Collection of Mana part 2

Welcome to part 2 of my look at the Collection of Mana on Nintendo Switch and today I have a treat for you all because we're looking at one of the most popular Action RPGs of all time, The Secret of Mana. Since it's release Secret of Mana has endeared itself into the hearts of players, while it may have done considerably better in Japan than other territories, The Secret of Mana is often cited as having helped to popularise RPGs in the west. So influential is this game that it was one of the 20 games released on the SNES classic alongside other Square classic Final Fantasy 3, technically Final Fantasy 6 but that's a confusing story for another day. As I said last time when I first played this game I didn't quite get the hype but that was years ago and I like to think I'm more open-minded than I was back then. This is a game I've been meaning to go back to for ages and now I finally have an excuse to do just that.

Before I do that though let me give you a brief history of the development of the game. Originally Secret of Mana was in development for a CD-based add-on for the SNES. The story of that add-on is very long and complicated so I'll give you the short version. The Add-on was being developed by Nintendo and Sony but when Nintendo read the agreement and found out Sony would own all distribution rights for games released on the system they were furious and made the surprise announcement of a partnership with Phillips to develop the add-on instead. Sony was pissed and would take the technology and develop their own gaming system, you've probably heard of it. The CD-based add-on never materialized as Nintendo and Phillips couldn't quite get it off the ground. Phillips would also make their own system and in good faith Nintendo let them develop some Mario and Zelda games, it did not go well. The result of this implosion was that Secret of Mana was changed to be a cartridge game instead, except that a SNES cartridge has much smaller storage space than a CD meaning that they had to cut a great deal of content out of the game including much of the story and gameplay content. Lead designer and director of the game Koichi Ishii has said that about 40% of the game was cut to meet the constraints of a cartridge. The fact that the game didn't turn out to be a complete mess, according to Ishii, is nothing short of a miracle.

The story of Secret of Mana is typical of RPGs at the time. In ancient times Mana was plentiful until an ancient civilization started to abuse it for its own ends, building a massive Mana fortress as a testament to their greatness. This angered the gods so much that they sent a great Mana beast to attack the fortress which nearly ended the world before a hero wielding the Mana sword destroyed the fortress and saved the world. Centuries later a new Empire is looking to rebuild the Mana Fortress and use it to conquer the world. Meanwhile, a young man named Randi stumbles upon the Mana sword while exploring with his friends. Unfortunately pulling the sword from the stone, yes they really are that blatant, also causes monsters to appear near his home town which promptly leads to the townsfolk kicking him out of town but not before a knight named Jema tells him that he now has a duty to travel to each of the Mana temples, place a seal on each of the Mana seeds held within and stop the Empire from repeating the mistakes of the past. He's not alone in this journey though as he's joined by a princess named Primm looking for her boyfriend and a sprite named Popoi who has lost his memory and is looking to restore it.

The plot is somewhat cliché, a magic sword, evil empire, magic seals we've seen these all these before but Secret of Mana's story is written well enough that this never became an issue. The three main characters are all very likable and their development and interactions are endearing. I like that each of the main trio has their own motivations for going on this journey, it makes them more believable I feel. There are plenty of fun set pieces and interesting characters that keep the game engaging throughout. It's a fun story that isn't afraid to get dark at times which is always good in my book. The ending, in particular, is very bittersweet but I won't give any details about that. The only major complaint I have with the story is that it lacks a compelling antagonist. The Empire is certainly a threat but I never found them very entertaining even in that evil for the sake of evil sort of way. Even the main villain is dull, he doesn't even get a backstory or motivation until the very end of the game. Its the one flaw in an otherwise great story. Big shout out to the translation work of Ted Woolsey who had to translate this entire game in just 1 month, with a jumbled up script. According to Woolsey the translation and I quote, “nearly killed [him].” Mr. Woolsey deserves a frigging medal for this.

Graphically Secret of Mana looks pretty good. I don't think the game looks as good as some of Squares other works on the SNES but it looks good. The sprite work is nice and I really liked the use of Mode 7. there are some impressive looking moments but they are just moments. I wouldn't call the game a graphical tour de force or anything but it still looks really good. The music, however, is excellent. This is up there with the best SNES soundtracks and considering the competition, that's saying a lot. As catchy as it is atmospheric, the soundtrack never ceases to amaze. By the way Collection of Mana has a music player for all three games, so if you like what you hear you can listen to it whenever. I love it when compilations add in features like this.

In terms of gameplay Secret of Mana feels like a natural evolution of Final Fantasy Adventure. It's still a top-down action RPG but the heavy Zelda influence that its predecessor clearly showed, have been toned down considerably to give the game its own identity. Even the Final Fantasy influences are less prevalent with the only reference to it's older sister being the occasional Moogle appearance. The gameplay has been greatly improved. For one, you can now move in eight directions and can now quickly dash forward. The Power bar returns, this time being shown off as a percentage rather than an actual bar and it works differently this time around. In the previous game you could attack enemies while the bar was empty and still deal with them fairly easily but now attacking while the bar is still filling up does considerably less damage. It's now more important to let the bar fill up all the way since it's the best way to deal with most threats. It also fills up much faster than before. It makes combat a bit more strategic and gives each attack actual weight, something the previous game lacked somewhat. Like Final Fantasy Adventure you can collect a variety of different weapons each with their own strengths and weaknesses with every weapon from the previous game returning with the exception of the sickle and the flail. There are new ranged weapons added to the mix as well allowing more options with some weapons even have some environmental interaction but it's been greatly diminished compared to last time.

Magic also makes a return and it has been greatly expanded upon. Now rather than having a simple list of spells you now collect Mana spirits that each have their own set of spells that correspond to their given element, so you get water spells, fire spells, earth spells you get the idea. This gives you a few more options than just the basic fireball and lightning spells. Granted not every spell was useful but I would still rather have too many options than too few. Sadly the game doesn't allow you to modify the stats of any of the characters. They will increase as you level up naturally but there's no way to manipulate how stats increase. You can improve defense by equipping armors, helmets, and accessories but they don't do much else. One thing I didn't mention last time was that equipment gained in Final Fantasy Adventure had different effects, I forgot to mention that because the game never actually explained how that worked and I never really noticed it, sorry for not bringing that up last time. Also, you need to keep buying new equipment because if you don't then the enemies later in the game are gonna destroy you. That's not to say the RPG elements have been completely removed as weapons and magic have a new mastery system. If a character uses a weapon long enough their mastery with that weapon will increase and the can then use a new special move by holding down the attack button. Weapons this time can now be upgraded by finding specific orbs and taking them to a blacksmith which makes them stronger and increases the maximum mastery level. Weapons can go up to level 8 and the mastery level cannot be higher than the weapons level, so if you have a level 2 sword you can't have a mastery level that's higher than 2 for example. You want to build these levels up because each level unlocks a new special attack with each level being much stronger but taking longer to charge up. I actually prefer having one weapon you upgrade throughout the game rather than finding or buying stronger weapons that render the current weapon you have obsolete. If you have a preferred weapon there's nothing stopping you from sticking to it, even if it's weaker than others it will often have other advantages, the Whip may be weaker than the Spear but it also has increased range for example.

Magic also has its own mastery level that increases as you use spells from a certain spirit. So if you cast Undine the water spirits spells then Undine will get stronger and her spells will have increased power. This system means that you'll gain levels for weapons and magic you specifically use, if you don't use something it won't level up, so it rewards you for playing the way you want but never punishes you for it which I really like let me play the game the way I want to play. The only flaw this system has is that you will never maximize spell levels without grinding but even then that isn't a requirement to beat the game. The highest my spells got was level 6 and that was more than enough to deal with whatever was thrown at me. Not once did I ever need to grind to get past any obstacle. That's not to say the game doesn't over a decent challenge but it's nothing you won't be able to handle. So long as you battle enemies on the way to the next destination you should be at the right level to deal with whatever the game throws at you.

Unlike the previous game which would give you a series of nonplayable companions to “help” you Secret of Mana instead has a set party of three characters that can be switched to at any time with the others being controlled by the AI. The three characters each have there own strengths and weaknesses. Randi is the warrior, he can't use magic but he's the strongest physically and masters weapons faster than the others. Primm is like a mixture of a White Mage and a Monk, she can fight up close fairly well and has access to a wide range of support spells. Popoi is the opposite, he's very much the Black Mage of the group. He's weak physically but can cast devastatingly powerful magic that can utterly destroy enemies. Popoi is especially good against bosses since he can chain cast spells with good timing. Chain casting is one of the more broken aspects of the game, master it and this game gets a lot easier, assuming you have MP to spare. Unlike Final Fantasy Adventure MP isn't as easy to keep up, not only does magic cost more to cast but MP doesn't get refilled when you level up. Because of this abusing magic is a lot harder to do, you still have MP restoring items in the form of Fairie Walnuts but you can only carry four at a time and they aren't easy to get in the early parts of the game. You need to be careful when it comes to casting magic because if you run out this game gets a lot harder. At least items are actually useful this time around and I don't have to equip them to use them, just open the menu and use it from there which is how it always should be.

Speaking of which I should talk about the menu system because it's one of the games biggest innovations. Unlike other RPGs that use text-based menus Secret of Mana has a ring menu. Press the menu button and a ring appears around your character with various icons representing different items, weapons, spells or options. Each of these is given its own ring that can be swapped to making it less cluttered and the use of icons makes it easier for anyone to understand. The ring menu is a great addition and would become a staple of the series going forward even making appearances in other square games. You can open up a menu for both the player and AI-controlled characters which you need to do in order to switch weapons and, more importantly, cast spells. The AI will never cast spells on their own, which is good since it means they won't waste MP, so you have to cast them manually. The AI is pretty good when it comes to combat, minus the occasional moments where they get stuck, and you have control over how they act as their AI can be changed in the menu. But if you don't want to play with the AI there's something else you can do. If you get some friends together then they can control the other characters instead. Yes, this game has Co-op with up to three players something that was a late minute addition to the game but a very welcome one. I didn't get the chance to try this feature out but I've heard it works really well.

Combat in Secret of Mana is great but not without its problems. The biggest one being that there are times when you can get stuck between enemy attacks and take massive damage you can't avoid. It doesn't happen often but when it does it's annoying. I didn't notice it much in the overworld it only really happened in dungeons due to how claustrophobic the level design could get. Dungeons themselves have been improved slightly since last time. There are some more puzzle elements added in and now you don't need keys to open doors. They're still a little basic but that's fine. Exploration isn't a big focus in this game with the overworld not having many secrets and having a fairly linear design. I don't see this as a flaw however since it gives the game a quicker pace than most RPGs. The overworld is still fine for what it is and it does have some nice additions like fast travel cannons, no seriously out fast travel by being shot out of a canon it's hilarious and later on, you can fly around the world on a frigging dragon. It's like an airship in Final Fantasy only cooler because it's a God damn dragon.

Unfortunately by the time you get the dragon you reach one of the biggest problems with the game. I mentioned that the pacing was very good earlier on and that is true for the majority of the game but at around the halfway point the pacing of the game takes a nosedive. The entire second act of the game is spent going back and forth between areas you've already been to. You do explore new towns and dungeons though so the game doesn't completely retread old ground. The most egregious part is having to scale the Lofty Mountains several times, it doesn't seem bad at first but by the third time I was sick of it. It's also around this time when the game starts reusing boss fights. The game has 41 boss fights but they only have about 20 original ones and I'm likely being generous with that. Every boss is reused in some way shape or form with very few exceptions. The worst part was the penultimate dungeon where you had to fight the same Dragon boss 3 times, sure they each had a different element but it was still the same fight. The bosses themselves are fun to fight but having them repeated makes the latter half of the game feel a bit lazy though that's probably unfair given the games rough development. One last problem I'll mention is Neko. Neko is a traveling merchant you run into throughout the game that can sell you items, he's also a price-gouging bastard who charges triple what an item is actually worth. Screw this guy he's like the furry version of an eBay scalper.

But I only complain because a game is only as great as its greatest flaw. No game is perfect and The Secret of Mana is no exception but its high points are so towering they completely overshadows its lows. The Secret of Mana is one of the best Action RPGs not just on the Super Nintendo but on any system. Sure it's not as flashy as Kingdom Hearts or as painstakingly designed as Dark Souls but it still carves out its own niche alongside those titles even surpassing them in certain ways. It's aged incredibly well and is essential for fans of the genre. I didn't get the hype when I first played it but I certainly get it now. So that's two games down and both have been excellent, now we only have one game left to go and it's a doozy. Next time I'll be looking at Trials of Mana, it's been a Japanese exclusive for years but now we finally get to play it. Was it a masterpiece we never got or a failure that should have stayed at home, only one way to find out.