Mana (series)

The Mana series (聖剣伝説, Holy Sword Legend) is a collection of action-RPGs developed and published by Square Enix. The English name for the series is derived from the concept of mana as a natural energy source and the holy mana tree featured in each game.

History

Koichi Ishii is the creator and producer of the Mana series, beginning with the original title of Final Fantasy Adventure on June 28th, 1991. Originally pitched as a companion or "gaiden" title to the Final Fantasy series, this connection was dropped as soon was work began on the sequel, as Squaresoft's staff believed that the first game featured enough original content and design focus to deserve an independent setting.

The sequel, Secret of Mana, proved to be a great financial success for Squaresoft and firmly established the Mana series as a third pillar for the company alongside Final Fantasy and SaGa. The series would receive another Super Nintendo installment in Trials of Mana before migrating to Sony's Playstation, along with the rest of Squaresoft's developmental focus, in the late 90's. Mana would return to Nintendo hardware (and portability) on March 2, 2006 with Children of Mana for the Nintendo DS. The series would enter the third dimension later that same year on December 21st, with Dawn of Mana on the Playstation 2. Unfortunately, the title was not well received by fans and the series would lose it's position in Squaresoft's, now Square Enix, hierarchy of franchises. The rising popularity of fellow action-RPG Kingdom Hearts also played a factor in Mana's dormancy, as the Disney collaboration would prove to be more financially viable for the company during the time.

This series would receive one more handheld adventure in the form of Heroes of Mana for the DS in 2007, but a hibernation of six years until the release of Circle of Mana on March 5, 2013, for iOS and Android devices. Released only in Japan, the digital card game proved popular enough to generate interest in the series and lead to the development and release of Rise of Mana 366 days later on March 6, 2014, for mobile devices and the Playstation Vita. Rise of Mana is a free-to-play title that returned to the franchise's action-RPG roots, and was a financial success--boasting over two million players by 2015.

The revival of the series on mobile platforms would lead to development of high definition remakes of the original three games, beginning with Adventures of Mana on February 4th, 2016, Secret of Mana HD on Febuary 18th, 2018, and the upcoming Trials of Mana HD scheduled for April 24th, 2020.