Secret of Evermore Part #11 - It's Getting Hott In Hurr, So Throw Off All Your Spells

Part 11: It's Getting Hott In Hurr, So Throw Off All Your Spells

Hey there, everybody! Last time, on Secret of Evermore, we traversed the spooky swamp, defeated the serpent Salabog, and became the saviors of Blimp, who gave us a Mud Pepper as our prize. Today, we're going to enter the volcano and see if we can figure out how to start cooling things down, so let's boogie.

Levitate will get us in here, and thankfully, there's no other rocks to levitate before this one. It'd be a pain jogging back to Blimp for a new one each time.

Hey, look, we're--Zach, what are you doing?

Oh, whatever. He's a dog. I won't even try and figure it out.

So, I get the rib cage is supposed to lend atmosphere or whatever, but I'm curious, where's the rest of the skeleton?

I s'pose the Vipers could have taken it to do whatever, since we've seen them with some level of intelligence, but I'd think they would take the sharp lookin' ribs.

Or maybe I'm thinking too much about set decoration in a video game when I should be mentioning I'm throwing a Hard Ball at that Viper.

And that one, too. Hard Ball is one of our weaker offensive formulas, but it's served me pretty well so far. It also helps that it's nearly level 5.

Flash is more powerful, yeah, but it costs just a little more than Hard Ball, having a 2:1 formula, while Hard Ball is 1:1. That gives me basically double the castings.

Oooh, hot bubblin' lava!

In addition to Vipers and another stone we'll need to Levitate.

A little while ago, the Vipers were intimidating, but with our extra levels and charged attacks, they're no more fearsome than a Frippo or Widowmaker.

There's also a bunch of gourds scattered about this area.

As well as Vipers. They're seriously everywhere and are our basic enemy for the next little bit.

So, two gourds over there, but it looks like the path is blocked off.

But that's just perspective. If you were wandering around, you'd see it was open, but if you were rushing through, you might not have noticed.

For all of our extra Mud Pepper needs, we can find them in this dungeon, thankfully.

And we can now loop around, grab those two gourds, and continue on.

We find some Water in the other gourd.

This dungeon can be summed up as; move forward, find obstacle, find Mud Pepper, remove obstacle, move forward, rinse and repeat as needed.

That seems a little annoying, sure, but all in all, it isn't too bad.

Plus, if you need some EXP, Vipers give 80 a piece.

Yeah, chain-castings are still going on. I love this shit.

Zach didn't feel that one Viper was getting murdered enough, so he threw in his two cents.

Wouldn't these be a pile of Ash?

Oh, hell, this close to lava, York and Zach would be piles of Ash. Though, I do think finding Water here is odd, beyond being pedantic about lava being around and actively bubbling.

This rock is different than the others.

Instead of needing to Levitate it, we just smack it where we need it to go.

Where it forms a new path!

We can't get where we need to just yet, though.

Up around here, we find another rock to knock off.

Which leads us to another Mud Pepper!

Our victory is short-lived, however, since we're immediately blocked again.

Petals have lost their usefulness now that we've gotten Heal, but they're still good for a top-off here and there.

At this point, I decide to give something a shot. From this screen, we can set our companion's AI to be more aggressive or meek, but we can also change up how high they charge their attack. Zach will be charging up to the first level now.

It doesn't change his attack animation, but it does drastically improve his damage.

As that's not a number to be messing around with.

We find another rock and then bloob it into the lava for another path.

Finding the next Mud Pepper we need is a little more involved process than just finding the right gourd.

Before I forget to mention it, and some folks in the thread have, being able to charge the Spear to level 3 has granted us infinite sprint.

When we start sprinting at 100%, it drops to about 50% and we can only sprint with that. When charged to the first level, we can dash around with 100% bar. Charging to the next level, however, we get dropped to a full bar, but it'll keep charging as long as we hold down the B button.

We can also sprint around by tapping the A button, giving us short bursts of speed; as long as we keep tapping it, we'll look goofy as fuck, but we'll also move at full speed.

There's another hidden formula coming up, by the by.

It's actually pretty easy to find, but be sure to find it.

Much like Acid Rain, it's a hidden path that's only hidden because of the perspective.

And there's one staring at us right now oh God

I just imagined this line sounded so patronizing.

The formula he gives us can be pretty handy.

Agility refers to dodge and hit rates.

I'm not sure how this is supposed to work, but maybe I'm thinking too much about it.

We can change our formulas here, as well as save our game.

We also snag 5 parts of Water.

So, here are our base evade and hit rates.

And the goofy-ass animation for Speed.

In addition to a sickly green glow that I don't like the look of in screenshots, York also gained 18% to hit and evade. We can target York and Zach at the same time, too. I'm not sure if this is a static boost or not, but the Evermore wiki tells me it isn't.

Lots of Water around here.

Continuing on, we need to find another Mud Pepper.

Moving on, I have a better idea for Zach's attacks.

At this point, he's basically

locked into dog form.

Being AI controlled, he can charge up while we're talking to someone, walking around (much like we can), during a cutscene, and while he's sprinting.

Alright, let's scoot.

Speed doesn't last a very long time, but it's enough to get you through a few fights without having to reapply it.

We detour north into this room, to find this Wax and 3 parts Ash.

Vipers are basically a non-threat at this point. Zach can one-shot them, and two casts of Hard Ball will blow them back to the...Well, not the Stone Age, but something before that.

Speed doesn't look too bad while playing, since the glow is coming and going. It looks pretty bad in still images, though.

We blast that Viper into a pile of bones and pull $20 off his corpse. Nice. Just north of here is another Viper Commander, but I've got a plan for his ass.