| Secret of Mana were released in Early 1994 by SquareSoft in the US
and Europe, and was Square's first serious attempt to take their
share in the action RPG market. Simpler than the Final Fantasy series
who, yet more advanced than Zelda: a link to the past.
The Graphics in Secret of Mana were great for it's time, with Beautiful
backgrounds and colorful landscapes. The characters are nicely drawn
and seemed to have individual personalities, though there wasn't too
Many of them. Graphics detailed Enough to see the facial expressions
of the characters, though the world suffers from rather static
backgrounds; except monsters there were few other life or Animation s,
but it was probably mostly because of the limitated power the SNES
could deliver. Other minor flaws are the sometime poor/chunky animation
of the game, but it doesn't in any way affect the playability.
The sound is rather good, you can actually hear each instrument, and
the sounds are pretty realistic for a 16 bit machine. The Music are
good and the melodies are nice, though some of the Shorter tunes can
get a Little annoying after listening a while.
You will notice that SquareSoft aimed for the mass market with this
game, not hardcore RPG players. The game have an experience system
which makes your characters stronger the more They fight monsters.
If you fight a lot, your characters abilities will improve and they will
generally grow stronger, making monsters easier to beat. Alas, if you
fight a lot in the game's early stages, it will become very easy, and
you'll Find yourself killing every boss in three attacks. If you fight
normally though, you'll have an average challenge and you May have
to use the save function a little.
The best thing with this game is the gameplay. The Story is pretty
entertaining, and the fighting and improving your characters is just
Plain fun.
This game doesn't have any frustration at all, or at least very little. If
you have played RPG's before, it's actually very simple, and you'll never
find yourself stuck in the game's story.
I've beaten this game many times the last five years, and if you keep a
little space between each time, you'll find it entertaining Over and over again.
This game is Worth the price, because I consider it a classic, and the
value of this game is actually increasing every year! If you're a true
fan of this game, get it as soon as possible. It get's more rare each day.
My conclusion is: this game is one of the finest action RPG's of all time,
and a game I Love today as much as six years ago, when it was released.
The fact that this game is better than most of todays Games with
spectacular graphics, concludes that graphics isn't Always what counts. |