Line #0 YMMV/SecretOfEvermore


1	* AngstWhatAngst: The hero seems perfectly happy to go on a dangerous adventure in another world with no idea if he'll be able to get back home when he's done. In the opening minutes of the game, he winds up on a space station and is herded into an empty room by a strange robot, and finds a bazooka in a container. His reaction? Fire off a practice shot and exclaim "Cool!"
2	* AntiClimaxBoss
3	** Rimsala, the boss of the Great Pyramid. The statues around the arena occasionally cast Flash, otherwise Rimsala's only "attack" is to spin around the arena, then become immobile and immune to damage. Compared to its counterpart in the Hall of Colossia, the Megataur, Rimsala is pathetic.
4	** Timberdrake, the second boss of the Dark Forest, only has Fireball and a melee physical attack for its offense, and both do laughable damage. Its health is also pretty pathetic for the point you fight it, 2,000, at a time when charge attacks from either character can do several hundred damage. It'll be slain in a minute or two without posing much threat.
5	** Mungola, the final boss of Gothica. It will occasionally cast weak alchemy like Fireball and Corrosion, otherwise it relies on its infinitely respawning puppets to fight for it, and it doesn't do much damage anyway. Not to mention its visually unimpressive, a dark head with few distinct features that scowls and smirks as the fight goes on.
6	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The entire soundtrack is lathered with some of the best orchestral works on the [[Platform/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem SNES]], all composed by Jeremy Soule, who went on to compose ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' and ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' music. This was his first video game soundtrack and it still holds up today.
7	* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The appearance of [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV Cecil Harvey]] in Gothica is a random cameo out of nowhere, and the implication that somehow the world of ''Final Fantasy IV'' is connected to Evermore raises a lot more questions. Which are never answered, since Cecil is just a cameo, nothing about him is ever brought up once you leave his inn, and Cecil never leaves his desk. Cecil claims to have settled down with Rosa, but we don't see her.
8	* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: The Alchemy system includes a lot of extraneous spells. You're given Cure and Heal early on and will likely never need any other healing spells, since by the time you acquire them you've leveled up Heal enough that it's just as good as them, and its ingredients are cheaper and more plentiful. For offense, you're given Flash at the start of the game, later in Antiqua you get Crush from Blimp, and if you go to the Hall of Colossia first you can get Fireball from the alchemist there; every other attack formula is either not worth the trouble to level up by the time you get it, and/or their ingredients are too expensive to be economical to use.
9	* CultClassic: The game was never released in Japan, has never been re-released, and came out near the end of the SNES's life cycle, with the Platform/PlayStation hitting shelves and the Platform/Nintendo64 on its way a year later. On top of that, it had comparatively little promotion. One reviewer offered the reason being that, unlike the other games {{Creator/Square\|Enix}} was putting out for the Super NES, ''Secret of Evermore'' was an anti-epic about a boy and his dog going on a fun adventure. Despite everything set against it, the game's charm has given it a tight-knit fandom that enjoys the game for what it is.
10	* DemonicSpiders: Metal Raptors and Death Spiders in Omnitopia. The raptors are agile and difficult to hit, and the aptly-named Death Spiders can kill you with one bite.
11	* GameBreaker:
12	** Barrier renders the user immune to melee attacks for 45 seconds. By the time you get it, you can count on one hand how many enemies left in the game actually use alchemy, and they're all bosses anyway. Thus, you basically get an invincibility spell; and after completing Gothica and collecting 10,000 Gold Coins from the King, you can easily afford to max out your inventory with ingredients for Barrier.
13	** Energize causes your weapon meter to automatically charge in only a couple of seconds, allowing you to spam {{charged attack}}s freely. Combine it with the Neutron Blade for 3 or more hits of 999 damage. You get it shortly before the final boss, so it only spoils that fight.
14	** The toaster-dog, if he's controlled by the AI. In addition to ludicrously high critical hit rates and a new ranged attack, the Dog will randomly counter-attack whenever he blocks/dodges with a fully-charged Lv. 3 laser. You barely need to do anything in the surface tubes sections; just let the 'bot take care of it. For extra brokenness, cast Energize on him, and whatever difficulty the Omnitopia region had left gets crushed underfoot, and that includes the FinalBoss.
15	** The Crush spell. You can level it up (for profit) right outside of Nobilia. If you buy the ingredients from Blimp, who is a short boat ride away, it costs 36 Jewels to cast the spell. One Bone Buzzard (which is conveniently weak against Crush) drops 40 Jewels upon its death. As soon as Crush reaches Level 1, you can one-shot the Buzzards even if you target three of them simultaneously. Level it up to 9 and the 300 XP-per kill will likely skyrocket your Boy's levels, too. Voilà: You have an Alchemy Formula which inflicts the better part of 999 HP per casting and is absurdly cheap to use. Keep in mind the max damage cap in the game is 999 HP.
16	* GeniusBonus: Madronius and Pompolonius are slight misspellings of actual names used in the Ancient world. Mardonius was the name of a Greek philosopher and adviser to Emperor Julian, and Pomponius was a plebeian family who lived in Rome.
17	* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: For whatever reason, the game is surprisingly popular with German audiences, especially in the context of {{Speedrun}}s--most speedrunners of the game are German, and as of November 2022, the world record of every main category is held by German players.
18	* GoddamnedBats:
19	** Every [[AirborneMook flying enemy]], due to a convergence of game mechanics. They dart around aimlessly when not readying an attack (and wobble up and down when they do). Combined with the less-than-stellar hit detection and high miss rate, trying to hit them with a melee weapon (even thrown spears) is a waste of time. Their attacks have higher priority than the player's, so wasted charge attacks and [[CycleOfHurting stunlocks]] are common. Worse yet, they frequently respawn, which makes firing alchemy at them wasteful.
20	** Oglins are the first regular enemy that can pose a credible threat to you as they move fast and perform a simple yet effective stabbing attack that makes it dangerous to fight them normally.
21	* GoodBadBugs:
22	** If you release a charged attack just as you evade an enemy's attack, your charge meter won't deplete and you'll likely launch a second charged attack instantly.
23	** The SprintMeter is oddly shared with the ChargeMeter. If you power up any weapon to level 3, you can use the sprint button to run almost indefinitely. Want to sprint all the way across the Desert of Doom without stopping to rest? Grind any weapon you have Level 3 skill, charge it up, and then start dashing while still holding the charge button. It'll go back down to Charge 1 and slowly recharge to almost 2, and then stay there until you stop running or an enemy hits you/forces you to parry.
24	** If the Hero is under the effect of status buff or ailment, try saving. Your character stats will be screwed up the next time you reload. Normally this is bad news, but you can exploit it. Un-equip your armor and then cast, say, Defend. Your defense will skyrocket to 65,000+ without armor. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with Atlas. Don't try it with Speed, though: with 65,000 hit% or evade%, you will get hit all the time.
25	** The Silver Sheath. A glitch causes every sword in the game to inflict extra damage, regardless of whether you have it or not. As a result, the only use for the Silver Sheath is to trade it in for the Armor Polish which increases your defense. Though you can regain the Silver Sheath in Ebon Keep, people who don't know about the bug may have a hard time deciding whether to make the trade or not.
26	** It's possible to skip the boss with Verminator in Ebon Keep. When you enter the keep, but before you fight Verminator, it flags the drawbridge on the chessboard to lower, so if you feel like backtracking all the way through the Dark Forest to return to the chessboard, you can enter Ebon Keep there. The only catch is that you have to remember you did this; if you try to leave Ebon Keep through the doorway blocked by Verminator, you'll get stuck in the crates. But at least you can bypass the battle for now and come back to kill him when you're stronger.
27	** When you acquire the "Wind Walker", you can yield Infinite Call Beads. One tile in Nobilia, if done properly, will keep spawning Call Beads if you continue to push the button while standing there. You can carry up to 99, rendering all future boss fights frivolous.
28	** A glitch in the US versions causes the Bazooka to fire infinite Cryo-Blasts/Practile Bombs. A Bazooka with Cryo-Blast ammo has a whopping 800 attack power, the highest by far of any of the boy's weapons. The only thing it lacks is any kind of charged attack, but that doesn't matter much when you have unlimited ammo.
29	** When collecting the rocket parts for Tinker, the Gauge you find on the Volcano slopes will respawn once you give it to him. If you return to Tinker with this second Gauge and one of the other two parts (the Wheel or the Diamond Eyes), the story will progress as though you had found all three parts, letting you skip either the trip to the Pyramid or the boss fight with Coleoptera.
30	* HilariousInHindsight: Upon starting the game, the Hero walks out of the theater which is showing ''The Lost Adventures of VideoGame/{{Vexx}}''. Appropriate, considering just how obscure that game became since its release.
31	* MisBlamed:
32	** Contrary to popular belief, this game had nothing to do with ''VideoGame/TrialsOfMana'' not being localized. For one thing, this game was developed in English to begin with, so it had no way of interfering with the localization of a game which wasn't. ''Trials'' (then-known as ''Seiken Densetsu 3'') wasn't localized due to numerous glitches that the developers wanted to fix before it shipped, but the SNES was already on its death bed, so they decided to cut their losses. The Square USA dev team, who were specifically hired to make ''Evermore'', have said themselves they probably wouldn't have been the ones put in charge of localizing ''Trials'' if it was attempted, anyway. (Years later, the existence of both a FanTranslation and an official localization means you can play both.)
33	** On a related note, many Japanese gamers were disappointed because the game was never released in Japan, feeling they should have received this one in conjunction with ''Trials''. As mentioned above, the development teams for the two games worked 100% independently of one another, and ''Evermore'' was developed for the Western audiences to begin with. In other words, if there's anyone to blame, it's the executives for [[DolledUpInstallment slapping the name "Secret" onto a standalone title]] to boost sales.
34	* NightmareFuel:
35	** The game's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEu8wDAQuDk commercial]] is more than a little creepy, what with the {{Ethereal Choir}} in the background and the various scenes that flash by. We then see the protagonist's dog morph by ''having the wolf form [[PainfulTransformation emerge from the dog's mouth]]'', while the dog's old form crumples around him like a second skin.
36	** The GameOver text is a subtle-but-effective case of FridgeHorror. As far as the boy's family and friends know, he and his Dog went out one night much like any other... and disappeared without a trace.
37	--->"Sadly, <Hero> and <Dog> never came back."
38	** The monster Mungola first appears as a pair of sickly yellow eyes behind a curtain. They're the size of car tires.
39	* SignatureScene: The battle with the Hero and Dog (the former armed with the Bone Crusher) against Thraxx, which features prominently in the original commercials and on the box art and manual. Reviewers commented how cool it was to reach your first boss fight and realize you're fighting the battle all the advertising focused on.
40	* ThatOneBoss:
41	** Doubling as a WakeUpCallBoss: Salabog hovers over the swamp out of range of your normal weapons, and can only be damaged through usage of a leveled-up spear or alchemy. There's two major problems with this, the first being that unless you went out of your way to do it, you probably haven't had time to level up the Horn Spear you only just got; and the second being that you only have three offensive Alchemy formulas, and probably haven't leveled them up this early in the game (and likely lack the cash needed to do so). To make up for being out of reach, Salabog will occasionally lunge its head forward to come into range, but this also hits you for nasty damage, so you're better off just dodging. It regularly spawns fireball minions to attack you and block your movements, particularly on those narrow walkways. Finally, Salabog soaks up a ton of damage: 2000 HP. For points of comparison, the previous major boss, Thraxx, had 600 HP, and the final boss of the entire region, Magmar, has 1000 HP.
42	** The Verminator sits safely out of reach of most melee attacks, hurls potent alchemy spells (including Explosion and Plague), and occasionally robs you of HP with Drain. You'd better either have leveled-up your spear and offensive alchemy, or be willing to eat up some Call Beads.
43	** The Bad Boys you meet in the Dark Forest. You fight three of them, each armed with a different alchemy. The first uses Crush, the second uses Storm. The third... uses Nitro, the strongest formula in the game, which can kill you if you aren't fully healed.
44	** Compared to other bosses, Sterling isn't out of place in terms of difficulty. But if you get close to it, it'll trigger an unblockable move where it picks you up and hurls you off the tower, forcing you to climb back all the way back up. This means you'll spend most of the fight trying to nail it with alchemy and spear throws, afraid of getting too close.
45	* ThatOneLevel:
46	** The Desert of Doom. With the infinite sprinting trick, it will still take several minutes of running through the desert at top speed to cross it. The first thing most players are likely to do when they finally reach Nobilia for the first time is stock up on Amulets of Annihilation to pay for a ferry ride across the desert, because ''no one'' wants to cross back over the hard way.
47	** The air duct sequence with the Dog in Ivor Tower. The ducts and the rooms they connect to each need to be explored in different directions, and you can't really glimpse the layout of the ground floor from this limited exploration. So trying to map them out yourself is a lot of guesswork. You have to find an ''invisible'' (until you're standing directly in front of her) old woman to get a key to the castle rooms for the Hero to use. Finally, the quickest path to the exit is hidden behind scenery due to the forced perspective, so you'll probably [[DepthDeception find it by accident]]. This maze is difficult to navigate even with a walkthrough. The official guide is especially useless (completely ignoring this part) so... good luck.
48	** Don't know the trick to getting through the Dark Forest? Cancel all appointments, you will be in there for hours. And for extra fun, there are two secrets to find in there that require you to divert off the path through the woods itself.
49	* VindicatedByHistory: Jeremy Soule's atmospheric soundtrack was not well-received when the game first came out. Today it's regarded as a standout soundtrack of the era precisely ''because'' of how much it stands out from contemporary games' soundtracks.

Context YMMV / SecretOfEvermore