For the past week or so, my husband Tim and I have been playing Secret of Mana for the SNES. I haven’t really played this game in quite a long time. I have started random files and got a few hours into it and stopped, but that doesn’t really count. This time, we’re going all the way.
Secret of Mana was one of the great SquareSoft titles of the 90’s. It came out in October of 1993. Although a fantasy RPG, it has a real time battle system that’s more like Link to the Past than Final Fantasy 2 & 3 and Chrono Trigger, which are some other popular titles from Mana’s era. Even better, the game is two players! And not cheesy two players like Final Fantasy 2 was, where the person with the second player controller could choose a few battle commands. Secret of Mana allows player 2 to control any of the three characters to the fullest! Player 1 is, by default, the game’s main hero, but they, too, can change to be any of the other three characters.
The character set-up in Secret of Mana was really cool because, I could be wrong on this, but I think it might have been one of the only RPG’s of the time that allowed the player to choose what weapon they wanted to wield. The main hero was supposed to use the sword (as it is the Sword of Mana), but you weren’t confined to that one weapon. You could choose from the sword, axe, spear, bow, whip, boomerang, javelin, & knuckles, and for every level up the particular weapon receives, the character(s) become more proficient in the use of them; thus performing bigger and better attacks that dealt more damage.
Secret of Mana was one of the great SquareSoft titles of the 90’s. It came out in October of 1993. Although a fantasy RPG, it has a real time battle system that’s more like Link to the Past than Final Fantasy 2 & 3 and Chrono Trigger, which are some other popular titles from Mana’s era. Even better, the game is two players! And not cheesy two players like Final Fantasy 2 was, where the person with the second player controller could choose a few battle commands. Secret of Mana allows player 2 to control any of the three characters to the fullest! Player 1 is, by default, the game’s main hero, but they, too, can change to be any of the other three characters.
The character set-up in Secret of Mana was really cool because, I could be wrong on this, but I think it might have been one of the only RPG’s of the time that allowed the player to choose what weapon they wanted to wield. The main hero was supposed to use the sword (as it is the Sword of Mana), but you weren’t confined to that one weapon. You could choose from the sword, axe, spear, bow, whip, boomerang, javelin, & knuckles, and for every level up the particular weapon receives, the character(s) become more proficient in the use of them; thus performing bigger and better attacks that dealt more damage.
The character’s themselves are pretty standard, really. They’re all nameless when you get them, also like Link to the Past, and you can name them anything you’d like. I did see online, at one point, that the name of the hero was Seth, the girl was Fawn, and the sprite was Autumn, but I have never really been certain if that was the truth or not. The Hero is pretty basic. He’s a kid who was adopted by… you know, they never tell you EXACTLY who, and is raised in this little village. He goes out with his friends and falls down a huge waterfall…and lives… no scratches, no broken bones… I love Super Nintendo, LOL! He winds up being called by the Sword of Mana, so he draws it free from a stone. Immediately, monsters start attacking both him and his village. He gets outcaste by his village and told never to return as it was his fault monsters were attacking because he drew the Sword of Mana. The girl is introduced in a rather funny manner. After the Hero is exiled from his village, he gets captured by goblins and put into a large pot to become their dinner. She comes to his rescue by simply lifting him from the pot and running away. Turns out that she thought he might be her love, who had gone in that direction to fight the evil witch Elinee. She was wrong. She winds up joining with the Hero so that she can search for her beloved. The third character in the game is the ever adorable, spunky Sprite. (No, not the soda.) He was washed down a river into the home of dwarves, and performed on stage, there, to scam money from people. The Hero initially falls for the scam, but soon discovers the truth. He agrees to take the Sprite with him and help him recover his memory and find his home.
The magic used in this game is another unique element of this series. The ironic thing is that I just used the word “element”! HA! It’s funny because the magic the characters use is the powers of the world’s elementals. You have your basic earth, air, fire, water elementals, but you also have shadow, light, lunar, and tree elementals to go along with the other 4. Each of the elementals are well animated and adorable to look at. (Well, except for maybe Shade. He looks like a big, black bat with one huge eye…) The characters will summon in the elemental itself, and the elemental will perform the selected attack or defensive spell. Only the girl and the sprite can use magic, though. The hero cannot, as the elementals tell him that, one day, his sword will be more powerful than any magic.
I guess that’s pretty much the end of my breakdown on the game. If there was one more thing I could add to it, it’s Flammie! Flammie is the adorable white dragon that acts as your main mode of transportation later in the game. I simply adore him! Well, I hope you enjoyed my little tribute to Secret of Mana! If you haven’t checked it out, you should. It’s an excellent game that really stands the test of time, and is so easy to play. It’s got my seal of approval! It just doesn’t get any better than that! LOL! Later!
