This bears repeating...

Secret of Mana kicks ass. Totally and completely.

SoM was brilliant. We need more games like it that aren’t SD3. It sadly still has the most dynamic battle system of any RPG to date.

Its only fun when playing with someone, the Ally AI is so horrible it almost makes the game unplayable in points.

I liked SD3.
SD4/Legend of Mana was incredibly awesome, and I’ve still played that as much as any other RPG I own, beyond a doubt.

I just picked up LoM (I’d actually been listening to the soundtrack for months, finally got around to playing it). It looks like there’s a few too many complications outside of battle and not enough in it, but I’ve only been going for an hour or so. :sunglasses: It looks and sounds gorgeous, though.

The game is designed so that a complete moron can play through it succesfully, but also so you can, if you learn how play through thigns with incredible complexity.
So, if you’d like, battle can be solely comprised of quick attack, power attack, STs and magic, or you can figure in plunge attacks, bet Syncrho’s, NPC synchro’s, status effect weapons, armor, and insanely powerful golems.
Early on, the game is extraordinarily simple. Then, it gets a little more detail later on. You can probably get up to early punge attacks and fairly advanced synchros the first time through the game (also, the game is one of those where you start over with all your items and EXP after you beat it, if you want). The second time, when you raise the monster difficulty, you can get even rarer items, which you can temper in to weapons and armour to increase their power.
My current character weilds an axe that deals 999 damage, and is accompanied by a golem that does 512 damage on a standard attack, and does something like 29,000 with his most powerful attack. The highest health an enemy I’ve encountered has had is about 17,000. (the emulator only keeps track of damage to the nearest thousand, I believe, if it goes over 1000).
Anyway, yes, the game has three main plotlines, about a hundred side-quests, and nearly unlimited customization and replayability.

EDIT: That sounds about right. For an hour or two (maybe longer your first time playing), battle really does consist of either XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXR1XXXXX or the same process with square. Also, it’s early plots make no sense until much later in the game.

I’ve been wanting to play SoM again lately, but I can’t without getting bored as soon as I pick up the Girl for the first time (in Pandora). If anyone wants to play co-op over ZSNES in a few months (my lappy won’t have net access over the summer), uh, I guess you can PM me. But yeah, it won’t be for a few months. At best.

The game is designed so that a complete moron can play through it succesfully
So LoM = High School?

I agree. I used to play with my bro, but we never beat it for some reason. I’ve gotten farther into the game while playing alone, though, so I didn’t notice the Ally AI was so bad. :stuck_out_tongue:

The ally AI played better than I did in SD3, I just got confused by all the numbers. :stuck_out_tongue:

It must be one of the few games I’ve never been able to stay interested in no matter how hard I tried… however I had no problem being addicted to SD3 and Secret of Evermore… I’m probably an isolated case <.<

SoE was fucking AWESOME. Just the whole thing was cool.

Yeah, only a big high school, where you have the option of taking AP classes and shit.

You know, it’s weird. The first several times I played SoM, I was addicted, now I have a hard time getting into it. The first time I played SoE, I was addicted, now I can’t even start it without wanting to punch myself. I’m not sure why, cause it’s not a terrible game, just something about it doesn’t sit right with me anymore.

SoM is awesome. An interesting thing about both SoM and LoM was the soundtrack. Both had mostly average songs, but they both had a couple of truly excellent songs (Polpota Harbor and Fiege Snowfield music for LoM, and the music from the ice palace and final boss music from SoM).

I agree. Never could quite finish SoM, but I love it anyways. I do admit the AI isn’t perfect, but it’s better than Chronicle of the Radia War for NES (an underrated ARPG that is fun despite idiotic AI).
I love the music, but I do admit it suffers from being too short, so it loops too much (too little cartridge space? Glory of Heracles comes to mind as another victim).
Definitely the title theme is one of my favorite SNES tunes.

I think the reason that most people couldn’t finish it was because of the part with Sage Joch. I hate it when you have to go back and forth doing things just to get told that you have to do something else. BoF also had the loop thing, which was sad because it had some good songs.

In retrospect, I think I might actually prefer Final Fantasy Adventure…

Although I’d probably like Secret of Mana a lot better if it hadn’t been butchered in the CD to cartridge conversion.

Oh, you mean like Zelda 64.

I finished SoM like 5 times before I bought it (from rentals). I had it down to an art to finish the game in a weekend.