Review: Secret of Mana

This is one of those legendary games. Mention Secret of Mana in the right circles and you'll get the same reaction as dropping a 'really underrated indie band' in a circle of hipster musicians. It's one of those games where people put their hands to their heart because they can't possibly contain the love they have for what it offers to them. Well, I finally played the entire game. And I don't get it.


Before I get all negative, let's discuss the game itself.

"We HATE swords."

You start the game by finding a sword in a river and are then banished from your sword-and-river-hating home town. As you explore the different towns and dungeons, you come across and girl and a young male sprite who remain your companions for the rest of the game.

The battle system is actually really interesting. Imagine Zelda's battle system with a recharge timer - so every time you swing your sword, you have to wait a few seconds to recharge your energy. When you start out as only one character, it's incredibly boring as you're just pressing the B button every few seconds with no defensive strategy or magic to cast. But once you incorporate the other two characters, who can wield magic, and can have their behaviors set on the back end to how often they attack, it becomes very engaging. 

The graphics and the music are incredible for their time. Even though there are no overlaps in music or art direction staff, I was consistently reminded of Chrono Trigger through the audio visual presentation. That is about the highest compliment a SNES game can get - and this game out two years before Chrono Trigger.

So, the battle system is not the issue. The presentation is not the issue. The story is where it falls apart for me.

There is simply no motivation to keep going. Or even start going! There's a bad guy that shows up two or three times throughout the 25 hour experience, and he's kinda bad, I guess. But I saw no big worldwide tragedy or personal vendetta that would instill in me a desire to go on this huge quest with forty bosses.

Oh what's that? Forty bosses? Yup. I counted:

Forty goddamn bosses.

"But people love bosses! They're exciting!"

True, but after ten or so the panic and adrenaline rush of confronting a big baddie kinda wears off.

Think about another game of this genre; heck any good game of any genre. Within the first act, you know what you're fighting to save or protect or prevent.

Zelda II. Zelda is in an eternal slumber on the VERY FIRST SCREEN. There's your motivation.

Chrono Trigger. The future is bleak and awful for everyone. There's your motivation.

Midgar's a shithole, Andrew Ryan is a psycho and must be stopped, and the princess is in another castle! Motivation!

He must be stopped!

 Secret of Mana banishes you from your village. Go kill the local wildlife, I guess? No foreshadow of doom and destruction? No dark ceremony that creeps out the player and sparks a natural curiosity? Not even a kidnapped princess? Well then why the hell am I even going to the trouble?

In the end, I killed a big dragon with a bunch of hit points and felt nothing. There was no vengeance. No sense of justice. No sense of achievement even. It felt like the entire point of the game was to get strong enough to fight the final boss, who has no bearing on the story until the last 20 minutes.

I see why people like it. It's a charming, well built RPG that came out in the golden age of the RPG. But for me, I need something to keep me going that long. And whatever it is...it's still a secret to me...

Final Grade: C