Game:

Secret of Mana (1993)

Duration: 15:25

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Gameplay Performed by: TrevorDFox

Secret of Mana, is a 1993 action role-playing game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It is the sequel to the 1991 game Seiken Densetsu, released in North America as Final Fantasy Adventure and in Europe as Mystic Quest, and it was the first Seiken Densetsu title to be marketed as part of the Mana series rather than the Final Fantasy series. Set in a high fantasy universe, the game follows three heroes as they attempt to prevent an empire from conquering the world with the power of an ancient flying fortress.

Rather than using a turn-based battle system like contemporaneous role-playing games, Secret of Mana features real-time battles with a power bar mechanic. The game has a unique Ring Command menu system, which pauses the action and allows the player to make decisions in the middle of battle. An innovative cooperative multiplayer system allows a second or third player to drop in and out of the game at any time. Secret of Mana was directed and designed by Koichi Ishii, programmed primarily by Nasir Gebelli, and produced by veteran Square designer Hiromichi Tanaka.

The game received considerable acclaim for its brightly colored graphics, expansive plot, Ring Command menu system, and innovative real-time battle system. Critics also praised the soundtrack by Hiroki Kikuta and the customizable artificial intelligence (AI) settings for computer-controlled allies.

A 3D remake of the game was announced for PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Microsoft Windows, for release on February 15, 2018.

Secret of Mana was originally planned to be a launch title for the SNES-CD add-on. After the contract between Nintendo and Sony to produce the add-on failed, and Sony repurposed its work on the SNES-CD into the competing PlayStation console, Square adapted the game for the SNES cartridge format. The game had to be altered to fit the storage space of a SNES game cartridge, which is much smaller than that of a CD-ROM. The developers initially resisted continuing the project without the CD add-on, believing that too much of the game would have to be cut, but they were overruled by company management. As a result of the hardware change, several features had to be cut from the game, and some completed work needed to be redone. One of the most significant changes was the removal of the option to take multiple routes through the game that led to several possible endings, in contrast to the linear journey in the final product. The plot that remained was different than the original conception, and Tanaka has said that the original story had a much darker tone. Ishii has estimated that up to forty percent of the planned game was dropped to meet the space limitations, and critics have suggested that the hardware change led to technical problems when too much happens at once in the game. In 2006, Level magazine claimed that Secret of Mana's rocky development was Square's main inspiration to move their games, such as the Final Fantasy series, from Nintendo consoles to Sony consoles in 1996.

The score for Secret of Mana was composed by Hiroki Kikuta. Kenji Ito, who had composed the soundtrack for Final Fantasy Adventure, was originally slated for the project. He was replaced with Kikuta when Ito was forced to drop Secret of Mana due to other demands on his time, such as the soundtrack to Romancing SaGa. It was Kikuta's first video game score.

The English translation for Secret of Mana was completed in only 30 days, mere weeks after the Japanese release, and the North American localization was initially advertised as Final Fantasy Adventure 2. Critics have suggested that the translation was done hastily so that the game could be released in North America for the 1993 holiday season. According to translator Ted Woolsey, a large portion of the game's script was cut out in the English localization due to space limitations. To display text on the main gameplay screen, the English translation uses a fixed-width font, which limits the amount of space available to display text. Woolsey was unhappy that he had to trim conversations to their bare essentials and that he had so little time for translation, commenting that it "nearly killed me". The script was difficult to translate as it was presented to Woolsey in disordered groups of text, like "shuffling a novel". Other localizations were done in German and French. The Japanese release only named the three protagonists in the manual, while Western versions omitted the characters' names until the enhanced port on the iOS.

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