Secret of Mana Review
PlayStation 4 Exclusive Title

The Secret of Mana was a Super Nintendo title that was released in 1993. This top down action based role playing game was one of the big three RPG’s released for the SNES in North America from Squaresoft (now Square Enix) with the others being Final Fantasy III (now FF VI) and Breath of Fire. The game has never really fallen out of favor with games gamers. You can still get the orginall game on Nintendo eshop. A young man that finds a sword stuck in a stone, a woman trying to save a man she loves and a sprite who just seems to be along for the ride are the only ones with the power to save the world Mana!
The Secret of Mana is exact remake which means it has all of the best parts of the original Super Nintendo game and parts that are a pain to deal with, it just has better graphics. We still loved this game and remembering all of the twist and turns as we replayed the story. Remembering the story was something we looked forward too. We also like that you get only three main characters to play and you get them early on so you understand how to set up  your battle strategy early. You also get most of your weapons early on. This is where most of the RPG elements come into play. Anybody can equip any weapon but some do seem to work better with other characters at least early on but you should try them all.
You have a battle gage that can builds up your power before striking but we really had a problem with just standing around waiting. The worst part is that your attacks miss all the time. You build up your power and you target the wrong or your enemy moves and you waste your attack. Too make things worse the other two people in your group will have the same problem. Attack and the word “MISS” shows up or the walk up and attack but they are too far away or just slightly off center and you don’t hit anything. It kept happening and there is nothing you can really do about it. It is a very frustrating constant issue.
There are some things that shows the games age. One of them is the cumbersome menu system. We never seemed to get the hang of it. You are in the middle of intense boss fights and you are trying to use magic but by the time you find what you are looking for you forget why you were looking for it in the first place. Then when you get attack by magic which ever character you are playing just stops moving and we kept thinking our controller died or got disconnected. We love having remakes but developers should at least remove the glitches. We kept getting attack from a creature on the other side of a wall. They could throw stuff at us but we can't hit them back? Thinks like this need to change.
The Secret of Mana took us around the 20 hour mark and that is all main story. There is no real side quest or other things to do. You hack and slash, fight a boss, find out more about the story and then move on to the next section. We did like most of the bosses but hated when we died and then had to start all the way back to the beginning of the section. Take some time to level up trust us. If you played the original SNES version then this is a beautiful reminder of how good the game was and when it came out, it was cutting edge. But, if you never played the original then you may feel like the interactive menus and the game constant problem of constantly missing with your attack s huge issue.
 
The Secret of Mana the PlayStation 4 remake is worth paying $30 of less for. Find it under $15 it is a MUST BUY PRICE!
 
8.0 out of 10
Good Game

8.0 out of 10
Good Game


Rated
E10 for Everyone

Rated PEGI 7

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