Secret of Mana

Secret of Mana
Developer(s)	Square Co., Ltd.
Publisher(s)	Square Co., Ltd.
Platform(s)	SNES
Release	August 6 1993 United States of America October 3 1993 November 24 1994
Genre(s)	Role-playing game
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer

Secret of Mana (originally released in Japan as 聖剣伝説2/Seiken Densetsu 2) is the second video game in the Seiken Densetsu series, the first of it on the Super NES. Most Westerners were introduced to the series through this particular game, thanks to its release during the height of the Super Nintendo's popularity and the first Seiken Densetsu's release on the Game Boy as the gaiden Final Fantasy Adventure and Mystic Quest — originally, the game was to be released outside Japan as Final Fantasy Adventure II.

Its gameplay is focused on battles fought in real time — that is, active hand-to-hand combat more like that of the Legend of Zelda series, rather than the turn-based battle systems common in games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. The fluidity of the battles is aided by a ring menu system, which allows the player to switch weapons, cast magical spells and also configure the battle behavior of the secondary characters, amongst other functions. The game also features a weapon forging and improvement system - which would be developed more extensively in Legend of Mana, the fourth game in the series. The main protagonist of Secret of Mana is the fighter Randi, who is supported by the spell-casting girl Purim and sprite child Popoie. The main playable characters were given default names in the Japanese release, but no default names were given in the North American or European releases. The three quest to save the Mana Tree, a theme that pairs ecology with spirituality.

Basic concepts

File:Secret of Mana - 1st Boss Battle.png

A screenshot taken while playing the game

Secret of Mana offers the player eight weapons to choose from, including the hero's initial sword. Those include a spear, glove, bow, boomerang, axe, whip and a javelin. As a default setting, Purim joins the party using the glove and Popoie with the boomerang. Weapons can be upgraded through the use of orbs, generally obtained after the successful completion of a boss battle or found as treasures in dungeons. In order for the upgrade to be performed, the weapons must be taken to Watts the Dwarven Blacksmith, who is a staple of the series. One major annoyance to fans is the apparent absence of two weapon orbs, for the axe and the glove. This can be remedied by searching for orbs randomly dropped by specific enemies, but they are very rare. Collecting ten orbs in this way, one for each weapon and two extra for the "missing orbs", allows the player's weapons to reach a secret ultimate level.

Secret of Mana also introduces the elementals concept to the Seiken series. The eight elementals can be found on different locations of the game world, and each has a distinct personality and provides the player with specific spells.

Both weapons and magical powers are given a proficiency scale of nine levels (ranging from 0:00 to 8:99), which are raised according to how much the player makes use of them; higher levels allow for more powerful attacks or stronger spells. Weapons are granted a new, more powerful attack with each level, but with these comes the downside of an increased cumulative charge-up time - the more powerful the attack the player wishes to unleash, the more time he or she will have to spend charging up for the attack and the more vulnerable to enemy attack they are. Spell animations change approximately every two levels, and once an element reaches level 8, there is a chance that a super-powered version of any spell of that element will be performed when cast.

Multiplayer

Secret of Mana can be played simultaneously by one, two or three players. In order to support three players, a Super Multitap accessory must be plugged into the second controller port of the gaming console. Otherwise, the game's artificial intelligence will exercise limited control over the one or two supporting characters. The AI is known for having a notoriously weak path-finding system, which quite often results in supporting characters getting stuck, forcing the player to switch control to them to unlodge them, as an invisible barrier prevents the player from becoming too separated from the other two characters. It is possible to adjust the aggression level of each AI-controlled character, but spell-casting must be performed manually.

Music

The game's soundtrack was composed by Hiroki Kikuta, and is perhaps his most famous work. It is known for its variety of tunes which tend to focus on the use of percussion and woodwind instruments, ranging from a lighthearted dwarves' polka to a somber, wistful snow melody to a tribal-like dance. Its title theme, 天使の怖れ/Tenshi no Ojire (often translated as Angels' Fear) is well known by video game music aficionados for its haunting, echoing piano melody, and has been remixed several times.

Graphics engine

• Secret of Mana began the use of the vibrant color palette for which the series is recognized.
• While flying Flammie — the main means of transportation within the game — Secret of Mana makes use of the SNES's Mode 7 capability. This creates a largely scaled and rotatable background, giving the illusion that the ground below is in 3D.
• Secret of Mana is one of a handful of games to use one of the SNES's high resolution modes, 512x224. It was used for the status screen so that a smaller font of text could be used for the status information.
• A variable width font version of the game is available unofficially, by means of patching a Japanese ROM of the game. The occidental releases of Secret of Mana uses a fixed-width font, which ultimately limits the space avaliable for text within the game. The patch not only implements fonts differently, but also uses an uncut translation of the game's original script.

Storyline

Template:Spoiler Secret of Mana begins with the words, "Time flows like a river, and history repeats", after recounting the tale of a previous generation of people who abused the power of Mana, the life-giving magical "presence", to create the ultimate weapon known as the Mana Fortress. As the story progresses, one discovers that the blade known as the Mana Sword was used to destroy the Mana Fortress.

Randi

File:Randi.gif

Randi, with two friends, is searching for "treasure" in the forbidden woods near his hometown, the village of Potos, when he falls from a bridge across a waterfall. He tries to make his way home, but finds his path blocked by undergrowth. He finds a rusty sword in a pedestal in the middle of a stream and, after being told by a mysterious voice to remove it, he does so and is confronted by a ghostly figure who reveals it was him who asked that the sword was removed. As a result of its leaving the pedestal with a flash of light, unbeknownst to him, monsters begin to roam the land. He comes home, confused by the monsters' appearance, whereupon The Elder of Potos realises that Randi holds none other than the sword which has protected the village from the monsters that now attack it. The attack of the Mantis Ant (which Randi defeats with the assistance of the enigmatic Jema, a knight from Tasnica) is the final straw and the Elder blames the monster invasion on Randi, and subsequently, banishes him from the village. In doing so, he reveals that Randi is an orphan; his father brought him to Potos and died soon after doing so, while his mother was nowhere to be found.

Jema also makes an important discovery: the sword is none other than the Mana Sword, which controls the balance of Mana and thus Randi is charged with its use; but the Sword is weak and must be recharged. He tells Randi to head to the Water Palace, following Jema, to speak with the wise Sage Luka about recharging it, and how an orb he collected from the Mantis Ant can help in doing so. There, on top of this, the sage Luka explains the Sword's history and that a country known only as "The Empire" is seeking to resurrect the Mana Fortress. She further explains that Randi can help counter the Empire's plans by sealing the Mana Seeds housed in the eight Palaces across the world with the Mana Sword. The Seeds themselves come from the Mana Tree, the source of the world's Mana.

The other two player characters have ongoing subplots throughout the game.

Purim

File:Purim.gif

Purim is trying to save her friend Phanna and her love, the soldier Dyluck. She meets Randi after saving him from a band of marauding goblins, but does not leave her name. Later on, she either meets Randi in Pandora Castle, or else is rescued by him (and Popoie) from some werewolves in the Haunted Forest, depending on the player's actions. The people of the Kingdom of Pandora have become zombie-like, so the King charges Dyluck to capture the witch Elinee and to get her to bring the townspeople back to normal. However, Purim has a bad feeling about this and pursues Dyluck, who is captured by Elinee. Once the three main characters arrive, Elinee sends Dyluck to her employer, a mysterious figure known as Thanatos, who is mind-controlling the townspeople from some ruins south of Pandora, so as to build an army to storm the castle and bring down the Kingdom. Phanna is also captured by him and, after he is confronted by the main characters, Thanatos retreats from Pandora to some ruins near Northtown, in the Empire. After some time the characters catch up with Thanatos again, whereupon he releases Phanna but makes another hasty retreat with Dyluck; both are not heard from again until the final stages of the game. Purim's role in the game is mainly the use of support magic, although she also has some destructive spells.

Popoie

File:Popoie.gif

Popoie's gender remains undetermined due to references in the game's script of "he" and "it." Popoie is suffering from the separation from and loss of "its" family, and from the effects of changes in Mana. A flood swept it downstream to the Dwarf Village; in the course of the flood, it begins to suffer from amnesia. The sprite then begins to work in a carnival the Dwarf Elder sets up, but once Randi discovers that the Elder and Popoie have conned him into giving money, he apologises and to make amends, the Elder suggests that Popoie travels with Randi to the Underground Palace, where its memories can be restored. After coming into contact with the Mana Seed there, Popoie remembers it came from a village in the Great Forest in the Upper Land. After travelling there, though, Popoie discovers a monster has killed his family and friends save his grandfather, the keeper of the Wind Palace. Popoie's role is predominantly that of the aggressive, destructive spell-caster.

Subsequent Plot

The rest of Secret of Mana's plot is then a quest to seal the Mana Seeds and to try to thwart The Empire's plans, which are enacted by Sheex, Geshtar, Fanha and Thanatos on behalf of the Emperor Vandole (thought this is only in appearance). The storyline itself past the initial Water Palace visit has limited variability, notably in the order of collecting the other two playable characters and also in the order in which some Palaces and locations (Kakkara and the Ice Country) can be accessed. This is a precursor to the storyline variability particularly found in Seiken Densetsu 3 and the great liberties of Legend of Mana.

After sealing seven of the eight seeds, defeating Geshtar in The Empire, deposing of the impostor King of Tasnica (played by Sheex) and becoming strong through the help of the Sage Joch, Randi and his friends travel to the Sunken Continent, the only part of which above the waves is the Grand Palace. There, it is found that the Seeds have been unsealed and The Empire is ready to resurrect the Mana Fortress. The Continent is raised through the powers of the unsealed Seeds and the party defeats Sheex and Fanha at last on their way to confronting Vandole. However, upon reaching him, they discover he has been killed by Thanatos, who is the true evil mastermind. He resurrects the Mana Fortress, which had been sleeping under the sunken continent.

With the Seeds unsealed, the only way the Mana Sword can keep its power is if it is brought to the Mana Tree itself. Once they travel through the arduous Mana Holyland, the party comes into sight of the Mana Tree when Thanatos appears overhead and fires the Fortress down upon the Tree. In the aftermath, the weakened Mana Tree reveals that the ghostly figure who prompted Randi to take the Sword was his father, and that the Mana Tree is his mother.

They then leave to avenge Thanatos' attack and make their way into the Mana Fortress. There, Thanatos' body is weakened by all the magic he had cast, and thus he possesses Dyluck's body, who dies shortly after giving his farewell to Purim. The three then defeat Thanatos's true form, a fearsome specter known as the Dark Lich. After doing so, a dragon-like creature known as the Mana Beast comes to destroy the Fortress, and then the world to prevent further abuses of the power of Mana. Popoie reveals that by slaying the Mana Beast, it will not be able to survive any longer in Randi and Purim's world, but should Randi not defeat it, then the sprite's spiritual world will be destroyed as well. Randi slays the Mana Beast, and the world(s) are saved.

Connections with other games in the series

File:SeikenDensetsu2.jpg

Seiken Densetsu 2's Japanese box art.

As is the case with many role playing games, the sequels do not make direct connections to the plotlines of the games that precede them (as opposed to the Lunar or Suikoden series). Instead, the games reflect themes, battle mechanics, certain characters and many enemies. Because Final Fantasy Adventure is more directly an off-shoot of the Final Fantasy series, Secret of Mana really is the game that truly begins pulling together elements that help define the Seiken Densetsu series as its own line. Elements from this game that appear in later sequels include the following:

• Mana as the invisible but omnipresent life force of the world. In many games, when Mana is manipulated by evil, it endangers the very planet.
• The elemental spirits as the protectors of nature
• Flammie, a kindly dragon who flies the heroes around to various corners of the globe.
• The Mana Goddess as the primary deity in the universe
• Nearly all of the generic, minor enemies that appear in this game — such as Rabites, Mushbooms, Chobin Hoods, Tonpoles and scads of others — appear in the following games. Some bosses, like the Mantis Ant or the Dark Lich re-appear as well.
• Neko, a purple cat who sells rare goods. The cat, named Nikita in the Japanese version, appeared again in Seiken Densetsu 3. A similar character, the rabbit Niccolo, appears in Legend of Mana and Sword of Mana.
• The Moogles make their third appearance in this game (The first one being in Final Fantasy III and later Final Fantasy Adventure), which is their last appearance in this series. The creatures' appearance in future Final Fantasy games depicts them somewhat differently, but Secret of Mana introduces them as pudgy, pig-like creatures with tiny bat wings. They even speak in their trademark "kupo" language. Their role seems to be played later on by the Dudbears, who appear in Legend of Mana and Sword of Mana.
• With the release of Sword of Mana, an attempt was made to better connect the games in the series. For example, it is very strongly indicated that the empire in Sword of Mana is the remnant of the Vandole Empire from Secret of Mana. This particular point was also present in Final Fantasy Adventure. This may indicate that Secret of Mana is a prequel to Sword of Mana. It should be noted, however, that the maps from the two games are not similar. Also, based on gameplay details, it seems that Seiken Densetsu 3 takes place thousands of years before Secret of Mana. In particular, the characters of Seiken Densetsu 3 must destroy God-Beasts, which strongly resemble Flammie and the Mana Beast, the only two dragons of their kind left in the world.

External links

• PlanetNintendo - Secret of Mana
• Zophar - Secret of Mana
• Secret of Mana Map courtesy of Gamers Graveyard.