I've made a huge mistake

Circumstances have conspired to bring me closer to the Mana series than ever before: I mean real close, hey, I might actually finish this game close.  Being filthy Americans, Jamieson and I still call it the "Secret of Mana" series instead of, say, Seiken Densetsu ("Holy Sword Legend", I'm told) or the "Mana" series in the style of Wikipedia.  Americans have no real reason to call the series anything else, mainly because Secret of Mana is the only good game in the series we've ever noticed, even though Legend of Mana was released here and was pretty good.  Hell, J and I both own Legend of Mana, and J likes it more than the SNES games, but we still call the series "Secret of Mana" after the second game to reach these shores.  Mostly because nostalgia is a bitch.

Not just any bitch: she's a bitch that makes you try and own every Mana game.  I have at my disposal 7 of the 10:
Seiken Densetsu (Final Fantasy Legend)
Seiken Densetsu 2 (Secret of Mana)
Seiken Densetsu 3
Seiken Densetsu: Legend of Mana
Shinyaku Seiken Densetsu (Sword of Mana, remake of first game)

Seiken Densetsu DS: Children of Mana
Seiken Densetsu 4 (Dawn of Mana)

That last one there broke the spell.

Fuck you.

More after die jumpen. (mental note: learn German at some point)

It's fitting that the second Seiken Densetsu game was translated here as Secret of Mana, since it's both terrible and the reason that we clamor for more Mana titles.  Wtf, right?  Seriously though, the gameplay is piss-poor.  Visually, the game is awesome, and it has gaming concepts that were amazingly entertaining at the time--8 different weapons, 3-player, 8 different spell elements with 6 spells each, weapon and spell levels, the list goes on.  However, the gameplay is sorely lacking on the polish and the competency: for example, if you hit a monster with an attack, there's a massive lag time between the impact and the effect it causes, especially if you hit said monster during its "now I fall on my ass" animation.  If the three characters all hit the monster at once, there's rarely any indication of who actually landed a blow and who missed (the Javelin and the Bow being the obvious exceptions).  Meanwhile, you can spam spells onto any creature (including bosses) and basically prevent them from ever taking action, removing the challenge from most if not all the boss monsters.  Conversely, since the fighting mechanics allow for attacks on creatures to "queue up" while they're immobilized from being hit, it's very easy for aggressive monsters to beat your character(s) to death with no ability to retaliate--last night, I got hit 4 times for 80% of my health without any way to escape.  Battles are a bizarre active-yet-turn-based affair that take some getting used to.

In terms of moving the game along, advancing to many areas requires finding the correct trigger in another area entirely, and the game doesn't always tell you where to go to open to your next destination. The story is poorly translated and not particularly good anyways, the multiplayer mechanics have flaws out the wazoo, and the inventory system is hateful at best (4 different items, 4 each).  Plus, every treasure chest traps the crap out of you and opening one plays a 5-second animation that's cute at first but gets annoying fast.  There must be some Secret here, because there's no way this game could have been that fascinating considering Diablo, Legend of Zelda, and Chrono Trigger combined to demonstrate what the same mechanics would look like if they all worked.

I think I've managed to pull one over on Koichi Ishii and the rest of the creators, though, because I've worked out what makes this series so great despite having a basically terrible surface.  Monsieur Ishii is caught up in his World of Mana, and lately has produced 5 games that embellish the story with adequately beautiful music and graphics.  Sadly, what makes Secret of Mana (and by association this series) so beloved is not the story nor is it the graphics, no matter how many times J. Parish (Game Journalist extraordinaire and basically one of my heroes) uses them to apologize for the game's flaws in his own article.  The truth is closer to another point Parish makes: Mana mixes several mechanics to produce a truly entertaining concept of a game, even if Square never manages to get it right.

I haven't played all of the Mana games, but I'm pretty sure that none of them manage to get all of the core elements correct.  These are:

1. Drop-in multiplayer, like X-Men Legends or LEGO Star Wars
2. Multiple usable weapon types (at least 4)
3. Special weapon attacks
   
4. Stat-based "RPG" progression
   
5. Ring menu item/spell management
6. Solid graphics and sound
   
7. Decent hit detection
8. Overhead, Legend of Zelda-esque display
9. Useful spell set
   
10. Not being a goddamn RTS

Fuck you too.

 Those who are paying attention notice that none of those mechanics are truly restrictive, aside from the viepoint angle which has been used to great effect in most action RPG's.  I'm disappointed that they can't make it all work, although many of the games come maddeningly close.  The first game was and is amazing, but its lack of multiplayer makes it fall short of Mana perfection. Secret's main flaw under this system is its terrible hit detection (the item management system is also annoyingly limited, but that's not really on the list) .  Seiken 3's problem is its lack of weapon choice for its characters, while Legend manages to be the first entry in mucking up the multiplayer aspect, although it came maddeningly close to the mark.    Children of Mana....sigh.  So close. However, it has a terrible multiplayer implementation that manages to unlearn the lesson taught by Diablo 2's multiplayer quest system as well as add a kind of "friendly fire" that's not really damaging but is downright frustrating as shit.  Plus, the spells are next to pointless in combat, even if the hit detection and item systems are awesome sauce (the hit detection carried me through the 40 hours its taken me to beat the game, get the ultimate items, and unlock the bonus final dungeon, in reverse order because this game is weird).  Finally, the less said about the genre expansions, the better--I'd love to be able to like them, but I came expecting a Mana game, not a DS RTS or an action-adventure Unreal Engine-powered title.  I'll have to get back to them once I finish with the more traditional 5.

Anyways.  With Secret of Mana, Koichi Ishii was trying to combine several interesting game mechanics with a fascinatingly gorgeous universe; while he got the universe bit right, the game mechanics fell short of the mark.  X-Men Legends II is the closest thing I can think of to a good Mana game, and honestly, the ring item menu I listed as "necessary" above is just a charming novelty/convenience more than anything else: just steal Raven Software's construction and run with it, man, even if you have to use cell shaded 3D.  Meanwhile, I'm going to continue enjoying Secret of Mana and Seiken 3, because they are, in fact, really entertaining, but their proximity to greatness just keeps making me think.

So close.

:SñrC


"So, so, what, you want the the guy with the million selling franchise to make a good game?  Come on!"
- If Mr. Ishii were in fact JOB from Arrested Development


Image Credits: SQUARE North American website