by Adam Karnes

Created on: January 07, 2009

Every video gamer has a select number of personal favorites. These are the games that the nostalgic types lie in bed late at night and dream about, reliving the first time they cracked open the box and either slammed a cartridge or slid a disk into a classic console. For me, few titles come sooner to mind when I ponder my favorite gaming experiences than the Square Enix classic, The Secret of Mana.

The Secret of Mana debuted on the Super Nintendo in 1993. Featuring colorful, almost hand-drawn looking graphics, the game was (and still is) a delight to the eyes. Perhaps most significant, Mana featured a multiplayer option. No console RPG had yet offered a real-time multiplayer function, and for RPG fans who enjoyed playing games with friends the feature was a huge bonus. Mana allowed not only two players to brave the adventures of an RPG world, but three. (The Super Nintendo was the first console to feature three to four player games. An accessory called the Multi-tap plugged into the second controller port and expanded the total connectible controllers to four.) Playing The Secret of Mana with three players gave the game a different feel from any other RPG up to that time-the experience was somewhat similar in a small way to modern MMOs.

Storyline in the Secret of Mana is typical of Japanese RPGs. A boy in an obscure village is confronted by a ghost who tells him that he is fated to save the world. The boy discovers a magical sword and is suddenly confronted by monsters that have covered the world without warning. The boy is joined by two friends, a girl and a sprite, who help him to wander the map, defeating monsters in dungeons and tracing the origin of the discord in the world. Eventually they reach the Tree of Mana and discover that the power that balances the world has been destroyed. Soon a powerful monster will be unleashed that will obliterate the world. The heroes defeat the monster and save the world.

Game play in The Secret of Mana follows an adventure game style of action rather than the file menu approach of most Super NES RPGs, such as the Final Fantasy series. The action is closer to the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. A variety of weapons keep fighting interesting, with such choices as swords, javelins, and whips. Weapons utilize a creative charging function as a character's familiarity with the particular weapon improves. Each level of weapon experience allows the character to charge the weapon (enacted by holding down the attack button) and unleash the attack when the desired amount of power is reached. Magic spells also figure prominently in the game. The spells also feature a leveling system relative to each character. Monsters are fought in real time and on the same screen that the characters move around on. (Battles do not take place on a separate screen). Each monster has a hit point value. Attacks register a numeric value that displays on screen.

All in all, The Secret of Mana offered an excellent, unique RPG experience for gamers on the SNES, and continues to please RPG and adventure game aficionados. This reviewer gives the game a 9/10 for its time, although for contemporary gamers, the title may seem to lack depth compared to modern software.

The Secret of Mana spawned several sequels for Playstation and Game Boy consoles. The original game is now downloadable on the Virtual Console feature of the Ninendo Wii.

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