Secret of Mana, originally released in Japan as Seiken Densetsu 2, is a 1993 action role-playing game created and released by Square for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It is the follow-up to the 1991 game Seiken Densetsu, which was released in North America as Final Fantasy Adventure and in Europe as Mystic Quest. Secret of Mana was the first Seiken Densetsu game to be promoted as part of the Mana series instead of the Final Fantasy series. The game takes place in a high fantasy world and follows three heroes as they try to stop an empire from conquering the world using the power of an ancient flying fortress.

Unlike other role-playing games of the time that used a turn-based battle system, Secret of Mana uses real-time battles with a power bar mechanic. The game includes a unique Ring Command menu system, which pauses the action and lets players make choices during battles. A special cooperative multiplayer system allows a second or third player to join or leave the game at any time. Secret of Mana was directed and designed by Koichi Ishii, programmed mainly by Nasir Gebelli, and produced by experienced Square designer Hiromichi Tanaka.

The game was praised for its bright graphics, detailed story, Ring Command menu system, and new real-time battle system. Critics also appreciated the music by Hiroki Kikuta and the customizable artificial intelligence (AI) settings for computer-controlled allies. Later, it was considered one of the greatest games of all time by critics. It was re-released on Virtual Console for the Wii in 2008 and for the Wii U in 2013. It was also released on mobile platforms (as an improved version) between 2009 and 2019, on Switch as part of Collection of Mana in 2017 and 2019, and remade in 3D in 2018 for PlayStation 4, Vita, and Windows. The remake received mixed reviews, with many criticizing its lack of gameplay improvements and updated graphics.

Gameplay

Secret of Mana is a role-playing game from the early video game era that shows a top-down view of the game world. Players control three characters: a hero, a girl, and a sprite, named Randi, Primm, and Popoi in the original versions released outside North America and Europe. Players can choose their own names for these characters. At any time, players can control each character individually, while the other two move automatically using artificial intelligence. The game allows up to three players to play together using the Super Multitap accessory for the Super NES console. The Virtual Console version supports three-player gameplay with extra GameCube or Classic Controllers.

Each character has unique abilities. The hero learns weapons quickly but cannot use magic. The girl can heal others and cast helpful spells. The sprite uses magic to attack enemies. As characters gain experience points from battles, they level up and improve abilities like strength and speed. Players can rest in towns to recover health or buy items and equipment. To change equipment, cast spells, or check status, players use the Ring Commands, a circular menu that appears above the character being controlled. The game pauses briefly when the Ring Commands are displayed.

Combat happens in real-time. At the bottom of the screen, a power bar shows how much damage a character can deal. Swinging a weapon empties the bar, then quickly refills it, allowing the character to attack at full strength. The party uses eight weapon types: sword, spear, bow, axe, boomerang, glove, whip, and javelin. Each weapon can be upgraded eight times, and using it repeatedly increases its skill level. Upgrading unlocks new special attacks. Weapon Orbs, found in dungeons or earned by defeating bosses, are taken to blacksmiths in towns to upgrade weapons.

To learn magic, players must rescue spirits called Elementals. These Elementals represent elements like water, earth, and life, and each teaches specific spells. Magic has skill levels similar to weapons but requires magic points to cast.

At the start of the game, players travel through enemy-filled areas to reach destinations. Travel can be faster using Cannon Travel Centers, where a giant cannon launches the party to distant locations. This usually costs money but is needed to visit other continents later. Later, players gain access to Flammie, a small dragon they control to fly across the world. The game uses the SNES's Mode 7 feature to create a 3D-like background when flying. While riding Flammie, players can view the world as a globe or a 2D map.

Plot

The story is set in a high fantasy world where a magical energy called "mana" exists. A long time ago, an ancient civilization with advanced technology used mana to build the "Mana Fortress," a flying warship. This action angered the gods, who sent giant beasts to fight the civilization. The war caused widespread destruction and nearly used up all the mana in the world. A hero used the power of the "Mana Sword" to destroy the fortress and the civilization. After this, the world began to heal and find peace. At the start of the game, an empire is searching for eight "Mana Seeds." When these seeds are unsealed, they can restore mana to the world and rebuild the Mana Fortress.

In the original SNES version, the three main characters do not have names. However, their names appear in the Japanese manual and were added to the game in the iOS version. Players can choose any names for the characters in all versions. The hero, named "Randi," is a young boy who was adopted by the Elder of Potos after his mother disappeared. The girl, named "Primm," is in love with a warrior named Dyluck. Dyluck was ordered by the king to attack Elinee's Castle. Primm is upset with the king's actions and her father's plan to marry her to a local nobleman. She leaves the castle to save Dyluck and joins the hero on his journey. The hero meets a sprite child named "Popoi" at the Dwarf Village. Popoi lives with a dwarf and joins the group to learn about its family. Popoi does not remember its past and hopes to recover its memories by traveling with the group.

The game begins when three boys from the small village of Potos disobey their Elder's orders and enter a local waterfall where a treasure is said to be hidden. One boy falls into a lake and finds a rusty sword stuck in a stone. A voice tells him to pull the sword free, which causes monsters to appear in the surrounding area. The villagers see this as a bad omen and banish the boy from Potos forever. A traveling knight named Jema recognizes the sword as the legendary "Mana Sword" and encourages the hero to visit eight "Mana Temples" to re-energize it.

During his journey, the hero is joined by the girl and the sprite. The trio is chased by the Empire, which is controlled by Thanatos, an ancient sorcerer who wants to create a "new, peaceful world." Thanatos needs a new body because his own is decaying. He puts the kingdom of Pandora into a trance and captures two people: Dyluck, who is now enslaved, and a young girl named Phanna. Thanatos chooses to take over Dyluck's body.

The Empire successfully unseals all eight Mana Seeds. However, Thanatos betrays the Emperor and kills him, taking control of the Mana Fortress. The hero and his group travel to find the "Mana Tree," the center of the world's life energy. Thanatos predicts their arrival and places the Mana Fortress over the tree, destroying it. The tree's remains tell the heroes that a giant dragon called the "Mana Beast" will soon be summoned to fight the fortress. The Beast is uncontrollable and may destroy the world. The tree also reveals that it was once the human wife of Serin, the original "Mana Knight" and the hero's father. The voice heard at the waterfall was Serin's ghost.

The trio flies to the Mana Fortress and confronts Thanatos, who is preparing to transfer his mind into Dyluck. Dyluck warns the group that Thanatos has sold his soul to the underworld and must not be allowed to control the fortress. Dyluck sacrifices his life, forcing Thanatos to become a skeletal lich, which the group defeats.

The Mana Beast arrives and attacks the fortress. The hero hesitates to kill the Beast, fearing it might cause the sprite to disappear. Encouraged by the sprite, the hero uses the fully energized Mana Sword to defeat the Beast. The Beast explodes and turns into snow. At the end of the game, the sprite disappears into an astral plane, the girl returns home, and the hero is welcomed back to Potos, where he returns the Mana Sword to its place beneath the waterfall.

Development

Secret of Mana was directed and designed by Koichi Ishii, who also created the earlier Game Boy version of the game, Final Fantasy Adventure. Ishii has said that he believes Secret of Mana is more "his game" than other projects he has worked on, such as the Final Fantasy series. The game was mainly programmed by Nasir Gebelli and produced by Hiromichi Tanaka, a longtime designer at Square. The team wanted to improve on the ideas from Final Fantasy Adventure and included changes from that game and other popular Square titles in Secret of Mana. Compared to its predecessor, Secret of Mana had better graphics and sound, a more interesting power meter, and a new system for upgrading weapons instead of increasing attack speed. The party system was also improved: instead of temporary helpers who could not be upgraded, party members became permanent characters who could be controlled by other players. The multiplayer feature was not planned at first but was added later when the developers realized they could easily make all three characters playable by humans.

The real-time battle system in Secret of Mana was inspired by the battle system from the first three Final Fantasy games. The way characters gain experience and level up was taken from Final Fantasy III. Tanaka said that some battle mechanics were first considered for Final Fantasy IV. Unused ideas from Secret of Mana were later used by the team working on Chrono Trigger, which was being developed at the same time. Tanaka explained that the project was originally meant to be Final Fantasy IV, with a more action-focused world. However, it became a separate project called "Chrono Trigger" during development before finally being named Seiken Densetsu 2. Tanaka said the game always felt like a sequel to Final Fantasy III for him.

Secret of Mana was first planned to be released with the SNES-CD add-on, a device that never worked out. After Nintendo and Sony ended their agreement to make the SNES-CD, Sony used its work on the project to create the PlayStation. Square then adapted the game for the SNES cartridge format, which has less storage space than a CD-ROM. At first, the developers were unhappy about changing the format, fearing they would have to remove too much content. However, company leaders insisted on continuing the project. Because of the hardware change, some features were cut, and some work had to be redone. One major change was removing the option to take different paths that led to multiple endings, which made the game’s story more linear. Tanaka said the original story had a darker tone, and Ishii estimated that up to 40% of the planned game was removed to fit the smaller storage space. Critics said the hardware change caused technical issues when too much happened at once in the game.

The original music for Secret of Mana was composed and produced by Hiroki Kikuta. Kenji Ito, who had worked on the soundtrack for Final Fantasy Adventure, was originally chosen for the project but was replaced after he started working on other games, like Romancing SaGa. Kikuta was new to video game music and faced challenges due to the Super NES hardware. He wanted to create a unique score that was neither pop music nor standard game music by blending two different styles. Kikuta worked mostly alone, spending almost 24 hours a day in his office, switching between composing and editing to create an "immersive" and "three-dimensional" soundtrack. Instead of using sound engineers to create instrument samples, Kikuta made his own samples that matched the Super NES hardware. This allowed him to know exactly how the music would sound on the system. Kikuta said in 2001 that the Secret of Mana soundtrack was his favorite work.

The music includes both serious and cheerful tracks, with a focus on bells and somber piano melodies. Kikuta was inspired by natural landscapes and Balinese music. Because of hardware limits, the title screen slowly faded in, and Kikuta designed the title track, "Fear of the Heavens," to match the screen’s appearance. At the time, few composers tried to align music with visuals. Kikuta also began the track with a "whale noise" instead of a traditional "ping" to help players feel more connected to the game from the start. Making the music work within the Super NES’s memory limits was a difficult challenge.

An official soundtrack album, Seiken Densetsu 2 Original Sound Version, was released in Japan in August 1993, featuring 44 tracks from the game. An English version, with the same music but different packaging and track names, was released in North America in December 1994 as Secret of Mana Original Soundtrack, making it one of the first Japanese games to have a localized soundtrack outside Japan. Another album, Secret of Mana+, was released in 1993 and included arranged music from Secret of Mana and its sequel, Seiken Densetsu 3, all composed by Kikuta. This album has one track, "Secret of Mana," that combines themes from both games. Critics described the album as "experimental," using unusual sounds like waterfalls, bird calls, and typing noises. The music also covers many styles, including classical, electronic, and pop influences. A 2012 album, Secret of Mana Genesis / Seiken Densetsu 2 Arrange Album, includes upgraded versions of the original Super NES tracks. Kikuta said in the album’s notes that these tracks reflect how he originally wanted the music to sound without hardware limits. Critics noted the changes were small. A version of the soundtrack was also performed at the first BBC Proms gaming music concert in 2022.

Release

Secret of Mana was announced for release in July 1993 and was promoted as a "Party Action RPG." It was released on August 6, 1993, for the Japanese market. In South Korea, the game was released in August 1993 as well. The English translation of Secret of Mana was completed in 30 days, just a few weeks after the Japanese release. The North American version was first advertised as Final Fantasy Adventure 2. Critics suggested the translation was done quickly to allow the game to be released in North America for the 1993 holiday season. By October 1993, the game was available to the public. Translator Ted Woolsey stated that much of the game's script was removed in the English version due to limited space. The English text on the gameplay screen used a fixed-width font, which limited how much text could be displayed. Woolsey expressed frustration over having to shorten conversations and the short time given for translation, saying it "nearly killed me." The script was difficult to translate because it was provided in disordered groups of text, like "shuffling a novel." Other translations were made in German and French. The Japanese version listed the names of the three main characters in the manual, while Western versions did not include the characters' names until the enhanced iOS version. The game was released in Europe on November 25, 1994.

In 1999, Square announced plans to port Secret of Mana to Bandai's WonderSwan Color handheld system as one of nine games for the system. No such port was ever released. The game was later released on Virtual Console for the Wii in 2008 and on Wii U in Japan in 2013. A mobile phone version was released on October 26, 2009. A port for iOS was announced at E3 2010 and released on Apple's App Store on December 21, 2010. This version fixed several bugs and retranslated the English script from the original Japanese. An enhanced version of the iOS port was released for Android devices in 2014. A Nintendo Switch version was released in Japan on June 1, 2017, as part of Collection of Mana, and in other regions on June 11, 2019. The game was also included in the Super NES Classic Edition, released on September 29, 2017.

In August 2017, a 3D remake of the game was announced for PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Windows. It was released on February 15, 2018, and developed by Q Studios for Square Enix. The project began in 2016 after positive feedback for Adventures of Mana, a remake of the original Mana game. The remake's gameplay was similar to the original but used 3D graphics. New features included an area map, more save opportunities, improved companion AI, and voice acting. The offline multiplayer function was included in all versions. Character art was redesigned by Haccan, an artist who worked on Adventures of Mana. Kikuta returned to supervise new arrangements of the music, bringing in other composers who were fans of Secret of Mana. He described the new music as an "adult" version of the original tracks. At the request of the series producer, the main theme "Angel's Fear" was recorded with a full orchestra. The soundtrack was released as an album titled Secret of Mana Original Soundtrack shortly after the remake's release in February 2018.

Reception

The first shipment of games in Japan sold out quickly after they were released. Dengeki Oh magazine ranked it as the second best-selling video game in Japan in 1993, with 1.003 million copies sold that year, just behind Street Fighter II Turbo. In South Korea, it was the top-selling game from November to December 1993.

Edge magazine reported in November 1993 that the game was "the most widely covered game of the year in Japan" with high sales, but it was released in North America without much attention. Despite this, Secret of Mana became the second top-selling Super NES game on the US Babbage's chart in October 1993, behind only Mortal Kombat. It stayed in the US top ten SNES game charts until October 1994. The game was also successful in Europe, where it introduced many players to console role-playing games. In the United Kingdom, it was the fourth top-selling game in November 1994 and the second top-selling SNES game that month, behind Donkey Kong Country.

According to Next Generation magazine, the game was unexpectedly popular for a role-playing game, helping to grow the genre's popularity in the West. In 1996, the magazine reported that the game sold more than 500,000 copies in the United States alone. Square Enix stated that as of 2003, Secret of Mana had shipped 1.83 million copies worldwide, with 1.5 million sold in Japan and 330,000 sold elsewhere.

Reviewers from Electronic Gaming Monthly praised the game's graphics, music, and multiplayer gameplay, saying it had "some of the best music I've ever heard from a cartridge." They hoped other companies would add multiplayer modes to role-playing games. Diehard GameFan's review highlighted the multiplayer as the game's best feature, with reviewer Kelly Rickards saying the graphics were nice, but the multiplayer "made the game." GamePro praised the graphics, story, "first-rate gameplay," and "positively massive" world, though it noted some rough edges in gameplay and multiplayer. Nintendo Power said the game had "beautiful graphics and great depth of play" but criticized the long process to power up a sword and the awkward way to select items. SNES Force magazine praised the game's "superb" graphics, "fantastic" sounds, and "revolutionary three-player mode."

Secret of Mana was named Game of the Month in December 1993 and Best Role-Playing Game of 1993 by Electronic Gaming Monthly. In its annual Megawards, GameFan awarded it Best Action/RPG (SNES). GamePro gave it the Role-Playing Game of the Year award, ahead of Lufia and Shadowrun as runners-up.

Edge magazine said Secret of Mana was better than contemporary role-playing games like Ys I & II, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole. The review called it one of the best action RPGs or adventure games, praising its three-player mode, combat system, and gameplay. Game designer Sandy Petersen compared it to Zelda but noted it had more traditional role-playing features. He predicted the game would be seen as a classic. Nintendo Magazine System compared it favorably to A Link to the Past, with one reviewer saying it was better than Zelda III and another saying it came close to surpassing Zelda, calling it "one of the greatest graphical RPGs in the history of the world."

Computer and Video Games said in 1994 that Secret of Mana was doing for adventure games what Zelda did years earlier and was "one of the best games for the SNES this year and more playable than" Donkey Kong Country. Next Generation said in 1996 that many players considered it "the RPG equivalent of Lord of the Rings."

In 2008, Lucas Thomas of IGN reviewed the Virtual Console release of Secret of Mana and called it one of the best video games ever made. Eurogamer's Dan Whitehead described it as "essential" and the formative game of the Mana series. The iOS version was praised by Nadia Oxford of Slide to Play for improved graphics and touch controls, though she disliked the removal of multiplayer mode. In 2014, Edge magazine called Secret of Mana "one of the high points of the 16-bit era," noting that 20 years after its release, its reputation as a SNES action RPG had been surpassed only by The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

The 2018 remake received "mixed or average" reviews, with the PS4 version scoring 63 out of 100 and the PC version scoring 57 out of 100. Some reviewers praised efforts to modernize the game while staying true to the original, but others recommended playing the original version for its 3D presentation and lack of changes. Others criticized the remake's voice acting, musical remixes, and 3D redesign.

Secret of Mana has appeared on many top game lists since its release and is the 13th highest-rated SNES game on GameRankings. In 1995, Total! ranked it 12th on their "Top 100 SNES Games of All Time," and Super Play ranked it eighth the following year. It has continued to be listed on "best of" lists for SNES games, Nintendo consoles, and role-playing games, including those by Nintendo Power, IGN, Famitsu, Official Nintendo Magazine, Game Informer, 1Up.com, Polygon, and Time Extension as recently as 2023.

In 2006, Level magazine said that Secret of Mana's difficult development inspired Square to move its games, like the Final Fantasy series, from Nintendo consoles to Sony consoles in 1996.

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