Try A Thing/Recordkeeping: Secret of Evermore completed
Whoooof I am of conflicting emotions on this.
They tried. They honest to god tried. And like Seiken Densetsu 3 and Legend of Mana, Secret of Evermore is unique in ways that aren't just "oh it's the one America made". The spritework is great, many of the systems are interesting to interact with, and the soundwork is high quality.
But it has so many problems. So many. I swung wildly between wanting to play the game because I was enjoying it and being fucking done with the game and only pushing my way through it out of spite multiple times, sometimes within the same play session. The writing ranges from "forgettable" to "dear god shut my protagonist up", the music has just enough melodic hook to it that it deeply frustrates me that most of it is Ambient Skyrim Noodling, and the game takes that oldschool mindset of "maze of twisty little passages, all alike = gameplay length" that I noted in my Phantasy Star IV writeup that I was quite glad we as a culture had largely moved on from.
Unfortunately, you kind of need to get lost constantly because the game is a grindy motherfucker and getting lost is an easy way to grind. Or rather... the game isn't grindy, but is. It's... mmn.
Sword, [21.09.18 21:09]
Spells are borderline useless unless you level them but so are weapons. And you gain experience slowly. And have to regain EXP for every spell and every weapon you obtain.
Sword, [21.09.18 21:10]
Charge attacks are obscene but you gotta murder 100 things without them in order to get them. Magic is nuts but involves literally burning money.
Sword, [21.09.18 21:15]
[In reply to
xyzzysqrl]
Grindy is having to kill things with 200+ HP, 20 HP at a time, with a spear, to get through a puzzle that requires you to throw the spear, because somehow you forgot how to throw spears despite ALREADY KNOWING HOW TO THROW SPEARS.
Sword, [21.09.18 21:16]
This is what I am currently having trouble with.
Speaking of which: the game makes no effort to tell you that your charge attack for spear weapons is a ranged attack. This is needed to solve one puzzle and make several bosses actually beatable.
You can only equip eight spells at a time but you get something like 36. A fair number are support, but there's about 20 variants on "do damage" that you don't really need because magic damage is untyped in this game, so you just equip the one you've levelled the most and use it to do damage.
The last area of the game basically turns into "we ran out of budget" and is essentially an empty corridor switch maze sandwiched between two fits of backtracking that culminates in a final boss that has to employ numberwang damage (read: absurd numbers for the sake of inflation) just to present any challenge at all.
Of course the fucking butler did it.
I'm glad I beat this, but I'm also glad to be done with it. It was better than people give it credit for, but worse than its fans like to treat it. The Mana series has always been grindy bullshit. These are my spicy hot takes.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Original at https://swordianmaster.dreamwidth.org/115919.html
They tried. They honest to god tried. And like Seiken Densetsu 3 and Legend of Mana, Secret of Evermore is unique in ways that aren't just "oh it's the one America made". The spritework is great, many of the systems are interesting to interact with, and the soundwork is high quality.
But it has so many problems. So many. I swung wildly between wanting to play the game because I was enjoying it and being fucking done with the game and only pushing my way through it out of spite multiple times, sometimes within the same play session. The writing ranges from "forgettable" to "dear god shut my protagonist up", the music has just enough melodic hook to it that it deeply frustrates me that most of it is Ambient Skyrim Noodling, and the game takes that oldschool mindset of "maze of twisty little passages, all alike = gameplay length" that I noted in my Phantasy Star IV writeup that I was quite glad we as a culture had largely moved on from.
Unfortunately, you kind of need to get lost constantly because the game is a grindy motherfucker and getting lost is an easy way to grind. Or rather... the game isn't grindy, but is. It's... mmn.
Sword, [21.09.18 21:09]
Spells are borderline useless unless you level them but so are weapons. And you gain experience slowly. And have to regain EXP for every spell and every weapon you obtain.
Sword, [21.09.18 21:10]
Charge attacks are obscene but you gotta murder 100 things without them in order to get them. Magic is nuts but involves literally burning money.
Sword, [21.09.18 21:15]
[In reply to
xyzzysqrl]
Grindy is having to kill things with 200+ HP, 20 HP at a time, with a spear, to get through a puzzle that requires you to throw the spear, because somehow you forgot how to throw spears despite ALREADY KNOWING HOW TO THROW SPEARS.
Sword, [21.09.18 21:16]
This is what I am currently having trouble with.
Speaking of which: the game makes no effort to tell you that your charge attack for spear weapons is a ranged attack. This is needed to solve one puzzle and make several bosses actually beatable.
You can only equip eight spells at a time but you get something like 36. A fair number are support, but there's about 20 variants on "do damage" that you don't really need because magic damage is untyped in this game, so you just equip the one you've levelled the most and use it to do damage.
The last area of the game basically turns into "we ran out of budget" and is essentially an empty corridor switch maze sandwiched between two fits of backtracking that culminates in a final boss that has to employ numberwang damage (read: absurd numbers for the sake of inflation) just to present any challenge at all.
Of course the fucking butler did it.
I'm glad I beat this, but I'm also glad to be done with it. It was better than people give it credit for, but worse than its fans like to treat it. The Mana series has always been grindy bullshit. These are my spicy hot takes.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Original at https://swordianmaster.dreamwidth.org/115919.html