The Psyko Drome:
Secret of Evermore

Secret of Evermore is, for my money, better than Secret of Mana, although I know I'm in the minority here. Squaresoft released this game in 1995 for Super Nintendo; it was produced by an American team instead of the usual Japanese. As such, there are some distinct Americanisms, such as mentioning lots of bad B-movie titles and jokes and cliches. Many fans of Squaresoft games were turned off by these, and also that the game was "too short".

The game was shorter than most Square games, but no less enjoyable. Utilizing the SoM "menu wheel" format, SoE also employs the same Zelda-type combat. You get four types of weapons -- Sword, Axe, Spear, and Bazooka. You won't get the Bazooka until late in the game, and it's not easy to use. The Sword is always the first weapon of each new level, and at least in the early levels, you'll end up racking it up to Level 3 before you get anything else. The Axe is better; the Spear is the best weapon you can get, most times, and you should try to upgrade all spears as soon as you get them. It's the only distance weapon you'll have most of the time (at least, until you get hold of Bazookas), and there'll be reasons to throw things at times.

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PrehistoriaAntiquaGothicaOmnitopia

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Tips & Tricks

Prehistoria
When you enter the Raptor Lair, until you touch the fallen leaf in the center of the screen, you can leave if you want, back to the jungle. You can gain a few levels (and the all-important extra hitpoints, and maybe even some items!) before you go in to fight the Raptors. You won't get any healing magic of note (something to replenish your hitpoints) until after you've defeated the first boss, in the Bugmuck, so make sure you've got plenty of healing goodies on hand.

To defeat the Bugmuck boss, go for the claws first -- at least that's the conventional wisdom -- you can also defeat him by going right for the heart. The boss has the same hitpoints either way; but without his claws, he can't attack you as well.

Finding Strong Heart's hut in the jungle afterwards is no easy task; be sure to look carefully (his hut is towards the "left" of the overall game map, if that helps any). You can buy Roots (for the healing magic you'll get later) and if you have the dog speak to him, you'll get a free dog collar/armor -- since you've probably already bought one, it's free cash.

In the swamp, those frogs are nasty opponents for being so small. They can really beat up the hero and his dog if you're not careful. Fighting the bogsnake, set the dog to attack the flames (which also keeps you from getting hurt), since he can't attack the snake directly.

Blimp has an amusing scene bringing to mind Legend of Zelda -- he almost offers the boy a key, a rupee-jewel, and a still-beating heart! Expect to come back to Blimp a few times for Mud Peppers; Blimp's kinda stingy with 'em at this point in the game.

In the Lava Cave, you can find an alchemist with the Speed magic if you try walking through a certain wall. (Hey, what happens to this guy when the volcano explodes?) Some of the chests contain more Mud Peppers, but odds are you'll be trekking in and out of the place a few times anyway, back to the swamp.

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Antiqua
You lose the dog for a while, but Blimp is finally willing to sell Mud Peppers in bulk. Stock up on every ingredient, if you haven't started doing so already. Odds are you'll develop your "favorite nine" spells and use only those, but it's fun to try out all of 'em just to see the effects.

Don't bother buying the Amulet of Annihilation from the weird monk in the pirate ship. It's overpriced and you'll be able to get bunches of 'em later at a greatly reduced rate.

Ostensibly, there are two ways of crossing the Great Desert (and it is great, in the sense of mind-bogglingly big!): either pay the Ghost Pirate one Amulet of Annihilation, or walk. The Amulet in the pirate ship is too much; the walk is murder, so have plenty of healing spells and items handy... or try the third way:

To do this trick, you need to have one of the Spears at level 3 strength. Hold down the B button until the Spear is completely powered up, then start running using the Jaguar Ring. You will be able to run fast the entire way, without ever experiencing the "down-time" the ring normally causes after use. Just try not to get hit by anything or throw the spear, or the effect stops! You can use this trick anywhere in the game, as long as you have a spear at level 3.

The oases will replenish your hitpoints as long as you stay within their boundaries. An alchemist is supposed to be staying in one oasis, and has the Sting magic. I've only found him once; I doubt this alchemist is a "random encounter", but he's not easy to find, apparently.

The Nobilia marketplace is one of the more detailed areas of the game. As soon as you enter the Nobilia marketplace, the clock starts ticking down to the Town Meeting. You've got about 12-15 minutes to buy things and get equipped before the market closes. Leaving town and re-entering doesn't restart the clock. The vendors will give you periodic warnings as to the time.

If you want to get all the armor and items before the market closes, go to The Evermore Marketplace list for a walkthrough of this particular scene.

You should have some time left to talk to the vendors and people before the town meeting. Don't worry, if you don't get everything done on the Evermore Marketplace list, it'll still be there when you get back. The Evermore Marketplace gives you the opportunity to grab all the hero-enhancing goodies before you fight in the arena.

In the dungeon, let the dog sniff for ingredients and he'll lead you to a secret room. If you bought the armor for sale in the marketplace, you'll find upgraded armor here. If you didn't buy armor before the fight, you'll find the basic armor here. You'll also get Call Beads and other stuff.

In the arena, besides the very entertaining opening speech, as the screen scrolls down over the audience you'll see several people from Final Fantasy 3 in the stands! Guess Locke, Terra and the rest of the gang decided to make a quick stop in Nobilia to catch the gladiatorial combat before defeating Kefka.

Use the Spear against Vigor; charge up the weapon and throw it at his back. It's really the most effective way to defeat him, better than magic.

After the arena fight, you can poke around in the marketplace and talk to everyone again. If you have the basic armor, you can try upgrading your armor. Tiny will give you a strength demonstration for a trade item. In one of the buildings, you can find someone who'll sell you the Atlas formula if you also buy Atlas Medallions. You can only buy one at a time, and the price goes up every time you buy them; it's your choice as to whether or not the spell's worth it beyond filling up your spell collection.

You'll be needing spices, beads, and perfume later on; I recommend you once again get at least one of everything, maybe more. Now, however, you have lots of time to "bug hunt" for more jewels, and you can trade in the market at your leisure.

In the market, after the fight, you can also pick up some other nifty things. Talk to the vendor for Amulets of Annihilation; keep refusing his offers. You'll have to refuse a whole mess 'o times, but finally he caves in to where you can buy 3 Amulets for 1 bag of rice! After this, he will not trade with you any more, so if you actually need to unload lots of rice you've bought, you can purchase Amulets at the going rate of 30 bags of rice apiece for a while. If you get the 3-for-1 deal, you won't get any more in the game, so use them sparingly -- cross the desert on foot, for example, although I do recommend taking the Ghost Pirate tour at least once.

If you also buy a few hundred(!) pots, you will eventually find some stuff in the pots. (Buy pots in the biggest quantities possible to speed up the process.) Sometimes it'll be jewels, but at the very end should be a Chocobo Egg. It raises your max HP, so it's pretty handy; I've never traded it for another item. You can only carry 80 pots or so, but at least you can trade them off for other items, and sometimes sell them off elsewhere in the market.

You can talk to people and search for ingredients throughout the market, Sacred Dog statue, and so on as well.

Off to the Pyramid and the Hall of Collosia. You can either fall into Horace's camp or walk in, it doesn't make much difference. The Dancing Fools running around this area of the game are nasty -- they have a fast attack rate, and they take a long time to die.

The Great Pyramid is a mess, plain and simple. DO NOT use the Escape formula or Wings item to get out of the Pyramid! The one-way paths will not reactivate! If you do this, your only hope is to go back to an earlier save and try it again. Be sure to have lots of healing items and ingredients before you go in. This part of the game involves switching between the dog and the hero and gets very confusing, but your best bet is to bull on through and keep track of where you are.

You can't break through the weak walls until you get the Bronze Axe (inside the pyramid); there's also a researcher in one room to save your game (and how do these people get in here? What do they live on? Do they ever get out? Does Horace need to mount large-scale rescue missions for his associates? Or do they have some kind of magic that keeps the monsters away, and if so, why don't they share it with the hero? But I digress. ;)

At the very top of the Pyramid is Rimsala. As usual, power up the strongest weapon (or, if you want to strike from a distance, use the Spear) and set the dog to attack at maximum. I usually don't need to cure from the Confound spells Rimsala casts; I just work around them as though the controller was reconfigured. Saves time and ingredients. (shrug)

Now that you have a better Axe, you can also get into the cave to the east of Horace's camp, and get the Drain formula and other stuff. (And how did this guy get sealed in a cave? See above for other questions on sealed-in researchers) Buy up whatever you can at this point; after getting the second Diamond Eye, you won't have much chance to buy things for a while.

The Hall of Collosia is another mess, plus it's darker and harder to see things. Here, though, there are no irreversible paths to worry about; plus you can save in the upper right of the main hall. At one point there is a wooden bridge that collapses under your weight. Supposedly you can run across the bridge without a problem; but I've only gotten across by using the same Spear trick used for crossing the desert. Once you get the Bronze Spear, you can use it to take the path in the upper left of the main hall.

Madronius' brother is hidden deep within the walls. The alchemy formula he shares is Fireball, but I ended up using Flash lots more just because I'd had it since the start of the game. After you defeat the Mad Monk who has the Bronze Spear, check all the walls in that area; there's supposed to be a secret passage that leads you to the researcher. (Yet another sealed-in researcher!)

As seems typical in RPG's, the boy suddenly shows all the brains of a bag of hammers when Horace's evil twin shows up and demands the Diamond Eyes. Why do these games not give you an option to refuse? Oh well. Head back to Nobilia and the square, where you get to fight the boss of Antiqua. After this battle, you're off to a new area.

The river is dried up now, so you can poke around a bit, but you should have stocked up on items & ingredients, and then you can go take a flying leap -- off the cliff to the north of Horace's camp. You'll wake up in the Oglin Cave, a nasty and dark place that you'll want to get through as soon as possible. There are unending numbers of Oglins here, and at the "end" of the cave is another boss. Set the dog to attack the tentacles, while you use a level-3 Bronze Spear and magic. When you defeat the boss, you'll hear a voice and a bucket will be lowered down to you, and you'll end up in...

You'll find another marketplace, so change your money, but try to avoid spending it all at the first booths you see. For that matter, check the prices in the alley for armor and goodies before you buy them in the shops. In Lance's house, don't take his stuff. If you can resist your thievish impulses, he'll give you an Amulet (in case you blew 'em all earlier on Ghost Pirate trips and the like) and an alchemy formula. Don't view the Exhibition of Cultural Oddities until you're ready to move on with the game.

Thanks to the Exhibition's hijinks, you'll get to see the Queen, but first there's a segment where the dog wanders around in the castle sewers. Confusing? O mai oui. Supposedly there's an old woman hiding in the maze (why? And how did she get there?) who can give the dog a key to the many, many locked doors in the Tower. I never found her, though. You'll probably end up wandering around lost until suddenly the dog finds himself in the dining hall, which gets the hero and dog tossed in the dungeons.

If the dog defeats all the other prisoners by himself, he gets a free Defender collar. After everyone's taken care of, you can wander around the place again until you come out to the exit. There's a sewer pipe maze which isn't too hard, and there's an alchemist who can give you the Corrosion formula, which is okay.

When you get out of the sewers, you get arrested and brought before the queen again. After you talk to her you can find the King watching a puppet show. The dialog constantly cycles, so if you miss some of it, don't worry. If you were able to find the old woman inside, you can now open up all the doors in the place and loot away. If you find the old man, you can trade off the old woman's key for a new formula. I don't know if it's any good, though; you're on your own. Odds are it probably can't hurt to give up the key.

Eventually you leave the castle and go through the hedge maze -- not much of a maze, but the flying skulls are more than annoying. They're tough to kill, not worth much, and do a lot of knockback. In my experience the best thing to do was just run around them whenever possible. Beat the boss in the center of the maze and go downstairs. You can't reach all the stuff you see down there yet; some of it will be important later in the game.

The Dark Forest is a more impressive maze, partly due to size. It's an okay place to gain some experience and weapon experience points, too. The bugs and evil hedgehogs are easy to kill and not too damaging. The dragons, on the other hand, are a lot like flying skulls -- tough to hit and major pains. I weenied out, I'll admit -- every time I walked onto a screen and saw dragons, I walked back out. Then back in, so the screen "resets" and hopefully there were other monsters there. The dragons just weren't an effective monster to fight, IMO.

There are small batlike creatures appearing here and there in the trees. If you see one, you're on the right track. However, a good mapping ability doesn't hurt here either. Some things to find in the woods -- usually at dead ends in the maze -- are the signposts (no special game effect, but fun to read), another alchemist, and the Oglin you let out of the well! He's hiding on the other side of the forest across the bridge, but he'll give you something in thanks. The mini-bosses at the bridge aren't too tough.

The dragon is tougher than the mini-bosses, but still shouldn't be too much trouble. As soon as you get the Lance, start powering it up as much as possible. Kill every enemy you think you can take on, because you'll need it fired up very soon.

More sewers! If nothing else, Gothica has a very impressive sewer system for an allegedly "medieval" society. These sewers are pretty easy, except for the blocked parts, and you'll have to wait a while for those -- you need the next Axe, which you won't get for a while. Plus Ebon Keep's sewers are dry, so you don't have the constant corrosion of ... uh ... sewer water (ick!) like in Ivor Tower. There are some secret rooms and passages down here. You'll also get to fight your way back out of a dungeon.

Ebon Keep is darker in tone than Ivor Tower. Most of the place was boarded up when the populace left for their new digs, but there's still a couple of open buildings and even a few people. In the Inn/Weapon Shop you'll find a certain character who should be familiar to you if you've played other Square games (and no, not a Moogle or Chocobo! ;). Let's hope you remember him! Save and buy what you want. Hiding behind a house is an old alchemist who can give you a regeneration formula.

Ebon Keep has a serious rodent problem in more ways than one. At the top of the hill you'll find some seriously rat-infested rooms. If you haven't bulked up your Spear to level 3 yet, kill the tiny rats to do so. (They can't fight back, but they're fast and random.) You may also want to bulk up some of your spells, like regeneration, that you have lots of ingredients (or access to more) for. It will take a long time this way -- you may even want to look at running back into the woods for a while to build up your weapons or yourself. This is because the next boss, Verminator, "the King of All Rats!", is incredibly tough. Don't even try to keep the dog going during this battle -- it's a waste of your time, spells, and items, and the dog can't attack. You can use the Bazooka if you want, but probably you're going to be using the Spear (by now, should be at level 3) and lots 'n' lots of magic. Most of his magic is incredibly nasty, with lots of Acid Rain and direct-damage spells lobbed on you. You can save some time by casting beneficial magic on yourself before you even enter to fight him, such as Defend, Regrowth, that kind of thing. If you've built these up recently you'll get more bang for your buck.

You run a strong chance of getting killed at least once by Verminator before you defeat him, so don't feel bad when it happens.

Once you defeat Verminator, you can go meet Tinker and Camillia. Tinker's security system is pretty easy to defeat, and he's got alchemy formulas hidden in his lab. Elsewhere in the castle is "the smartest boy in Ebon Keep!" who, if you guess what he has correctly, gives you a new formula. It's totally random, so just keep trying, but you sometimes have to wander in and out of the place before he'll let you try again. It's a nice one, though, so keep at it.

Now that you have an axe, you can beat down barricades in the sewers and elsewhere. To the north of the castle is the way to Gomi's Tower. The tower's not too much trouble to climb, except for the dragons. At the top is another dragon -- use the Dog on level 3 and whatever magic you can cast, rather than try for distance attacks.

Attacking the puppets in Ivor Tower: go for Mephista, who heals Mungola, but after that just let the dog take the lower two puppets while you go to town with the Spear. After the fight, the bit with the evil Queen's pretty darn funny. Hope you got everything you wanted from Ivor Tower before this event, because you won't get it now.

Go back to Tinker's lab. He'll tell you what parts to get so you can go into space. He'll also give you a rickety-looking but perfectly sound sort of airplane. You can buy new stuff in Ebon Keep as well, now that the folk have returned home. Ivor Tower's deserted.

Some parts are back in Prehistoria; be sure to visit Strong Heart again. Check out the Bugmuck and the Volcano. You'll be repeating strategies here, but against stronger enemies. Then go to Nobilia. It's kind of sad, what happened to Tiny. To reach him, as soon as you step on a teleporter and are moved, step on the teleporter where you just came out. Eventually you'll end up next to Tiny. Once you're done there, talk to Horace before you head back to Tinker's.

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