Secret of Evermore - Self-Imposed Challenge Run Part 14: The Desert, the Market, and the Colosseum

Channel:

Master Knight DH

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1,970

Published on December 13, 2019 10:01:19 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UdVwn1Y7-A

Game:

Secret of Evermore (1995)

Duration: 49:04

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Rules so far:
-No switching to the Dog in an active combat area unless absolutely necessary
-Dog must not be dropped to 0 HPs
-Pixie Dust, Wings, and Call Beads are not allowed
-Alchemy restrictions to be determined
-Bone Crusher banned after Thraxx
-All Sword and Spear weapon restrictions to be determined
-Most rules disabled for convenience in non-threatening areas

Market trading stuff at 18:37
Vigor The "Indestructible" fight at 41:36

Strap yourselves in because this is going to be long. If it wasn't, I'd be calling out YouTube having favoritism of the rich more actively here.

First off, the Desert of Doom is capable of living up to its name, because just being in it gradually damages the player characters. There are oases, thankfully never as mirages, that provide full healing when going near enough them, and 5 of them on the beaten path at that, but the enemies are intent on slowing and wearing you down and let the desert damage overwhelm you. Tumble Weeds are really just there to force responding behavior by having an easy time setting off the hit check, even defying physics to make sure to touch you, at the cost of having a Hit value of 20, the lowest of about any enemy in the game for all the good that does me when my luck doesn't have the best track record.

I have to put up with the extra damage anyway because of a hidden sand whirlpool feature near the destination, Nobilia. This whirlpool leads to a bunch of Rice and Spice, though at the cost of dealing gradual damage while taking its time to see its usage, forcing me to use a Nectar to heal up (FWIW). Really, though, getting the Rice and Spice is for saving up time in handling market trading business, and this is what REALLY has me on edge, to the point of planning out a route and readying a cheat sheet, because it's on a 15 minute timer before it closes in the interest of story advancement and only reopens too late for me to want to ignore it. I don't even know what, if anything, pauses the timer, and of course I don't want to experiment. For reference, this is the list of trade goods I want to get on hand beyond the Rice and Spice before trading for the Charms and the Armors:
-1 Spoon
-6 Perfume
-16 Beads
-11 Chickens
-4 Tapestries
-2 Tablets
-3 Jeweled Scarabs
-3 Golden Jackals

As another disclaimer, I do suboptimal handling of the Armors in interest of dialogue display; you only really want the first of the 2 offered stages from each of the Armor traders. You need all 3 of the Antiqua Body Armors to get the Thug's Cloak at the Colosseum waiting room, but that requires a Charm for the Body Armor trader. Fortunately, the third stage is also provided by an NPC if you Cancel on his choice while making sure you already have the 3rd stage. I'll display about the NPC in question next part. For reference, the Antiqua 3rd stage of the other 2 Armor types isn't needed for anything unique, so you'd want to get those at the Colosseum waiting room by having the 1st and 2nd Antiqua stages.

Oi, right, I should talk about Vigor The "Indestructible" with the 2K characters left in the description. I tested off-screen for a DEF value for hitting Vigor's front by using Atlas, which is taught by a hidden Rogue at the marketplace. It looks like you're restricted to pure damage, and lousy amounts at that. In order to damage Vigor for anything worthwhile, you have to hit him in the back, so once again, more L3 attack leading happens, and fortunately, Vigor is even dumb enough to stop just short of catching you playing possum on the edge of the screen. Vigor has nothing that stops a No Damage Run of him from happening, although I mess up against 2 of his javelin throws. I'm surprised it wasn't any of his charge attacks that hit me, because you definitely need to run to escape those if Vigor starts them on-screen.

Of course, I do have to mention that Vigor has another nasty trick up his sleeve: when he's readying his attack, Vigor cheats with the mobility when he's doing horizontal tracing of you, and he does it by doing EXTREMELY quick lining up with you. Even without considering that his contact damage hitbox is active despite not even moving at full speed in general, this is idiotic and leaves me wondering why Vigor couldn't have been allowed to turn on a dime instead if the developers were worried about overly easy moments of hitting him in the back. Vigor is susceptible to cheesing anyway, so this fight becomes more display of 90s boss design.

At least with this over, it means getting reunited with the Dog, who yes is that greyhound.

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