Games I Grew Up On: Secret of Evermore

A sequel to Secret of Mana in name and gameplay only, Secret of Evermore was a much more bizarre, but much more unique action RPG I played growing up.  The game starts in Podunk, USA in 1995.  A kid chases after his dog (who is chasing after a cat) and ends up in an abandoned mansion.  Inside, they find a large and strange machine.  The dog starts chewing on some wires, which causes the machinery to activate and send the pair into a strange space station where they are attacked by robots until they get in an escape pod that launches them down to the planet below.  The area they land in looks a lot more prehistoric than the space station they were just on (including some raptors!) and the boy's dog has suddenly changed into a large wolf-beast.  Thus begins their odd adventure to get back home.

Secret of Evermore was awesome mostly due to the incredibly varied settings (you go from prehistoric, through an Ancient Greece/Egypt like area, to a Medieval-era area, back to sci-fi) that each change the dog, the currency, and the enemies.  The game functions very similarly to Secret of Mana (only single player), but instead of magic, there is alchemy.  You must find the right components to use your abilities now, but they level up with use, just like in Secret of Mana, so there's even more grinding (which I found enjoyable as a kid, not sure if I could handle it now).  There is also a marketplace where I specifically remember having to trade the right items to the right shopkeepers in the right order to get very awesome and rare items.  Figuring out that pattern was pretty fun (I think later I had help from Nintendo Power).  I remember the bosses being pretty darn awesome, too (especially the one seen on the cover).  Though the music wasn't as good as Secret of Mana or Chrono Trigger, it was still pretty awesome, as well.  What I didn't know until today is just how bizarre and creepy the commercial for the game was.  I'm pretty sure the dog never threw up the other versions of itself like in that commercial...