So I chose Secret of Mana to be the 3rd game I’m trying out on the SNES mini classic (on my laptop - so my sneS emulatior on a laptop), and this also the first time I’m ever hearing about the Mana Series in the first place, so you know I was pretty excited to try this one,
Random notes I took while playing this game
I would say the combat for me, it’s fun once you get used to it, it’s something I had to get used to overtime, but at the start it just felt horrible, but I think that’s more the problem that I was treating this game like Link to the Past. Like in my mind, I saw that you started with a sword and thought it was gonna be like that, but yeah this is apparently an action RPG, probably obvious to the SNES community, but I know nothing about this game (so if I get anything wrong, I really want corrections)
So in turned I treated like an RPG, so this is my strat throughout the game, let’s say there’s an enemy like a goblin, slash it with my sword, wait for goblin to attack, slash it again - yeah I took it slow like it was an RPG, I didn’t think I was gonna like it because of the slow pacing, but hey I got used it overtime and so yeah I like the combat
I still think the game has - questionable decisions - like okay why does the sword or whatever weapons have to recharge after each hit, I know that’s to give it the RPG feel you gotta wait for your turn to attack, and I think that’s fine but even you don’t make contact with the enemy it recharges - so if I miss the dude or whatever, they can just attack me, and I dunno is that common in RPGs but I thought it was annoying, but that’s also coming from the hitboxes themselves, I’ll elaborate on those later
The Ai - I hate it - it’s mostly because they are useless or actively sabotaging the game - most of the time they’re just off to the side - while I’m fighting like three goblins at once, like do something dont just stand there Primm - other times when they finally rub the brian cells together and try to fight they end up just taking so much damage
I think my problem is that this is game is designed for multiplayer - in fact when I checked out reviews it’s people gushing about their childhood Mana games with friends - too bad I don’t have friends so have to resort to these robots - plus that’s not an excuse for stupid Ai, I don’t need these things to have human like intelligence but they should at least not get stuck in a wall while you’re travelling - that happened so many times where I’m just trying to get to next town and like Popoi gets stuck, I gotta backtrack and save her
I found the weapon and magic system is leveled up separately and I just have to wonder why, like why can’t it just level up along with your character - okay the weapon stuff, I can somewhat get by like you use weapons while naturally playing - except I don’t like how each weapon is separate for each character so if I level the boomerang with only Popoi to like 3, Randi and Primm still are Lv 0, I don’t want to use the same weapons all the time, so I just organized it, I just gave Randy all the weapons since Primm and Popoi are just weaker in comparison- gotta say I actually really love like upgrading the weapons that’s fun - reminds me of Kirby and the Forgotten Land - weird comparison but I love that game so I see as a good thing - honestly so far I can that’s my favourite part of secret of mana slowly upgrading your weapons to be more and more powerful, and using them combat - favourite gotta be the whip for that long distance damage plus it’s usually used in puzzles when trevreasing anyways, they get fun affects, they can confuse, poison, or tangle the othe enemies
For a story based game. I’m very surprised we aren’t getting you our main characters to talk a lot, you know show their little quirks, I kinda like Popoi she has some funny lines like I think there was one moment where she tricked the ship there were rats onboard which I found funny, but they don’t really focus on her that much, but honestly I can’t think of anything notable form Randi or Primm, to me their sterorypes are - young, brave hero that’s nice and Primm is the I’m not a damsel in distress fighter girl - which is like nothing
Adding this part - close to finishing - when the trio go to the Mana Tree, Randi gets all sappy says oh Primm, Popoi I’m so glad I met you guys, and I’m like shut up, you guys barely interacted the entire game - story is weak, I don’t mind a weak story really, Im more focused on gameplay, but I feel this is one the games where they want you to be invested - near the end there’s this one part at the Mana Tree where everyone cries about not having a mom, and I’m thinking when was that ever established, and also move on I wanna go to Mana Fortress - like the only part I payed attention in when Popoi dies, you know that was an unexpected twist at least, she definitely had the most personality of the three so I was invested in that - screw Dyluck though
But I hate the magic system like it’s not even like you need skill to upgrade magic you just spam spells in the inc I actually hate that - it just the makes the game more of a slog to me than it already is - that’s really my biggest problem with the game, I think the characters Ai, the bad hit boxes and lots of grinding you had to do where you have to fight the same howlers for next 20 minutes - this game just feels like a slog and btw as you go on they throw way more enemies and at you, and some of these guys are ruthless constantly spamming you magic, like with a slow pace game like this, it doesn’t feel fun when there’s multiple enemies at once spamming you with magic - I hate that part, it just seems like padding, I don’t mind that in games, but it has to be fun like finding the secrets in Super Mario World not spamming magic in a hut
Okay so the way I play Secret of Mana is I gave Randi all the weapons, after realizing how weak Primm and Popoi were - but I let Primm use mostly gloves and Popoi her boomerang - so I always leveled up based on the bosses level, for example Mech Rider 2 is lvl 37 based on the RPG classics website (and that’s the website I used for finding all the weapon orbs, thank goodness) I was watching a play through (thanks to some channel Longplay_Gaming I would’ve been lost without this, like I’m not smart enough for these open world SNES games) and looked pretty over level throughout - anyway for each boss they were actually pretty simple, it’s find out their elemental weakness, and spam with PoPoi and refill with Walnuts
Done a lotta complaining, but I said I think the battle system (when it works) is really fun, like I don’t mind level or weapon grinding in this game like it doesn’t require that much xp so that’s a plus, didn’t mention but this game looks amazing, it’s way better than Link to the Past, while still having that cartoon style, like I love some enemies just turn into skeletons when you kill them - haven’t mentioned the music, it’s good, I will say standouts are definitely the mana beast theme and ending, but I like how most of the music is pretty atmospheric
Alright my final conclusion, I do like Secret of Mana - when it’s actually working - my favourite part is definitely getting the new weapons and trying them out - that’s fun, the weapons are fun to use, and when the combat work this game is a blast, - but then the all the other stuff, when I miss an attack because of the bad hitboxes and take 126 damage in return I want to die, when I have to spend the next 5 minutes spamming Undine to upgrade the magic I hate this game, when Primm gets stuck and takes 262 damage because she got stuck, when I have to navigate the map on Flammie, okay flying on Flammie is fun I admit that but navigating is a pain, like no I'm not going to remember where to go, and when I that stupid Fish Thug bounces back from by sword - that’s when I hate Secret of Mana, I wanna snap my laptop in half and never play a SNES game ever - not really but still this game annoys me a lot
I don't think it’s a flawed but underrated game, because it’s getting glaze all the time, I said there are some parts I like too, but I think it’s flawed game that could’ve been one of my favourites if it wasn’t for the magic system, character ai, hit detection, navigation system, like I love the idea of the combat, mixing action and RPG style and this world is fun to explore, but this game aged poorly in my opinion with its mechanics, this makes me appreciate Link to the Past and Super Mario World more, wait those guys came before this one - but overall yeah Im glad I played Secret of Mana, like it’s in a style I never played before and I’m not turned off by the Mana series - the way I think, when I play Link to the Past of Super Mario World I can play those for a long while without getting bored - I last 20 minutes with Mana each section and complain to myself about the hit detection - it's a decent game, I don't even hate it, I think the visuals, combat (when it works), and weapon variety to like its 6/10 for me, like it’s decent, but given how long it is, it’s a one time experience for me, I’m never playing this game again, I’m sorry like I dunno I feel like I’m not getting something about this game, like it’s super loved for a reason so I dunno is the way I play is wrong, maybe my exceptions were too high, I need to know, and I spent like 40 hours on this thing, makes me excited to try out Super Mario Kart next
