Together RPG - Secret of Mana - 4/1 --> 6/1

[BoneSnapDeez]

You're getting pretty close to the end now!

Pure Land = penultimate dungeon

[elricorico]

Played a while last night; I'm into the Fortress now. A couple bosses beat. Had no recollection that you couldn't use the magic rope once you were inside, so as it got late I had to backtrack out. Maybe roll the credits tonight or tomorrow....

[elricorico]

And it's over....

This really holds up well. I haven't played it since high school, putting it about 20 years since the last time.

It does have some faults; the story seems there just because there has to be a story. Even the ending seems to expose that story is something of an afterthought. Maybe that is partially due to the translation?

Also there are some fairly minor oddities in hit detection and such that can get annoying until you really get used to it. And leveling magic up can be a real pain for the girl.

Now the good! Really everything else. Graphics are beautiful for the 16 bit era, and to be honest I think the "better" graphics of the later Square SNES games may have taken away a little of the charm. This one is in a visual sweet spot for me. The music is outstanding. The Lich battle music would land certainly within my top 5 for most memorable video game music of all time. Being able to play with up to three players was awesome (though I didn't take advantage on this particular play-through) and practically unique for the time. Pacing is solid, you can make progress with an hour of play at almost any point of the game. Finally, it is just darn fun to battle almost any of the enemies in the game.

Many times I stopped to ponder if this really is as good as I think it is, or if my teenage memories keep me from recognizing how flawed it is. I've come to the conclusion that I can't be convinced that this is anything but one of the greats from the 16 bit era. Flawed or not, it delivers a truly enjoyable experience.

I'm glad I put the time into this one and stuck with it - even though there are so many other games that were calling for my attention.

[MrPopo]

It does have some faults; the story seems there just because there has to be a story. Even the ending seems to expose that story is something of an afterthought. Maybe that is partially due to the translation?

It's a bit of the translation, but the bigger issue is the game was originally supposed to be a SNES-CD title and got massively gutted when it got switched back to cart when the add-on died. So the script is incredibly bare-bones. If you dig into it you can see the seeds of what they wanted to do. I think it'd be interesting to see a full remake of the game that expands on things now that we don't really have to worry about space restrictions.