An ancient legend long past its time.

Score: 5/10

Heralded in the hearts of many as one of the greatest SNES games of all time, Secret of Mana is one of Square’s most well-known RPGs. Beginning with “Final Fantasy Adventure” on Game Boy (or Seiken Densetsu in Japan), Secret of Mana is the second title in the long-heralded Mana series. With its charming visuals and audio, one might expect an epic of brilliant proportions. But the story underneath was much different than that told on the surface.

All things considered, SoM has some of the prettiest visuals and audio on the SNES. The spritework, which fans might recognize as similar to Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger, is well-animated. It holds up well even today, and the environments are all well-detailed. Battle animations feel satisfying when summoning a spirit to cast magic on everyone. The soundtrack itself is amazing. I’m particularly fond of “Into the Thick of It, the boss theme, Mystic Invasion, and the various town themes as well.

The story involves a boy who finds the Mana Sword and is told to save the Mana Tree. The Mana tree supports all life in the world, and the world will die without it. The evil Emperor is trying to harness the power for himself, and you’re the fated warrior to stop him. For a game of its time, it’s an acceptable story. You’re greeted by a female companion (Primm) and a fairy (Popoi). Your companions learn powerful magic to aid you as you meet new friends, ride a dragon, infiltrate castles, solve mysteries, and fight powerful bosses.

The gameplay was fun, for its concept. It’s a top-down Action/RPG that looks largely like Zelda. It’s like hack-and-slash gameplay, but with more RPG elements, like enemies dodging your attacks. You also charge your “meter” up to 100% to deal optimal damage, rather than mash the button. You can also select magic spells to cast, which vary from healing, to stat boosts, to powerful magic attacks. You use the Ring as your menu to select. Plus, it supports 3-player co-op. Overall, it’s a fun concept.

However, the game begins to tear apart at the seams overtime. First, the Ring system never gets better. It’s constantly a confusing button press to pick and choose who uses what. It’s color-coded based on who’s who, with Y being the character you’re using, and X being the other two. Sadly, there’s also two shades of blue. Secondly, due to the pace of the game and battles, menu commands aren’t always read. Sometimes your character is knocked down and you’ll have to cast twice because the first command wasn’t read. There’s also a status called Unconscious, which eats up time while they’re out. There is also Engulfed, where your character is burning in flames. However, you can’t see the flames sometimes due to a visual glitch. This becomes frustrating quickly, so you’re set to constantly managing your team and babysitting them because your magic didn’t come out when you cast it.

Your partners are also, admittedly, not very smart. People complain that Donald won’t heal them in Kingdom Hearts. At least he doesn’t get stuck behind a wall and drag you backwards. In this game, if you’re on a windy path, your A.I. characters WILL engage enemies in battle, even if you don’t want them to. If you turn a corner, even if one of them is behind, rather than them being called back to you automatically, you have to turn back to get them. This will plague you for the entirety of the game.

The boss battles are highly questionable, and this is where the game truly falls apart. Bosses, such as the Worm Snake, can simply combo you and your characters to death. Yes, combo. No invincibility frames. They’re a sitting duck. Sometimes, bosses that combo you will not let up until your character is dead.

And yet, it’s a complete 180 if you know how to exploit magic. Simply cast powerful magic, chain it with Primm and Popoi, and mash until their HP runs to 0. It’s a polarizing effect that ruins boss battles, turning them into a complete standstill, rinse and repeat formula. This can be exploited from start to finish.

The reason this is optimal is because the miss rate for your melee attacks is insanely high. You can charge or mash all you want, and you will still miss. Even if your weapon and weapon skill are both upgraded, you will go to areas and constantly miss. This becomes frustrating and also lasts the duration of the game. This is why magic is highly emphasized, and why I recommend using it. You will need it to survive boss battles.

The issues with this game are exacerbated by several others. For one, pacing issues. You need to see a sage in the same area four times. It’s pointless, since he tells you to go to a different location, and that’s it. Secondly, in one part of the game, you need to track down a key in Southtown. So fly there, get it, rinse and repeat. Unfortunately, the map in this game labels nothing. You will spend minutes at a time looking for where you need to go. Unless you enjoy aimlessly flying around, a walkthrough and map from the internet are highly recommended. Also, the map that you can load takes over 15 seconds to load. I’m not kidding, and I wish I was.

Another problem that exacerbates the boss issues are the dungeons. There are no save points in dungeons. Only one dungeon has a save point, and it’s near the end of the game. For the rest, you’re on your own. You die, you go back to the save point and lose everything you did. Guess what? You’ll be grinding. But you know what else? You don’t really have to. You can bum-rush back to the boss room, mash your magic, and completely 180 the boss that offed you. Not to mention that, around the middle of the game, you fight a Vampire after a Wall boss. You’re not warned of this, and you can die and lose everything. If you come prepared, yes, you can mash magic and kill both of them in one fell swoop.

Unfortunately, coming prepared has severe limits. These limits include carrying only four Faerie Walnuts at a time. These restore your MP, which you greatly need since melee combat isn’t practical in this game. You can carry only a limited supply of everything. If you’re looking to grind magic, it comes down to these formulas of going back and forth to town quickly. You want to level up your magic so you’re not stuck doing only 1 damage to a boss that’s weak to Shade, for instance.

Also, the opportunities to even buy items and weapons/armor is limited. Bosses and high-level enemies carry money. You can’t sell any kind of loot, and your items are in limited supply. Loot armor from enemies is extremely rare. So you’re stuck farming for gold just to get the armor you need to survive the next dungeon, and then move on.

Finally, the final dungeon just feels rushed. Normally, you can use an Escape Rope to exit a dungeon. In this case, after the giant slime boss, you can’t escape. You’re stuck facing the final two bosses. Thankfully, you can charge melee attacks to finish the first one off. If you cast magic, you will have none left for the final boss. Magic is required, or you will not make it. And with only four Faerie Walnuts, you’ll need everything you can scare up.

The final boss formula involves two magic casts, charge attack, healing, rinse and repeat. That’s it. It’s easy, but a tedious, time-consuming endeavor that screws you over if you no longer have any MP. You aren’t forewarned of this in the game at all. Thankfully, the ending you get is nice, but the arduous journey you must endure dampers the whole experience.

To sum up, I’ll go over the good and bad of this game.

Good:

+Animation and textures

+Soundtrack

+Magic abilities

+Story

Bad:

-Dungeon Design

-Broken bosses that can be trampled with magic.

-Melee combat

-Limited supply for items in lengthy dungeons.

-Pacing

-Areas not labeled, map will not load fast, poor sense of direction.

-Boss A.I.

-Character A.I.

It sounds like a challenging endeavor, when really, it comes down to magic management and exploiting everything in the dungeon. Alternatively, you can grind your heart out if you want to stay safe. You shouldn’t be forced to grind, but if push comes to shove, it’s an option.

Secret of Mana is a beautiful game remembered for its aesthetics. However, aesthetics are no substitute for good game design. Plus, I refuse to accommodate the game just for its age. I find most of the Final Fantasy games, and Chrono Trigger, to be more enjoyable. Mana is its own series, so I don’t compare them based on the types of gameplay.

What Secret of Mana is lacking is polish. Much of what plagues the game happens after you get Flammie, the dragon that functions as the airship. The dungeon and boss quality begin to drop, many of which are just recolored sprites of previous bosses. It feels rushed overall. Conceptually, SoM is a beautiful game. Unfortunately, it’s plagued by many internal design issues that compromise it, getting worse as the game goes on.

If you plan to play SoM at some point, hold your expectations. Don’t jump in expecting one of the greatest games of all time. Play it to uncover a piece of history in gaming and one of Square’s more well-known titles. If you’re curious, it’s at least worth checking into. However, if you’re looking for a quality RPG to sink 30-40 hours into, there are better choices out there.

For the record, I heard some of the issues from the SNES version were fixed on the iOS version. For one, the menu backgrounds don’t look bad at all. The game was also retextured, and the ring system was vastly improved. I heard there were even menu shortcuts, which would be a tremendous improvement.

Also, you can hold out for the upcoming remake on PS4 and Steam. Maybe there is hope after all.

But in the meantime, I’ll say it once more.

Beautiful aesthetics are not a substitute for good game design.