Difference between revisions of "Secret of Mana"

| programmer = Nasir Gebelli

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 each with the default SNES hardware, and a third being able to participate if the SNES multitap peripheral is attached. For later released, only additional controllers are required.

The player(s) progress through the game by finding the Mana Spirits and empowering the fabled Mana Sword with the spirit's energies. Each location the cast visits contains a story that ties into the overarching narrative of Mana exploitation

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 for the recently released Super Nintendo Entertainment System. 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 and still fresh in the minds of players and gaming press alike.  

Development was not shelved, however, and Squaresoft repurposed the proposed systems for the upcoming SNES-CD platform announced in June of 1991. The game was given the project title of "Maru Island", and was set to take full advantage of the CD-ROM medium as possible. A massive island with intricate environments, time travel as both a plot point and gameplay feature, and multiple endings chosen by the player's actions were all conceptualized and ready for implementation when the specs of the SNES-CD were announced. To further the appeal of the game to the Japanese market, famous manga artist [[Akira Toriyama]] was hired to design the characters and main illustrations for the game. This was a deliberate action on Squaresoft's part, seeing the incredible success that the [[Dragon Quest (series)|Dragon Quest]] series had achieved with his help.