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Difference between revisions of "Secret of Mana"
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==Story== | ==Story== | ||
''Long ago...'' | |||
''Using the power of Mana, civilization had grown strong...'' | |||
''In time,Mana was used to create the ultimate weapon: the Manna Fortress...'' | |||
''But this angered the gods, and they sent their beasts to destroy the fortress...'' | |||
''A violent war betweent he beasts and the fortress plunged the world into chaos, and Mana seemed to all but disappear...'' | |||
''Before all was lost, a hero wielding the Mana Sword smashed the fortress...'' | |||
''Though civilization was destroyed, the world was peaceful again.'' | |||
''But time flows like a river, and history repeats...'' | |||
==Cast== | ==Cast== | ||
*'''Randi''': The main protagonist and the first one of the group whom the player controls. Randi was raised by the elder of Potos village and as such was never accepted by the other children as one of them, giving him a timid disposition. After falling down a waterfall while attempting to play with his peers, he pulls the Mana Sword from its stone pedestal at the behest of a mysterious voice. Because the folklore of the village states that the sword is protecting the settlement from monsters, removing it from the pedestal is the greatest taboo and Randi is expelled form the village. | |||
*'''Primm''': The second protagonist to join the party, after rescuing Randi from being the main dish of a goblin feast. She is brash, bossy, and overbearing, but means well and supports her friends earnestly. The daughter of a nobleman from the Kingdom of Pandora, Primm lost her mother at a young age. Her magic focuses on healing and support, such as charging a weapon with an elemental power. | |||
*'''Popoi''': The final protagonist to join the party, who is found alongside dwarves living in Gaia's Navel. He is a Sprite, washed away from his kin in the Sprite Forest by an immense flood, and has lost nearly all of his memories from the trauma. He is the dedicated spell caster of the group, with the Mana Spirits imbuing him with powerful offensive magic. | |||
==Gameplay== | ==Gameplay== | ||
Secret of Mana is an action RPG with a bird's eye view camera that blends exploration and combat into a single screen for fluid and dynamic action. The famous ring menu system was first implemented in this game, keeping the player from having to cycle through several pages of text to just select an item, weapon, or spell. Options are rotated through a list of easily identifiable icons, with additional option sets being brought up at the press of a button instead of shuffling through the up and down buttons on a D-pad. The game is also multiplayer, with two friends able to control a character while the game's A.I. handles the unselected party member. | |||
The player(s) progress through the game by finding the Mana Spirits and empowering the fabled Mana Sword with the spirit's energies. | |||
==Development history== | ==Development history== | ||
Work on the game began in 1991. Secret of Mana did not begin it's development cycle as a ''Mana'' title, but was in fact first proposed as the fourth Final Fantasy game. Director Koichi Ishii envisioned that the then-new 16-bit hardware would allow for a much more dynamic play style, where transitions between battles and exploration were handled seamlessly instead of requiring separate screens as seen in turn-based RPGs. Though this proposal was effectively describing an 16-bit rendition of ''Final Fantasy Adventure'' on superior hardware, it did not occur to Ishii to connect the project with his handheld title during the early phases of development. Instead, he saw the project as a sequel to [[Final Fantasy III]] in the beginning and maintained that mindset until the leaders of Square denied the proposal. As ''Final Fantasy III'' was the second million-seller in Squaresoft's history, management did not want to risk losing the audience that the third fantasy acquired by shifting the focus of the fourth game into an action RPG--the criticism of the system changes between the first and second Final Fantasy games were only three years old at the time. | Work on the game began in 1991. Secret of Mana did not begin it's development cycle as a ''Mana'' title, but was in fact first proposed as the fourth Final Fantasy game. Director Koichi Ishii envisioned that the then-new 16-bit hardware would allow for a much more dynamic play style, where transitions between battles and exploration were handled seamlessly instead of requiring separate screens as seen in turn-based RPGs. Though this proposal was effectively describing an 16-bit rendition of ''Final Fantasy Adventure'' on superior hardware, it did not occur to Ishii to connect the project with his handheld title during the early phases of development. Instead, he saw the project as a sequel to [[Final Fantasy III]] in the beginning and maintained that mindset until the leaders of Square denied the proposal. As ''Final Fantasy III'' was the second million-seller in Squaresoft's history, management did not want to risk losing the audience that the third fantasy acquired by shifting the focus of the fourth game into an action RPG--the criticism of the system changes between the first and second Final Fantasy games were only three years old at the time. | ||