Secret of Mana

[Dracos]

Boy, it's been a while since I've updated this section...  I know I've promised reviews on a few games, and they'll get up soon, but just so this section gets some postage...

Secret of Mana

Produced by Squaresoft for the Super Nintendo system, Secret of Mana is the story of a young boy from a small village who comes across the legendary sword of mana hidden in a valley behind his village.  From there, things go straight downhill... Banished from his village for touching the sacred sword, he is forced to battle the mysterious empire to restore the holy blade to what it once was.  Somewhere during the adventure he meets a noble girl who joins him and a cute lil' sprite who also joins him.

All in all it sounds like a pretty formulaic rpg.  Nothing to really shine...  but that is where one would be wrong.  This game is a classic example of how execution matters over everything else.  Despite the lack of any real creativity behind the game, this game has managed to retain a huge amount of replay value and fun.  It's a fairly easy game with solid graphics for it's day, tending far towards the cutesy throughout.  The storyline isn't anything special nor is truthfully the dialogue, having small flaws throughout and being toned towards little kids....

But what makes up for it is the battle system.  An entertaining and well designed system that really shines despite not being taken to it's full potential in it.  Not completely flawless (I'll spare harping on the minor glitch regarding spell stacking), but fun to play with over and over again.  It's a pity the difficultly level never gets truly that high, because the battle system has a ton of potential.

Standing proudly on it's own, a perfect backdrop to the graphics and battle system, is the superb musical soundtrack to this game.  By far my favorite amongst the tunes is the superb "What the forest taught me" played in the Forest of the Seasons.  Almost all of the tracks are memorable on their own merits.  A solid musical score all around.

If you've never played this game and enjoy a cutesy midlength (30-40 hours) RPG, than this is the game for you.  If you have played it, well, you know as well as I the vast success Secret of Mana represents.

Fearless Leader

[Anastasia]

I more or less agree with you on this, except for the music.  The SoM music was nothing special, if anything, it was a very mediocre soundset by SNES standards.  It has a few good tracks, such as the winter land theme and the music for when you fought Lich, but it can't compete with the sound-gifted games. (FF 4 and 6, Lufia 2, Crono Trigger, Megaman X series, and so on.)

Legend of Mana corrected this problem with interest added, but Secret of Mana's music was best replaced with the mute button and a Walkman.

*Goes off to hum City of Flickering Destruction*

IMO, of course.

And, I really hope I got Lich's name right.  It's been awhile.

[Rezantis]

I actually liked the SoM music.  Lots.  'What The Forest Taught Me' is a great little tune.  ^^

The thing is, it's extremely cutesy... as is the rest of the game.  It fits the game really well, I think, although it can grate occasionally.  On the whole, though, it was good.

[Dracos]

A definite note is I try and take games on their own merits.  Certainly there ARE better soundtracks out there but Secret of Mana music has had a permanent spot on my hard drive for at least six years.  I've personally found the music very enjoyable overall.

It's a pity Legend of Mana fixed that... but broke much of the other stuff...even managing to destroy the battle system with their shenangians.

Fearless Leader

[Pichu]

That's Seiken Denetsu?  Yeah, I only played Seiken Denetsu III with fully translated English patch...  It's a nice game, but I never got to complete that game, although I had to restart twice!

[Dracos]

...

Sit down.  Shut up.  Go complete that game.

It's one of the better games made for the SNES.

Fearless Leader

[nemesis_zero]

Bah... the Japanese sequal is twice the game that SOM is, and on the same system.

The annoyance of the weapon/spell experience system is gone, the childishness is cut back a notch or two, the storyline is far more involved, and it has insane replay value.  Do yourself a favor;  grab a decent SNES emu and find Seiken Denetsu 3 now.

[Calorn]

Squaresoft, need you say more?  I have always liked Squaresoft games(since FF1 for NES) and they just get better as technolgy gets better.  SoM is great game that had my friends and I playing it for years(along with Chronotrigger) before FF7 dropped for PS1.  For its time graphics were top notch.  I agree that the story is pretty generic(then again most RPGs are) but I do think the music was good(for its time).  The battle system for this game was groundbreaking.  At the time no other game under the RPG genre had realtime battle.  Thanks to this we have had great RPGs come out with realtime battle systems(dot hack//INFECTION for PS2 is a great current example).  If you have never played SoM(which is pretty impossible unless you have been living under a rock on of an island in the Pacific for the last 10 years), PLEASE PLAY IT, for you will thank Dracos for bringing you to the light.