I love this game. I got it for my 16th birthday and was hooked. Jeremy Soule's composition is so memorable for me. And, I love how there is no love interest in this story. It's just a boy and his dog. Not everything has to revolve around a goddamn romance.
So damn refreshing. Love the soundtracks from both SoE and SoM 👍 Hey if you like old and new video game soundtracks you should check out a website called OCREMIX. They remix everything from Megaman and Final Fantasy games to Zelda games. Also Google SoE remix and you might find one in particular I really liked. The stillpicture on RU-vid shows the top halves of the boy and dogs face in "real life" form. Not every song is remixed but the ones that are remixed are pretty damn cool
Um, the other big RPG games of the time weren't love stories either. Chrono Trigger was mainly a group of strangers traveling through different eras trying to save their planet from being devoured by an alien. Secret of Mana was about three strangers also looking to save their world from an evil emperor. Same with FF6/FF3US - a group of strangers trying to save their world from a clown(?). Even other snes games not developed by SquareSoft had none or very minimal elements of an epic romance. It wasn't until the next generation of SquareSoft games on PlayStation where the epic JRPG romance ballad became central to the theme, alongside with a world-saving quest. Cloud and Tifa, Squall and Rinoa, Zidane and Garnet.
I love that every other channel in my sub box is doing year end retrospectives and looking forward to 2020, while SNES Drunk is just putting out a regular video like it's 1995 forever
Thanks for noticing, that's the idea. I don't have a whole lot of interest in following gaming in real-time when there's thousands of games that are already out there.
It's still one of my favorite games on the SNES. I loved the part with the market place myself! Either way, I really appreciate a well thought out opinion on anything, and you did very well here.
Funny, I was actually very surprised to hear him criticize the marketplace. I always thought it was pretty fun puzzle. But I was a kid with plenty of time to kill I guess? I definitely preferred this game over Secret of Mana back in the day though.
I liked it a lot too but wasn't fond of the 15 minute time limit in the sense that there isn't like a secret way to skip it when your done or something. You do need the 15 minutes at first to figure things out, it might seem like too long in a vacuum but imagine trying to do it in 10 minutes the very first time you played? What bothers me most is that once you leave an era you can't go back, so the strongest armor and weapon are there but you can't like progress in the game and come back later your stuck there unless you want to give it up. They don't tell you its there so you could miss it, like its a reward for having fully figured out the marketplace to some extent. But once you know its there? Its a damn pain. Because the dynamic changes to one of reward to "man - I have to stay without leaving this era?"
Hah, the market is one of my favorite parts. Way back then I loved spending the weekend with my mom and a notebook, writing down all possible paths to make the best run of that area.
Hell, I did a frigging map of the whole thing, along with the best "route" to get everything in time.. One of my most memorable SNES moments, in one of the best SNES games. I still love it to bits.
Ha! The old days of gaming when you had to draw your own maps! Espically if it was a First Person View dungeon crawler where you absolutely had to draw a map or forget about it. I remember playing Ultima Exodus on the NES and having a frigging full notebook for that game. Gamers nowadays heads would explode if they had to map a game out. Lol
This game is near and dear to my heart, and I know that's mostly nostalgia. This was one of the first rpg's that truly hooked me, the other being Chrono Trigger. I've replayed both in adulthood and still love them. They still hold up.
Having found out recently that Jeremy Soule did the soundtrack.. that really was not much of a surprise. Certain songs on here still stick with me today.
Love this game. One of my most played. I can understand the critique, but this game had amazing writing and absolutely charming worlds. I was transported as a kid, living vicariously though this boy and his pet dog as they shared a beautiful adventure. The gameplay wasn’t the selling point for me, this was my rabbit hole to wonderland.
You're right. This video is much better. I somewhat disagree on some points out of personal preference. I actually loved the marketplace. It's my favorite puzzle in the game. But I can understand the time limit being frustrating, especially for players who don't enjoy puzzles. Fortunately it only counts down to an easy boss fight and afterwards you can take your time with the marketplace. Mazes in general don't bother me. So maybe that's why I'm able to enjoy this game much more than you. It's one of my favorites. I have fond memories as a kid of mapping out the infamous Forest maze on graph paper and feeling the accomplishment of figuring out that navigational puzzle. The marketplace was a similar experience as I wrote down all the deals and figured the best solution myself.
It's actually because the prehistoric citizens think her shiny glasses look like fire. The game has an animation that highlights the sparkling glint of her spectacles.
@@sektorispiar2988 Um, no, I'm not joking, it literally is because she shoots lightning bolts from her eyes. After you come back from the Bugmuck with Strong Heart, she demonstrates by lighting the campfire outside her hut, then gives you your first set of Call Beads to let you summon her for powerful fire attacks. She even SAYS this is why she's called "Fire Eyes".
@@ArcaneAzmadi oh yes, I remember that now. You're right! I was thinking of the very first time she introduces herself; she's a bit more coy about explaining herself at that point.
I got to admit this gem is really defined by Jeremy Soule. I believe this was the first game he ever did music for and it really gave the atmosphere to the setting to it.
One of my favourite RPG on SNES.😍 A masterpiece on SNES 🙌🏻. In fact, you won't gonna find something like that this days. For me, is in Top 3. 🥰 To bad it got forgotten... I would love to play a remake from it. 🥰 Happy new 2020 year !!! 😃😙🎼🎉🎈🎊🍾🥂
Mannn... I rented this from blockbuster back in the day. I was a kid with a successful weekend neighborhood door to door lawn mowing enterprise lol I fucked around and got so intro this game that i easily justified and followed thru with a plot to "lose" the blockbuster copy and pay for it myself lol the fact i was able to keep my save file AND the game in the 90's totally made up for having to pay a little extra. No internet and it being summer coupled with blockbuster being at the entrance to my neighborhood led to me pulling it off with zero parental involvement. God i miss the 90's And this game. Tl;Dr: I FUCKING AGREE WITH Y'ALL 100% LOL
I always remember the townsfolk mid game by the name of Cecil that makes a funny reference to final fantasy....the weirdness & unique execution of this game is epic sort of like Earth Bound💜
I did enjoy the marketplace very much. In fact, it's one of my favorite parts of the game - and I still haven't found something like that in any other rpg to date.
I like the market place section itself a lot. But what I don't like is that you have to get everything done in a time limit when you reach it the first time. It would be much better if you could take some time to explore and understand it the first time you play it
@@schnubbi13 You ... don't... have to get everything within the time limit. All you need is the Tier 2 armor (you get the Tier 3 armor out of pots in the Colloseum if you have the T2 armor equipped). Kill the boss, come back out and do the rest of your shopping at your leisure.
Colosseum waiting room has a hidden room where you can get even BETTER armor for the fight, not wasting market resources. Spend those on things like armor polish, sun stone, and moxa stick instead!
I'm glad you decided to give this game a better review, I never really understood the hate this game got. Seems to be from people that like Secret of Mana not liking this game as much. I suppose the reason I liked it more was cause for one thing at the time I played Secret of Evermore I didn't even know Secret of Mana existed. I actually didn't end up playing Secret of Mana till like the late 2000's. Another reason I'm nostalgic for this game is it was one of the first RPG's I had ever played, as a 90's kid my family had like 4 RPGs on the SNES and they were..... Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest The 7th Saga Super Mario RPG: The Legend of the Seven Stars Secret of Evermore We maybe got the SNES in like 1994, and my family still played SNES games well into the next console generation, as we didn't have alot of money back then and made due with what we had, and even into the twilight years of the console there was still alot of quality titles to enjoy, and at the time Secret of Evermore was like no other game I had played, both storywise, presentation wise, and gameplay wise. I also loved it's beautiful and often nightmarish world. Even today I can't think of any other game that comes close to what this game did. This game is very nostalgic for me, and I think not playing Secret of Mana helped in that regard, it was also one of the first RPG's I figured out how to beat all by myself (and this was also much later, like the early 2000's when I was in middle school) as I wasn't very good at them when I was younger. There were things like healing items, stats, and buying that I didn't catch onto when I was younger, as when you're a kid I just wanted to pic up and play the game, I also had learning disability where I could not figure out how to read till I was in my early teens. So being able to go back to this game years later and finally figure out how I was suppose to play it definitely felt like a huge personal accomplishment at the time.
Being from Europe, there were hardly any RPGs released here. Mystic Quest Legends (the game you also had but it didn't have the Final Fantasy name attached as 7 was the first one released in Europe and Mystic Quest without the Legends added was the gameboy predecessor to SoM) was the only turn based one in German. The rest were action rpgs: SoM, Illusion of Time, SoE, Terranigma were the only ones. I think there were some which only came in English but I was in elementary school during the SNES era hence not knowing English beyond obvious video game terms. That got me into emulation early thanks to German fan translations. It's so odd they didn't even bring the easy Mario RPG here to Europe, not even an English only one.
This game is still very nostalgic for me, but back then i think we put up with a lot of crap because we didn’t know any better. I still love it though.
Then there's me, thinking that the market is one of the coolest things I have seen in any game anywhere. It builds the world so well, it's fun to see what kind of different deals you can get, and it's far and away more interesting then simply going into a menu and purchasing everything one after the other. The market is one of the HIGHLIGHTS of the game to me and I wish more games utilized a barter system.
I am terribly surprised to see this right now, and happy to see you revisiting Evermore. It is definitely a game that looses its luster the longer it is going. As if the development had to be rushed after the second world. Well, thank you for your second look, shining a spotlight at my most played game. Played it just yesterday actually. Something like this will likely never be made again. You did the game justice here. What a nice way to start a new year. Oh yeah for anyone who cares, have a good new year and may it go well for you on the first day and beyond.
Secret of Evermore is my favorite game of all time and I'll be the first person to tell you to just pull up a walkthrough for all the dungeons and mazes. There's also a couple of things you can miss but it's not that bad, I think it's a couple of alchemy spells and a trinket or two. And the one thing I will say about the bazaar, as awful as it is, you can come back later on and have all the time you want to get everything (again, just use a walkthrough). Those issues aside, it's such a dark, atmospheric, interesting game and I've never played anything quite like it.
I thought your critique was fair. Although this game was one of my favorites, even I admit it was flawed You didn't mention how it's possible to soft lock yourself in the first part of Gothica. You need a stupid Amulet of Annihilation to go to the freakshow to advance the story. The amulets are hidden around that area, but you can also use them to buy better tier equipment. If you don't manage your inventory correctly you can screw yourself over and be unable to progress I always thought that was a stupid beginner's trap
@@Vile23 IIRC, there were three amulets hidden around Ivor Tower. One in Lance's house where you could also obtain the gold breastplate for free, one hidden in a secret room behind one of the houses, and one in a hidden patch in trees outside the town. You could also find a new spell for Horace outside town somewhere With three amulets, you could buy the dragon helmet and the magicians ring to complete your armor set, then buy a ticket to the freakshow When I was a kid, I started over the first time and just bought some amulets in Nobilia at the bazaar. Then I later found those secrets. That game had a ton of hidden goodies, and I have OCD so I had to find everything
@@Vile23 If you wanted to you could just buy as many as you wanted with bags of rice because of the hidden unlimited rice/spice spot right outside the market 😲 The funniest part about the amulets is if you use any form of profanity in naming the kid or the dog, the skull captain of the desert will call you a potty mouth and charge you 3 amulets to get across rather than just the 1 lol The dialogue was friggin awesome in this game 👍
Secret of Evermore is a phenomenal game in itself. And it's vastly superior to Mana games, if we are comparing, though I'm not as SoE is its own IP. The story in all areas is really well done. The magic is a lot of fun (once you find Crush and Lance). And the scene where you run into Cecil and Rosa from FFIV, brought tears to my eyes! I do have to complain about the market area, and the forest maze, though I have a Nintendo Power that lays out these area in great detail. 9/10 game! Must play for everyone! :D
This is one of my all-time favorite games. The worst parts are building up your strength in the first world and getting lost in the seemingly endless desert. But everything else is wonderful. Jeremy Soule's music is beautiful, with my favorite Queen Beauregard's song.
I'd say the worst parts, for me, are the castle dungeons, where you are only playing as the dog, and the great endless forest, both in the third story arc. You can really get lost in both of those dungeons for hours.
I don’t know how I ever came into owning this game but I never played it. It was always collecting dust in a corner. Until I got tired one day of playing everything else. Once you actually start playing it and actually read the story and character lines…you get hooked. Its one of those games that just stick in your memory even decades. If you just play it fast to beat it your not going to like it much. One of my most memorable games that I remember every once in awhile 👍
I love how you can go back to an old review and redo it, I wish more reviewers did it! It shows how you are gaining experience on the subject and we can learn with you. For this and everything else, yours is one of my favorite channels, I really enjoy your content. Happy new year to you, I hope you have a nice celebration! :)
@@ThatFetcherFargoth Pretty much, this. The consumables in the game are (mostly) cheap. And once you learn what spells are actually worth leveling (hint: you only need one offensive spell and 2 healing spells, pretty much ever the entire game and their ingredients are easy to come by and rather cheap). In fact, if you level the only offensive spell you need, you can make _profit_ by leveling the spell. You get more money than you spend buying the ingredients.
It's a lot like how in Final Fantasy Adventure you have limited charges on all your weapons but you just buy more. I mean, everything has charges in real life, it's just some things we take for granted how many charges they have without realizing that they are not 100% renewable. Like how many times our fingers are capable of pressing a button before the muscles fatigue temporarily or the joints irreparably wear. Actually, I hope I didn't just inflict some severe existential dread upon you.
@@proudlarry8225 But... those examples *are* examples of renewable charges. Your muscles get tired, you go to bed that night and they get refreshed over night. However, a better example would be a piece of equipment you use every day. I remember when I was a kid, I had an aluminum baseball bat that I'd swing around and bat balls with all the time. It eventually developed a crack in the middle of the bat and one day it simply broke. One would never think a metal ballbat would break, but it did. But then I used that thing for like 6+ years.
@@Dhalin They only seem renewable because you're not 60. Muscles won't hold the same tension or number of charges before refreshment, and degenerate when you become feeble and can tear or even snap their tendons, both somewhat repairable by surgery but never to the same capacity. Joints are definitely not renewable, though their total durability can be extended through proper care and treatment.
My mom was a huge fan of this game, she absolutely loved the mazes, and puzzling through them with hand drawn maps, and as someone who didn't really enjoy combat in games she found the way you could just instead prepare ahead of time via alchemy (she kept lists of NPCs and what they had and the money types etc) to trivialize fights made it work super well for her. Naturally she was a big fan of the market too; more lists and record keeping for it, lots of back and forth across the desert lol I definitely agree with the video, I've replayed it a few times on my own since she's been gone but I basically always give up and just look up maps and ignore the market cause the games extremely easy regardless. I just thought it was interesting how to the right person all the stuff most people don't enjoy can be strengths. She was an old-school adventure gamer though playing on the commodore 64 with stuff like Zork so her patience and ingenuity for that kind of thing was much higher than mine
wow she zorked?? i tried it once, i also worked with some engine a friend had made for that kind of thing and had some ideas for my own MUD thing but friend disagreed with my thoughts for their engine my mom played phantasy star online on the dreamcast and gamecube as her only real engagement with gaming, she played online and was popular, had lots of friends and even a relationship at one point for a while; she refused to try other games though and resisted my efforts to teach her anything on pc
You should've talked about the balance patch which groups together spells and weapon types to reduce grinding and rebalances enemy stats. And the 2-player patch. Mostly fair criticisms though regarding the dungeons there are some good ones with puzzle elements like the colosseum and pyramid, certainly a step up from Secret of Mana to me which also had shallow dungeons. Some of the mazes are tedious though, especially the dark cave. The hit detection is better than in Mana, with less of a chance to screw up a charge attack here and IIRC more of a chance to actually attack twice (if you attacked and dodged around the same time you can hold the button and attack again sometimes). But it is unintuitive to have stat-based success rate in an action game. Certain items really help here though.
Down for some 2P? 😂 Honest to god...a buddy of mine and myself...we did this about 3 or 4 months ago. It's glitchy at times and can screw you over if you don't save often but man is that friggin fun 😲
@@richardmyers5732 Hehe yeah it's a bit of a hassle at the pyramid as I recall, with those switch puzzles. I remember taking notes on what not to do but I don't think I have them anymore.
I was 14 when this released, I remember being legit "doctor's note, you're missing more than three days of school" sick, watching "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" on cable. My Dad surprised me with the game and strategy guide when he came from from work. I did indeed finish it. I'm sure the guide made the marketplace section tolerable. After completion, I recall loading up my end game save and playing the final boss fight countless times over the following months. I don't believe reviews were too kind to the game back then, but man oh man...nostalgia is an ever demanding mistress. I need to revisit this in the future.
I was 10 1/2 and I didn’t get into these kinds of games until much later. I think the first action/RPG I played was Baldur’s Gate for PS2 when I was seventeen. So I missed out on a bunch of great games.
I just recently completed playing through the whole game, and personally I love the game so much. It had a really good atmosphere about it and the way you level up your weapon and Magic skills was very fun and addictive. I remember getting upset when the game was over because there wasn't any more to play. Just my opinion, of course.
Secret of Evermore is one of my all time favorite games from SNES, it’s music is beautifully created by Jeremy Soule, who made music for games like donkey Kong country and even games on Gaia online, and it just takes me back to a time when I felt so immersed into the world and I fell in love with it all over again ^-^
😂 Follow the owl in the trees man! But ya...pain in the ass lol. That's where the speed formula comes in handy. Raises your evade so much that nothing will ever hit you 👍
Made my own map when I was a kid. It took an entire weekend if I remember correctly but I always used it after that. Sadly I never made a market place guide, just always fumbled through that part :) And for those wondering why I 'didnt just google it' back in those days you bought a guide or had nothing the internet was 'new' and fresh. My house didnt even have a connection.
The gameplay is what hooked me. I tried it at a used games shop back as a kid. They let customers play before buying. A few minutes in, and I felt it was fun. Playing through it, I could tell the writing was very different from the typical Square RPG. It was a combination of the charm and the fun that grabbed me.
My cousin gave me a disk with hundreds of Snes roms and an emulator on it when I was a kid. That's where I played this game, and while its certainly not perfect, it has that 90's charm that I can't get enough of nowadays.
This is one of my favorite games, but I'm pretty sure the game was incomplete, or just rushed at the end. This could be evidenced by the weapon progression where starting in the medieval area you get the sword and Lance seemingly at random times.
It's actually a little (okay, a lot) of both. I don't have the stories on hand, but let's just say that Square of America wasn't treated particularly well, and this are reasons why this is the only game it ever had the chance to produce.
This was a well done review of Secret of Evermore. I played this as a kid and liked the alchemy system at the time. It really hasn’t been done much since.
Really cool concept instead of just "Not enough MP" like every other RPG at the time 😒 Love how there's a huge list of different ingredients to go collect and how you get different spell results from different ingredients 👍
I loved this game growing up when it cerne out! The hardest part in the game ever was that maze in the mid evil era. You had to save your progress before you went in there. I had to restart the game often because how hard that one was
I was a kid playing that. I couldnt find a way out, left it and came back to it months later and found a way through by sheer luck. Swear I have never felt more accomplished in life young life as passing that bit. Nowadays.....itd be straight to RU-vid lol
It's a sequel, after the martians didn't get their moms, they got lumberjacks as a substitute, after all they want to be girlies just like their dear mama
Funny story, the engine is similar to secret of mana, but it’s actually the sage and sigil system built to make this game, the head of the development team did a nice interview a few years back talking about making this game. Good read.
It's a good thing to look back an say "I still feel the same, but my words could have been better..." I'm sorry SoE isn't still to your liking, but I appreciate the expansion on your reasoning, along with the tempering on the borderline vitriol from the original critique.
Never actually played this one, but maaaan, does that box art bring me back! For whatever reason, I can so vividly recall seeing this box art at Video Game Powerstore every time.
This is one of those "underrated" cult classic games that people really take personal when you don't like it. That's cool. Doesn't make the gameplay any less flawed. I got it for Christmas the year it came out and still own that original cartridge. I've lost count how many times I've given it another chance to grow on me. Still hasn't happened. But like you point out, the game at least looks and sounds great, so there's that.
I picked up a used copy of the game sometime last year, purely on the basis that it looked cool. Needless to say, I’ve tried to get into it, but I just can’t.
Fantastic re-review. You've gotten so much better over the years that I've been watching you, and I'm glad you've come back to revisit this one. Happy new year!
Could you do a review of Desert/Jungle/Urban Strike for the Genesis? That series was a huge part of my childhood and I want to hear your usual inspired take on them.
Much better. Thank god you mentioned the music and atmosphere. Some of my all time faves. I agree with most of the flaws the magic is not really worth it but I do love that marketplace!
I loved this game for how deep and immersive everything was, both the worlds and the especially the music. The humor was great, and even the market was fun in its own way. The few places I hated was the castle sewers and the long endless forest.
You know how games like Cave Story and Illusion of Gaia have a cute, cheerful aesthetic that completely belies the hideous and dark nature of their worlds? Secret of Evermore is the total opposite, with a dreary, serene, oppressive atmosphere that belies it's INCREDIBLY silly story. That's why I find it weird when fans of the game bring up its atmosphere and aesthetics as selling points. Yes, the game has incredible art and music design, and it's also completely inappropriate for this particular game.
maltheopia The story has a definite humorous streak, sure, but that doesn’t mean that the heavy atmosphere is inappropriate. Evermore is a fairly-tale, and as much, renders the real-life dangers in Podunk as fanciful monsters from the protagonist’s imagination. Much as Dorothy sees Ms. Gulch as the wicked witch in Oz, or Hansel & Gretl see their wicked stepmother as a cannibalistic witch beyond the woods, so Evermore’s protagonist sees the passage of time and the stifling interference of technology (as illustrated in the two time periods we see of Podunk) rendered as a robot trying to conform a beautiful fantasy into a lifeless machine world. Just as the scientist tries to bring a dangerously powerful machine to a humble American everytown, our hero sees his dog literally transforming into a soulless machine (a toaster), and has to fight to keep his small-town dreams safe from the Frankenstein-like experimentation that so clearly haunts his B-movie consciousness. The atmosphere does such an amazing job at betraying the inner thoughts, dreams, and fears of an American Everyman defending his turf. That said, the funny/silly stuff are a wonderful part of this fairytale too.
@@gongoroth I think your observation is simply projection and undue credit. Unlike games like Illusion of Gaia or even Breath of Fire 2 where there's an existential sense of wrongness beyond the cheery surface, there's nothing narratively in Secret of Evermore's plot that invites you to look beneath the surface. Within the NARRATIVE (not the aesthetics, the narrative) there's no dread, no unresolved plot threads, no thematic dissonance or contradictions. It's no Earthbound which presents what appears to be a wacky, straightforward journey but has some dark elements to it. It's just a game where the aesthetics don't match up with the story.
maltheopia Though I disagree very much that Evermore has no thematic dissonance in its story, it’s probably safest just to call “To each his/her own” here. I tend to think the most powerful stories are the minimalistic ones (ie fairy-tales) that use archetypes to create tension/questions rather than acrobatic plot points, and in turn, I think the game’s aesthetics very much match its archetypal story. Many are not on board with me so far as story preferences, though, so I understand your disagreement. Let me just say for the heck of it that I am currently finishing up a BoF2 play-through and I adore that one as well!
I was like 16 or 17 when this game came out. I don't recall having a single problem with anything described in this video. Back then we just used video game guide books. I found the game extremely charming and fun. The mazes were part of the challenge... I am a huge fan of Chrono Trigger FF3 and Breath of Fire. This game brought its own unique feel during a time when the SNES was on its last legs of its journey.
In EU the game came with a big strategy guide detailing the first act and part of the second one (like the one that came with Secret of Mana) and it actually gave you a map of the marketplace which helped tremendously, don't know about the US release but I guess it was the same. Fun fact, the guide had the same kind of mistake the SOM one did, in Secret of Mana's case they referenced armor that wasn't there, in Secret of Evermore it references two spells that simply do not exist.
Crazy eh? It was rare for a game to not only be released in North America first but also to be as friggin good as it was. At least in my opinion anyway 😏
Would you like to hear a neat little bit of trivia about Secret of Evermore? The main character was originally going to make literary references instead of the fake B movie references he constantly makes. However, the dialogue writers for the game were worried players would not understand those literary references. With that in mind, they implemented the aforementioned change.
SNES is my all time favourite console and the RPG I go back to the most by far is SoE no question. SoM was a fabulous game but I definitely love this game more
The only thing I remember of this game was the weird animated commercial for it back in the day with the repeated “secret of evermore “ name being sung over and over
Use the Crush spell on them. You'll make more money than you spent on the Crush spell once you get it high enough to kill 2-3 skulls with 1 spell (Lv2-ish). Then you will learn to LOVE the skulls when you get 5 character levelups in 10-15min and thousands of jewels.
@@paulnewhouse5126 Why level weapons on the skulls, when there are far easier enemies to do that with? And yeah, I turn the dog's attack off too, because weapon levels are extremely important (at least the Bone, First Spear, and the Two Swords). But when given the choice of _what_ to level these weapons on, I'll take the easiest to kill enemy and just kill that over and over again until I get it leveled. And then once the weapon is done, I'll go kill the skulls with the Crush spell to get the money/XP for my character and his dog. It's all about working smarter instead of harder. XP/hr is a thing I learned from older MMOs. If you're going to grind, go grind on something worth grinding on. In Ch2, I would say that the best thing to level the sword on, would likely be those little green slimes in the Colossus. Or, if you don't want to wait that long, you could perhaps kill those guys with the staff that confuse you, but I don't like doing that. There's the spiders in the Desert, you could hang near an oasis, maybe. Or on the other side of the river, that works too. EDIT: When you get to Ch3, I usually wait until I have the flying machine, and I will go back to the Jungle (yes, the very beginning of the game), so I can just run through an area and one-shot enemies at 5-10% strength. It takes just a few minutes to level a weapon doing that. The game doesn't care what you kill for Weapon Skill progress, so you might as well pick the easiest stuff to kill. EDIT2: I realize I said that backwards: I'll kill the skulls with Crush FIRST until I am content with money/XP. THEN I will go kill other stuff to level weapons, because the Skulls can bump you up to Lv25+ (which takes less than an hour to do) and at Lv25+ you very rarely miss and there's a point where you can start killing weaker things in one hit which makes leveling stuff far faster.
@@Dhalin what i said was just a general statement, not my lack of understanding of the game, i know how3 it works, since im almost 30 i don't have times to run around and take the time to grind as much so this play through iv just been taking out everything i see and being as efficient as possible. but thanks for he info anyways buddy!
I played this game every summer as a kid, I'd start playing it then get sucked right into the atmosphere. I always flipfloped between this and illusion of Gaia as my favorite SNES game.
Some clarifications on the market (because simply everybody complains about the Market, when they are failing to understand a few key points): There are only THREE "missable" items, which are the top-tier Body/Head/Bracers. You will get them later on if you don't get them from the market. In the 2nd chapter of the game, there are three "Tiers" of Armor: 1). The one you buy from Crustacea 2). The first one you trade for in the Market 3). The third one you can trade for in the Market (You will find them later on in Pyramid/Colossus Dungeons in pots). BUT... There are 3 pots in the Colosseum. They will always give you 1 better than what you already had. So, you buy the set in Crustacea, Trade for the 2nd set in the Market and get the 3rd set out of the pots in the Colosseum. This is rather easy to do, as the 2nd set of armor is rather cheap at the Market. The rest of the items can all easily be obtained after the boss in the Colloseum (which itself is easy if you simply use charged spear attacks like you did on the previous two bosses). Also, here's a few more bonus tips: 1). Work Smarter, not Harder: Pay attention to what enemies give the best XP/money. In the first chapter when you're hurting for money, you're probably tempted to find the most difficult enemy and hunt that for more money. Just... stop. The best enemies are the Jumping Snails and the Poisonous Spiders depending on where in Chapter 1 you are. Raptors and Vipers (the big pink guys) might give more, but are far harder to kill which will slow your gains-per-hour down. Once you get to Chapter 2, the flying skulls (see the next tip) give the best gains-per-hour, and then once you get to Chapter 3, you will find more (and stronger!) skulls that are the best thing in the game to farm for money (because they drop the most expensive currency in the game in the highest amount and are the easiest to kill). 2). Crush those levels! The Crush spell is ridiculously overpowered. You get it from the guy in the cave at the beach in Chapter 2. He also sells the ingredients for this spell. If you go up to Nobilia and go into the Desert and go to the right, you will find this area with a lot of winged skulls flying around. If you use the Crush spell to kill these (because killing them with your weapon is nigh impossible), you will make more money than you spent on ingredients after Level 2 or so of the spell, when you can fling 1 spell and kill 3 enemies simultaneously. IIRC, you only need to kill 2 at once to make profit, and killing 3 makes you a ridiculous amount of money. They also give ludicrous amounts of XP. I suggest _not_ doing this until after you get your dog back, otherwise you will be far higher level than your dog. 3). And if that's not enough... there's an infinite call bead trick too. Near the Palace in Nobilia, there's a Call Bead laying on the ground near the entrance to the Palace. This Call Bead can be picked up as many times as you like. 99 Call Beads will get you through anything in the game, because of how powerful the spells that they can cast are.
Here's a short little video I did to explain what I mean with proof: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Ssya5hRCKhU.html . This is an unpatched version of the game, and this is exactly how it was on real hardware with the original NA release (I still have the cartridge to this day).
I liked the experience of playing Mana multiplayer with my siblings. But Evermore is definitely a better game in every other sense (well, aside from OST I guess.)
In Nobilia instead of trading for the equipment you can just pick up better equipment before walking out to the arena through a wall where you cant see the opening. I do recommend getting the accessories though and thats made easy by standing in a whirpool right outside the entrance and healing a few times before dropping through to find 100 spice/rice each. Saves toooons of time
I don't disagree with your points on this review all completely valid. I grew up with this game and will always love it. That being said as a kid I liked the market, as an adult I couldn't play it without feeling the tedious nature of it. Last point I think this would be an AWESOME premise for a new game: RETURN TO EVERMORE! SERIOUSLY imagine if square did a VR game? They would probably fumble their first one but I feel like this would be a great story for them to try with.
This sounds right. I tried playing this game years back, and this sounds exactly what I got very tired of quickly. Especially the "I am too close to the edge when it scrolls" issue.
I loved the game as a kid, although it had no coop mode. But i was glad there was a guide included. It really helped with the mazes and the market. I liked the concept of the later, although it was a little tiresome to get everything you need, especially if you want to get things later on in Ivor Tower, because you can't get everything there.
I found this game cleaning out my brother's car for some$ one day. I was about 13 years old. It had things soda spilled on it, dirty, just a mess. I didn't think the game would work. Being a huge snes player, I had the tools and cleaning agents for it. I absolutely git a big kick out of this game, because I had secret of mana and chrono trigger too. A big tri-fecta! I couldn't get off the snes long enough for dinner, and I faked being sick at times so I didn't go to school so I could play these games, which now I'm 39, and emulate them on my computer or phone! Your review was excellent, same here. I'll be subscribing, after I check out more of your vids😊 Good day sir
I bought the original game in France, and here there was a guidebook with it that included a map of the market with every detail on the trades. So you didn't have to figure it out yourself. I think there were full maps of the dungeons in case you didn't want to figure them out yourself. Also, you could go quite far without improving your alchemy. But just like Secret of Mana, it required a lot of skill to beat the bosses with just weapons. And just like Secret of Mana, by the time you reach the final boss, you're usually so strong, it's the easiest boss to beat.
@@SonofTiamat I see, nice job completing the game with no help! I remember struggling a lot in the desert, even with the booklet. I think the guide thing was done to promote these kinds of games in Europe, where we got so little games of the RPG genre. It was a book that worked both as a game manual and a nice (albeit with some errors) walkthrough of the game. If I'm not mistaken, Earthbound's manual in USA was similar in this aspect.
@@SonofTiamat Same for me. Back then, I would play the games I loved a lot, specially as I couldn't have access to multiple games. I remember playing Megaman X2, looking its armor parts for hours and finding the secret attack without the help of a guide. Good memories.
The starting location changes depending on your language version. If you have the German version it starts in Großostheim, Germany (where Nintendo had its European HQ).
If you pay close attention to his channel, you'll realize he often associates "I dislike a section/game" with "bad mechanic/game". Virtually everything he called a flaw or griped about, I was tilting my head at and thinking was one of the greatest features of the game.
@@ThatFetcherFargoth If I am not mistaken, I think SNES Drunk has admitted to not liking RPGs in general, so that could be a major contributor to his stance on a lot of traditional tropes and expecations of gameplay found in most of them. Especially for that era of gaming in general! Other than those damn flying skulls, I never really had problem with hit detection either, nor problems running out of mats for spells.And if I did, oh well. Going to be out grinding anyway, will get more mats.
I liked Secret of Evermore. The game gives you enough to think about so you're engaged and actually care about what happens next. Played this when I was like 14. Not sure if it would still be fun as an adult.
I have so much nostalgia for this game. Remember sitting in the basement playing it with such amazing atmosphere and music. Loved visiting all the unique locations and seeing the dog change. Nothing quite like this game. I love it, but I’m not sure if I would if I didn’t have nostalgia for it
There's some crazy glitch with the Atlas spell in this game that speedrunners use, but I think the best way to make most of it manageable is to stick with 1 attack spell that doesn't use the same materials as the healing spell, and just buy status curing items. That way you have slots for all the dungeon/exploration spells and only need to buy materials for 2 spells, really.
