Secret of Mana is celebrating its 30-year anniversary today, August 6, 2023.
All of these became instant classics or cult favorites down the line.
Some were even rereleased on later consoles like the 3DS or even PS1.
Secret of Mana’s lineage actually comes from other legacy titles.
Of course, we didn’t care about that growing up, especially in my house.
We just wanted to play the game!
Co-op play was unusual for the era, but for RPGs, it was practically unheard of.
By pressing Select on the controller, you could jump in and play and switch around the heroes.
I mean, even Ironsword was just Fabio with a sword on the cover.
The aesthetics and actual landscape of Secret of Mana helped set it apart, too.
You had your Zeldas and your Metroids, but nothing really in the middle.
Kameoka would go on to be the lead designer for all of the future Mana games.
Isono’s initial ad for the game was turned into a poster that came with the cartridge.
So it’s not impossible to get back into.
There was nothing like it at the time, but something that feels very commonplace in modern RPGs.
Truly, Secret of Mana was ahead of the curve.
Therein lies what makes Secret of Mana so replayable.
Games like Romancing SaGa would never come to America until almost a decade later.
Even then, the first SaGa game that reached the states was SaGa Frontier for the Playstation.
Want Randi to be aggressive, while you play as Primm to double-check everybody is healed?
Do you want Popoi to go ham on his magic or be more reserved?
That’s on you, buddy.
Even years later, nothing felt quite like Secret of Mana.
Unlike competitive games like Street Fighter, Secret of Mana forced us to cooperate.
We had to work together to stay alive and to see our way through an adventure together.
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