Secret of Mana (Collection of Mana - Switch) and Secret of Mana Reborn (SNES Emulator)
In April - July of this year (interspersed with Kirby Star Allies), Jethrien and I introduced ARR to the Collection of Mana version of this game, which was the easiest way to currently play with three players. (I think I have an SNES multitap somewhere, but it never worked with the Retro Duo system; and I don’t have enough USB controllers to do it on an emulator box.)
I think the Collection version of Secret of Mana is glitchier than the original: We had the game freeze the first time we beat Spiky Tiger, and Blue Spike went into his death animation briefly when he still had a third of his health left. There are also some wonky graphical issues, but those I vaguely remember. And pulling up the world map on Flammie is a draggy, laggy and unpleasant affair.
We twice found invisible chests randomly in dungeons that provided us with weapon orbs that we’d missed elsewhere. Given the number of times I’ve played this game, I actually find it rather shocking how many weapon orbs I apparently miss with some regularity. Actually, I think there are several that I NEVER knew where they were, despite owning a strategy guide and the full Nintendo Power coverage (all of which ARR devoured while we were playing). He got a little tired of it as time went on (and Jethrien never liked the battle system but tolerated it for my sake), but had a good time and there’s potential to go back and play Trials of Mana together.
To Jethrien’s credit, the system isn’t actually that great. The timing/charged hits system is weird (they didn’t want you spamming attacks, but there’s a reason later games didn’t mimic it) and the statistics-based dodge/block/miss chance is confusing when you’re also trying to aim for the sometimes-wonky hitboxes. Also, the whip has better range than the bow and neither is always easy to aim with. They use roadblocks that require certain weapons (whip posts and axe rocks, mostly), but that mostly just forces you to change weapons periodically rather than requiring much thinking. And the plot massively condenses after you leave the Empire; it feels like there should be much more to the Dark/Light/Moon/Tascina/Joch sequence given the pacing of the game before that. I love this for nostalgia, but kinda wish that when they remade the game they did more than just update the graphics.
This month, the “Reborn” hack came out, and apparently this year is all about replaying games I’ve loved for decades. To be fair, having recently replayed the original made it easier to see the differences. “Reborn” is primarily a retranslation of the original SNES game that crams in a lot more text.
Especially in the early game, the retranslations are often clunky and jump between overly literal and overly poetic-it feels like they made decisions line by line without reading the whole for flow and coherence. Dyluck foreshadows a lot more about his mysterious power in your first meeting. Luka speaks in a weird Ye Olde Englishe manner. (They also occasionally refer to her as “Rusa Luka” vs. “Sage Luka” other times.)
Gnome has a terrible Scots accent. An entire flashback scene was added after you touch the Earth Seed and the Sprite gets their memory back. Jema has far longer expository speeches, including the origin of the Evil Wall. There’s a new cutscene of Luka talking to Serin’s ghost (revealing that Serin is the boy’s father) when you blast off to the Upper Land. There’s more dialogue from the sprite elder, and the trio has a conversation after you rescue Flammie.
The conversations in the Empire are generally extended a bit, but I didn’t see anything new. I did notice they use the “kukuku” or “fufufu” laughing style that’s popular with “direct translations” from Japanese but doesn’t really make sense to English audiences.
Shade gets a big speech about Mavolia and how humans might sell their souls for power. He also gets a bizarre new accent full of apostrophes.
I’m certain some of the weapon orbs were rearranged for this hack: There were axe and spear orbs in chests in the Light Palace that I have no memory of every being there before.
Blue Spike (here renamed “Biochimera” did the “death animation before he actually dies” glitch here, too. Karon the ferryman was, oddly, not renamed “Charon” or anything else. Sheex also mentions the deal with Mavolia when you fight him at the Tree Palace. After the continent rises, there’s a conversation suggesting you check in on Luka. She’s in the dungeon of the Water Palace, and she suggests visiting gramps. Gramps just says he sensed troops coming and hid in the woods. (This smells like a sidequest they weren’t really able to implement.)
I’m fairly certain there are a few more bonus treasure chests in the sunken continent. I had a momentary freakout because it seemed like the Neko after you finish the sunken continent sold the same equipment available in Auria City! Except, then I accidentally reset the game and restarted from a nearby save state, and it apparently was a glitch. The Vestguards were back where they belonged.
Since I played Reborn with cheat codes anyway, I put in one that makes every enemy drop chests for the Mana Holy Land and the Mana Fortress. There are only two helmets and one bracelet in the Holy Land that I found, but at least two armors, three bracelets and one more helmet in the Mana Fortress plus four more weapon orbs that dropped from random enemies. (I’d heard about those, but don’t think I’d ever seen them before.) The equipment is only slightly better than the stuff you buy from Neko, so it’s not worth grinding for, but it’s cool that it exists.
The conversation with the Tree sheds more light on the fate of Serin: He fought the Emperor to mortal blows 15 years earlier; Serin made it to the falls outside Potos but couldn’t draw the sword and the Emperor was revived by evil magic through the deal he made with Mavolia. The final scene with Thanatos similarly provides backstory: He was an ancient sorcerer who sold his soul to Mavolia so he could body-hop, and Dyluck was born with a dark power that makes him an ideal host (but gives him a strong sense of justice).
As much as I appreciate Mavolia replacing “the dark world” to better tie into the series mythos, it doesn’t actually jive with the Mavolia that Sword of Mana references, which is the home of monsters and magic but not necessarily evil in any way, and certainly not a source of corruption.
Overall: The game holds up only moderately, and is really helped by nostalgia value. The system isn’t great, there are a number of glitches, there’s too much grinding, and the plot is oddly condensed. But playing it as three-player couch co-op was perfect for this year, and playing a retranslation with cheats while the original was still fresh in my mind worked out well.
I think the Collection version of Secret of Mana is glitchier than the original: We had the game freeze the first time we beat Spiky Tiger, and Blue Spike went into his death animation briefly when he still had a third of his health left. There are also some wonky graphical issues, but those I vaguely remember. And pulling up the world map on Flammie is a draggy, laggy and unpleasant affair.
We twice found invisible chests randomly in dungeons that provided us with weapon orbs that we’d missed elsewhere. Given the number of times I’ve played this game, I actually find it rather shocking how many weapon orbs I apparently miss with some regularity. Actually, I think there are several that I NEVER knew where they were, despite owning a strategy guide and the full Nintendo Power coverage (all of which ARR devoured while we were playing). He got a little tired of it as time went on (and Jethrien never liked the battle system but tolerated it for my sake), but had a good time and there’s potential to go back and play Trials of Mana together.
To Jethrien’s credit, the system isn’t actually that great. The timing/charged hits system is weird (they didn’t want you spamming attacks, but there’s a reason later games didn’t mimic it) and the statistics-based dodge/block/miss chance is confusing when you’re also trying to aim for the sometimes-wonky hitboxes. Also, the whip has better range than the bow and neither is always easy to aim with. They use roadblocks that require certain weapons (whip posts and axe rocks, mostly), but that mostly just forces you to change weapons periodically rather than requiring much thinking. And the plot massively condenses after you leave the Empire; it feels like there should be much more to the Dark/Light/Moon/Tascina/Joch sequence given the pacing of the game before that. I love this for nostalgia, but kinda wish that when they remade the game they did more than just update the graphics.
This month, the “Reborn” hack came out, and apparently this year is all about replaying games I’ve loved for decades. To be fair, having recently replayed the original made it easier to see the differences. “Reborn” is primarily a retranslation of the original SNES game that crams in a lot more text.
Especially in the early game, the retranslations are often clunky and jump between overly literal and overly poetic-it feels like they made decisions line by line without reading the whole for flow and coherence. Dyluck foreshadows a lot more about his mysterious power in your first meeting. Luka speaks in a weird Ye Olde Englishe manner. (They also occasionally refer to her as “Rusa Luka” vs. “Sage Luka” other times.)
Gnome has a terrible Scots accent. An entire flashback scene was added after you touch the Earth Seed and the Sprite gets their memory back. Jema has far longer expository speeches, including the origin of the Evil Wall. There’s a new cutscene of Luka talking to Serin’s ghost (revealing that Serin is the boy’s father) when you blast off to the Upper Land. There’s more dialogue from the sprite elder, and the trio has a conversation after you rescue Flammie.
The conversations in the Empire are generally extended a bit, but I didn’t see anything new. I did notice they use the “kukuku” or “fufufu” laughing style that’s popular with “direct translations” from Japanese but doesn’t really make sense to English audiences.
Shade gets a big speech about Mavolia and how humans might sell their souls for power. He also gets a bizarre new accent full of apostrophes.
I’m certain some of the weapon orbs were rearranged for this hack: There were axe and spear orbs in chests in the Light Palace that I have no memory of every being there before.
Blue Spike (here renamed “Biochimera” did the “death animation before he actually dies” glitch here, too. Karon the ferryman was, oddly, not renamed “Charon” or anything else. Sheex also mentions the deal with Mavolia when you fight him at the Tree Palace. After the continent rises, there’s a conversation suggesting you check in on Luka. She’s in the dungeon of the Water Palace, and she suggests visiting gramps. Gramps just says he sensed troops coming and hid in the woods. (This smells like a sidequest they weren’t really able to implement.)
I’m fairly certain there are a few more bonus treasure chests in the sunken continent. I had a momentary freakout because it seemed like the Neko after you finish the sunken continent sold the same equipment available in Auria City! Except, then I accidentally reset the game and restarted from a nearby save state, and it apparently was a glitch. The Vestguards were back where they belonged.
Since I played Reborn with cheat codes anyway, I put in one that makes every enemy drop chests for the Mana Holy Land and the Mana Fortress. There are only two helmets and one bracelet in the Holy Land that I found, but at least two armors, three bracelets and one more helmet in the Mana Fortress plus four more weapon orbs that dropped from random enemies. (I’d heard about those, but don’t think I’d ever seen them before.) The equipment is only slightly better than the stuff you buy from Neko, so it’s not worth grinding for, but it’s cool that it exists.
The conversation with the Tree sheds more light on the fate of Serin: He fought the Emperor to mortal blows 15 years earlier; Serin made it to the falls outside Potos but couldn’t draw the sword and the Emperor was revived by evil magic through the deal he made with Mavolia. The final scene with Thanatos similarly provides backstory: He was an ancient sorcerer who sold his soul to Mavolia so he could body-hop, and Dyluck was born with a dark power that makes him an ideal host (but gives him a strong sense of justice).
As much as I appreciate Mavolia replacing “the dark world” to better tie into the series mythos, it doesn’t actually jive with the Mavolia that Sword of Mana references, which is the home of monsters and magic but not necessarily evil in any way, and certainly not a source of corruption.
Overall: The game holds up only moderately, and is really helped by nostalgia value. The system isn’t great, there are a number of glitches, there’s too much grinding, and the plot is oddly condensed. But playing it as three-player couch co-op was perfect for this year, and playing a retranslation with cheats while the original was still fresh in my mind worked out well.