Secret of Mana

According to this link Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger were salvaged from the real Final Fantasy IV when Square scrapped it and renamed the real Final Fantasy V to Final Fantasy IV....

You know what would be funny?

If one of Square's presidents were to restart development on the real Final Fantasy IV then merge the Chrono Trigger & Secret of Mana universes into one game and stuff all the famous characters from said universes(Primm/Purim, Charlotte, Riesz, Bogard, Bogard's unseen wife Mana/recolor of the Heroine of Sword of Mana's sprite, Chrono, Marle, Robo, Schala, Kid, Serge, Magus, Lavos/Time Devourer and Queen Zeal) into the restarted true Final Fantasy IV!

edited 29th Sep '13 8:23:12 PM by MickeyFrogeater

Thanks to a LP of SD 3, I had gotten into playing it myself. my first foray into the series was Sword of Mana, when I borrowed it from a kid one day (sadly I never got to return it before he moved away, but at least I have a memorable game in my collection). Technically, I first tried it out before that when this other kid had a GBA SP with him in class one day. But I digress.

What a great game SD 3 was, and still is! One of my favorite themes was High Tension Wire, from when I fought Tzenker. I need to finish it at some point. I was in the middle of an Angela/Duran/Carlie run.

Has anyone noticed that Dawn Of Mana is the backstory of the Dark Lord(fan translated as Dark Prince) from Seiken Densetsu 3?

If only the translators translated the game around the time Dawn Of Mana came out they probably wouldn't have mistakenly assumed the Dark Lord was a prince(due to assuming that the game meant "successor" and "heir" in the sense that he had hadn't inherited the throne yet when infact he had and become The Emperor).

huh, that's cool. Never play Dawn myself, but I know that Children of Mana tells the tale of how the Mana Holyland became a separate realm in the first place. And it features the God-Beasts, too, which is cool.

Well, before the World of Mana stuff, the games weren't really connected. And the villain in Sword of Mana/Final Fantasy Adventure is also named Dark Lord. It seems to be a recurring name.

But yeah, it is interesting how they end up becoming connected.

I think the timeline is Dawn of Mana- Children of Mana- Heroes of Mana- Seiken Densetsu 3 with Secret of Mana and Sword of Mana/Final Fantasy Adventure sitting separately because they have none of the same countries or characters. And of course Legend of Mana is just sort of weird.

Dawn isn't really worth it. The story isn't bad, but the game has an awful camera and some of the worst level designs I've ever seen. It's really hard to find where you're supposed to go, in spite of an arrow that points out the destination. Actually because of the arrow. It always points straight at the goal and because none of the areas are linear, it really doesn't help.

edited 13th Feb '14 3:07:36 PM by Zendervai

I figure Sword comes before SD 3, and I think Secret of Mana comes after both of them, as it ends with the tree gone and nobody to replace it.

Heroes of Mana is about the parents of the Seiken Densetsu 3 characters with all the same countries and such. Sword of Mana quite simply can't fit. Interestingly the Heroes of Mana translation uses all the exact same country and character names as the Seiken Densetsu 3 fan translation.

Sorry, before Heroes, then.

Has anyone noticed that the lands of Sword of Mana: Topple, Ishe, Wendel, Jad and Lorimar(both Ice Country from Secret of Mana and Dark Castle from Seiken Densetsu 3) all appear in Dawn of Mana?

Lorimar being frozen in Secret of Mana and was unfrozen in Sword of Mana indicating Secret of Mana is before Sword of Mana.

Considering Lorimar was twisted into the Dark Castle after Stroud the 1st's actions in Dawn of Mana it's likely it became it's old self after Seiken Densetsu 3 following Stroud's second death/destruction of his remains.

Also judging from the map one must also come to the conclusion that most of the areas were altered by the Mana Stones.

Altena most certainly was altered by the Water Stone judging by how Lorimar was the previous Ice Country until it became the Dark Castle, Nevarl was originally jungle so it was obviously altered by the Mana Stone of Fire and Ferolia clearly could have only got it's eternal night from the Mana Stone of the Moon.

Considering these alterations we must consider the possibility that the Shimmering Ruins and Laurent are part of Water Country Topple with Molebear Highlands and Gemstone Valley Dorian obviously being part of Ishe due to them being in the territory of Ishe's ruler Watts.

The questions SD3 leaves is what happened to the kingdoms of Doirre, Nevarl, Altena, Laurent and Valsena.

Valsena is clearly in the general direction of Secret of Mana's Fire Palace which wasn't under the control of the Empire when Randi, Primm and Popoi visited despite the Robin Foots being hostile.

Altena was on the same continent as the Empire and it's stated that the Empire is associated with Altena's Gigantes/Mana Fortress...

Doirre is also on the same continent as Altena and later the Empire yet the portion of the continent where it's located is not visitable in Secret of Mana despite being on the map.

The kingdom of Pandora is in the southeast corner of Topple and the ruins to the east of Pandora are desert like indicating that those ruins might be Nevarl Sand Fortress(Flamekin did say he would make the Burning Sands a jungle again).

Laurent could be on any of Topple's mountains and we wouldn't know it since we never visit said mountains.

My Timeline would be: Dawn of Mana - Children of Mana - God Beasts attack and get sealed in Mana Stones turning the volcanic Ishe into Molebear Moors and Gemstone Valley Dorian/Western part of northern unamed continent becomes frozen Altena/Northwestern Wendel becomes the Duskmoon forest Beastmen kingdom Ferolia/Southern Topple becomes Nevarl/Northern Topple becomes the Shimmering Ruins - Heroes of Mana - Seiken Densetsu 3 - Altena becomes the Empire/Lorimar freezes again because of the King's deal with Emperor Vandole/Molebear Moors heats up again becoming the Arid Sands with the oasis kingdom Kakkara/Nevarl becomes a jungle again like Flamekin promised only to be conqured by the elven(Primm is a noble and is clearly elven) monarchy of Pandora/Tasnica is founded on the shores of Pedda - Secret of Mana - Sword of Mana.

edited 17th Feb '14 7:16:31 PM by MickeyFrogeater

So Adventures of Mana is now out on Vita in NA and EU. do we want to give it its own works page for new graphical and translation tropes?

Necro.

Secret of Mana is getting a full-on 3D remake for PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Steam!

...and not on Nintendo Switch. Dang it.

Have an announcement trailer!

Flammie's still a cool design, but the colour here really makes it look like they just scaled up the Boy's hair. People and their pets really do look alike, I guess.

All I can say is "pleasedontfuckitup pleasedontfuckitup pleasedontfuckitup"

EDIT: And on a semi-related note, I saw King Truffle hanging on to Flammie's tail in the last few seconds of the video and just cracked up for some reason

edited 25th Aug '17 6:04:25 AM by Reflextion

And it'll have a good translation. Please note, this is not a crack on Ted Woolsey, who very clearly did his best under extreme restrictions, but it would be great to have a better idea of what's actually going on than two lines on average.

I don't know if I want this. Squeenex has been trying and failing to find a gimmick to shoehorn into the Mana series since Legend, since they can't just be good action RPGs, that's Kingdom Hearts' job.

I've played several of the following games and they were terrible. Like Sword, the clumsy-playing Narmy over-complicated, melodramatic retelling of what was a simple and effective story. Or Pinball of Mana, whatever that was called, kinda fun but pretty dumb and uninteresting.. Or Start From First Level Every Stage and Level-Grind Until You Can Finish the Stage of Mana.

Sigh. I have little to no hope for this.

Right now, they appear to be going for "standard but accurate remake". Adventures of Mana is a very faithful remake of the original Final Fantasy Adventure, with some more story stuff added, apparently to lessen the levels of Giant Space Flea from Nowhere. I assume Secret of Mana will be the same, maybe with some more narrative connective tissue, since the original game is very obviously stripped down from what it was intended to be.

If we're lucky, the Secret of Mana remake will do well enough that Square Enix will do Seiken Densetsu 3 and actually localize it this time.

I will admit, I do have a bit of a soft spot for Heroes of Mana. It's pretty bad as a game, but the story's pretty good.

Legend is a fascinating game. It's difficult to determine whether or not it's objectively good but it has so many great ideas that, at the very worst, aren't much less than the sum of their parts.

edited 25th Aug '17 8:25:36 AM by Zendervai

Isn't Legend generally agreed to be the last really good Mana game? Apparently some people didn't really like it but I've always thought it was pretty cool.

Man I have a lot to gush about regarding this series, but I'm going to wait until I'm not on my phone. Needless to say, I absolutely ecstatic about the SOM remake.

In regards to , Legends was considered a step down at launch because it wasn't like Secret. From what I remember it was pretty much a Love It or Hate It kind of game, and in some ways the initial reaction was similar to how people reacted to Chrono Cross (just not nearly as bad), with most people praising the soundtrack while admonishing the gameplay.

Personally, it's my favorite in the series; it's the only PS One game that I've managed to keep the CD for and I've repurchased it on the PSN just so I could play it on the PSP Go (along with Chrono Cross for that matter).

RE:Secret's translation: in anyone isn't aware, the mobile version of Secret of Mana had a redone translation, which was supposed to make it more faithful to the original script (like how the GBA/mobile/PC version of Final Fantasy VI had a new translation to make it more faithful). I own the game, but haven't played through it to see if they kept some of Woolsey's quirks like they did with FF 6.

More than likely, RE:Secret of Mana will use the newer translation.

Edit: Forgot to add, but Legend's current reception is probably due to how decently it's aged and how poorly received its successors were.

edited 25th Aug '17 9:22:09 AM by Customer

Secret IOS basically just uses the same translation with minor tweaks. It's grammatically accurate, but otherwise the same.

The remake will probably get a new translation because the original won't line up properly.

edited 25th Aug '17 9:41:24 AM by Zendervai

Ah I see. I remember a couple of the mobile reviews in the app store talking about new text, so I thought there was more to it than that.

This looks cool. I played the iOS version and didn't finish, and I really feel like it didn't work well as a mobile game. I'll probably pick up this remake, since I did have fun playing it.

Really hoping this paves the way for a Seiken Densetsu 3 remake. I love the score and character designs of SOM but was never a huge game of it specifically, but SD 3 is ridiculously good and open ended and has more replay value than any other game in the series.

Gotta support this one in the interim though so that it can happen.

Well, no, we don't have to support games of unknown quality because of brand loyalty.Rise up and cast off your shackles!

I want this to be good and I'll get it if it is. I just have zero faith in Squeenex.

I don't either, but they're all dollar signs nowadays, and they've been easing their feet back into the Mana Pool for the last few years. Evidently the other remakes and rereleases did alright for them to commit to this one, and since we got an SD 1 remake not too long ago, I don't want them to stop the train until at least the 3rd one gets one.

I hope they take this opportunity to tone down the grinding. Grinding levels for magic spells were painful.