![]() ![]() I suspect that from Ishii’s view, the game was successful in spite of the cuts, while I strongly believe that it may have been successful because of them. And here, I think, is where we can spot the first signs of the eventual divide. The variety of weapons, interesting locations, easy-to-understand combat system, and riotously enjoyable multiplayer made for a near-instant classic. Perhaps more importantly, people adored the game. ![]() ![]() It sold 1.5 million copies in Japan, and a respectable 300,000 copies overseas. While the game wasn’t as Ishii had envisioned it, Secret of Mana was a huge success. Secret of Mana also suffers from a number of bugs that are likely related to its sudden format shift. ![]() The team ended up cutting out about 40% of the planned content, which included things like branching paths and multiple endings. When that device was canceled, Square asked the team to get the game going on a regular cartridge at any cost. The game had a rather difficult development, as it was originally planned for the aborted SNES CD add-on. It was released in Japan on the Super Famicom in August of 1993, given a brisk localization into English, and sent out in the West only a few months later under the title Secret of Mana. The next game dropped the Final Fantasy connection and went with the name Seiken Densetsu 2. After spending a few years making vital contributions to the first three games in that series, Ishii was able to get his game approved as a spin-off, and the healthy sales gave him the chance to continue. Koichi Ishii presented his first idea for the game that year, but Square rejected it, choosing to focus on their new Final Fantasy series instead. Though the game released in 1991, it had been on the mind of its creator for a while. If you want to try it out, there’s a moderately straight remake of the game available on mobile and PlayStation Vita under the title Adventures of Mana that mostly just updates the presentation. Sure, it had some nasty hangnails in its design, but the game was short and sweet enough to forgive any unscripted accidents along the way. It took a few cues from Falcom and a few cues from The Legend of Zelda, and the result was a surprisingly fun game. Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden (dubbed Final Fantasy Adventure in the United States and Mystic Quest in Europe) was a fairly straightforward action-RPG for the Nintendo Game Boy. The first game in the series was a labeled spin-off of the Final Fantasy series in both Japan and internationally. I’ve touched lightly on the topic before when I wrote up Secret of Evermore, but let’s talk a little bit about the history of the Mana series leading up to this game. I’m not sure if Legend of Mana is the best example of that divide, but it was certainly where it started to become apparent. It has a lot of fans who really couldn’t be clearer about what they’d like to see from a new Mana game, a creator who seemed to be torn between his own ideas and trying to make the fans happy, and a whole lot of empty space between the two. At the same time, it seems to have been stuck with a really tricky problem that it has never quite been able to resolve. With 25 years behind it and several games in the line, the Mana brand is one of Square’s most well-known and longest-running. By contrast, the Mana series has always seemed a bit confused. The same can be said for the SaGa series, Square’s next most-prolific series. Although the various installments of the Final Fantasy series differ from each other in many ways, you can get the general sense that it knows what its fans are looking for. ![]()
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