1 post tagged “snes”

    My many many readers will know that perhaps my favorite game of all time is a little ditty by the name of Secret of Mana. The sequel to a Gameboy title (named Final Fantasy Adventure stateside), SOM combined Square's epic and overwraught storytelling with elements of steampunk, the gameplay style of Zelda and the leveling and skill increases of an RPG. The combination, made even sweeter by the inclusion of multi-player functionality, made for what is still the predominant gaming experience of my wasted indoor-exiled youth. To this fan at least, SOM was the pinnacle of gaming and no experience, not even FF7, can come close to the combination of where I was in my life and how this game effected me.

    In Japan, Square release the sequel to Secret of Mana, which would have been aptly titled "Secret of Mana 2" in the US. I say "would have," because due to the prevailing mindset of game companies in the 1990's, Japanses games such as the Secret of Mana series were only given a one-shot appearance and then kept from the American shores so that gamers like myself could suffer through more rounds of Night Trap or Kriss Kross "Make My Video." Instead of the true sequel to Secret of Mana, American gamers were handed somehting apparently more our speed (if our speed was equivalent to a retarded turtle glued to the floor); Secret of Evermore.

    Developed by the American Square team, SOE was a more Americanized or possible Americeriffic version of the Secret of Mana engine. Using the same system of moving a character, killing things and gaining experience, Secret of Evermore disregarded things like cutesy characters and dialogue-heavy, philosophically-driven plotlines for bones and robots made of toasters. Instead of a kickass fantasy setting, gamers were thrust into the ever-popular "Character lost in the movies experiences multiple-themed worlds like Prehistoric-past and Retro-Futuristic Space Station!" What at the time seemed like a cool chance to see a lot of different landscapes as a gamer now comes across as insecure designers trying to show off as much as possible in what might be their only chance to ever make a game given the degree of Suckitude of said game.

    In other words, what a crappy premise. Hero gets sucked into a movie screen with his dog and must travel through different movie-themed worlds in order to get home or save the princess who is in another castle or possible fight zombies until a winner is you.

    Another aspect of this game that receieved "special" treatment is the game's protagonist; A. Boy. I don't think there's actually any punctuation in his name, but it's either refer to him as this or "Douchebag McWorstever" and the first sounds a bit simpler. As one can tell from the stunning portrait of the game's protagonist ... nay, its Hero, the concept for A. Boy was developed by combining America's favorite teenage/fortysomething hero, Marty McFly (as played by TV's Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future 1-3) with a bone. This bone, an equipable weapon through much of the game, is used not only to slay level-specific themed baddies, but also to keep shit in line by making threatening gestures (as seen in the image to the right). Said gestures are going to come in handy when players meet the primary plot device, the boy's dog.

    Depending on which hilariously themed level the player is traversing, be it the Egyptian Pyramid level or the Prehistoric Swamp, Dog will assume the body of an appropriate type of dog. For instance, in the future, the dog is actually a flying toaster who shoots lasers and burnt bread at enemies or some such crap. The dynamics between the boy and his dog are obviously hilarious, so I won't ruin the story by mentioning them .......... sigh.

    But the important thing here is to discuss why SOE was so terrible. And it was terrible. One time a fanboy of Square got into a bit of a verbal disagreement with me (imagine two sissies wildly slapping their arms at one another) over SOE and the lesser Final Fantasy child, FF5. Both, he proclaimed, were "pretty good for their time" and "had a lot to enjoy." Using the Google Babbleshit Translator, I was able to discern that even a fanboy is hard pressed to find much to enjoy from there games besides graphical representations of Vagina Bugs (obviously Japanese-inspired) and the cameo appearance of Cecil (protagonist of FF4) who has now settled down and opened a weapons shop with his wife Rosa. SPOILER!

    But the real crime of SOE was its theft and subsequent misuse of all things Secret of Mana. The graphics were subpar and often glitchy, the controls were loose and often unresponsive, the deep system of weapon and magic upgrading was replaced with a pointless system of "alchemy" and a limited number of weapons which only changed when the character moved to a new level. All sense of the serious and emotionally-driven plot was replaced with kitch and cliche. Even the imaginative world of SOM was replaced with rehashed and uninspired crap and the most boring boss fights possible. The game was dumbed down, the ultimate insult to what Square thought American gamers wanted and needed. And sadly, in a lot of ways they were right. Games like Secret of Mana, despite their quality, did mediocre sales in America, while games like SOE, the product of the cross-breeding of a poo with a vial of vomit, did just as well.

    Ultimately, even with a glitchy battle system that allowed for easy pillar kills (when a sprite's reach unfairly hits an enemy sprite on the opposite side of a physical barrier due to graphic and mapping limitations or carelessness), the game wasn't so terrible that I left it behind. At the time I had NoFX's "Heavy Petting Zoo" and would listen to Philthy Phil Philanthropist on repeat while playing through the Antiqua level of the game. Forever is that song ruined by the mediocrity of Evermore, but the memory is strong nonetheless. Sure, the ending blew, but there was at least a small amount of the beauty of SOM in there to keep me engaged until that end.

    I promptly sold my copy of SOE after I beat the game, and have never once gone back. I find it difficult to truly dislike things in life, be they half-baked movies or crappy, poorly written books. I always seem to find SOMETHING to love about the fruits of people's labors.

    In the end, the best thing to say about Secret of Evermore is exactly that. It certainly is a collection of things that a lot of people did. So kudos on that.