Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2 in the USA) is the continuation of Final Fantasy Adventure (also called Mystic Quest) which was made for the gameboy. It still follows the same concepts of the Tribe of Mana. The Mana Tribe are a group of people who must maintain balence in the world. To do this they must make sacrifices. The men of the tribe become the Mana Sword and the women of the tribe become the Mana Tree. The Mana Knight uses the sword to protect the tree from evil. The characters do not have set names in this adventure, you name them yourself which is pretty nifty.
There are several things that make this a great game.
[1]Storyline: the characters are well made, the dialogue is simply awesome. Its a very long game and this makes it fun. Most people spend days if not weeks on this game. Its not short by any means at all.
[2]Weapons system: You acquire a plethora of weapons, each weapon you must level up just as you level up your characters via experience points. The weapons also go through changes using the Mana Orbs that you get after you beat each boss. You can do special attacks with each weapon depending on how leveled up it is and how long you charge it with the attack button.
[3]Magic system: You choose from a great host of Elemental Spirits to cast your offensive, defensive, and healing spells. Each time you use a spell you level up that elemental. There's also a bit of an easter egg, you can level your magic's up to level 8.99 and you'll notice a change to each spell. For instance if you get Gnome up to level 8.99 and cast "Earth Slide" you'll see the mud ball is larger and has a face. Salamando's "fireball" turns into 3 serpent-like fire dragons that encircle your enemies. Sylph's "Air Blast" changes from 3 blades of air to a large yellow tornado.
[4] Color!: Some games just aren't colorful enough, S.o.M. is definately not one of them! All the colors as well as the characters themselves are very vibrant and bright, even those gothie badguys.
[5] Travel: You do lots of travel in this game, a good bit of it is on foot. You're other method of travel is by cannon. The game map is flat the same way it is in T.o.P. and Secret of Evermore but still pretty neat looking. Later in the game you get Flammie, the legendary White Dragon. How cool is riding on the back of a dragon eh? Kinda makes ya' feel like Bastian from Never Ending Story.
This has to be one of the best RPG games Square ever made. To be honest, I'd rather play the older stuff than the newer fancy-schmancy Final Fantasy X2's or Everquests or Zelda: Windwakers. So its 3-Dimensional.. big whoop! Give me 2D game sprites and decent gameplay. I'm an emulation puritan and damn proud.
If you liked this game, try to find translated versions of Seiken Densetsu 3 and Tales of Phantasia. Also try Tales of Destiney for the Playstation (it has a story very similar to S.O.M.'s) You definately won't be bored with those games. In fact you just might get obsessed with them like me ^_^ Though sadly it seems like there is a lack of sites to get emulated games nowadays, good thing I've got my collection backed up on CDR.
Preserve our video-game heritage!
There are several things that make this a great game.
[1]Storyline: the characters are well made, the dialogue is simply awesome. Its a very long game and this makes it fun. Most people spend days if not weeks on this game. Its not short by any means at all.
[2]Weapons system: You acquire a plethora of weapons, each weapon you must level up just as you level up your characters via experience points. The weapons also go through changes using the Mana Orbs that you get after you beat each boss. You can do special attacks with each weapon depending on how leveled up it is and how long you charge it with the attack button.
[3]Magic system: You choose from a great host of Elemental Spirits to cast your offensive, defensive, and healing spells. Each time you use a spell you level up that elemental. There's also a bit of an easter egg, you can level your magic's up to level 8.99 and you'll notice a change to each spell. For instance if you get Gnome up to level 8.99 and cast "Earth Slide" you'll see the mud ball is larger and has a face. Salamando's "fireball" turns into 3 serpent-like fire dragons that encircle your enemies. Sylph's "Air Blast" changes from 3 blades of air to a large yellow tornado.
[4] Color!: Some games just aren't colorful enough, S.o.M. is definately not one of them! All the colors as well as the characters themselves are very vibrant and bright, even those gothie badguys.
[5] Travel: You do lots of travel in this game, a good bit of it is on foot. You're other method of travel is by cannon. The game map is flat the same way it is in T.o.P. and Secret of Evermore but still pretty neat looking. Later in the game you get Flammie, the legendary White Dragon. How cool is riding on the back of a dragon eh? Kinda makes ya' feel like Bastian from Never Ending Story.
This has to be one of the best RPG games Square ever made. To be honest, I'd rather play the older stuff than the newer fancy-schmancy Final Fantasy X2's or Everquests or Zelda: Windwakers. So its 3-Dimensional.. big whoop! Give me 2D game sprites and decent gameplay. I'm an emulation puritan and damn proud.
If you liked this game, try to find translated versions of Seiken Densetsu 3 and Tales of Phantasia. Also try Tales of Destiney for the Playstation (it has a story very similar to S.O.M.'s) You definately won't be bored with those games. In fact you just might get obsessed with them like me ^_^ Though sadly it seems like there is a lack of sites to get emulated games nowadays, good thing I've got my collection backed up on CDR.
Preserve our video-game heritage!