Secret of Mana Review (Super Nintendo)
~by tankMage (July 2024)
Score: 8.8/10 (Good)
The best game in the Mana series?
The Mana series has a complicated history, the predecessor to Secret of Mana was released on the Game Boy under Final Fantasy Adventure in the West and the third game was limited to Japan. To make matters even more complicated Secret of Mana started life as a launch title for the SNES CD ROM addon that never saw the light of day. Consequently, it was a strange and rather unique action RPG when it came out.
I remember picking this title up at my local game store when I was about thirteen and being mystified by it. Real time combat with three playable characters, a fairly advanced magic system, a slew of weapons, and beautiful graphics set this game apart from the pack. It also has an amazing sound track that added to its mystique.
At the time, I was blind to a lot of the flaws that accompanied everything that made this game so special. Poor dialogue, funky dungeon designs, and more bugs than an episode of Fear Factor (for those who remember that show) really hurt what is otherwise a truly excellent ARPG. Replaying it years later, some of these problems were painfully obvious. Even so, I really like Secret of Mana and count it among the great Super Nintendo RPGs. It’s qualities make up for its failures and there are few games like it on the SNES.
A good story gone bad.
The premise to Secret of Mana is really cool. A giant tree, known as the Mana Tree, is the source of all magic and life on the planet. In ages past, technologically advanced civilizations fought a war over the power of Mana, nearly destroying the world in the process. The intro hints that both the Mana Fortress and Mana Beast which fought in the war still slumber in forgotten places. It also gives us the stark reminder that history repeats before moving onto a scene where we meet one of the game’s heroes.
The setup to Secret of Mana gives me chills to this day, but the follow-through leaves something to be desired. Rushed dialogue is the main culprit and there are points where the story would have benefited from a cutscene. Out of the two, the dialogue is the worst offender. Most discussions are maybe two or three lines long, plus any kind of pizzazz they may have had was stripped out of them. The problem is so bad that I noticed it at the age of thirteen in an era known for poor translations.
While some people may see Ted Woolsey’s infamous name in the credits, I feel the issue had less to do with him and more with the fact that this game was originally supposed to be far larger. In the end, pages of text and goodness knows what else were probably parsed out of the final script.
Even with terrible dialogue holding it down, the story is still interesting. Each of the three heroes (known as the “Boy”, the “Girl”, and the “Sprite” ) has his or her own backstory. The Boy is an orphan who ends up being exiled from the village that took him in, the Girl is searching for her lost love, and the Sprite is an amnesiac who somehow ended up living with dwarfs.
A world full of its own lore also awaits players. Many of the towns and cities have side stories that are related to the main plot. There’s also the obligatory evil emperor and his henchmen, but these characters are hardly fleshed out. In the end we’ll just have to wonder what the real story of Secret of Mana would have been like had it not been cut down so thoroughly.
Excellent graphics and animation.
It’s strange to think SNES had reached midlife in 1993 and would be replaced about three years after Mana was released. Some of the best looking SNES games were still a year or two down the road when this game came out, but it still manages to distinguish itself graphically when going up against games that had the advantage of superior hardware like the Super FX Chip.
The game world looks beautiful and there’s a lot of highly varied places to explore. Players will visit the usual spooky castles, deserts, frozen forests, and caves; there’s always caves in RPGs. For the most part, these areas are normal RPG destinations, but Square made them look great. They also threw in a few surprises like an area of the desert that is strewn with stars and an island that is actually on the back of a giant turtle.
The game world looks good, but it’s the heroes’ animations which truly stand out. Each hero has combat animations for blocking and dodging as well as a variety of weapon attacks. Speaking of weapons, there are eight types in total. Each weapon has its own unique look that changes as the player upgrades them, though these are usually just palette swaps.
Two of the heroes learn magic and there’s about forty spells in total. These spells level up with use and look different as they gain levels. Increase the level of a spell enough and there’s a chance that you’ll cast a special super powerful version of it with a unique animation every time you use it!
The enemies are also really nicely done, with many of them being highly imaginative if not a little goofy looking. Players will fight cartoonish goblins, baby cockatrices half hatched from their eggs, and spell slinging humanoid tomatoes to name a few of the enemies in this game. The artists did a beautiful job stylizing the monsters and even the more generic ones are unmistakably unique to Mana.
Great combat, fun exploration.
While Secret of Mana may have some story related issues, its combat and general gameplay more than make up for it, though they are not perfect. Even with a few hiccups here and there, the overall structure and pacing of the game is good. Exploring dungeons is satisfying as there’s always an upgrade or two to find. Boss fights are also fun, though they range from semi-tough to pathetically easy.
You can walk around and swing your weapon like in any ARPG, but you’ll have to wait a second for the power meter to reach 100% to do any real damage. Spells can be cast instantly once you have magic, however there seems to be a hidden cool down that forces players to wait a second or two between castings. Having two AI controlled allies or real buddies along to help makes combat even more exciting. That said, the AI is very temperamental, so don’t expect your computer controlled friends to help much.
As you may expect from an RPG, you start with one character and one weapon, then build up your arsenal along with your party throughout the first quarter of the game. There’s tons of weapon upgrades and armor to find, which is great if you’re a loot fiend like me. You can also learn weapon skills that can be used by charging up your attack meter and level up spells for the Sprite as well as the Girl, so there’s plenty to do.
My only complaint is that it takes a lot of grinding to max everything out, because the game is often stingy with drops. If you want all the best weapons and armor, you’ll spend a lot of time hacking away at monsters in the final dungeon.
While on the topic of dungeons, this is another place where Secret of Mana is inconsistent. Some of the early dungeons are really big (like the Witch’s Castle) while others are tiny. Some dungeons feel incomplete and seem to have blocked off doorways, which used to drive me crazy when I was a kid searching for all of the weapon powerups. I swore they were hidden in what looked like blocked passages. Unfortunately, I wasted my time, because there are almost zero secret passages in this game.
Dungeons get better and feel more “finished” as the game hits its stride. It also throws tons of bosses at the player. At the same time, even the better dungeons feel like they were condensed and there’s a sense that you’re being scooted from one area to the next as quickly as possible, which can be good or bad depending on how you feel about any given area.
The game wraps up very nicely with a climatic final dungeon and set of bosses. How much challenge the final area has to offer largely depends on how much you level up. When I first played SoM many years ago I fought the last boss at a high level and he was a bit too easy. This time around I beat him on level 63 and found myself fighting for my life.
Weapons and spells galore.
There are eight weapon types in Secret of Mana and eight classes of elemental magic. Weapons can be upgraded using orbs that are usually dropped by bosses and spells gain levels as the player casts them, though you’ll need to seal Mana Seeds to raise the magic level cap. On top of all that, weapons can be charged to perform power attacks that deal extra damage, but you need to use the weapon to learn special moves.
The fun part of the weapon system is that each weapon type has its own gimmick. For example, the sword has a wide attack range, the ax is powerful, and the bow can hit enemies from afar. You’ll also need weapons to clear obstacles outside of combat. The whip can wrap around posts and pull the party over gaps Indiana Jones style. Additionally, ax can cut down boulders.
Magic spells are generally split into the Girl’s support spells and the Sprites offensive magic. Elemental spirits give the characters the power to use magic and each spirit teaches the Sprite and Girl three spells each. Magic is ridiculously powerful and you can blow bosses away with a few casts if you bother to level them up. The Girl’s buffs are also incredibly powerful. It would have been smart of the devs to nerf magic a little bit, but I won’t complain.
Over all, the weapon/spell system is one of my favorite aspects of SoM. Sure, some of the weapons and spells are redundant, but it’s fun playing around with them nonetheless. Every character can use every weapon, so it’s hard to get bored of anything.
The Battle of the Bugs
Bugs were and are a common feature in gaming and Secret of Mana certainly has its fair share of them. These can range from some fairly famous bugs that allow the player to get an extra weapon orb to more obscure graphical glitches.
One thing I noticed that no one seems to mention is the game’s habit of “forgetting” to apply damage and other effects if there’s a lot going on. Let’s say you and one of your allies hit a boss while the boss is casting a spell, then you quickly use an item. From my experience, there’s a good chance the item may not take effect, mostly likely due to RAM limitations, and you’ll be out a piece of candy or faerie walnut. This can happen with all sorts of things, so it’s important to let events play out in battle before mashing commands. Computer controlled allies tend to get hung up on corners, which is also annoying. Lot’s of games suffer from this problem even in modern times, so I can’t fault SoM too much.
I’ve also seen this game crash after certain boss battles over the years. It usually happens after the boss dies when the player is given an upgrade orb and a door or staircase is supposed to appear. I think this may be a RAM issue again, since it only seems to happen if I get over zealous about entering commands. Oddly, I was not able to find any info on the SNES version of the game crashing (the Steam and PS4 versions seem to crash a lot though) and I’m beginning to wonder if there’s something wrong with my copy of the game, so take this as an anecdote.
A CD crammed into a cartridge.
Long ago, Nintendo had plans to make a CD addon for the SNES and Square was developing a game it. If you guessed that the game they were making was Secret of Mana, you are right and you should probably treat yourself to a snack or something, I’ll wait. As you can imagine, a compact disc could hold way more than a cartridge, so Square must have had plans to make a big game. Much to Square and Sony’s chagrin, Nintendo decided to scrap the CD addon project, forcing Square to massively overhaul Secret of Mana in the middle of development. I think it’s worthwhile to reflect on the fact that Nintendo released the Virtual Boy, but canned a CD addon for its beloved SNES….and people wonder why they get called Nintenduh. Anyway, Nasir and his team had to scramble to get Secret of Mana to fit into a cartridge, cutting unknown amounts of content in the process.
While it’s hard to say for certain what an uncut SoM would have looked like, it’s obvious from the more open-ended early sections of the game that they wanted to give players a less linear experience than what the game turned into. This is evident in how the player can recruit the Sprite before getting the Girl to join and vice versa. There’s also different events that take place depending on who you interact with. All this vanishes after the first few hours of gameplay and it’s no stretch to assume that the devs were forced to compromise their vision in order to get the game released at all. Maybe there is an alternate universe where Nintendo went through with its CD addon and Secret of Mana is an uncut masterpiece with a decent script…
A sound track for the ages.
A lot of games from the 80s and 90s had at least one or two good songs, even if the game itself was crap. Some lucky titles had five or six great tracks. Secret of Mana is a rarity, because every song is a banger. Even the save file select BGM is memorable, let alone the title and the final dungeon’s themes, which are among my favorite video game songs.
Secret of Mana also has excellent sound effects. The sound that indicates the player has scored a hit on an enemy and the dings used for blocked attacks really add a sense of impact to combat. Magic sound effects are also really good, though having to hear them constantly while you cast spells to raise your magic levels gets old.
It’s no surprise the sound work is so good considering that the game was supposed to be CD based. Square must have really wanted to show off and they hired the right guy to do the music. Hiroki Kikuta had already worked as a composer for anime sound tracks and did the sound effects for Romancing SaGa according to the wiki. Secret of Mana was essentially his debut as a video game composer and he knocked it out of the park as far as I’m concerned. As time passed he would also do the BGMs for Trials of Mana and Koudelka.
A mostly good User Interface.
SoM’s UI is something of a point of contention. Gaming mags of the 90s praised the game’s “ring menus” and I’ve seen people complain about the combat meter. Personally, I wasn’t particularly impressed by either feature of the game. The ring menus are nice for casting spells and choosing weapons, but you’re still going to be cycling through menus to view stats and equip armor. It also gets clunky when you have to switch to different characters and I can’t help but think they could have implemented the system a bit better by making use of more of the SNES controller’s buttons.
I don’t exactly hate the combat meter, but I don’t like it either. On one hand I can appreciate how it makes you stop and think about what you are doing rather than just blindly hack at enemies, but it also makes the action feel a bit stilted. That said, the game really struggles to keep track of the action as I mentioned earlier and I’m not sure if the SNES could have handled three characters chopping away at a boss frantically. At the end of the day, the combat meter is a necessary evil that allowed for up to three players to join in the fun, so I can’t fault it too much.
Three times the fun?
It’s worth mentioning that up to three players can control the Boy, Girl, and Sprite for some co-op action. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve only ever played with one other person, so I haven’t had the full experience. From what I can tell, co-op is ok. When I played with a friend, we often had to wait for each other to switch weapons, use items, or cast spells. We also had to stay on the same screen and were limited by the combat meter, so I didn’t really feel like there was much point in co-op. The only real benefit from multi-player is a human is arguably going to be less stupid than the game’s AI and you won’t have to worry about your buddy getting stuck on a rock or blindly walking into an attack, hopefully.
It’s not Square’s best SNES game, but it’s still a good choice.
Mana has a lot going for it and I recommend giving it a try. I’ve played a lot of games and I have to say there are few 2D games that have the same high degree of attention to detail as Secret of Mana. It’s also nearly unique as ARPGs go, because the only game I’ve played that uses a similar system is Secret of Evermore, which I reviewed years ago. Even the sound track is highly original.
As much as I love this game, I have to advise anyone who wants to play it to go in expecting a few bugs and some poor dialogue. If you are open minded and and take it for what it is, you’ll probably love it. Just don’t push the game engine too hard and you’ll be fine.
Thanks for reading my Secret of Mana review!
RetroMaggedon.com ©2024