Secret Of Mana

Story

You, the hero, are the discoverer of the Mana Sword, which when removed from the rock on which it stands, sets off a change of events that result in you being banished from your hometown on a mission to restore the power of Mana of which there are 8 elements. You encounter two friends to help you on your journey and improve your skills and stamina as you fight monsters along the way.

Gameplay

A departure from other RPGs, this game offers direct control of the hero's movements and actions. The player can assume control of the other two player characters with a single button press and non-played characters fall under the control of the AI. The player instructs the computer to make these characters agressive or introverted.

Items

There are various items in the game such as candy which increases HP (health points) that are found in treasure boxes left behind by defeated enemies.

Weapons and magic

There are 8 weapons to be collected and 8 magical elements that each provide 3 spells to be summoned. Each is allocated to one of the three characters. The degree of damage inflicted to enemies is largely based on each character's experience with these weapons and magic spells. It becomes important to monitor the progress each character is making towards perfecting their skills. When a character masters the use of a weapon or a magical element he or she can trade it for one that the character has less experience until all characters are masters with all weapons and magical elements.

Enemies

Enemies range from lowly rabites to armored guards. Each has an inherent weakness to a particular weapon or magic spell and the player must learn each. Occasionally there are boss enemies which pose more of a challenge but the reward for defeating them is higher and may consist of a new weapon.

Travel

Aside from walking throughout the world the characters can be blasted out of a cannon to a chosen destination or can summon Flamey the white dragon to pick them up and fly to any point that has a grassy landing spot.

Other games in the series

• Final Fantasy Adventure (USA) / Seiken Densetsu (Japan) for the Gameboy
• Seiken Densetsu 3 (Japan only) for the SNES
• Legend of Mana (USA) / Seiken Densetsu 4 (Japan) for Playstation
• Sword of Mana (USA) / Shinyaku Seiken Densetsu (Japan) for GameBoy Advance

A less successful spin-off of Secret of Mana was developed and released by Square USA and was entitled Secret of Evermore. It used the same basic engine as Secret of Mana but the graphics and scenes were tailored to more American audience.

See also

• List of computer and video games by category
• List of Japan-related topics
• List of SNES games
• Moogle

External links

• GameFAQs entry for Secret of Mana

Referenced By