Trivia / Secret of Mana

• Divorced Installment: Secret of Mana is the game we got after it spent periods in development intended to be Final Fantasy IV and then Chrono Trigger.
• Fan Translation:
  • Secret of Mana: Relocalized restores a lot of the features that were cut out from the Japanese version when the game was being localized and uses a much more efficient system of text placement, allowing for a lot of text that was Lost in Translation to be added back in. However, a lot of the "lost" text was also made up out of whole cloth by the translator since he didn't have access to the original script. Among other things, the Cannon Travel Service menu now displays the names of its destinations rather than 1, 2, and 3.
  • Secret of Mana: Reborn completely retranslates the entire script and fixes inconsistencies that were present in the original Japanese version. It also adds in additional context using the 2018 remake and supplementary material that was made for the game.
• Troubled Production: Secret of Mana was intended to launch on the Super Nintendo CD add-on, but when that fell through, Squaresoft was left with a contractual obligation to make the game, but on the much smaller space of a cartridge instead of the CD-ROM they'd expected. They spent several months stripping the game down: removing large sections of the game-world, shortening the script, adjusting the game's plot, re-writing or removing a great deal of dialogue, and using compressed instruments and recomposing the music in an SPC format for the SNES. While this did have the side-effect of pushing the console's capabilities to the limit, it proved murderous on the text and left some obvious gaps in the plotline. In spite of that, it received great critical acclaim at the time of its release, and the original is still considered one of the strongest games of the 16-bit era.
• Urban Legend of Zelda: Thanks to "reviews" found to be written by test players who spoiled some things about the game before it passed the Beta stage.
  • The things mentioned, and later removed due to size constraints, were the Ruby Armet (can be found via cheat codes), Mana-Drops (a mystery item called ??? in English and '...' in Japanese) that could cure all status conditions, heal all health, and recover all magic and a fourth character (one of 4 recruited NPCs that acted as stand-ins for a missing character during plot points, later removed but left in place with a cheat code they could be activated), but are broken bits that do nothing in the game even with a cheat code.
  • Lots of people spent hours, if not more, looking for the non-existent Sword Orb that would supposedly give you the level 9 sword upgrade. The cruel irony is that the level 9 sword is actually the reactivated Mana Sword, which you can't get until the final battle.
  • However, there exists a glitch to get another Sword Orb (basically glitch your party into the start of the game and re-fighting the first boss), which gives you the Level 9 Sword full-time. You can find instructions for it here.
  • The existence of Level 9 weapon orbs, period, were thought to be a rumor until they were discovered to be extremely rare random drops from enemies in the Mana Fortress.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Secret of Mana started life as one of the most ambitious games of the early '90s in order to take advantage of the data capacity of the CD-ROM format. For reference, CDs are capable of holding roughly 700 MB of data. The Secret of Mana cartridge holds two. English translator Ted Woolsey later remarked that the localization "nearly killed" him, mentioning that "about 40% of the text" had to be "nuked" due to space restrictions. The missing content is, incidentally, why there are many places on the world map where the game doesn't allow you to land even though it looks like you should be able to.
  • Apparently much of the content left on the cutting room floor made it into Chrono Trigger two years later, so it wasn't all bad. Chrono Trigger was in fact the game's tentative title after it was decided it wouldn't be Final Fantasy IV.
  • Beyond the matter of the game itself, the SNES CD debacle is considered responsible for damaging Square's relationship with Nintendo to the point of their realignment with Sony for Final Fantasy VII.
  • According to former Brownie Brown/1-Up Studio's co-founder Shinta Kameoka, a Game Boy Advance remake in the same style of Sword of Mana was considered at one point, but it never got past the conceptual stage. Only one screenshot and conceptual artwork are proof of its existence.
  • The 2018 remake has a lot of unused text referring to additional content that was planned to be included, only for it to be axed during development to be more faithful to the original. Some of this content was later reused for the Trials of Mana remake. As for the content...
    • All three playable characters once had their own extended prologues, similar to Trials of Mana. This, of course, was saved for that game's remake.
    • Four extra side quests, such as a war between Rabites and Truffles, Randi's brief return to Potos to save the village, a third rematch against the Scorpion Army and a Brutal Bonus Level involving Shade and Mavolia. The last one was kinda reworked into Anise's Den for the Trials remake.

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