Secret of Mana

By: Peter Ingham

It can sometimes be difficult to review a game such as Secret of Mana without looking at it through a lens of nostalgia, as is the case with most remakes of beloved video games. Square-Enix doesn’t have a glowing track record with their previous efforts. Final Fantasy V and VI felt like sloppy ports of classic games and in their attempt to bring them to a new audience and draw back fans of the originals somehow managed to leave an impression of cheapness and overall disappointment. Sadly, this is also extended to their latest game, Secret of Mana, which feels like a complete sidestep into mediocrity rather than a loving tribute to one of the more memorable Super Nintendo RPG’s.

For those unfamiliar with the Mana series, Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu in Japan) is the second and – depending on which circles you fly in – considered one of the best titles in the series. It was originally released in 1993 for the Super Nintendo by director and game designer Koichi Ishii who would later go on to do titles such as Final Fantasy XI. It’s unfortunate that he wasn’t involved in the remake of Secret of Mana since it begs the question, could this have elevated the game to something other than a simple retreading of old ground? Probably not. But it doesn’t hurt to consider the possibility.

The premise is simple enough and without delving into spoiler territory (the game may indeed be over twenty years old, but with this being a remake people will go into it with fresh eyes), you’ll find yourself on a continent hopping adventure to recover Mana Seeds in order to prevent an evil empire from carrying out its nefarious plans. I never paid too close attention to the story and I felt less compelled to do so thanks in large to the game’s absolutely horrible voice acting. I can appreciate the effort gone into trying to bring these characters to life, but in doing so Square-Enix simply shot themselves in the foot. The characters range from wooden to overly theatrical in their performances. Tonally, I never really knew how to feel in a lot of situations because characters behaved in such jarring manners.

Throughout your adventure you’ll slowly gather companions, a sprite child named Popoi, and Primm, who is in love with a warrior named Dyluck. Including the main character Randi, who is banished early on from his village, the trio of characters have excellent chemistry and some of their funniest interactions come from the optional dialogue you can hear during visits to the Inn. Sadly, the cutscenes themselves, whilst of high quality, are sometimes jarring to look at. Characters don’t open their mouths when talking, often leading to terrifying scenes of close-up shots of bobbleheads moving up and down whilst speaking their lines. It’s a small oversight and not really an issue, but it certainly took me out of the story in several points due to how nightmarish certain scenes looked.

Graphically, the most striking aspect is how crisp and sharp the world looks, almost to its detriment. On higher resolutions, more lush locations can be straining just to look at. It felt like in an effort to reimagine the world of the original game. Square-Enix took it to the extreme and now everything has a certain quality to it that works against it and feels cheap. It’s especially frustrating considering character models are of superb quality and crafted to how I’d expect them to be. But the transition from 2D to 3D seems to have hurt not only the look and feel of the game yet also as a complete package.

Thankfully, one area which remains faithful to the original game is the combat system, which can be a little confusing for newcomers. I hadn’t revisited Secret of Mana in quite a few years and playing the remake was certainly a reminder of why I enjoyed the combat so much previously. It places the focus on managing your cooldown system, which is tied to your weapon(s). Once the gauge fills up, you can attack an enemy for large amounts of damage and simply hacking away feels discouraged due to the low amount of hit points you’ll deal out. Also encouraged is the upgrading of your weapons with the use of mana orbs, which you’ll find throughout the game. Making use of these certainly feels like extra incentive to experiment with different weapon types since they vary in terms of damage dealt, range, etc. What also carried over, sadly, is the rather wonky A.I. of your team members. Frequently, I find myself in situations where they would simply not follow commands, run into walls or simply stand on the spot. It’s especially frustrating during boss fights and depending on where your last auto-save is located, you could find yourself backtracking a lot if you die.

Overall, Secret of Mana manages to retain most of the flaws that beset the original. The enemies lumber towards you with a modicum of guile, but rarely represent anything more than a nuisance that can be easily dismissed (or ignored) with a few well-timed hits. The sound design, including the voice acting, is certainly not up to scratch, but with the option of selecting the original soundtrack I can forgive some of the shortcomings where it’s concerned. But, sadly, I can’t look past the fact that this game, for all it tries to do well, failed in areas the original excelled in. The sense of wonder and charm is still there, twenty years on, but now everything feels sterile and far too clean for its own good. Thankfully, the original game will always be there and we’ll always have this remake to remind us of how good it still is.