Secret of Mana Reviews

great series

It's a shame more wasn't put into this "upgrade" to SNES's Secret of Mana. However, this is without a doubt the best way to play this truly wonderful game.

This is one of those rare occasions where I will flip my thumb. The game starts fine enough, but the battle system takes its toll. It is like forcing a turned based attack system in something that isn't turn based. I got so bored or waiting for my power % to raise. And my partner was getting in my way too much. So as of now I don't ever need to play it again. I've been wanting to get into it for a while now. Looks like that was a mistake. As always when I flip my thumb...original review below: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I remember when Secret of Mana was a new title on SNES way back in the day, but I never got into it. I fiddled with it here and there but never felt the desire to pick it up. I only played Final Fantasy Adventure, which was fun. Now I finally jumped into SoM. If you are expected an "...I finally realize what I was missing" you would be wrong. Its decent, but it isn't changing my life, or anything. I won't recommend getting it unless you loved the Mana series and want to see it looking...."more current", or it is on sale. At regular price it is a little bit on the pricey side. It still feels very SNES...so if 16-bit feel isn't your thing...don't jump.

I do not recommend! I have spent more time looking online how to accomplished certain things like opening the ring menu to equip party members, only to find online that the game has glitched and a restart is needed.

Definitely simple but nice remake of the classic. However, I had to turn off the audio voices as they sound a bit alienating and made the whole retro experience less enjoyable. Also, I miss the original names of the enemies and characters in German (not sure about other languages) and some minor features such as the setting of dialogue windows are missing, but overall it is a great game for modern systems and the nostalgic feeling is definitely there, especially if you turn on the original music sounds. Hope to see a Secret of Evermore adaption some time soon!

All the negative reviews aren't wrong. While I haven't really experienced any bugs, the game is still pretty poorly 'remade.' They changed the graphics and remastered the music and added voice acting that's about it. Changed, I say, because opinions vary on whether these graphics are an improvement or not. I can't really decide myself but I do know I'd have liked it if they had put more effort into it, it looks like a cheap mobile game the way it is now. The music is sometimes better but sometimes the original tracks are better, you can select either though so that is nice. Some music is horrible in either remaster or original form though. The boss battle music and the inn music during chats or when the characters wake up is a horrible short loop of obnoxious noise. Also, they've decided to keep it very close to the original, which I always applaud in terms of story, plot, characters, but in this case that also means a severe lack of QoL. Can only save at inns, only 2 save slots, the combat feels like a massive slogfest too. I do not get why they didn't turn it into a proper action RPG. The pauses at times too like when after a battle, or the way they move, it's what happened in the original, yes, but in this it's just bad. Also, the map and the way to find stuff is also an utter nightmare. The times I flew around on Flammie trying to find some tiny obscure area that if you fly past too fast won't even pop up, are many. I wonder when developers will realize gamers and people in general do not like to waste their time on inconvenient bs? But no regrets, I am glad I finally beat the game. Never managed to as a kid. We never had an SNES, only an NES, but my cousin did and he had Secret of Mana. I'd play it but I never got super far as we didn't visit them often. But given that, I can only recommend this game when it is being sold on a huge discount and when you have nostalgia for the game, but even then, some things were still better left in the past, so it may be better to just replay the original. I did not entirely hate playing this game though else I wouldn't have finished it. It is nice that there's a little more personality to the characters, but I really did not care to relive such archaic stuff in games.

if the quality of life updates minus cutscenes, voice acting and new music were added to something that looked like the SNES then this would have been a solid remake but the only good thing this game did was make run easier to control without having to commit to one direction. Overall for the price tag this should have gotten a better makeover or just stay true to the original spritework. Holding out hope for a Collection of Mana steam release though.

I used to love this game when I was a child, and I was excited to play it again. Sadly as the Mana fortress is rising the game just goes to a permanent black screen. I've searched but seems this bug hasn't been fixed even years after this game was released. It's really terrible that I am only be able to play 80% of this game. I can't even refund this game because I've played it too long. I consider this game DEFECTIVE seeing as you can't complete this game.

I like the game. No problems with the graphics and such that others don't like. I can't recommend as I'm stuck and had to quit because of glitches. When they were remaking the game, they didn't get the ratios correct with a lot of things, so you get stuck or can't get places. Very game breaking.

I hate to not recommend this, but only because of my own nostalgia. Secret of Mana was an awesome SNES game because it was an SNES game, making it one of the beginnings of action RPGs. The combat itself was okay for the time, being on an old console game, but it won't translate to someone who isn't looking through rose colored glasses. For definite negatives, the magic was absolutely amazing back then, up there with any RPG, but they kind of fumbled that in this one. There are levels for each magic type, and in the old one there was a new animation jump at the higher levels, where the effects went from pretty typical SNES stuff to epic-looking effects that were unique from the lower levels ( oneexample being fire balls to huge fire serpents). In the remake, it's just basic stuff that gets bigger. The environments and characters/enemies had that timeless pixel art that great games had back then, but this reskin looks like someone made it all with some app (for the most part; there are some decent ones). The music was as epic as you could get back then, and the remake music sounds like someone used some cheap soundboard program to create it. And honestly, I think they did. And the voice acting...absolutely horrendous and a waste of money. So bad. Positives are far fewer. The different weapon levels actually do have unique designs. For someone who played the original, where they were mostly just colored differently, that was a cool addition. I think that may be it lol. Basically, if you want to play it again and get some achievements for it, you will probably have a good time as long as you go in knowing it isn't an epic remaster by any means. You will be disappointed in some stuff at first (the music right away; I only recommend the Matango remix), but the nostalgia will carry you easily. But for anyone playing this for the first time, don't unless you have a specific reason to. This is not a remake that will reach any modern audience.