Background:
This game is actually part of a series of games in Japan called Seiken Densetsu. The first Seiken Densetsu released here was Final Fantasy Adventure. Our Secret of Mana is actually Seiken Densetsu 2! America, however, never had a translation of Seiken Densetsu III. It was only released for the Super Famicon in Japan. It is said that the reason we didn't get it was because America got Secret of Evermore instead. It is also said that SDIII did not pass American quality control standards because it had too many bugs in the game. I've never played the game, but from what I've been told, despite having great graphics and music, the storyline to this game wasn't all that great. It was possibly as bad of a game as Secret of Evermore.
The Game background:
Long ago, mortals misused the power of Mana to construct the Mana Fortress for the use of evil. They were ultimately defeated by the Mana Beast, but the result was the destruction of the Land of Mana.
The game starts off similarly to the legend of King Arthur. The Hero pulls the Mana Sword out from a stone in a pond. Thus letting him see a ghost of his father who passes on the responsiblilty of being the Mana Knight. As you play the game, you befriend other adventurers who help you on your quest. Along the way, you collect weapons and upgrade them, and the sprite and the girl learn new magic spells from different elementals. Pretty much, it is up to your trio of characters to save the world from the resurrected Mana Fortress by obtaining the magical power from the Mana Seeds.
Rating: 1-5, 5 being the best
Story: 3
Graphics: 4
Sound: 4
Difficulty:4
Replay value: 3
Story: The reason it only got a three is because it was missing stuff. You see, SOM was originally intended for the SNES-CD. Which was going to be a team-up between Sony and Nintendo. Nintendo, being the idiots that they are, decided not to use the CD system and converted SOM into a cartridge. This resulted in some holes in SOM's plot and what would have been the SNES CD later became..dun dun dun....the Playstation. Stupid Nintendo.
Graphics: This game had some pretty good graphics. The monsters and characters were well animated. Could have used some diversity in the village people though. I counted 3 or 4 different character pics.
Sound: I love the sound for every Square game and this was no exception. It had some great emotional themes and the boss battles had some great pump-up music to them!
Difficulty: Certain parts of this game were really difficult and required you to level up your characters, spells and weapons to defeat the area.
Replay Value: SOM was great, but having to go through the game and slowly and painfully level up all your spells and weapons really hurt the game in replay value.
