Things about Trials of Mana

I have played Secret of Mana a lot. It’s one of the two games I remember completely falling in love with as a kid. I have so many memories of playing that game and thinking about playing that game. It’s pretty much the first thing I think about when I think about summer; as soon as I finish mowing the grass I can go back in, where it’s cool, and play Secret of Mana.

For some history, if you need it, Secret of Mana is an Action RPG for the Super Nintendo, published in North America in 1993. You play as 3 heroes and can play with two other people (if you have the extra attachments for the SNES). You have to journey the world powering up your sword to defeat evil (as you do). It was originally published in Japan as Seiken Densetsu 2, the sequel to Seiken Densetsu, a GameBoy game (which was published in North America as Final Fantasy Adventure)

I don’t remember exactly when I first heard about the sequel to Secret of Mana (which at the time everyone was calling Secret of Mana 2), but I definitely remember looking at web forum posts and walkthroughs for the Japanese version (Seiken Densetsu 3) and thinking about how much fun having six heroes was going to be. Especially having a storytelling system which was supposed to mix the six heroes’ stories together depending on who you had in your party and all kinds of different classes your heroes could level into. I spent a lot of time dreaming about all the ways I wanted to play this game.

And then it was never released in North America.

I did play the fan translated ROM, but somehow it never clicked with me. A little bit of that was because I was sitting at my desk rather than on the couch and that I was playing with the keyboard rather than a SNES controller. At the end of the day, it felt slow and a bit disjointed and it just wasn’t *fun* in the way Secret of Mana was fun.

I’ve played a few of the other Mana games since and they’ve been all over in terms of how much I’ve liked them. Mostly I came to the conclusion that I just wasn’t interested in the places the Mana games were going. My feelings about Secret of Mana got mixed into my plans to make an Action RPG someday and I was pretty happy to move on.

And then they announced The Collection of Mana.

Secret of Mana on the Switch, along with Final Fantasy Adventure (Adventure of Mana - Seiken Densetsu) and … Trials of Mana? Seiken Densetsu 3, with a full official translation and everything.

And I was a little excited. (Apparently I made a really interesting noise during the direct).

So, on a nice day early in July I sat down to play Trials of Mana again, and I thought it was slow, a bit disjointed and it just wasn’t *fun*.

And then they announced the Remake.

Given how generally down the people I followed online were about the Secret of Mana Remake from 2018, I wasn’t very interested. Still, the reviews eventually sounded kinda good and possibly if I supported that we’d get other good games from Square-Enix from the 90s (*cough*Illusion of Gaia*cough*) on the Switch, so I picked it up.

And I finally played through Trials of Mana.

I can’t say it’s one of the greatest games I’ve played, but it was pretty fun and had several interesting elements. It also had a lot of slightly odd choices and I found myself wondering as I played, how did those work in the original game? So finally, I got out the Collection of Mana and played all the way through Trials of Mana. And then, just to see if Secret of Mana was really the masterpiece I love, I played through that again too.

And there are some things I’d like to talk about.

Beware of spoilers for Trials of Mana, Trials of Mana (Remake) and Secret of Mana.

Things I Liked

I’m going to focus on the 1995 original version of Trials of Mana, because it’s the game I dreamed about for so long. The Remake is either faithful or better in almost every aspect. While there are things to talk about with the remake as well, I don't have as much to say about it right now.

The thing that has always stood out to me about Trials of Mana is how great it looks. It takes the vibrant cartoony vibe of Secret of Mana and makes it better looking and cooler. The look of places feels like they put a lot of effort into the sprites and the background.

The character sprites are the same way. Durran looks like the grown up, badass version of Randi (also he’s named Durran and not Randi, so that seems way cooler - especially in 1995). All of the characters are cool and badass and probably have half again as many frames in their animations as the characters in Secret of Mana.

The quality of the sprites ties into a fairly well constructed sense of place.Even though a lot of the background sprites (and all of the character sprites) were shared, I feel like each place was different. The dungeons felt similarly, although I think the design leaves me thinking about them more as abstract places than remembering specific locations. Place is much more clearly written in the remake, and I may be transfering my feelings from that version, but I think place is one of the things Trials of Mana does very well.

Another thing I liked about Trials of Mana is the way they weaved six character’s stories together. It’s not perfect, but especially the idea of having a story that works out differently depending on who you bring along. Certainly in all the years I spent dreaming about this game, the diversity of stories was the part that most held my interest.

Things I Didn't Like

I think following the rule of cool, which made the game look awesome, really brought out the two things I didn’t like.

The first is that the combat feels bad. The combat in Secret of Mana is weird, but for me, it’s a weird I grew up with. The combat in Trials of Mana is slow and feels janky. I think it’s supposed to feel cool, awesome, and flashy. When animators talk about animating for video games, they often mention that you want as little anticipation in your player animation as possible. That means that if a character is going to throw a punch, within two or three frames of animation after the button is pushed the punch should be happening on screen.

In Trials of Mana there is a mix of too much anticipation, too much input lag (where it seems like the game isn’t doing anything at all after the button is pushed), and no animation cancelling. Once a character is doing an animation they seem to keep doing it, regardless of which buttons you push. Again, I may have just had different expectations, but I never felt happy playing the combat in the game at all.

The other rule of cool problem is that the magic effects take too long and push you out of the action. In Secret of Mana, your magic gets more and more impressive effects as you get stronger. The fireball turns from little sparks, to football sized globes to dragons larger than your characters. In Trials of Mana they tried to start there. If you cast the first wind spell in the game tornadoes pop up all over the screen and take a while to fade away.

In short, I think the effects programmers took all of the tricks they had learned working on the Super Nintendo and put them into this game. However they are overused, especially given that using the spells over and over again is the only way some groups of your heros can hurt some enemies. It ends up feeling like they focused on making magic look as impressive as possible and didn’t think about how the game would actually play.

Things I Noticed

I mentioned that I liked having six different stories worked together, but in implementation there are some problems. It’s possible depending on how you play to only see a small portion of the story on any particular play through and particularly if you don’t pick two characters for your party who share a story a lot of things go unexplained.

I played as Hawkeye, whose love interest is captured by the big bad early in the game. Then, spontaneously, she was released. In my first playthrough (in the remake) when I fought the final boss, it was over the body of Riesz’s little brother. They were mentioned, but because I didn’t have Riesz in my party, I had no emotional attachment and not a lot of knowledge about the character. In the second playthrough I did have her in my party and at least the connection was clearer, but still not as emotionally meaningful as if Hawekeye’s love interest had been the macguffin.

Apparently if you choose other characters you get a whole other final boss. On the one hand that’s wonderful, but it made me spend most of my time wondering if I’d made wrong choices or if there was something else I was missing.

I think there’s a way to tie everyone together better, but I also think that having 6 main characters makes storytelling much much harder. I think it’s hard to walk the line between being dynamic, honouring the player’s choices, and telling a coherent story.

Things I'd Put In A Game

As I’ve mentioned, Trials of Mana is the game I dreamed about for years, and figuring it wouldn’t come out, I’ve spent a very long time thinking about how I’d make my own Secret of Mana 2.

The long and the short of that game in my mind is one that reflects a lot of the player’s choices and where the characters and the world are aware of and reacting to the player's action. It’s also about tying together the player’s actions with the story of four different characters.

Usually I try to be concrete in my takeaways but I’ve spent more than twenty years mapping out how I’d fill that Secret of Mana 2 shaped hole. I won’t lie, I’m feeling a little distressed that I haven’t actually done it yet, but it shaped a ton of how I think.

Final Things

How would I have felt, if Trials of Mana had come out in North America in 1996? I really don’t know.

Not too long after I didn’t love Legend of Mana (another game I’d like to come back to -- the remake / rerelease train has been pretty good lately). Its controls were also weird, but it didn’t have any sense of place.

Trials of Mana takes a lot of what I love about Secret of Mana and tries to polish it. Sometimes I think it does it in a way that makes the game worse, but the developers tried to take the good in Secret of Mana and intensify it.

I may always love the memory of Secret of Mana II more, but I’m really glad Trials of Mana finally came out and I got to play it.

Games of December 2021

December was a bit weird, but I feel like trying to expect anything from a month during the pandemic is kinda useless. I ended up mostly focused on Chrono Cross, which was find, but next year I really want to play more and more kinds of games.

My top five games (by play time) for December were:

1. Chrono Cross - Chrono Cross is fine. I decided to play along with the Axe of the Blood God game club and found I enjoyed the minute to minute play, but was pretty underwhelmed by the story telling and most of the mechanics. As a sequel to one of my favourite games, Chrono Trigger, it feels deeply up its own ass in story telling. Chrono Trigger is able to get by, by not spending a lot of time integrating the plot or the time travel, Chrono Cross spends so much talking about time travel that I was just hoping to find a portal to the end of the game.
   
   
   
   The combat system is also underwhelming, partly because they tried to make it so complicated. At the end of the day most of the really fancy things they implemented didn't really work. I think if they'd leaned into the puzzle colour grid and made that a much more intentional system, rather than frustrated by the random AI. I think if they'd mixed this with Final Fantasy X's combat system, it would have worked a lot better.
   I love how colourful Chrono Cross is and I love the island aesthetic. It would have been nice to really get to enjoy the world a little bit more with less of the story sitting on top. A lot of the time it feels like they made a game and only later tried to tie it to Chrono Trigger, and I'd love to play that version that's a little more laid back and embracing the weirdness.
   


2. Secret of Mana (Collection of Mana) - Had a little bit of Secret of Mana left, so started the month by finishing that up. I ended up running out of steam fighting the final boss and ended up with 1 MP left, so had to sit there and wait for the game to knock me out. I ended up doing my old fashioned magic grinding to end the game off. Stupid as it seems standing in an inn and casting magic on myself for a few hours is still kinda fun.
   
   
   
   


3. Super Mario Odyssey - Really didn't pick this up much, but played some Balloon World and really enjoyed it. Odyssey just has a great feeling for movement.
   
   
   
   


4. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - Went back into this a bit, but mostly I'm planning to spend more time in 2022 learning the game and getting good at it.
   
   
   
   


5. Celeste - Played a few minutes just to get the feeling.
   
   
   
   

Here's my total play time chart for December:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Blog: Games of November 2021

I don't think I've had a month before, where I haven't played five games. I was pretty busy this month, and my PC is borked, so I guess I got to be focused for November. I'm looking forward to playing a bit more over December. I'm just about finished Secret of Mana and I'm trying to decide what to play next. I've been thinking about playing Legend of Mana, but also Final Fantasy 9 and 12, and maybe Eastward, and the Skyward Sword remake. The Axe of the Blood God is also doing a pantheon/game club playthrough of Chrono Cross, which I was thinking of playing sometime soon as well. So I have no idea what I'm going to do next, but at least I have options.

My top five games (by play time) for November were:

1. Secret of Mana (Collection of Mana) - I think I've played Secret of Mana more than any other game. It's certainly one of the two games I first fell in love with as a kid (along with Illusion of Gaia). I played a bit when the Collection of Mana first came out, but decided when I finished Trials of Mana that it would be interesting to go back to where I started and play again. It's been fun, sometimes frusterating (I've tried to do a more-or-less low level run), and a little weird. There are several things I'd forgotten and a few I don't think I'd ever seen before.
   
   
   
   


2. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - Continuing to try to "git good". I had a fair bit of fun, although honestly playing ALTTP makes me want to play Illusion of Gaia more often than not. They have very similar game play and IoG is beautiful (and I love it). I started to do a second play through to keep building towards "gitting good" but trailed off as the month got busy.
   
   
   
   


3. Trials of Mana (Collection of Mana) - Playing the original after the remake has been interesting. I've tried and bounced off this game quite a few times in the past. I'm thinking I'll write a combined "things" post about both the original and the remake - and Secret of Mana as well. Overall, I'm glad I played it certainly has a lot of interesting elements. I'm not sure how I would have felt if I played it back when it was originally released, and it does have some flaws by modern game standards, but it's really pretty and fairly fun.
   
   
   
   


4. Super Mario Odyssey - I barely play this, but I finished the "main game" and started on the post game bit and the flow and joy in running around this game has been great.
   
   
   
   


Here's my total play time chart for November:






And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Blog: Games of August 2021

Time feels like it's absolutely blowing by right now. Looking back at August I can't even remember what all happened, but I did play some good games.

My top five games (by play time) for August were:

1. Trials of Mana (Remake) - I picked up Trials of Mana at a point where I really wasn't sure what I wanted to play while sitting down on the couch. As it turns out I'm really glad I did. The game is fun. The combat doesn't have a ton of depth, but has enough that every fight is interesting enough. The story isn't great, but the story wasn't great in the original either. The game looks pretty good overall. I don't like some of the models they've chosen, but even those are fairly faithful to the '95 original. I don't know that I can totally recommend it, but I've had a lot of fun.
   
   
   
   


2. Battle Brothers - This game has just the right amount of challenge and decision making to give it some really nice flow. Sometimes it flows in a bad direction, but usually when I finish playing, however long I play I'm pretty happy. I don't quite know how to describe or encapsulate how that flow works, but I think it revolves around keeping the stakes of any decision low enough that a bad choice doesn't cripple you.
   
   
   
   


3. Mario Golf: Super Rush - If Nintendo had a bullet proof network infrastructure, their new online play mode would have me pretty hooked. Since they don't it leaves me kinda interested. The online mode also illustrates how much their focus was on the running-around-the-golf-course mode compared to the traditional golf mode. Competitive matches tend to resolve into two or more people just waiting for everyone else to go. Unfortunately, the running-around-the-golf-course-mode stutters and chugs when played online.
   
   
   
   


4. Civilization VI - As always, I want to love this game the way I love Battle Brothers. I read Sid Meier's Memoir, and it left me wanting to play Civ, but perpetually the image of Civ I have in my head is more fun than the one I actually play.
   
   
   
   


5. Celeste - I started rewatching Carrie play Celeste on PlayFrame, as an exercise in seeing how someone who doesn't play much can take on a really hard game. I don't usually play those hard games, but I felt inspired. I'm having fun with it, although my hands do hurt.
   
   
   
   

Here's my total play time chart for August:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Blog Post: Video Games of July 2021

July was a much quieter month than the last few. I'm still working on finding my happy point for balance between getting stuff done and getting stuff played, but generally I was pretty happy. I found myself struggling a little bit with finding a game to play to relax with, but with a little bit of energy Trials of Mana has turn out to be a delight.

My top five games (by play time) for July were:

1. Mario Golf: Super Rush - This has turned out to be a good game to play when I need something to pick up at lunch (as with World Tour before it) and it's been something good to play quickly. It's not great and definitely has a noticeable lack of depth, but the moment to moment play is fun.
   
   
   


2. Battle Brothers - Other than the bit where my PC seems to be having some issues, especially while playing Battle Brothers, this continues to be a great game the play. I'm continuing to learn more and more and the depth required to play well has been really compelling.
   
   
   


3. Trials of Mana (3D Remake) - I've stalled out playing Seiken Densetsu 3 a few times. It kinda lacks the drive of early Secret of Mana and also suffers (for me) from not *being* Secret of Mana, so it results in a lot of huh, that's good but different. The combat in is also, not terribly easy to read. The 3D remake is pretty good, I've enjoyed the combat and I think they've made some reasonable chances, streamlining some of the rough places in the original.
   
   
   


4. Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn - This took a little longer to finish than I'd hoped. From my perspective it provides a list of all the quality of life features that were eventually implemented in later games. On the other hand I *like* the story and the characters and compared to the games before it's much more dynamic and interesting. I think it was worth playing through, especially just after playing Path of Radiance, but I'm in a good spot to wait a little bit 
   
   
   


5. Peggle - I've ended up playing Peggle and Zuma when I've needed to get a break without getting up from the desk. (And really I *should* just be getting up from the desk.) Peggle takes a little bit longer to play than Zuma, so it ended up just ahead of it in the list.
   
   
   

Here's my total play time for July:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Blog: Games of June 2020

June was a bit weird. I spent most of it happily playing Animal Crossing and trying to find cool stuff to fit in my other time. I had some work I needed to get done, so I didn't really sink into any "funemployment".

My top five games (by play time) for June were:

1. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Generally the games that get at least a little bit of play time each day end up pretty high on my play time list. AC:NH is a good example of that. It's been really nice to play slow and enjoy the daily play. I think the game could use a few more features, to catch up to New Leaf and also just to give you more things to do each day.
   
   

   

   A Beautiful Night on the Island

   
   


2. Europa Universalis IV - I decided to pay for the DLC subscription, so I'm spending my current play time realing from all of the things that don't totally make sense. I'm still not sure how I feel about the newest DLC, but I'm still having fun. Currently France keeps throwing me into wars which eat all my man power as Castile, but I'm learning.
   
   

   

   A New Monarch

   
   


3. Wargroove - I skipped out on Advance Wars despite it being a game I would probably have liked. Wargroove has proved to be a great game to pick up and play even if I'm finding the "normal difficulty" a little punishing. The style is great and it's fun.
   
   

   

   A Good Boy's Victory

   
   


4. Secret of Mana (Collection of Mana) - I assume I explain this every year, but Secret of Mana is a game you should play in summer. So I am.
   
   

   

   A Confident Moment

   
   


5. Xenonauts - I wanted some slow tactical gameplay to enjoy, which Xenonauts does give. I'm finding the whole thing needs a little boost to be interesting but generally it's still fun if you want to very slowly march some soldiers across a bunch of squares. I did spend a bit of time looking at the mods and I'm facinated and frusterated by how many popular mods there are to "remove all women from the game". Definetly feeling like that's not a community I want anything to do with.
   
   

   

   Almost before anything goes wrong.

Here's my total play time chart for MONTH:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Blog: Games of July 2019

July was the first month in a long, loong time where I was able to just relax. I spent a lot of it with old childhood favourites and sprinting around being Mario. It was a nice month. Then I got hit by what might be the best Fire Emblem ever and I'm not quite sure what's happens to all the time since.

My top five games (by play time) for July were:

1. Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Oh wow. So I picked this up on July 26. I played 30 hours. It's pretty great. I have a few nitpicks on pacing and story, but both the actual Fire Emblem grid-based combat and the interstitial Professorial team-building phase are really fun. Played the first pass on normal, casual difficulty (party because I'm tired of how hard Awakening would kick my butt) and I've found it a touch easy. Overall this game has taken over my life a bit and it's pretty glorious being able to revel in it for a while. That being said, my students may be a little confused come September when I try to teaching them by fishing a bunch.
   
   

   

   Ah. What a lovely place for a nap.

   
   


2. Super Mario Odyssey - The more I play of this the more I love it. There's so much diversity in things to do and the motion and control is a lot of fun. I think it could have a little more to it, and I'm sad there wasn't any DLC, but I've loved my time with Super Mario Odyssey.
   
   

   

   There is more in this game than has been dreamed of in any 8-bit philosophy.

   
   


3. Opus Magnum - Zachtronics gets me. I loved SpaceChem and Opus Magnum is the new, fancy, more accessible version of SpaceChem. The missions feel a lot more achievable than some of the early Zachtronics games, and once you've achieved a working result, it's extremely satisfying to go back in an optimize those results. I think having spent a lot of time thinking about algorithmic problem solving for novice computer scientists really put me in the right frame of my to enjoy this game.
   
   

   

   It's not efficient but it is pretty, which this game lets you do quite happily. 



4. Secret of Mana (Collection of Mana) - I think this my be my game-of-my-lifetime. I bought the Collection of Mana mostly for the other two games, but I've spent more time on Secret of Mana and been extremely happy playing it again. I love the way the story flows, I love the big bright sprites, I love the controls and the combat. Of course it has its flaws, but it still makes me so happy to play. Incidentally I noticed a few things this time around. One is that the UK version has different controls and a different translation to the US version. The second is just how well the game prepares you for things. Most locations are mentioned several steps ahead of the story from the time they actually become important and I find it helps the game hang together really well.
   
   

   

   Take that, Wasp!



5. Trials of Mana (Collection of Mana) - I've started to play Seiken Densetsu 3 several times of the years and I've always played the first few hours and then trailed off. Mostly because I wanted to recapture my joy of Secret of Mana and play properly sitting on the couch. Trials of Mana is letting me do that and I have to confess I'm a little disappointed. I think the story is great and well constructed, but the flow and combat from SoM is missing and the game feels a little detached from my input (the way Legend of Mana on the Playstation feels). I'm wondering if the game didn't get brought across back in the SNES area because they knew it wasn't quite up to the standard of SoM. I think as a kid I would have been pretty disappointed with it (although my capacity to play through crappy games was pretty high back then).
   
   

   

   What a time to be alive.

Here's my total play time chart for July:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Blog: Games of June 2019

My June was mostly dedicated to playing on the Switch. I'm really enjoying the ease of picking up the controller (or the console) and being into a game within second.

My top six games (by play time) for June were:

1. Super Mario Odyssey - Thanks to this game I can now pretty regularly spell Odyssey. The more I've played the more I've gotten into it. I keep thinking I must be running out of fun (or at least Power Moons), but so far it just keeps showing more and more depth.
   
   

   

   In context, this doesn't make any sense either.



2. Animal Crossing: Amiibo Fest - This usually doesn't land so far up the list, but my play time was pretty spread out this month. As always this is a nice way to wake up on weekend mornings with my partner and even though we basically know all the events by heart by now, it's still a charming thing to play.
   

   

   Sunday Morning Business meeting.

   
   


3. Xenonauts - Less charming, but no less fun. I am surprised by how long it took me to get into this game, but I have been pretty thoroughly enjoying it. The only real complaint I have at the moment is that I'm readier to end this campaign than the game seems to be. I think there's a little bit of pacing trouble between the missions you play and the research the game does for you that actually advances the plot. Otherwise, I'm enjoying the combat and I feel like they've arrived at a spot where "failure is fun". (But that might just also be my brain relaxing from the PhD).
   
   

   

   Oh sure, deal with my shotgunners by building all your ships like tubes...



4. Cadence of Hyrule - This game is pretty awesome. I was really bad the first hour or so, but then found my groove (so to speak) and got the idea of the game. Since then I've really enjoyed it, although I find it needs a particular mindset to really appreciate (and because it's rhythm based, you can't drink and play well). I wouldn't mind if it had a little more meat on it, but I'm only about halfway through right now, so there may be more to come. I'm interested to see how it replays (it feels short) and I think I might also take a look at Crypt of the Necrodancer for the purer Rogue-Beat genre.
   
   

   

   **Guitar Riff**



5. Secret of Mana (Collection of Mana) - I was not spoiled on this, so when Nintendo announced the Collection of Mana in its E3 direct I pretty much fell out of my chair. Seeing Seiken Densetsu 3 released in English in North America is fantastic and so I bought it as soon as it was released (which was that night as I recall). I haven't played too much of either SD3 or SD (Final Fantasy Adventure) yet, but having Secret of Mana to hand has been a total blast. Also I discovered that the UK localization is very slightly different (and better?) than the US one.
   
   

   

   **British Whale Sounds** 

   
   
6. Pokémon Go - I really haven't spend that much time sitting down to play PoGo the last little while, but trying to keep streaks up, I've played a few minutes each day. That's been enough to get it into the top list for the month.
   
   

   

   Good catch ... 

   
   

Here's my total play time chart for June:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 140)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we haul out old favourites to take ourselves on some epic adventures.

• First, CalebElijah plays "A Wish", which is the snow area theme from Secret of Mana. As always CalebElijah makes me happy and this is one of my favourite parts of one of my favourite games, so this one definitely makes all the hair stand up on my arms.
• Next, Mr. Smooth McGroove, sings "One Wing Angel". I like the cover even though I don't really like the song (nor how excited people get for it, but apparently I'm a game hipster ... surprise). 
• Finally we get to the very awesome Meine Meinung playing "Guarida Millenial Fair". One of the things I absolutely love about Chrono Trigger is how the music tells so much of the story and I love the way Meine Meinung covers Chrono's adventure at the fair. 
• This is definetly the point where I fell in love with Meine Meinung so the next six videos in my favourites playlist are all from them, so expect the next two volumes may be all blue grassed video game music all the time.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 130)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, it's music day. Wake up, suck up and chill!

• First, get up, and don't forget to wake Pomplamoose up before you Go!
• Next, Brentalfloss flosses up the theme to Luigi's Mansion. So grab your vacuum and get to work (although I don't recommend listening to the cover if you're planning to play the game in the near future, the ear worm quotient is ... high).
• Finally, CalebElijah plays "Sub Zero Snow Field" from Seiken Densetsu 3, which I think may be one of the most beautiful pieces of music in video games. Certainly the cover is absolutely gorgeous. 

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 122)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we get ready for adventure and the weekend all with the great things of video games and music.

• First, I've been having trouble getting going, so it's really nice that we get to start with Mr. Smooth McGroove pushing us out Into the Thick of It. So grab that rusty sword out of the stream and go fight the fluffy evil of your to do list. (Or at least that's my plan.)
• Next, Josh would like you to remember that Star Fox was Really Freakin' Cleaver. I like his point that the world and the sense of journey is the reason why Star Fox has stayed memorable. I remember being a kid, spending hours fantasizing about how amazing a Star Fox II could be, especially imagining it letting you pick different paths and having more complex interactions with your squad mates (like having them actually shoot things). I think a lot of that came from how well the world grabbed me.
  Also, I have been creeping out my friends for years by saying  good luck like the flight controller in the beginning of Star Fox.  (Actually they've probably never noticed, but hey, I like doing it anyway.)
• Finally, Hank is ready for the weekend, playing half a century's worth of music all with the same damn cord progression.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 91)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we can have a dream, a laugh and a journey!

• First, Brentalfloss shares an original composition with us. 
• Next, Wil Wheaton's son Ryan Wheaton was on an episode of Table Top. His interview is good and it's nice to see such a great family dynamic, but mostly ... well you really should just watch it.
• Finally, if you need music to walk over green hills to, CalebElijah covers Colour of the Summer Sky from Secret of Mana. Now if you'll excuse me it's time to go get too hot working in the garden, then go hide in the basement and play Secret of Mana.

Blog: Thoughts on Secret of Mana

Last year I returned to one of my favourite games of all time, Secret of Mana. It was one of the first RPGs I played on the Super Nintendo and it's one of the games that has stuck with me the most since. I have played it at least half a dozen times and started it up more often than that. It's one of those games where I spent hours looking for all the secrets and all the ways to break and bend the game. My nostalgia goggles for this game are pretty strong, so I may be biased in my assessment, but I still think is one of the best games ever made.

Secret of Mana - GameFaqs user PeTeRL90

Secret of Mana is also a game that has influenced my creativity. The first time I thought about writing fan fiction it was for this game (it's long lost, no way to find it, don't ask). It's also the game that has influenced how I would like to make an action RPG in the future. While it doesn't do everything perfectly, it's a very well executed game and I think it has a lot to offer when thinking about creating video games.

As always with my thoughts on video games, please expect spoilers for all of Secret of Mana below.

Things I Liked

I love the style of Secret of Mana. The game's music is astoundingly good, and is used to great effect to reinforce the feelings the player should have as they play. Early in the game you start out, after being ejected from your village, walking through green hills, fighting killer rabites and mushrooms and getting thrown into passing goblins' stew pots and the music is light and sets a tone of setting out on an adventure. Later, you'll walk through caves and forests, visit terrifying ruins where cults are absorbing the souls of the villagers and temples where you find surprise allies.

Don't trust its cute looks. That rabite a killer! - GameFaqs user MagicianMayLee

Later in the game, when you're the only one who can save the world you have to fight though the heart of the enemy's castle. Then you have to find your inner reserves in the pure lands  the power you need to fight though the enemy's psychedelic flying fortress and then you have to fight the terrifying final boss.

Visually the game also supports these feelings. Sprites area always big and bright and you're never left wondering where you are or what you're supposed to fight. The game gets darker as it goes on and you leave the Ghibli hills heading to more intense areas, but it always looks like you have an adventure in store everywhere you go.

Beyond its style, Secret of Mana also shines when it comes to combat. It's incredibly satisfying to be able to step into an enemy who's charging at you and knock a bunch of big orange numbers out of them. The timer that has to recharge between hits is slow by modern standards, but I still like the flow of attack, wait, attack, wait. Using the charged attacks also feels good since you're able to channel tension into making a stronger attack knocking more numbers out and frequently simply slicing through your enemies like they weren't even there. Playing through this recent time I was probably quite over-leveled but I certainly enjoyed being able to take down all those enemies that gave me trouble as a child.

It's time to fight! - GameFaqs user Storm Shadow

One aspect of combat that I particularly like is the use of status ailments. You can be poisoned, confused, immobilized, frozen, or set on fire. They're all immediately identifiable and you are as able to inflict them on your enemies as they are on you. Poisoned, frozen and on fire form a trio, when poisoned you lose health, when frozen you can't act and when on fire you lose health and can't act. They form a basic set of conditions to make combat more interesting without leaving you confused about what's happening and why.

The confused status effect is interesting since it changes the inputs on your controller, so if you're careful and organized you can still cope, but you always end up out of control for a second or two as you re-adjust, when first confused and then again when you stop being confused. Immobilization also fun since you're immobilized by being tied to a balloon, but you can still attack.

The game is also very good about managing tension, particularly by using frequent boss fights. I like this because you always feel like the skills you're developing fighting the little enemies are paying off. You also have a reason to save your magic, knowing that there will be something big to fire it at soon. It also helps pull you through the game since there's always an interesting fight on the horizon.

Secret of Mana also uses (pioneered?) the ring menu. Rather than having to go out to a menu, it's nice to have items, powers and even system options just pop up around your character in game. The icons are easy to identify and other than having trouble remembering where the rings are in relation to each other (do I go up or down to get the items?) I find it to be really fast to get heal up and jump back into combat.

I also like the characters in the game, both the playable ones and the NPCs. They might not be as well developed as in a lot of later games (more on this in the Things I Noticed section), but there's a lot of charm to them all. I recognize that this is probably the aspect of the game that my nostalgia goggles distort the most, but I still find that I'm invested in them. I want to see the good guys survive and do well and I want to take down, or redeem the bad guys. Characterization has certainly been done better but the number of NPCs I still remember, years after playing the game feels very high compared to a lot of other games.

Secret of Mana is one of the first games I can remember with 3 player co-op. While I didn't get to do it too often, being able to play the game with friends was great and it certainly made a lot of things easier when you were able to work with a real person. It's a pretty common element of gameplay today, but back then it was another factor that made me love this game.

Other than the game, I also happened to own  the Prima Player's Guide (picked when it got discarded at the Library, after having borrowed it on and off for years). While I didn't need it to play through the game, I love the way it's written as a story of the characters journeying through the world (going on that adventure). It makes the technical information of how to get past problems in the game more fun. It has a bunch of concept art which also helped me get into the world. Best of all it had maps, stitched together out of the screens of the game which I absolutely loved, because it gives you a sense of the world. It was great being able to see where I had adventured all at once.

    

Things I Didn't Like

The largest problem with Secret of Mana is the balance of the magic powers. Because of the limited amount of MP you have, you tend to limit your use of magic power to bosses, but your magic only levels up when you use it. Beyond this, you're limited in how much you can level up your magic based on how many mana seeds you've visited in the story. This results a lot of the time in your magic not being as strong as you'd like.

You probably don't actually need very high magic levels, but it's difficult not to want them to be as high as possible. It's simply nicer to have the ability to beat enemies more easily, it's not really necessary, but it's nice to be able to take down the final bosses in fewer hits than if you need to hang around and fight them "properly". The magic also gets cooler animation the higher the level it has, at the fourth and eighth levels and then an extra boost when it's fully powered up. It's simply nice to have the cooler magic effects, even though there's no real use for them in the game.

I'm going to set that flower on fire. WITH A FIRE DRAGON! - GameFaqs user Tropicon

The result of this is that if you do level up your magic, you're usually not doing it at the pace of the story and end up standing in a place where you can cast spells as quickly as possible to gain XP and then recharge your MP to start again. This is not exactly the most fun way to power up, and it's a bit of a shame that it seems to be at least somewhat necessary.

Another problem the game has is that despite having a wide selection of weapons to choose from, there's no real reason to pick a weapon over any other. There are differences in reach and very slight differences in power. Having at least some factor where different weapons recharge more quickly would definitely make the game more interesting or at least give you more reasons to try something out. Also having different weapons interact differently with different enemies would be interesting. Don't punch the electric thing use your javelin, don't use a boomerang on that living tree, get your axe.

Armour is worse than the weapons since new armour only increases your defence. It's boring, generally expensive and never feels interesting, especially since your characters appearance never changes. It's also not implemented well, it's several trips into the menu to see what defence you have, then buy the item, then equip the item then sell the old item. The number of times I screwed up the process is surprisingly high causing me to buy more of an item then I needed then have to sell it back afterwards.

As with weapons it would have been nice to see some variety in armour. Being able to put on heavier armour to fight the big hulking boss, or light armour to move quicker, or magic armour to stop the magic guy you have to fight. Having types rather than just "stronger" would have made that part of the game more fun, though it's a limited problem in the game.

The last part of the game that I didn't like was the party AI. They're ... dumb. The number of times I got a party member hooked on the other side of the stairs is so high I can't even tell you. I'm glad that they don't solve it the way a lot of games do by having the characters disappear and then reappear beside you, but there are definitely points where I've had to very carefully wiggle my way around to get us all unhooked and moving again. It would be nice if the path finding was a little more advanced.

There are controls for the AI, they're just limited. - GameFaqs user MagicianMayLee

Beyond the path finding the AI's contribution to combat is also not quite what you'd like. The game does let you set whether they should be aggressive or defensive, but having an AI with a better understanding of what you need to fight and how to fit into the timing of the game would be nice. Still for the time on the SNES I guess this is about as good as we could expect in an action RPG.

Things I Noticed

I have mixed feelings on the story in Secret of Mana. On the one hand, it's enough to pull you through the game and give you enough reason to go and explore the world and see what there is to see. On the other hand, the story is not terribly original and in fact seems to be split into several relatively disjointed parts.

And an adventure begins. - GameFaqs user KeyBlade999

The first part of the story is the hero's journey, from finding a rusty old sword, to unleashing monsters onto the world, to getting banished from his village, to journeying around the world gaining power and friends until he's able to defeat the great evil. For the first half of this game there's a lot of story to keep you moving, but in the second half you're basically running back and forth because a bird told you to (and it turns out that you actually don't even have to talk to Sage Joch, you can just go do the temples with no story at all).

The other part of the story is the fight between the "good guy" countries and the evil empire. This is somewhat tied into the first story, but it's tangential to the things you're doing. You're helping fight the good fight, but only when you're in the right place at the right time.

Then there are the weird side stories, which aren't side quests, they're part of the main journey. Like that time when Santa Claus steals a Mana seed to make people believe in Christmas again. Or when the not-terribly effective Scorpion Army kidnaps one of the elemental sources of magic and uses it to heat a small town in the middle of the ice land.

That's not to say that the story isn't good. I like it. It's interesting. But it is disjointed. All of these pieces are pretty cool, but there's very little stitching them together other than the fact that you happen to be there and smacking the enemies is fun.

A large part of the reason for this is that the game was significantly cut down during it's creation and then the story was further trimmed due to translation constraints. While I'm having trouble finding actual documentation of what was cut, Secret of Mana was originally slated to be the first title for the SNES-CD add on. This would have allowed the game to be much larger and have significantly more space for graphics and music. The original game would also have had a more branching story line. Based on the Wikipedia article, the cuts seem to have generally caused the story to be a lot more restricted and not as dark as the developers had originally wanted. It also seems to have caused some of the technical problems the game has when there are too many things on screen all at once.

Additionally the game was translated into English in only 30 days by a very new translator. Beyond the problem of having only a limited amount of space to put text, due to the fixed width English font, there were also a lot of problems even getting a unified script for the translator to work on. This seems to have reduced the nuance and characterization even further than the change from the SNES-CD.

It's disappointing to lose so much of plot of the game and further to lose the nuance and characterization. It would have been interesting to see the much more complete story, and I would have been happy to get to spend more time in the world. It's also disappointing to realize the points where you don't get to see the real emotion from the characters in the game (for example I had never even realized that there was supposed to be a love triangle between the girl, Phanna and Dyluc).

You'll notice all the hair on your arms stand up - GameFaqs user noidentity

I will say that I don't mind having the game not be as dark as they may have been intending. That's not to say that there's anything wrong with a dark game, and because I haven't seen what they wanted to produces I can't speak to it. But I think there are not enough games that combine strong game mechanics and good storytelling with a lighter story. I think there's a space in the market for serious games that are no so dark as a lot of game makers would like to develop. It's a hard balance to maintain.

Things I'd Include in a Game

Of course the number one thing I'd love to include in a game is music like Secret of Mana has. Beautiful, carefully composed, well produced music would be nice, but more to the point, I want to have evocative music that supports the theme of the game, both of the game generally and of the areas, the characters and the actions. Certainly when I get the chance, I would love to bring in a great composer to work with.

If a cave man asks you if you want to travel by cannon, YOU SAY YES! - GameFaqs user VinnyVideo

I love the sense of adventure of Secret of Mana. I love the way the game gives you a feeling of a safe harbour and an unknown destination. You always have to be careful, but there's always something to see. There may be times when the things you see aren't even really related to the quest your on, but they're just something to pique your interest.

More technically, I like the way the status ailments work in Secret of Mana, and I like that they're equally applicable to you an your enemies (and useful both ways as well). I also like have clear understandable imagery that indicates how you're afflicted and possibly how long it's going to last.

Finally I like the way the skills work. I didn't put points into being good with the sword, I got good with the sword because I used it a lot. It's a pretty common concept in RPGs, but it's still the way I like to see talents improve through game play.

Final Thoughts

I think Secret of Mana is one of the best games on the Super Nintendo. Actually, I think Secret of Mana is one of the best games on any platform. There are a few things that mark it as old, combat is slow and the story is a touch thin, but I think these are easily over come and not playing this game is skipping over a classic.

Replaying this game I thought a lot about how important the balance between game play and story telling is. I was always happy when the game switched me from one to the other. "Oh good, I get to go kill more monsters." "Oh good, I get to see more of the story." I think Secret of Mana has a good balance and it kept me interested even though the story is linear and you can't change it as you play. I think from a game creation view, this is a good platform to begin on. As you add more story, more choice or more gameplay elements make sure that you keep the fun balanced.