Secret of Mana

As I make more progress SoM is rekindling a great feeling of SNES nostalgia. For the uninitiated: the party-based action-RPG engine is basically identical to Secret of Evermore's, but the execution and presentation here are much better if you ask me.

There was a point where the direction of the game stumbled somewhat - I had to go to an underground dwarf town to forge my sword, but then I was blindsided by a girl who needs my help, but when I go to the haunted forest she needs to investigate, we run into an obstacle which can only be overcome with the help of the dwarves, but if I go to the dwarf town first she refuses to go - it was a bit frustrating, and wandering around the map trying to figure out what to do ended up inflating my levels a bit. But after I solved that conundrum, I started going through content at a much more exciting pace.

Battle isn't too hard in general; I set the AI of my party members to very aggressive, and they tend to fend for themselves quite well. But I just got my first magic spells, which will probably complicate matters significantly. The healing spell will be a big help, because thus far the boss fights have been annoyingly difficult due to an extremely low cap on the number of recovery items I can carry (maximum of four of an item, and there are only two healing items).

One of the coolest aspects of Secret of Mana is the sprawling world map. Progress through the game is scripted such that most of the areas you need to get to aren't too great a hassle, but if you get tired of hoofing it there are cannon stations you can find which will fire you to particularly helpful areas of interest. At the same time, all the areas of the game are interconnected, in a manner that really reminds me of Link to the Past, and makes navigation surprisingly fun even without a map.

Progress: Got Undine's Power