DC Live! Secret of Evermore, Part 2 Livestream

It took me an hour and a half to complete SteamWorld Dig. As promised, I moved on to Secret of Evermore. I made some decent progress in the remaining time I had left to stream. I actually managed to beat the first mini-boss fight against the raptors. Unlike the previous time I played the game for a Let’s Play, I was able to walk into Fire Eyes’ village instead of being dragged there by my dog. I also made it through the area known as Bugmuck without too many issues. Unfortunately, my fight against the boss, Thraxx didn’t go well.

Some of tonight will be spent better preparing for a rematch against Thraxx. Hopefully I can say goodbye to Bugmuk and move on.

Last week I wasn’t sure if I’d beat SteamWorld Dig in a timely manner, so I skipped out on doing a write up of Evermore. Let’s fix that right now.

Secret of Evermore begins in the year 1965 when a scientist and his companions create the world of Evermore. Something goes terribly awry and 30 years pass. On one fateful night, a boy and his dog leave a movie theater. The dog sees a cat and chases it into an abandoned mansion. The boy follows. His dogs chews on some wires from a mysterious machine and is teleported away after several transformations into different breeds of dog. The boy investigates the machine and is teleported to a new location. There he meets a the butler of a scientist who’s currently working on an experiment. The butler leads the boy into a room where he’s attacked by killer machines. Fortunately, the kid finds a bazooka and fends off the robots. Looking for a way out of the room, he stumbles into a shuttle pod (finding his dog in the process) which takes him to Evermore.

He ends up in a prehistoric world and eventually stumbles into Fire Eyes’ village. Fire Eyes turns out to be a woman named Elizabeth and reveals she’s from the same world as the kid. She can’t leave Evermore and has chosen to stay in her prehistoric world. She makes a deal with the kid to help her find a missing village member in exchange for information. Wanting to find a way out of Evermore the boy agrees to help.

Secret of Evermore was released in North America in October of 1995. It would later be released Europe and Australia in February of 1996. Evermore would never receive a Japanese release. This is the first and only title created by SquareSoft’s (now Square Enix) USA office. In fact, the development team was composed of faces relatively new to the gaming industry in a Seattle, Washington office.

As stated by lead programmer Brian Fehdrau in an interview with the now defunct Super-NES.com, the higher ups at Squaresoft in Japan wanted the team to create “An American-flavored Secret of Mana-like game.” The newly created team were free to figure out the details themselves, as long as the game had a Mana-like feel. In keeping with this, the team swiped elements of the battle system from Mana and a few elements from Final Fantasy VI. Everything else was built from the ground up. Even down to the largely atmospheric music composed by a 19-year-old Jeremy Soule. He would go on to compose soundtracks for a variety of franchises including The Elder Scrolls games. (Soule was accused of sexual assault in 2019 and has gone silent since then.)

While Secret of Evermore is positively remembered, things were a lot shaker when the game released in 1995. First, it was panned by critics and gamers alike for not being Secret of Mana 2 (which would have been localized from Seiken Densetsu 3). Many people incorrectly believe that localization resources were pulled away from SD3 in order to create Evermore. Again, resources weren’t an issue as the development team for this title was created from new hires. As Fehdrau explains in the interview, Squaresoft’s localization branch was working on Breath of Fire, Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy VI while their team was working on Evermore.

Seiken Densetsu 3 didn’t make the cut because of Nintendo’s insistence on quality and not releasing games with lots of bugs. Unfortunately, SD3 had quite a few bugs. Though Fehdrau noted Evermore had a few as well. The team behind this game would eventually be let go before ever creating a sequel. Since then Square has largely forgotten about or ignored the game. Unlike other titles, this Western created JRPG never saw a re-release on virtual consoles or a port to other systems.

In the end Evermore is blamed for not being a true Mana title, even thought it was never meant to be. As someone who played this game before any of the Mana games, I found it very enjoyable. Frustrating at times, but fun. I originally borrowed the game from a friend as a teenager. I haven’t actually played this game since I was 16. Hopefully, it holds up to what I remember.

Join me at 8PM Eastern, 7PM Central on our Twitch Channel as I do my best to discover the Secret of Evermore.

As always, a recording of the stream will be archived on our YouTube channel and embedded below.