the same function. The alquima we will use it by means of formulas that we will be learning while we advance in the game, there are diverse ways to find or to learn these formulas and they are very useful in battles, they can be used as much in enemies as in neutral characters.

At first I said that in Secret of Evermore we will go through different times, so the characteristics of each of the times we will go are totally different, for example, the type of currency of each time is different and will not serve us in the others, and the way to earn "money" will be different in each of them, plus we can also exchange items for other items with merchants, ie we can barter.

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In Secret of Evermore we will not only have control of our hero, since we can also control doggy for different types of actions, such as fighting enemies, finding certain objects or solving a puzzle, since some of them can only be solved using our faithful mascot, besides this, doggy has the special ability to "adapt" or transform according to the time in which we find ourselves, in such a way that in each time has a different aspect. As I said before as we advance in the game we will go to different times, exactly 4, we have a prehistoric era where we will fight with dinosaurs, the time of the ancient age, where everything focuses on Greek and Roman mythology, then we will travel to the Middle Ages, with all the aspects that characterize this time, such as castles and knights, and finally could not miss the time of the future, where well, as must be assumed everything in this time has a great level of technological advancement. Each one of these epochs is characterized by having different aspects, like the currency, since in each epoch is very different the method of payment and the value of these, different items, weapons and enemies.

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Secret of Evermore is an excellent game, simple but with great personality, a game that I consider a little forgotten and undervalued, but that maintains its essence of Action RPG of the time. Highly recommended.

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