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I liked it, yes. It's a good game. However, I don't understand why everyone seems to praise it as one of the best RPGs ever.

The whole concept of waiting to attack at full power is stupid. If you don't wait, you don't even do damage--what's the point of letting us think we can either attack rapidly with less damage or attack infrequently with greater damage?

A lot of enemies will pin you down with their moves and deal cheap deaths, and unless you play with a friend or two, your party members get stuck on random crap and don't even assist you in battle--they do their own thing.

Charging up weapons doesn't make a lot of sense to me--they don't do all that much damage, and in the time you could charge it up safely, you could pull off a bunch of normal attacks.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something else, but can someone PLEASE explain why Secret of Mana gets so much love?

Well, this is just my opinion personally, but SoM is hands down my favorite RPG ever, and I'll do my best to explain why, cuz even I'm not 100% sure why I like it so much. Some if it is nostalgia, but I bought it for the Virtual Console and still loved every minute of it.

-It was really the first RPG I remember reading about and wanting to play. I was around 11 when it came out and I distinctly remember the first time I ever rented it. I got to Tropicallo and couldn't beat him in the time I had the game for, but I was still hooked. Once I did earned enough money to buy the game, I bought the game.

-I enjoyed the game play, and it made it seem like every new locale was so awesome. I remember my first playthrough in the Upperland, and it was like a whole new experience from everything that happened in Gaia's Navel. Then came Matango, The Empire cities, etc. I never really got that experience in say FF6 (which I also do love) or Chrono Trigger. Everywhere in SoM was great (with the possible exception of putzing around the Kakkara desert after the Sandship.) Plus, playing with friends was killer.

-The music. Not sure this needs much more explaining. Amazing soundtrack.

-The elementals. Not sure why these characters struck a chord, but for everyone who's seen my fanart, they know they have (as I am typing this, I am working on a Salamando pic)

-The colors. This is probably more from an artistic side of things, but SoM is a beautiful game. Everything is so bright and vibrant, and I really enjoyed that.

-I still feel the escalation to the end event is one of the most unforgettable I've ever experienced in RPGs. From the whole Sunken/Risen Continent, then to the Pure Land, THEN to the Mana Fortress. It's just a whole slew of new areas that really got me involved in the story for the final act. As much as I love FF6, the whole World of Ruin is a 'Do as you please' land until you decide you want to storm Kefkas Tower. Chrono Trigger is similar. I always enjoyed SoM for upping the ante in the final act.

-I'll give you that the game mechanics are not perfect, but I never had much of an issue with them. Other than charging up a Level 8 attack, getting ready to pull it off, then doing a stupid evade of an enemies attack, totally nullifying the charge up. And charging up weapons DOES do a lot of damage, but you're right on slowness

So that's just my opinion...a Secret of Mana lover. Back to coloring Salamando...

Gasp! Secret of Mana remains my second-favorite game of all time with only FFT above it. I love SoM and have played through it at least two dozen times in its entirety...probably more. I agree with pretty much everything in Slag's post.

One thing I also appreciate about the game, which is very different from my normal game appreciations, is that there isn't a whole lot of story to get you bogged down. There's just enough to keep you going, but for the most part you're always in Adventure Mode, which is fantastic for me because I think this game has the best gameplay of any game ever made. I could battle for hours, I just have so much fun. It's extremely fluid.

I've also done tons of challenge runs of the game, which were a lot of fun. I started off fairly simple with a No-Magic playthrough (aside from parts when it's necessary to advance the game, such as crystal orbs), then I think came my No-Armor playthrough. I think I combined those two once into a No-Magic-No-Armor playthrough which was a bit more difficult. But by far the most difficult was my Boy-Only game (again, aside from crystal orbs). Girl and Sprite had to be dead at all times, and suddenly easy bosses like the Fire Gigas (easy as an expert...that guy was a FIEND the first few times through) and the Gorgon Bull suddenly because the worst. I remember having to cheese several of them with as many candies, chocolates, royal jams, barrels, and even faerie walnuts as I could carry. But I made it through! I also did a low-level game as much as I could. Pure Land was evil.

Boy-Only:


Low-Level:




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Can you hear it breathing?
And hey, put the laptop down for a while
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easy bosses like the Fire Gigas (easy as an expert...that guy was a FIEND the first few times through) and the Gorgon Bull suddenly because the worst.

This sounds like me struggling with Fire Gigas and Wall Face because my magic was too low-leveled since I found leveling up magic really tedious in this game. (At least early on, and playing by myself. It's more fun with a friend.)

I could barely beat Fire Gigas, and Wall Face just did not work at all.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Secret of mana is a good game, but its story is inferior to the final fantasy stories, because it is simple as it can get, and the characters are undeveloped.Play it for the gameplay, not the story.When it came out, i was a kid, so i was more easily accepting of it then.Nowadays since i'm older, i find its simplistic story with its lack of character development, something that is harder too look past.I also find it good to not have overly high expectations, because it ruins it.

Personally:I think secret of evermore is a better game.

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We are stardust.Our bodies are made from the guts of exploding stars.

Neil Degrasse Tyson.

I would like SoM much better if charge times were faster and leveling up spells and weapons wasn't so tedious. I think its narrative and dungeons are good enough, and the visuals and sound are excellent. And it's much more fun in multiplayer.

...but its Super Famicom sequel Seiken Densetsu III is better. Fixes most if not all my issues with the battle system, and the character and class choices (which affect the story and dungeons!) add scads and scads of replayability. I think Secret of Mana is very good, but Seiken Densetsu III is one of my favorite RPGs, period.

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I didn't really care for it when I first played it. To be honest, I probably have to give it another play since I haven't given it a go since high school (my first and last time). I'm not sure what about it exactly I didn't like, but it wasn't engaging to me like CT, FFs and the like were. But like I said, I have to replay it to give it a fair judgement.

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"Arthur Dent?"
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"Arthur Philip Dent?"
"Yes."
"You're a total knee biter."

I think it's a nostalgia thing for me too, I have played the game recently and found the deaths and falling over frustrating but it was the first RPG I ever played as a kid and because it was such a favourite of mine growing up I find it hard not to rank it below many other games. It's my second favourite game after FF7.

The music is also ace.

I have always loved Secret of Mana, and mainly for its style. The art direction is wonderful and the music has always been stellar. The game had a real good sense of itself that set it apart from the FF series.

That being said, the story isn't nearly as in depth as the FFs of the time, nor Chrono Trigger, but this game has a much more intense gameplay element to it that, once understood, is a blast to toy with. I always liked leveling my spells and weapons and picking people to focus on each weapon. My friends and I always did that when we three played it together. Plus that, right there, is awesome: a truly multiplayer RPG experience. SO rad. And flying around on a dragon!? Also amazing. Final argument for awesomeness: rabites. Nuff said.

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but its Super Famicom sequel Seiken Densetsu III is better. Fixes most if not all my issues with the battle system, and the character and class choices (which affect the story and dungeons!) add scads and scads of replayability. I think Secret of Mana is very good, but Seiken Densetsu III is one of my favorite RPGs, period.

Totally agree with you, lasz.

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Games on the Go
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Too much to play, so little time!

Greg

I enjoyed Secret of Mana, and thanks to a combination of elements, especially the art style and music, the game has since reached a level of nostalgia for me that's not matched by any other game. Maybe the first Mass Effect comes close in that regard.

That said, go through the game even once, and there really isn't anymore additional material to bring you back. Either you really REALLY like the game, or you have to improvise some sort of different playstyle (like the challenge runs Neal mentioned) to keep it interesting. This had always been my one real complaint about it. Not even weapon/spell leveling bothered me; since the game wasn't particularly difficult, I never felt the need to really level-grind those up.

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Console RPG Cliches

I've always felt somewhat meh about SoM's music, for some reason. It just never quite had the same punch as the music of the FF games or Chrono Trigger did. I haven't quite figured out why, though this is a topic that's bugged me for years now, since I first started discussing this topic here at CoN. I remember goz and I actually went through the SoM and FFV soundtracks track by track and I was trying to analyze his tastes as well as my own and compare and contrast them to see if I could learn more about what I liked or didn't like in music.

Thanks to this thread here, I recently did a bit more thinking about this, and I've come to the following observations:

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SoM's soundtrack has a noticeably different style from, say, the soundtracks of the Final Fantasy games. It's a bit atmospheric at times, but then again so are the FF games' music.

Maybe it's one or more of the following factors:
* generally higher-pitched instrumentation, without much bass, which leads to a lighter feel
* melodically weaker tracks (e.g. Matango)
* harmonically weaker tracks (e.g. Gaia's Navel, which is like, the same chord over and over again for most of the track)
* lack of more typical western-classical or j-pop harmonies, which I seem to emotionally respond to more strongly
* instrumentation choices lend a very light and un-serious feel (e.g. Scorpion Gang's xylophone)
* music doesn't follow the dramatic needs very well (e.g. Underground Palace track is a kinda a semi-light, not-very-emotional, not-very-prominent track to go with a very annoyingly difficult area)

There are a few tracks I like (such as the theme tune tracks, Upper Land, Game Over, , but they're definitely far fewer than, say, Final Fantasy VI. Compared to a game like FFVI, I really feel that SoM has a much less serious vibe, which makes me feel a lot less invested in what's going on.

I guess one could say that goes with the cutesy and brightly colorful aesthetic of the graphics, but then again...well, come to think of it, why do I not mind the cutesy aesthetic of Recettear or Fortune Summoners? Not really sure. But those two games definitely took their narratives seriously, and delivered them much more effectively. (Note that serious doesn't mean high drama.)
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This is copied from my post here: http://itjustbugsme.com/forums/discussion/...-manas-music/p1

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Yeah... until the boss music kicks the living hell out of your eardrums.

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I loved the gameplay- seemed quite well done, like an improved Zelda game or something.

The problem is:Just because something is your first game doesn't mean much.When you are so young and impressionable, you lack experience on anything else to fall back on, like i did with ff1 and dragon quest.For their time they were actually decent games though.

Secret of mana has fun combat system, but i personally think secret of evermore is better.
There are more weapons and i really like the alchemy system.

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We are stardust.Our bodies are made from the guts of exploding stars.

Neil Degrasse Tyson.

SoM is a perfect compromise between role-play and open-world. That is its purpose. You walk around with your characters and attack the monsters open-world-style, but the attacks are still number-based. The charge-up time is the primary reason I like it, since it give me time to breathe. The special attacks that you have to charge up for a while are best saved for bosses, and I always like to use those (though not as much as magic, because magic is flashier and works faster, but the Boy has no magic so a charged attack is his best bet). You cannot consider it all RPVG and like it, and you cannot just play it Zelda-style. It is just Secret of Mana, and it is awesome for those like me who like to consider themselves gamers while actually being incredibly inept at not getting killed constantly. It is also loved by those who play all kinds of games, because a cross between two genres is always welcome for such gamers.

I personally still think secret of evermore has better gameplay and graphics and character development.

I actually don't like the cute chibi graphics of the pokemon like enemies and the teeny little cartoony children sprites, and the story and character development is non existent and a complete joke.

The gameplay is good though, and the game does keep focus and is still enjoyable, especially leveling up magic and using the sword powers.Too bad i never had any friends to play multiplayer with while playing secret of mana.Had i people to play it with, it would have been interesting.

The music is also pretty atmospheric in areas, especially the forest theme in the deep forest.

I personally think that alongside ff7,secret of mana is also another overrated game in terms of over hyped , but not nearly as much as other games.

I think if we had had the ability to travel back in time, and pick up the snes control and bring a few buddies around, we could still have a blast.

Granted:The story in secret of evermore is silly and can't be taken seriously and has next to no story, but i just prefer the main hero and his dog over the boring bland characters from som.

This post has been edited by Magitek_slayer on 21st September 2013 21:03

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We are stardust.Our bodies are made from the guts of exploding stars.

Neil Degrasse Tyson.