Genre: Action RPG
Year: 1993
Developed by: Square
Published by: Square
Platforms: SNES, a few others
#75
Feeling Like: A fairy walnut
Secret of Mana’s weakness is its gameplay, but you can hardly blame Square. After all, they created a fully functional action role playing game on a console, not a PC. Not just an action RPG, but an action RPG where you had two other party members fighting right alongside you. Not just an action RPG where you had two other party members fighting right alongside you, but one where two friends could control them in real time. Name me another Super Nintendo RPG that had cooperative multiplayer. Ok, Final Fantasy 6 had it, but that’s not quite the same.
While I had like-minded buddies who were as obsessed with video game as I was, setting up a Secret of Mana party was not easy. Primarily, the game had to be available at the rental store. It often wasn’t. Spotlight and Blockbuster would often have dozens of copies of the latest from Hollywood, but semi-niche games from Japan were not subject to the same treatment. Not only that, we needed the multitap accessory. And three controllers.
So on the rare occasion when the stars aligned, and the hardware danced with the software, and Dobbo and Eric and Dave V were free, we tried to speed through the entire game. In one night.
We never could, of course. Howlongtobeat.com has the main story running at 22 hours. What were we thinking? I’d progress the story up until the point where the girl and the sprite joined the group before my friends came over, so we weren’t wasting time watching me slog through the first few hours solo. Even with very little food breaks and adamant claims that we weren’t getting tired, we usually conked out around 4am, and well before the final boss. It was fun to try. God, it was fun to try.
I know it’s because I grew up with the system, but I love the graphics. I really do. I love how caves are visible through waterfalls, I love how every stage has a different color theme, I love how fog rolls in, how vibrant the flowers look, how detailed the sprites are. Hell, even the brutally pixelated world map is endearing. Developers back then didn’t have the resources to build impossible worlds in 3D, so they had to settle for making the player feel like they inhabited gargantuan, breathing places. They could only do that with what they were given, and it’s games like Secret of Mana that pushed the system to its limits. It’s rare where you can immediately tell what a game is by showing just a single screen, any screen, and Secret of Mana is one of those games.
I mentioned the gameplay as the weakness, and it’s not exactly robust in terms of story and characters either. The story is pretty rote, evil empire and whatnot. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before and even in 1993 it wasn’t the selling point. While being able to choose among a vast arsenal of weapons was a nice touch, the hit detection wasn’t always up to the task. If all three of us swarmed an enemy and swiped our swords, or lashed our whip, or smashed our axes on them, the system would sort of recognize one attack and show the damage output. Then the next number….then the next number. Maybe. Don’t even ask what happens when we tried to spam magic on the same enemy, you could practically hear the game trying to queue up all the commands and pondering what to show us. It was better to spread out and take turns striking an enemy, which required a good amount of coordination and planning. Not ideal, but not a deal breaker.
If I’ve sounded overly critical, m’scusi. It’s one of those games that if you played today, you wouldn’t get it. I wouldn’t have it nearly as high on the 500 without the fond memories of playing alongside three of my best buddies in the 680 Oliver St. living room (we’d yet to colonize the basement). The charm and eagerness of the presentation, as a whole, is superb but that’s not the reason it’s so high on the 500.
The music is.
I’ve gushed about video game songs all over the 500. I’ve mentioned how if I ever wanted to do a similar ranking, but just with soundtracks, I’d pick a much smaller number and have an even more difficult time doing it. But it’s easy to say what my ultimate soundtracks are off the top of my head – both Chrono games, Xenogears, Final Fantasy 6, Final Fantasy 10, Flower, Journey, Ikaruga, both Ori games…OK you know what? This isn’t easy at all. But the titles I just mentioned have a permanent home on my Winamp playlist. I could listen to them all in full, on repeat, for the rest of my days and I wouldn’t get sick of them.
Secret of Mana might top them all. It is staggeringly good, like I truly can’t believe these sounds came out on this machine.
“Angel’s Fear” is iconic, and unforgettable. Why are there whale sounds at the beginning? Who cares, it lulls you in with a mystical lullaby before encouraging you to take the journey of a lifetime.
“Eternal Recurrence” is the type of foreboding tune I’m here for. It starts out creepy, then builds to something full of hope.
“Flight Into the Unknown” is so good, you won’t mind getting lost in the air trying to land Flammie for the first time.
“Into the Thick of It” plays about five minutes from beginning a new game. What a way to kick things off!
“Rose and Ghost” is way too good for a light hearted RPG about a magic tree.
“Oracle” has to be one of the most metal boss themes ever. It sounds like a merry-go-round has been possessed and won’t stop spinning.
“Star of Darkness“. Unreal.
If I had to pick a favorite, it’s probably “Prophecy“. This plays when you’re flying with Flammie and shit is going down. You’re approaching the penultimate dungeon and it’s the last chance to stock up, help others and save the world. I cannot listen to this and not close my eyes – you want to feel like you’re riding on Falkor from the NeverEnding Story? This is as close as you’ll get.
I bow to Hiroki Kikuta.
I had to stop posting more links, otherwise I’d just list every single song. It’s not often that a soundtrack alone can elevate a game and justify its placement in video game lore, unless the quality is this high. It’s absolutely crucial to setting mood and evoking emotion, when the writing and other fundamentals of RPG storytelling aren’t as strong. Combine that with co-operative multiplayer and a grand campaign that saw us vanquishing evil together and you’ve got a perfect cap off for Approaching the Stars.
The 500 