Secret of Mana
| Secret of Mana | |||||
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| Original title | 聖 剣 伝 説 2 | ||||
| transcription | Seiken Densetsu 2 | ||||
| Studio | Square | ||||
| Publisher | Square Nintendo of Europe Square Enix (Virtual Console) Square Enix (iOS) |
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| Erstveröffent- lichung |
SNES August 6, 1993 October 3, 1993 November 24, 1994 Virtual Console September 9, 2008 October 13, 2008 December 26, 2008 Apple iOS December 21, 2010 Android October 30, 2014 Switch June 1, 2017 June 11, 2019 PS 4 and Windows February 15, 2018 (Remake)   |
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| platform | SNES , Virtual Console , Apple iOS , Android , Nintendo Switch , PlayStation 4 , Microsoft Windows | ||||
| genre | Action RPG | ||||
| Subject | Fantasy | ||||
| Game mode | Single player , multiplayer | ||||
| control | Gamepad , multitouch | ||||
| medium | 16 Mbit plug-in module , download | ||||
| language | u. a. German | ||||
| Age rating |
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| PEGI content rating |
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| information | ESRB Age Rating: E10 + (Everyone 10+) | ||||
Secret of Mana is a role-playing game for the Super Nintendo , which was published on November 24, 1994 in Europe by Square (now Square Enix ). It was originally released in Japan on August 6, 1993 as Seiken Densetsu 2 ( 聖 剣 伝 説, 2 ). It is the sequel to Seiken Densetsu from 1991, released as Final Fantasy Adventure in North America and Mystic Quest in Europe . It was the first title marketed as part of the Mana series rather than part of the Final Fantasy series. With the help of the Multitap accessory, up to three players can play at the same time. The game was re-released in 2008 for the Wii platform's Virtual Console . On February 15, 2018, a remake for the PlayStation 4 and Steam (PC) was released, which, in addition to improved graphics, also includes English and Japanese voice output.
history
Three boys from the spring village break the village elder's orders and go to the nearby waterfall, which is said to be a treasure. Randi, one of the three, trips and falls down the waterfall. There he finds an old, rusty sword stuck in a stone. An unfamiliar voice tells him to pull it out and free it. When he freed the sword, monsters appear everywhere in Quelldorf and the surrounding area. The villagers see the removal of the sword as a bad sign and ban Randi from Quelldorf forever. An older knight named Gemma soon recognized the sword as the legendary Mana sword and urges Randi to visit the eight mana temples to reactivate the sword's power. On his travels he finally met Prim and Popoi, who accompanied him. Popoi first tries to relieve Randi of his money, but sees in him a way to regain his memory. Prim, on the other hand, wants to find her great love Dulac, who went missing a few months ago.
Eight mana seeds
During their journey, the heroes are pursued by the empire, who want to loosen the seals of the eight mana seeds and use them to resurrect the mana fortress. Neither Emperor Vandol nor his subordinates are aware that they are being manipulated by Thanatos, an ancient magician who has promised to help them take over the world. As the state of Thanatos' body deteriorates, he is looking for a suitable body to occupy. After putting the entire empire into a trance, he kidnaps two suitable candidates: Dulac and a young woman named Phanna. Over time, however, he chooses Dyluck as the final vessel. Eventually the Empire succeeds in unsealing all eight mana seeds. However, Thanatos betrays the emperor and kills him and his men in order to gain control of the mana fortress himself.
The mana tree
The group travels to the Mist Volcano to find the Mana Tree. Thanatos, however, recognizes the plan of the heroes, positions the mana fortress over the tree and destroys it. The cremated remains of the tree speak to the heroes and reveal that a creature named Mana-Dragon will soon be summoned, which will destroy the fortress. But the beast has little control over its power and is likely to destroy the world with it. The tree also explains that it consists of the souls of women of a certain bloodline and that it is speaking in the voice of Randi's mother. She was the wife of Arion, the first mana knight. Arion's ghost had spoken to Randi by the waterfall and made him pull the sword out of the stone so he could stop the beast. With Lufti's help, the trio flies to Mana Fortress and confronts Thanatos, who is making the final preparations to swap his memory with Dulac's. With the last of his strength, Dulac warns the heroes that Thanatos has sold his soul to the underworld and is not allowed to have the fortress under any circumstances. He then kills himself, making Thanatos turn into a skeletal lich that can be easily defeated. Shortly afterwards the mana dragon reveals itself and attacks the fortress. Randi is reluctant to fight the beast because he is afraid that the disappearance of all the mana that would happen with the death of the dragon will also lead to Popoi's end. But Popoi encourages him and so Randi activates the full power of the mana sword. This causes the Mana Dragon to explode, and it turns into snow that falls on the earth. At the end of the game, Randi is seen returning the sword to its rightful place and Popoi's ghost appearing behind him.
development
Secret of Mana was staged and designed by Koichi Ishii , creator of the Game Boy predecessor, Final Fantasy Adventure . He stated that he felt that Secret of Mana was more "his game" than other projects he worked on, such as the Final Fantasy series . The game was primarily programmed by Nasir Gebelli and produced by the experienced designer Hiromichi Tanaka. In addition to better graphics and sound quality than its predecessor, the attack power display has been changed to be even more appealing. The weapon level system replaced the Final Fantasy Adventure system to increase the speed of attack theory.
Multiplayer game
The party system also got an upgrade from the first part. Instead of temporary companions that could not be updated, group members became permanent protagonists and could be controlled by other players. The multiplayer component wasn't part of the original design, but was added when the developers realized they could easily human-control all three characters.
Real-time combat system
As in the first Seiken Densetsu , the fights take place in real time; Players must wait a fixed amount of time between attacks in order to be able to carry out an effective weapon blow. The accompanying characters can also work different spells, whereby the girl has more defensive magic and the goblin mainly wields attack spells. If the companions are not controlled by two additional players, the game takes over their basic control, whereby the player can specify the level of their aggressiveness and the charge of the weapons. In addition to increasing the level of the characters, weapons and spells also increase in their effectiveness through repeated use. The window menu of the predecessor has been replaced by the so-called ring menu , in which objects or spells are displayed as a circle of symbols, which changes the selection by rotating a cursor . The real-time combat system used was described by its developers as an extension of the combat system used in the Final Fantasy titles. The system for experience points and leveling up was carried over from Final Fantasy III . According to Tanaka, the game's combat system has mechanics that were first considered for Final Fantasy IV . Similarly, unused features in Secret of Mana were taken over by the Chrono Trigger team, which (like Final Fantasy IV ) was in production at the time. According to Tanaka, the project was originally planned as Final Fantasy IV with a "more action-based, dynamic overworld". It no longer became Final Fantasy IV , however, but became a separate project codenamed Chrono Trigger during development before eventually becoming Seiken Densetsu 2 . Tanaka said it "always felt like a sequel" to Final Fantasy III to him .
SNES CD add-on
Secret of Mana was originally planned as the starting title for the SNES CD add-on. After the contract between Nintendo and Sony for the production of the add-on failed and Sony converted its work on the SNES CD into the competing PlayStation console, Square adapted the game for the SNES cassette format. The game had to be scaled down because the storage space of a Super Nintendo game cartridge was much smaller than that of a CD-ROM. Due to the hardware change, some functions had to be removed from the game and some completed work had to be performed again. One of the major changes was the removal of the option to take multiple routes through the game, which, unlike linear travel, resulted in multiple possible endings in the final product. The remaining plot was different from the original performance, and Tanaka said the original story was in a much darker tone. Ishii estimated that up to forty percent of the scheduled game was dropped to meet space constraints, and critics noted that the hardware change created technical issues if too much happened in the game at once.
translation
The English translation for Secret of Mana was completed in just 30 days or just a few weeks after its release in Japan and the North American localization was originally advertised as Final Fantasy Adventure 2 . Critics noted that the translation was hastily done so that the game could be released for the 1993 Christmas season in North America. According to translator Ted Woolsey, a large part of the game's script was cut out in the English localization due to lack of space. To display text on the main game screen, the English translation uses a fixed-width font. This limits the space available for displaying text. Woolsey was unhappy that he had to cut conversations and that he had so little time for translations, and commented that it "almost killed him". The script was difficult to translate as it was presented to Woolsey in disorganized text groups such as "shuffling a novel". Other localizations were made in German and French. In the Japanese version only the three protagonists were mentioned in the manual, while in the western versions the names of the characters were omitted up to the extended port of the iOS.
music
The original score for Secret of Mana was composed and produced by Hiroki Kikuta. Kenji Ito, who composed the soundtrack for Final Fantasy Adventure , was originally intended for the project but was replaced by Kikuta after starting other projects like Romancing SaGa . Secret of Mana was Kikuta's first video game score and he struggled to deal with the Super NES's hardware limitations. Kikuta tries to express two "contrasting styles" in music. Create a score that would not be pop music or standard game music.
Kikuta mostly worked alone on the music, spending nearly 24 hours a day in his office, switching between composing and editing to create a soundtrack that he thought would be "immersive" and "three-dimensional". Rather than having sound engineers create the samples of instruments like most game music composers of the time, Kikuta created his own samples that matched the hardware capabilities of the Super NES. With these custom samples, he could know exactly what each piece would sound like on the system's hardware, so he didn't have to worry about differences between the original composition and the Super NES. Kikuta stated in 2001 that he considered the score for Secret of Mana his favorite creation. The music on the soundtrack contains both "ominous" and "light-hearted" tracks and is known for the use of bells and "dark, solemn pianos". Kikuta's compositions for the game were partly inspired by natural landscapes and music from Bali.
Title screen
Due to hardware restrictions, the title screen of the game slowly faded in and Kikuta designed the title track for the game Fear of the Heavens to synchronize with the screen. At the time, composers rarely tried to match the music of a game with the graphics. Kikuta also started the track with a “whale sound” instead of a traditional “ping” to try to “connect the player more deeply with the game” from the start. Getting the sound to work with the Super NES's memory limitations was a tough technical challenge. An official soundtrack album, Seiken Densetsu 2 Original Sound Version , was released in Japan in August 1993 and contains 44 songs from the game. An English version, identical to the Japanese original except for the localized packaging and title titles, was later released in North America in December 1994 as the Secret of Mana Original Soundtrack. This makes Secret of Mana one of the first Japanese games to inspire a localized soundtrack release outside of Japan. An album of arranged music by Secret of Mana and its sequel Seiken Densetsu 3 was produced in 1993 as Secret of Mana + . The music on the album was all composed and arranged by Kikuta. Secret of Mana + includes a single track called Secret of Mana , which features themes from the music of Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3 , which were still in development at the time. The album's style has been described by critics as "experimental" using "strange noises" such as waterfalls, bird calls, cell phone noises and "typing noises". The music has also been described by critics as covering many different musical styles, such as "Debussian Impressionist styles, his own heavy electronic and synth ideas, and even ideas from popular musicians". The latest music album from the game is a 2012 arranged album entitled Secret of Managenese / Seiken Densetsu 2 Arrange Album . The 16 tracks are updated versions of the original Super NES tracks, and Kikuta said in the liner notes for the album that they "wanted the music to sound like he wrote it" without the limitations of the Super NES hardware . However, critics like RPGFan's Patrick Gann noted that the differences were small.
Remake 2018
The music for the 2018 remake, which includes remastered versions of the original soundtrack, was overseen by Kikuta and arranged by numerous game composers such as Yuzo Koshiro and Tsuyoshi Sekito. The soundtrack was released as an album titled Secret of Mana Original Soundtrack , shortly after the remake was released in February 2018.
reception
The reviews for Secret of Mana were generally positive. The game received praise for its visual and acoustic design, as well as its multiplayer capabilities. The game received considerable recognition for its colorful graphics, expansive storyline, ring menu system, and innovative real-time combat system. Critics particularly praised the soundtrack by Hiroki Kikuta. In retrospect, gamers also rate the game as being of high quality. In 2006, readers of the Japanese Famitsu magazine selected a list of the 100 best video games, among which Secret of Mana came 97th. The poor artificial intelligence of the companion figures was noted negatively.
“I experienced this amazing game just as the Playstation was about to be released, and in that respect it serves as a fitting swansong to the 16-bit era in my eyes. [...] The music is some of the best you are likely to hear ANYWHERE, let alone on the SNES. "
“I saw this amazing game shortly before the PlayStation was released , and in that respect it fits as swan song of the 16-bit era. [...] The music is probably one of the best you can hear anywhere, let alone on the SNES. "
IGN rated the game as part of the Virtual Console re-release in 2008 and appreciated the fact that a three-player game on the Wii console does not require any additional accessories other than gamepads.
“The game's appeal hasn't dropped off at all in the past 15 years, and elements like the leveling-up system and ring menus continue to feel unique even after a decade and a half. [...] there are many more reasons it's been named to the Top 100 Games of All Time, so many times, over the years. […] Secret of Mana is well worth your notice […] you can rediscover (or experience for the first time) one of Squaresoft's most loved 16-bit SNES classics. "
“The appeal of the game has not diminished in the past 15 years, and elements such as the tier system and ring menus still feel unique even after a decade and a half. [...] there are many reasons why it has been named one of the 100 best games of all time so many times over the years [...] Secret of Mana is well worth your attention [...] You can download one of Squaresoft's most beloved 16-bit games Rediscover classics for Super Nintendo (or experience them for the first time). "
Web links
- Official Website (Square Enix)
- Secret of Mana OST
- Secret of Mana OST Remake
- Secret of Mana walkthrough
- Secret of Mana Pedagogical Assessment (FH Cologne / JA Cologne)