Secret of Mana: A Good Game With The Great Cut Out

[Kinitawowi]

I'd always heard the hatchet job being blamed on translation problems. Five Japanese characters can say a lot more than five English letters and the result was a heavily stilted script - they did what they could to patch it together but simply ran out of space, hence the cuts.

Still a damn good game though. But, like you say, not quite great.

 

[sXeth]

It falls in a an a natural line of evolution. You can't really criticize it for not being very 'Square' when the company was still figuring out how to implement stronger characterization and narrative. FFV was close to FFIV than it was to FFVI, and that was where Square really started stepping up their game in story telling. Ironically while it's what they're known for they weren't the pioneers, I'd give that credit to Sega with Lunar: The Silver Star on the Sega CD, released in 92. Back to Secret of Mana I view it as Squares their last hurrah for that older 8-bit/early 16-bit 'keep it simple and leave things up to your imagination' style of JRPG.

Though to be honest I never knew or even realized when I last played it that a lot of content was cut. That's rather unfortunate.

Eh, FF4 was pretty dense in its storytelling and characters. Possibly on par with FF6 in terms of core cast (6 obviously had more characters, and better villains then FF4's)

I always kind of had the impression that Secret of Mana had some sort of issues, though I've never gone back and fully revisited it. I do distinctly remember as a completionist type in my youth that several of the weapons were missing their ultimate upgrade orb, and levelling up the late game magic was excessively grind-ridden (due to how jammed in it was).

 

[meiam]

The mana series is one where I will say Yarr there be some might fine booty on the internet. If nintendo/square don't want to release it properly (and seiken densest 3) then I think people should feel justified in playing them other way. And also live-a-live, bahamut lagoon and rudora no hiou (sigh square what happened).

 

[ghalleon0915]

That's amazing, I never knew all the stuff that was left out. Although I guess in hindsight it worked out since it helped make Chronotrigger a great game. I'm also glad to see I wasn't the only one who enjoyed Secret of Evermore, I enjoyed collecting/hunting ingredients for my alchemy in that game.

 

[Gindil]

Well damn... Where can I find out about the cuts for this game? I never even knew...

 

[Karadalis]

secret of evermore was what secret of mana wanted to be.

evermore had superior story, superior combat, superior setting... maybe the writer has also played secret of evermore and will compare the 2 in an article.

Disagree strongly... the alchemy system was shite, you spent way to much time following your dog and grab random ingredients.

secret of evermore was a cashgrab with less variety in weapons, it was a shorter game with allmost no musical score and what was there was bad in comparison to secret of manas memorable and epic score, less character diversity, a bad magic system that had you constantly spend time spamming a button while hugging walls and other objects to find ingredients and the story had you stumble from one area to another with short term goals that never seemed to impact the world at all with no emotional attachment to any of the characters that you met along the way. Name me 3 memorable characters in that game that had unique sprites? Not that any of the characters had so much as a background story or did much anyways.

It was a copy of a much better game, trying to cash in on manas success.

Terranigma was a far better game.

 

[Nixou]

Disagree strongly... the alchemy system was shite, you spent way to much time following your dog and grab random ingredients.

That's the thing: Evermore's the superior game by virtue of making you the Dog's sidekick.

 

[NPC009]

It was a copy of a much better game, trying to cash in on manas success.

Hey, a lot of work went into that 'copy'. It was a big project not only because it was one of the first big console RPGs being developed in the US, but also because they didn't actually reuse any of Secret of Mana's assets. While both games uses similar systems they were actually rewritten for Secret of Evermore.

You can read more here:
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2009/04/interview_with_brian_fehdrau_secret_of_evermore
http://tay.kotaku.com/the-story-behind-the-only-square-rpg-developed-in-north-1640340675

 

[ssManae]

Name me 3 memorable characters in that game that had unique sprites?

Fire Eyes, Horace, and Carltron. I wouldn't fault the lack of back story for the "real" characters, though. It was unimportant to the story. What and why they were where they were--and what was going wrong--were all revealed during the game, and the only background information needed was included in that.

I liked the alchemy system, to a point. It's biggest flaw was that leveled alchemy became powerful to the point of taking the time to grind later spells was pointless. Grab Flash, Crush, and a few healing and buff spells and ignore everything else that isn't required for progressing at whatever point you're at. Unless you specifically set out to grind out the higher-level spells to at least half the level your previous tier one was at, it did less damage. That was too small a boost. Finding ingredients wasn't a problem. Most of them were the standard RPG search, but instead of looking in every pot you just did a quick check of every little alcove in the path that wouldn't have a purpose except to have a loot. You could even save time by making the dog take a quick sniff--if he moved right away there was something to grab, and if he didn't it was pretty safe to move on.

I likewise have no problems with the weapon selection. So what if there weren't a dozen different types. They weren't needed in this game, and any gate mechanics were taken care of with alchemy. (On that line, what was the point of the later whip-posts in Mana? I mean, it was a gate earlier. Afterwards it's just an annoyance to make you switch weapons if you didn't have the whip on someone, cross, and switch back...) Besides... FEMUR OF FURY. I still get a kick out of that description.

Above all, though, I owe Evermore a great debt. It might not be up to snuff compared to Japanese Square releases, but if not for using the similar naming (which I agree was a little cash-grabby) I never would have played Mana. It was in looking to buy Evermore after playing my grandmother's copy that I was only able to find SoM and bought it anyway since I figured it was a sequel or prequel.

 

[Jadedvet]

It was obvious enough to anyone who played the US release that so much was cut. There were locations on the map that had sad empty buildings that did nothing. Remember the lighthouse? Then, as the author pointed out, the interesting bits of story just called it quits a short ways into the game. There was a band of Team Rocket style villains who showed up to provide some entertainment. They just vanished without resolution.

Still, I loved the game, warts and all. To this day I cannot forgive Square for not bringing Mana 2/ SD3 to the states. Playing it later on an emulator only reinforced my belief that it would have been my all time favorite SNES game.

 

[b.w.irenicus]

Man, I didn't know about all the cut content. All in all I have to agree with the article. SoM was my second SNES-RPG (the first was Illusion of Gaia) and I loved it. Its story and charcters however are kinds lackluster. Still, if you can find some friends to play it in co-op, it's a blast.
Oh, and the opening music still send chills down my spine. Awesome!

 

[StorkV]

Great article

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Great article but "Chrono Trigger" and "cult classic" are two words that never belong in the same sentence.

I agree; how on Earth could arguably the best RPG ever made be a "cult classic"? That's like calling "The Godfather" a cult classic or calling Shakespeare a pretty decent playwright.

Because RPGs in and of themselves are fairly niche. Even today, a household name like Skyrim is more of the exception than the rule, and even that's a game that RPG fans would argue only borderlines on RPG territory. Before Skyrim, the last time an RPG could said to be of "household name" status was Final Fantasy 7. So... yeah, when a genre is itself a bit of a "cult" genre, then any game that's popular in the genre is also going to be of cult status.

 

[ClockworkAngel]

I know pretty much every game has cut content, but those kinds of cuts make me sad. It's never fun when a vision has to be butchered because of any kind of restraint. Xenogears suffered the same fate (as did Xenosaga, if what I've heard is true).

Still, I have fond memories of Secret of Mana and, as a child, the story seemed quite dark to me. Random trivia: I often, to this day, catch myself beatboxing the song "Steel and Snare" (which is far from my favorite SoM song) when I'm doing "busy work" in games. The most recent example is when I'm farming echoes/vials/bullets in Bloodborne.

 

[Tawanda]

Great article , it makes you wonder which other games get butchered , I remember reading Bioware cut ALOT of stuff from DI.

 

[Gorrath]

Great article but "Chrono Trigger" and "cult classic" are two words that never belong in the same sentence.

I agree; how on Earth could arguably the best RPG ever made be a "cult classic"? That's like calling "The Godfather" a cult classic or calling Shakespeare a pretty decent playwright.

Because RPGs in and of themselves are fairly niche. Even today, a household name like Skyrim is more of the exception than the rule, and even that's a game that RPG fans would argue only borderlines on RPG territory. Before Skyrim, the last time an RPG could said to be of "household name" status was Final Fantasy 7. So... yeah, when a genre is itself a bit of a "cult" genre, then any game that's popular in the genre is also going to be of cult status.

Secret of Mana was the second highest selling SNES title in December of 1993, behind only Mortal Kombat, and its Japanese release sold out within days. Also, its critical reception was quite good. Heck, it's 21st on the top selling SNES games of all time list!

I also take some issue with calling RPGS "niche" given that they were quite popular during that era. 13 of the top 45 games sold on the SNES were RPGS. How can we call the genre "niche" if it was responsible for 28% of the top selling games on the whole platform? While RPGS are much more niche today than they were then, they were at one time a regular staple.

I usually see a cult movie defined by its lack of commercial success, lack of positive critical review, and a following that grows out of the movie's poor quality. SoM had major critical success the month it was released and throughout the lifespan of the console it released on. It was heralded by critics and is considered by some to be one of the best games of its genre of all time. It's following exists because of its very high quality, the very antithesis of what makes a cult following "cult."

So with all that, I don't see how anyone could possibly call SoM a "cult game."