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Chris:
We
dig through our personal belongings when we want to get nostalgic. I did
this recently. Somehow I found an old '93 cartridge of "Secret of
Mana." This completely *wink* and legally allowed me *wink wink*
to obtain a ROM as my *wink* Super Nintendo is in *snort* disrepair. Because
we all know it's very wrong to illegally use such things... Wouldn't want
to rob those lovely people of profits from about 10 years ago, do we?
So
anyway, with the music "I copied from CDs I own into MP3 format legally
for backup reasons," *snerk* blaring, I activated Secret of Mana.
This is where the review begins. Sorry if it's a little erratic; logic
barely registers when judging a game.
Overview:
Taking everything at face value, Secret of Mana is a variant on the classic
Final Fantasy/Phantasy Star console hack and slash RPG. If I had to liken
it to a newer game in the way it handles, Silver comes to mind as the
most impactual concept in any of these games is combat. Many people may
sneer about this, but let me assure you - you'd better like combat, because
you'll be hard pressed to find any kind of character dev/plot/goddamn
point of playing such a bland game. Even with a heavy reliance on combat,
combat falls short of a nice medium of difficulty. A battle will mostly
be too simple, or too damn difficult, relying on if you managed to find
all the little bits in the poorly architectured and abysmally timed sections
of the game. In short; if you're after a game that increases gameplay
by making areas vague and wishy-washy, and combat that will give you RSI,
then this is the game for you.
Plot
(25%):
You, as the everyday peasant hero happen across a rusty sword in a hunk
of rock that you happen upon by being pathetic and falling off a bridge.
You meet a Knight that you blindly listen to because you're pathetic and
get kicked out of your hometown. Drudgery. You meet another pathetic weaning
character who's beloved has been stolen away from her. Division in plot.
Keep not meeting the guy and blindly following orders. Find a amnesiatic
sprite (not the good drinking kind,) that once more forces you to yet
more locations. Link seeds. Find magic powers and orbs. Manage to root
up and not stop the badguy. Win in the end. Bad end too. Awful.
Not much more different than every static and boring plotline normally
put into games such as these. But normally they at least give you some
nice dialogue and character building. All you get in this is a few words
of recognition, and a boot up the arse to your next locale. Very impersonal
and abrasive.
Visual
(63%):
Suprise suprise I have a few gripes here as well! One of my pet hates
in games such as these are when they make the game so small that they
have to use repeat animation to add filler to a game. Photocopied enemies
of different colours is something I expect of high bandwidth and braincell
murdering games like Dark Age of Camelot and the like. But no-o... they
have to make only 30 enemies or so and copy the damn things. Worse still,
they do the same with the plethora of bosses you have to fight! I really
hate it when they do that!
The way areas are designed gives the player only a rough idea of where
they are. Many areas all look so damn similar it's likely that you'll
end up walking around for a good deal of time, fighting enemies over and
over again as they respawn when you leave and enter each area. More than
likely when you do find where you're going you just fall into it. Puzzles
to unlock new areas are sometimes invisible; which is a real pain if you
don't step in the exact trigger area.
Another problem is the world itself. Once you finally trudge to a certain
spot and can explore the world by flight, the world map is poorly rendered
and no locations are labelled. Stress add infinite. Other than that, the
graphics were fine for their time; as I find it hard to discriminate when
we're supposedly in a 'new visual age.' Sure. Tell that to the guy with
glasses...
Then again a few cameos can soothe the ire.
One more thing... Playing this game was a rather... emasculating experience.
If you peruse the images I've linked you to, an odd pattern appears. Main
characters... weapons... enemies... everything is of what are normally
called 'female' colours. Maybe I'm taking my Sociology study a little
too seriously, but I really feel as if the game was marketed towards girls...
if not, I'd really like to have a few words with the developers.
Audio
(30%):
This is something I detest in most older games, (other than Atari/Commodore
64 era). I drowned it out with an endless amount of MP3's. But if I had
listened, I can tell you the sound bank would be miniscule, the background
music seems to go on forever on a handful of repeating notes, and every
damn thing seems to make the same aggrivating squeak. May not be the case;
just you prove me wrong.
Gameplay
(75%):
The most interesting part of gameplay is the way combat works. You have
control of only one of the character's movements and physical attacks
- this being the Luke Skywalker peasant hero guy. Battles are real time,
ala scrolling platforms like Double Dragon or it's kindred. With an arsenal
of weapons that barely vary, (Close quarters, Missile and ranged Close
quarters), you get to use one of two attacks physically. You can either
use a basic swipe, or you can hold down your attack button, and depending
on what level your skill is, utilize a stronger and potentially deadly
attack.
To compensate for a time bar that activates your character like FF/PS;
it uses a percentage bar. If you don't attack at 100% power, your attack
barely registers. A little fault in this is the stand up time. When a
creature/character is struck, the attack bar of either will reach 100%
before the quarry is ready to counterattack. You can effectively kick
a dog until it dies. Not a good thing.
So that your other AI characters can use a charge-up attack, there's a
simple config section that also allows you to choose their attitude in
battle. All while this is happening, you can halt combat at any time to
cast spells, mostly offensive for the sprite, and mostly defensive for
the girl (Elf?). It really takes the edge off the percentage bar, and
gives the end user far too much power.
Spellcasting is vital in the game; being the primary way I deal with most
enemies in the game, especially the continuous boss battles. In short;
the main character is probably the worst character in the game; outclassed
by AI fighting and the ability to cast spells. Spells are under different
'spheres' in a sense, and that sphere levels just like the weapons do.
What normally evens up combat for the enemy is the trademark 'follow the
leader' style of movement. Your character can easily dodge physical attacks,
but you are effectively 5 people long. Now can you say 'broad side of
a barn'? My other gripe with combat is it's too extreme. You either die
in 3 hits, or the enemy doesn't even have time to attack.
Moving through the world is a little more irritating. Finding these Cannon
points, where you can fly to a limited amount of places from each, aren't
the easiet things to find, and once you can fly anywhere, the map, as
I said, isn't that clear. If anything, gaining the ability to fly just
makes it harder because the static messages can tell you to go somewhere
completely remote without expanding much, as is the dialogue usually.
A few more minor annoyances are the whip and axe; two items that have
to be used to traverse some regions of the game. Not that difficult to
do, just another little pain to add to many.
Playability
(68%): Even though it's annoying, RPGs like this have a habit of boiling
your blood to a point where you get dead-set on beating the game just
to prove that you're better than they are. This is once more the case.
Add to that I have a nasty habit of loving to level my characters through
what seems to many as boring, repetative fighting... because is is.
The 'One Character' syndrome also exists... without the Mage character,
it's unlikely that a lot of bosses would die, and the Priest has one or
two spells that aid the Mage, and that's about it. Mr. Luke Skywalker
peasant loser wiener boy can only rely on his sword, and even then relies
on your skill to manoevre him. More often than not the other two do better
in this department anyway. Try to ignore him as much as possible and visualize
yourself as one of the other characters. Worked for me. Definately not
a game I'd come back to.
Overall
(51%):
A Classic, but not one of the Classics of the genre. It's not a drama
that makes you empathize with anyone in particular. It's not an action
that grips you from start to finish. It's a vague struggle to save the
world... plus Moogles. Kupi kupopo. And with that, I leave.
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