Secret of Mana

a.k.a. Seiken Densetsu 2 / 聖剣伝説2

created and published by Square in 1993-08-06, running on Super Nintendo
type: action/reflex, role-play
genre: Manga, Fantasy
series: Seiken Densetsu
perspective: bird's-eye 3rd person push-scroll
player options: single player
languages: eng fre ger jpn spa
4.5/5
bootleg(s): Seiken Densetsu: The Emergence of Excalibur

Personal reviews (3)

Ahhh, old school SNES RPGs... aren't they great? And Secret of Mana (henceforth SoM) was, and indeed still is one of the best. An action-orientated RPG along the same lines as the equally wonderful Zelda games, SoM is one of those games that I can keep playing through without getting bored. The plot is good, if a little unoriginal, and it has a great multiplayer option, a rarity in SNES RPGs.

# 2006
One of the greatest RPG's ever made for SNES. It comes in English and a few other languages, like French, German and Spanish.

DjOuL - # 2006
I likeit.It's the best!!
...
thats all

WOODY - # 2006

Official descriptions (2)

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.

# 2014-08-07 03:18:52 - official description
Good and evil battle for a young warrior's heart. There is one force in the universe that keeps good and evil in perfect balance. It is called the tree of Mana. But a magic sword has tricked a young warrior into upsetting this balance, spreading evil throughout the land. Thus, the warrior must undertake a dangerous journey to find the seeds of the Mana tree, which have been hidden for centuries. Only then can perfect harmony be restored. In this incredible adventure, things are not as they seem. Magic swords release evil as well as fight it. Treasure chests hold booby traps. Monsters are friends and friends are enemies. Potions give power, black magic takes it away. Dragons fly, weapons change. It's a world turned upside down that you must help the warrior make right. And the only way to succeed is to solve the Secret of Mana.

# 2008-10-16 00:19:56 - official description

Technical specs

hardware: SNES Classic,
display: raster

Editor notes (2)

Development History:

Seiken Densetsu: The Emergence of Excalibur was planned to be a massive 5 disk, 4 player RPG for Nintendo's Disk System that reached a stage of development that had Square confident enough to accept payments for pre-orders. But it never quite came together before financial troubles threaten to bankrupt Square in 1987. As a last magnus opus, Square published Final Fantasy before closure. Surprise, FF rescued the company from financial demise. Square was reluctant to give up Seiken Densetsu because they had spent resources setting up the intellectual property rights associated with it (and taken pre-orders). The Seiken Densetsu project was reopened, this time as an cartridge based game, due to the waning popularity of the Disk System. But other projects kept occupying their people, such as Final Fantasy II, and Final Fantasy III. At one point, the title was referred to as ファイナルファンタジーIV (Final Fantasy IV) in the press; but internally, the massive project seemed doomed, so much so, that Square slapped the name on a Final Fantasy spin-off for Gameboy, 聖剣伝説 ~ファイナルファンタジー外伝~ (Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden/Final Fantasy Adventure/Mystic Quest) that was originally named Gemma Knights. This is where the NES version of the game ends. Then came the announcement of the Super Nintendo CD-ROM add-on. Final Fantasy Gaiden did well enough for a sequel, so Seiken Densetsu: The Emergence of Excalibur was reinvigorated as a CD-ROM project. Some elements of Final Fantasy Gaiden were added to the design. Finally, the project was finished, then Super Nintendo CD-ROM venture collapsed, Seiken Densetsu was over, sort of. The game was speedily chopped down to cartridge size and published as Seiken Densetsu 2/Secret of Mana.

DOG was a cooperative venture between 7 videogame companies that developed games then published them under the Square brand. During the "ファイナルファンタジーIV" stage, all materials used the DOG Square label.

# 2022-11-01 16:22:15
Tags
While developed as the first game in the Seiken Densetsu series, it ended up becoming the sequel to Final Fantasy Adventure. Each player (up to 3) controls a member of a cooperative group. Uncontrolled characters are played by computer AI according to strategy set by the lead player. There are sprite like characters in the game. A good portion of the game takes place in forest areas. androgynouscharacter? There are rooted and unrooted plants that move rapidly to attack the player. There are unrooted plant based creatures that move freely as if they were an animal. Ther are sprite like beings in the game. Killing enemies gains personal experience points for a player but a strike gains points for the skill level of the weapon that are holding during deed.

(Zerothis) - # 2009-06-23 01:24:28

Authors / Staff

management

Hiromichi Tanaka (producer)
Keitarou Adachi (network management)
Koichi Ishii (director game design in chief)

author

Hiromichi Tanaka (concept)

design

Goro Ohashi (battle system design)
Hidetoshi Kezuka (map design)
Hiromichi Tanaka (system design)
Hiroyuki Narushima (monster character design)
Koichi Ishii (monster design)
Shinichi Kameoka (player character design)
Shinichiro Okaniwa (character design)
Yasushi Matsumura (map data system design)

coding

Fumiaki Fukaya (demo program)
Li Weimin (support english version)
Masaaki Saito (message program)
Nasir Gebelli (main program)
Ryo Muto (ring menu program)
Satoru Yoshieda (monster control program)
Taku Murata (monster program)
Tsukasa Fujita (debug support)
Yoshiyuki Miyagawa (calculcation program)

graphics

Akira Ueda (world map graphic design)
Hiroo Isono (main visual artwork)
Koichi Ishii (animation)
Manabu Daishima (map graphic design)
Misako Tsutsui (map graphic design)
Noriko Sasaki (monster animation)
Shintarou Takai (magic animation)
Tetsuya Takahashi (map graphic design)
Yasuhiko Kamata (map graphic design in chief)

audio

Hiroki Kikuta (music composer)
Kenji Ito (sound effect designer)
Minoru Akao (sound program)
Yasunori Mitsuda (sound effect designer)

localization

Ted Woolsey (translation english version)

other

Goro Ohashi (monster logics)
Kaoru Moriyama (direction english version)
Toshiyuki Inoue (map data)
Yasushi Matsumura (data)

External reviews (6) - average: 94.8% - median: 94.5%

review sourceissuedatescore
Consoles + (1-155)fr271993-1295/10095%
IGN2008*9/1090%
Joypad 1-72fr241993-1094/10094%
Joypad 1-72fr361994-1192/10092%
Nintendo Playerfr251994-116/6100%
Player Onefr471994-1198/10098%

Contributors (9)

AndreaD
teran01
zerothis
dandyboh
cjlee001
Sanguine
uvlbot-1
leszy
gmblongplays

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