The SNES was kind of like the breaking moment when RPGs were made. Sure, there were a few on the Nintendo Entertainment System already, but there were quite a bit here that almost make up a fraction of all SNES games. Now, back in 1993 before Square and Enix joined together, Square created a well known RPG for the Super Nintendo called Secret of Mana. But there's probably a sepearate half of you that don't know Secret of Mana between Square's numerous amount of RPGs. However, one way or another, I've heard some bad stuff about this game. Just what lies behind the box that holds the game? A cartridge, sure, but I mean the issue. I guess let's just figure out for ourselves.


Gameplay:

At the start of making your character's name, you notice some letters look the same, numbers as well. This is ridiculously annoying, but the stupidity doesn't stop there. You notice there are quite a lot of obstacles obstructing your path. And since they look a lot like the background, this isn't fun. You also notice that in this game you cannot swing wildly with your weapons. You must wait until your energy is charged 100% to attack again, otherwise your damage will be reduced dramatically. But before I get into more, let me explain what's going on. You and some people go outside the village looking for treasure, when you fall down the waterfall and find it. Once you return to the village, you start getting bullied by the guy who took you out with him from the village looking for the treasure. Because, you know, when you don't know what to do, blame the guy who pulled the sword you were looking for. It makes a great antagonist. Then you go and fight your first boss, Metal Mantis. You realize very quickly that he combos you with heavy damage before you can even get back on your feet. Thankfully, you cannot die in this fight, but it just seems to stupid to have a boss you can't defeat, yet the game deliberately lets you win.

After you defeat this 'epic boss,' you're banished from your village. I'm really starting to think that kid is the antagonist of this game... you can now never return to your village, because why? Apparently you'll be followed by monsters if in the town. Because cute little bunny rabbit slimes are so threatening. Don't they have any weapons? You get more weapons and partners along the way that you can change how they act, but I'll think I'll just talk about the controls and let you figure out the rest yourself. When you open up your menu, you have a ring menu that shows your weapons, but not your other stuff. To find these, you must press up or down. Now, while this doesn't seem like a problem, they give you no indication whatsoever. Some arrows or something would be nice. The controls feel awkward. Whenever you fight, your attacks randomly hit or miss, and you just roll around without any reason why. When you try to dash, you can only go straight, and there's barely a reason to do so with all the twists and turns and obstacles. Like I mentioned, enemies can combo you to death in mere seconds if you're not careful. If you're unconscious, consider yourself dead, as you'll take more damage when in this state. The areas are very well designed and nice to look at. One thing that really bothers me though is whenever you enter a new area, the game freezes for two seconds then starts the music. Ugh, let's just get this over with.


Graphics: 9

The graphics look good, but I hate how letters and numbers look the same on the stat menus, and the obstacles blending in with the background.


Sound: 9

The music is very reminiscent and nostalgic, but again, I cannot stand how the game pauses for a few second to load the music whenever you go to a new area.


Addictiveness: 6

Unfortunately, this is one of those games where you have to grind a certain room for about 5 hours to beat just a single boss. I don't like doing this, but if you don't do it, you will die. And this is one of those games that start you from your last save point from the menu, with no continue.


Story: 9

The story is about how a hero wielded a legendary sword known as the Mana Sword and slayed the evil of this land, but now it's returned, or something along those lines. Along the way, you must restore the sword's power in order to defeat this evil.


Depth: 8

You can upgrade your weapons and magic separately for each character, which I thought was pretty cool. I also liked the ring menu's style and all the customization you could do for technical stuff.


Difficulty: 8

Like I said, the controls are very irritating and hard to get the hand of, and I especially don't like how the bosses can defeat you without any trouble, no matter how strong you are. All you need to know is everyone and everything in this game wants your head on a silver platter. You will have to constantly grind to achieve victory in this game, and even if you choose to use revives on your allies, revival items aren't cheap in this game.


OVERALL: 8.1

Don't get me wrong, I like this game, but it just has those issues that really take you out of the game and make you want to throw down your controller in rage. Secret of Mana went on to be it's own series, but that's besides the point. Until next time, I leave you with this review.


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Nice review! I enjoyed reading it. Secret of Mana is for sure a little different take on the action/RPG genre that introduced some elements that weren't common in the genre.

I will say though that the Genesis already had a big following for RPG's at the time when RPG's started getting popular on the SNES.

I guess it's an okay review, but it felt top-heavy if you know what I mean, like after the first bit your paragraphs became shorter and less detailed. Now when you mentioned graphics I don't really understand why you dislike the numbers and letters looking the same unless you mean 0 looks like a O or 1 looks like and l and so on, perhaps describing what you mean would help readers understand. Next you mentioned nostalgia in the sound category, what about it gives you the nostalgia factor? Do you remember the music from when you were younger or was it the fact it reminded you of something. So again you need to explain this. I get where your coming from with the grinding so I'll give you that, but the thing with RPGs is it can be hard to make sure the difficulty remains but not making it grind to much so I wouldn't say it was too bad there. I myself have played this game and I will say the story is pretty average for a Square RPG. So really I wouldn't say much about it either. Anyway you practically mentioned the majority of things for depth and what I really want to mention is how you said the difficulty can be irritating, I in-fact have to disagree with you here. I found it easy to control and quite enjoyable.

So all in all it was a reasonable good review, perhaps next time you can explain your feeling of nostalgia or your irritation so that the review will be fully complete. Good job anyway and keep the good work up.