Year:  1993

Developer:  Square

Number of Players:  1-3

Secret of Mana is a game my brother and I played quite a lot when we were in high school.  We did beat this game back then and we felt this was a big accomplishment for us.  Fast forward to the end of last year and my brother and I felt like playing this game again.  After playing the game one night a week over the course of about two months we beat the game again and while not as thrilling as the first time, we did enjoy it.  After the second play through as an adult, I figured it was time for me to write a review about this game.

Secret of Mana is an action RPG that will give you at least twenty hours of game play.  You start with the main hero and one weapon and by the end of the game you have three characters, eight weapons and eight different schools of magic at your disposal.  In between all of that you will explore the world, find multiple upgrades to all of your weapons and meet many of characters.  This all happens as you progress the story of the game which basically boils down to the hero having to gain the power of the eight mana seeds that are scattered throughout the world.  The story was not that bad and their is a little bit of comedy mixed into the early parts of it.  As the game progresses the story tone does become more serious and while it was a good story by the end, I feel games like Final Fantasy had better stories.

Secret of Mana combat is action based so everything happens in real time.  The more you use your weapons and spells they become more powerful and weapons with higher rankings let you do bigger powered up attacks.  With that said, leveling up your weapons and magic is important and doing so will also naturally increase your characters level.  It should also be noted that weapon levels are independent for each character.   Weapons can also help you move around in areas by clearing obstacles in your path or help you get over ledges.  Most enemies have weakness to a certain weapon or magic so once you figure that out it is easy to beat them.  Bosses follow the same logic and most are easy to beat.  The only exception was the second last boss which for some reason gave my brother and I a extremely hard time. 

The game has three main characters that are always on the screen.  While all characters can use weapons, the girl specializes in defensive and healing magic while the sprite focuses on offensive magic.  One big draw is that up to three players can play this game, each controlling a character.  When playing solo you can swap out which character you control and cast spells using the menu for the ones you don't.  You can also set the computer to be more aggressive or defensive when attacking enemies.  When playing two player either player can control any character and cast magic for the one not being controlled by a player if that happens to be the case.  Weapons can be swapped between characters easily from the menu screen and casting magic is just as easy.

I always liked the graphics in Secret of Mana.  The game sprites for the player characters and enemies are detailed and colorful.  The game environments are also colorful and full of detail.  When flying, the graphics are not as good but still looks detailed.  The audio in the game is just as good with the sound effects and music.  The music in particular in this game is really good and while maybe not as popular as the Final Fantasy series, it is still memorable.

Nostalgia is a powerful feeling and I can't say it hasn't affected my feelings on this game.  To me, this is a great game with fun gameplay and great graphics/audio.  The story could have been slightly better but it wasn't bad by any means.  The main draw for my brother and I was the ability to play a RPG together which is something up to that time we really didn't a chance to do.  While this game would have been a good game to play solo, it was only made better by being able to play it with friends and family.