Secret of Mana

Gameplay hours later, I've defeated the Empire, rescued humanity from a rampaging monster, and destroyed a giant metal floating harbinger of doom. Though a handful of dungeons felt chorelike (the labyrinthine risen continent, for instance), most of the game was hard to put down. However! I feel that at least some of this effect can be attributed to my use of a walkthrough, which I did because otherwise I would have wandered around aimlessly for quite some time inbetween nearly every major game event.

In general, I am of the opinion that Secret of Mana - while certainly an impressive title with a well-deserved legacy - has not aged as well as some of its peers, specifically Chrono Trigger and Tales of Phantasia. The vague storyline (and accompanying lackluster, sometimes awful translation) is one factor. Others lie in frustrating design decisions: early in the game, the only way to heal is with items, which you simply cannot carry enough of. After earning the ability to heal with magic, your party is then stifled by a depressingly low amount of max MP, and impossibly expensive MP restore items. By the time MP reaches practical levels, the game has already reached a point where healing is trivial.

Most bothersome to me, on a professional level, are the technical issues. Oftentimes, when I order my party members to cast a spell, a message will display indicating that they are doing so, but in fact they are not doing so, and are instead sitting on their duffs or futilely flailing away at a boss. Then there is the spastic hit registration - when an enemy is knocked down by a blow, a period of time must pass before subsequent attacks will harm it - a period of time which is sometimes ambiguous, and often pre-empted by my stupid party members with weak, girly attacks. After seeing the credits, I can't say I'm surprised; each part of the game engine had only one programmer, eight of them altogether.

But despite these complaints, I must commend the gameplay mechanics, and especially the battle interface / ring menu system. It took me a while to get used to it, but once I did it became second nature. It is a really nice way to play an RPG, and I'm not surprised they've made so many more out of it. The combat is really deep; a bevy of equippable weapons, and dozens of magic spells, make it easy to liven up the hacking and slashing with a little variety.

Because of all the ways it's irritated me, I can't help but be a little harsh on Secret of Mana. Nevertheless, it's a really fun game, provided you have something to help you along the way.

Progress: Saved the world