A look back at: Secret of Mana

Welcome back to my look backs. Often it's been way too long before I make one of these, obviously due to me doing other things or being caught inside an RPG myself. Though Secret of Mana isn't entirely that long of a game. Plus it's super easy to play through. Surely enough, a lot of what Sword of Mana takes came from here, chest traps, enemies on field, ring menus, spell and weapon levels, AI controlled partners, and a mostly simple storyline. Secret of Mana surprisingly was more linear than I expected, which I sort of am getting tired of at this point.

The game's overall plot ends up being pretty interesting at first, although the part about "finding a weapon and getting monsters released then getting banished from home" was something I saw in Wild ARMs before this, I know this game had that first. The girl's plot of finding her preferred lover was a nice tie-in that manages to combine well enough with the boy's plot of being a chosen one and finding the mana seeds. The sprite's plot is a little less so, but has the somewhat typical amnesia plot, yet the sprite still stays with the group long enough to make things more fun.

Really if there's anything to really take away from Secret of Mana, it's that the game is perhaps one of the few early tries at making a cooperative RPG, one that can have extra players join in and control a character, making the usually frantic action a lot more interesting in ways. The ways characters and enemies flinch ends up being strange and awkward, especially if reactions are delayed in some ways. There's a lot of time I spent grinding weapon and magic levels, then I stopped altogether when I found out the last few weapon orbs end up being random drops in the end dungeon. These kinds of things aren't worth busting your butt over getting, the game is already easy enough at that point where you can beat the final boss in several 999 damage hits. Oh and speaking of hits? Evasion is something I don't understand about this, some enemies just flat out don't get hit at all here, which is because of their evasion stat, but it doesn't make sense often how it occurs. Same with characters at times. Secret of Mana really is a strange game and while I had my fun I'm not sure if I want to relive it again.