Secret of Mana

I can't explain why I like this game so much, having owned it for over 7 years I've played through it at least that many times. No other video game before it (or after it) has compelled me to play so much. It appealed to me mostly because of it's dramatic story (which playing now, I realize has suffered from a poor translation,)and its imaginative environments. The music in the game is also top notch, some of the scores are very haunting well others...aren't. Essentialy the plot follow that of a young boy who pulls a sword from a stone and is then thrust into an adventure to save the world from ultimate destruction, their are of course plot twist (for instance the identity of his mother is quite shocking.) I don't want to say much more on the game, if you see it in a store you probably should buy it... it's really that simple!

Made by the same people who have brought us Final Fantasy games for the past 30yrs Secret Of Mana is a true masterpiece which came years before it's time.

Telling the story of a boy who by uprooting a mysterious sword brings trouble to his home village, they respond by exiling him and thus his story begins.

First of all unlike the Final Fantasy titles the combat is live action not turn based, what also sets it apart is the fact that it was multi-player.Our hero, the lady and the sprite are characters you can switch between or play with side by side with your friends.

Each character is highly cutomisable, from spells to the weapon categories everything could be tweeked.

The story? Flawless. The playability? Excellent. And the soundtrack? One of the best I've ever heard, one particular bossfight theme is one of my all time favourites.

So many great moments,so many fantastic boss battles and the 3D graphic moments were outstanding when released.

Secret Of Mana is in this persons opinion one of the greatest video games ever made.

The Good:

Fantastic soundtrack

Flawless RPG elements

Multiplayer is excellent

The Bad:

Can't think of a sausage

Things I Learnt From This Game:

Flammie should have appeared in more Square titles

Moogles get everywhere

This is truly an exceptional game! Not only is it a adventure game like the popular Zelda series, but you are able to have 3 players at once! Each of the 3 characters are very inspired, each with their own little story and background. Once excellent feature in this game was the ability to power up weapons and magic. Once a weapon or magic has been used a numerous amount of times, it will gain a level, and become more powerful. It's very innovative! Try this game, you'll love it!

I really do not understand why this game gets so much praise, is it nostalgia? Most people I've seen calling this "the best game ever" made have mentioned playing it as a kid. Well, I haven't played it when I was younger, so what do I think about it? IT SUCKS. I'm sorry, I really wanted to like this game, I really did. But this game just REEKS of terrible design. First off, the combat is bad. It tries to make it so you don't just mash the attack button to win by adding a stamina meter that drops to 0% every time you attack and goes back to 100%. This completely fails at making the combat less repetitive because you're still just constantly pressing the attack button, only now you're waiting a few seconds between each attack. The only thing this accomplishes is making the combat more boring. Also, I absolutely hate the level up system. You know how in most games, leveling up raises everything? Well SOM says frick that and makes you level up every little thing. See that sword? Level that up. See that magic spell? Level it up. What make this even worse is that this is VITAL to the game. You must level up everything to stand a chance. This means that grinding is a essential part of the game, and grinding is never fun in any game. Also, the magic spells are just overpowered (when you level them up at least.) This applies to both you and the enemies. There is absolutely no way of avoiding magic attacks. This means that when certain enemies spam magic attacks they can just absolutely destroy you, and the same applies to the player. This turns any challenge into boredom, and most challenge that is present isn't organic. Also, the soundtrack is just terrible. Most tracks either have me an ear migraine or were just plain annoying. The overworld theme made me want to die after the thousandth time of hearing it. Speaking of the overworld, I constantly found myself getting lost within it. There is no sense of direction and finding out how to progress can be frustrating. I will say the visual presentation is alright, though it leave a bit to be desired. Overall, this game is a dumpster fire. It really does not deserve the praise it gets. I truly believe this game is only fondly remembered is because of nostalgia and maybe the multiplayer, ( which has problems of it's own, but this review is dragging on.) In conclusion, don't buy game suk.

Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2 in the USA) is the continuation of Final Fantasy Adventure (also called Mystic Quest) which was made for the gameboy. It still follows the same concepts of the Tribe of Mana. The Mana Tribe are a group of people who must maintain balence in the world. To do this they must make sacrifices. The men of the tribe become the Mana Sword and the women of the tribe become the Mana Tree. The Mana Knight uses the sword to protect the tree from evil. The characters do not have set names in this adventure, you name them yourself which is pretty nifty.

There are several things that make this a great game.

[1]Storyline: the characters are well made, the dialogue is simply awesome. Its a very long game and this makes it fun. Most people spend days if not weeks on this game. Its not short by any means at all.

[2]Weapons system: You acquire a plethora of weapons, each weapon you must level up just as you level up your characters via experience points. The weapons also go through changes using the Mana Orbs that you get after you beat each boss. You can do special attacks with each weapon depending on how leveled up it is and how long you charge it with the attack button.

[3]Magic system: You choose from a great host of Elemental Spirits to cast your offensive, defensive, and healing spells. Each time you use a spell you level up that elemental. There's also a bit of an easter egg, you can level your magic's up to level 8.99 and you'll notice a change to each spell. For instance if you get Gnome up to level 8.99 and cast "Earth Slide" you'll see the mud ball is larger and has a face. Salamando's "fireball" turns into 3 serpent-like fire dragons that encircle your enemies. Sylph's "Air Blast" changes from 3 blades of air to a large yellow tornado.

[4] Color!: Some games just aren't colorful enough, S.o.M. is definately not one of them! All the colors as well as the characters themselves are very vibrant and bright, even those gothie badguys.

[5] Travel: You do lots of travel in this game, a good bit of it is on foot. You're other method of travel is by cannon. The game map is flat the same way it is in T.o.P. and Secret of Evermore but still pretty neat looking. Later in the game you get Flammie, the legendary White Dragon. How cool is riding on the back of a dragon eh? Kinda makes ya' feel like Bastian from Never Ending Story.

This has to be one of the best RPG games Square ever made. To be honest, I'd rather play the older stuff than the newer fancy-schmancy Final Fantasy X2's or Everquests or Zelda: Windwakers. So its 3-Dimensional.. big whoop! Give me 2D game sprites and decent gameplay. I'm an emulation puritan and damn proud.

If you liked this game, try to find translated versions of Seiken Densetsu 3 and Tales of Phantasia. Also try Tales of Destiney for the Playstation (it has a story very similar to S.O.M.'s) You definately won't be bored with those games. In fact you just might get obsessed with them like me ^_^ Though sadly it seems like there is a lack of sites to get emulated games nowadays, good thing I've got my collection backed up on CDR.

Preserve our video-game heritage!