Secret of Mana (Wii)

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Description

Once upon a time, the power of Mana was used by all people and helped their civilization grow. But as evil forces took control of Mana Fortress, there was no way out but a war which destroyed the Mana-based civilization but eventually brought peace to people. The events of the past became but legends to the new generation of humans. But history repeats itself...

One day, a young village boy finds a rusty sword stuck at the bottom of a river. He doesn't know this sword is the famous Mana sword, the one that won so many battles before. By drawing the sword out of the river bottom, the boy unwillingly summons hordes of monsters, and is expelled from his village. A mysterious knight Jema is the only man who helps him and gives him instructions for the future. First, he must repair the sword, and then, with its help, take control of Mana seeds which can be found in eight great castles.

Secret of Mana is an action RPG, featuring real-time hack-and-slash type of combat. The protagonist has a stamina gauge: the more stamina he has, the more powerful his strike is. It is possible to upgrade weapons and abilities and meet many different types of monsters, while roaming around the country and performing quests.

Screenshots

There are no Wii screenshots for this game.

There are 18 other screenshots on file for other versions of this game.

Alternate Titles

• "聖剣伝説２" -- Japanese spelling
• "Seiken Densetsu 2" -- Japanese title

Part of the Following Group

• Seiken Densetsu / Mana series

User Reviews

There are no reviews for the Wii release of this game. You can use the links below to write your own review or read reviews for the other platforms of this game.

The Press Says

Official Nintendo Magazine	Dec 26, 2008	92 out of 100	92
Mag'64	Jan 25, 2010	9.25 out of 10	92
IGN	Oct 13, 2008	9 out of 10	90
Nintendo Life	Oct 14, 2008		90
Eurogamer.net (UK)	Jan 18, 2009	9 out of 10	90
Jeuxvideo.com	Jun 24, 2009	17 out of 20	85
RPGFan	Jan 12, 2009	84 out of 100	84

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
So what else has changed?	4	אולג 小奥 (169687) Nov 06, 2011

Trivia

1001 Video Games

The SNES version of Secret of Mana appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Development

One of the first games announced for the then-announced CD-ROM addon for the SNES. Nintendo eventually gave up trying to get the peripheral off the ground after the deal with Phillips to make the drive fell flat. Square eventually released a tooled-down version, which pushed the SNES hardware constantly (hence the slowdown and lack of multiple enemies onscreen), and overall left Square bitter for having to go through the process of downgrading its game. This probably was one of the reasons Square decided to bail on Nintendo (and its then-upcoming N64 console) and take its multimillion seller, Final Fantasy VII, with it (which was first announced for the N64).

Ironically, Square signed the deal to bring the game to the PlayStation with Sony, which was the original partner for the SNES CD drive, but was publicly stabbed in the back by Nintendo with the Phillips deal. The CD drive technology that Sony had been working on for the SNES, was then used to create the PlayStation itself.

Enemies

Due to technical limitations, only three enemies can ever be on the screen at one time. Sneaky players can use this to their advantage and keep 'easy' enemies alive to block the spawning of more powerful ones. The merchant cat Neko, is also affected by this and may not always appear during busy combat.

Killroy

In the original Japanese version, Killroy has a chainsaw when fighting him the second time. In all Western versions, he is just a re-coloured version of the first encounter.

Multiplayer

Secret of Mana is quite possibly the first RPG game to support 3 Players. It is certainly the only one on SNES that does (along with it's sequel, which was never officially translated). A multitap is required for the third player.

Slime

The Slime bosses are the trickiest enemies in the game, not because they're difficult, but because they're so buggy. When fighting one of these bosses it's possible to slow the framerate to a crawl, freeze the game or in extreme cases, wipe the contents from your saved battery backup.

Awards

• FLUX Magazine
  • Issue #4 - #40 in the "Top 100 Video Games of All-Time" list
• Game Informer
  • August 2001 (Issue #100) - #77 in the "Top 100 Games of All Time" poll
• GamePro
  • Vol. 6, Issue 2 - Role-Playing Game of the Year 1993
• Retro Gamer
  • September 2004 (Issue #8) – #74 Best Game Of All Time (Readers' Vote)

Information also contributed by Big John WV, CaptainCanuck, PCGamer77 and WildKart

Related Web Sites

• OC ReMix Game Profile (Fan remixes of music from Secret of Mana.)
• Secret of Mana (Fan page with walkthroughs and other assorted goodies.)