I'm playing Seiken Densetsu 2 for the first time (yeah, I know I'm over 10 years late in doing so) and having a pretty good time with it, but it's less polished than I expected. Example: I just got stuck after the battle with the Scorpion army's robot. I beat the thing, nothing happens, and I'm unable to leave the room where I fought him. After spending forever looking for a switch or something else I might've missed I figure the game must have glitched out on me so I restart. I fight the same battle three times but with the same result, so by now I'm fearing there might be something wrong with the cartridge.

After some searching around on the internet it turns out I'm not supposed to touch the controller after beating the robot or the game will freeze up. Thankfully this worked. I couldn't find anything about the bug on gamefaqs BTW, so I guess they solved the problem when they released the game (Secret of Mana) outside Japan.

Oh yeah, earlier I accidentally bumped the console (thanks to those short as hell Super Famicom controller cords) which somehow erased all of my save data. I'm beginning to think someone doesn't want me to finish this game.

On my first playthrough of the game, Boy was frozen by an enemy just as I was exiting an area, and, being an inanimate snowman, Boy didn't exit with Girl and Sprite. On the next screen, there was only Girl and Sprite; Boy didn't have so much as a life bar. I lost Boy forever. Didn't stop him from talking during cutscenes, of course.

Whether it's the Japanese "Seiken Densetsu 2" or the American "Secret of Mana", both versions are plagued with bugs. In the case of the latter, I was just happy to have a game to play.

Bug hunting?

...

.

I so wanted to own this game back when it first came out, but it was expensive as hell at the time and I was too young to cough up the money myself. You want this game for the cover art (and, lest I forget, the music) alone. Maybe that's why the Japanese packaging doesn't have a single screenshot on it. It would be awesome to see a Mana game (or any other game for that matter) that actually uses the box's art style. The character designs are pretty goofy though.

Wow, I didn't realize SD2 was so buggy. I played the game without any problems. I also usually sit close enough to the TV that bumping the controller cords or the console isn't a problem.

I also don't recall any issues, but I guess that's due to the PAL version having the advantage of being the last version (supposedly got the most debugging beforehand).

Actually, I just noticed today that the cords of the (PAL) SNES controllers are a lot longer than those of the Super Famicom (which are only like a meter long).

While I think the nature of bugs present is not enough to downgrade the game as a whole, I do feel the game's controls, AI, and sound programming suffer from a lack of polish. The party members I'm not directly controlling are practially useless in battle, for instance. No matter how aggressive I set them to be with the ACT command, they either do nothing at all or end up getting hit. They get stuck all over the place as well, so the character I'm controlling will be unable to progress and I'll have to switch characters or walk back to reunite the party. Apart from the bug I mentioned earlier, I've had one of my party members get stuck in midair once so I had to reset the game. Also, when there's a lot going on on-screen, the music tends to get almost completely drowned out (which is sacrilege in itself).

The magic system is a bit tedious as well. It's hard to identify which character's menu you're operating, which makes selecting spells more difficult than it should be. Leveling up your magic by actually using it sounds nice on paper, but in practice you'll just end up casting the same spells over and over again without really needing them just to get your magic at a higher level. The magic system as a whole feels just too elaborate for the simple nature of the game and makes it far too easy; the last boss I fought died after I cast the same spell only three times. I can't help but feel the game would have been a lot tighter if you were only controlling one character throughout like you do at the beginning. The extra party members, weapons, and magic just feel like they're there for no good reason. They don't make the game more fun or challenging (well, intentionally, that is) they just add noise to what should be a very basic (but fun) action RPG.

I recognise Seiken Densetsu 3 is considered to be a better game (which I'll get to when I've finished this one) and we wouldn't have a SK3 if we didn't first have a SD2. So far the latter game's mechanics just feel too complicated for their own good. Oh, and despite all this I'm still having fun with it ;p

I liked SD3 but I didn't feel it was better than SoM. It was certainly more challenging but the battles were very slow and drawn-out. I think I was spoiled by how fast the characters moved in SoM.

Plus, you could have three players in SoM! Some of my best childhood memories are playing that game with a group of friends. Lots of fun.

Totally forgot the game's multiplayer option. Thanks for reminding me. It does seem like a nice game to play with others. As it is, managing the other party members forces me to browse through the oddly designed menu system way to often, which criples the pace of the game.

Maybe this is going OT a bit, but the game's magic and weapon levelling system really illustrates the gap which can exist between (supposed?) intended gameplay and how a game ends up being actually played by the gamer. First we get eight different kinds of weapons which each have their strengths and weaknesses when dealing with different kinds of enemies. Logic would dictate that we switch weapons depending on which enemy we're fighting. If implemented correctly this could make for fun gameplay, but the levelling system kind of screws it up. This is because, regardless of what enemy I'm fighting, I'll almost always give priority over equiping weapons which are not yet at their maximum level. While this increases the difficulty factor (a positive), since I'll often find myself fighting enemies with weapons that are not really suited for doing do, it defeats the whole point of why the enemy-specific weapons system was implemented in the first place.

The same goes for the magic system being element based. When we get a healing spell, of course we're going to want to use the hell out of it, but if we do so our other spells will stay underlevelled since there are only so much magic points to go around. "If we don't actually want to use these other spells then why should we waste time upgrading them?", one might ask, and the only sensible answer would be that indeed nobody is forcing you to either use or level-up these spells. In fact, precisely since there isn't much need to use most of these other spells at all in the game it makes you wonder why they're there in the first place. Sometimes less is more. My point is these systems, while on the surface appearing to add strategic elements to the game, in fact mainly encourage levelling for the sake of levelling.

Of course I know this is a common problem with a lot of JRPGs, and you're free to dismiss the above as just a bunch of stat-whore whining. I fully admit everyone's free to say f--- it and only use the spells and weapons they want. Stuff like this just doesn't make much sense to me from a design perspective, 'is all.

I myself just picked up the Super Fami version a while ago.  I used to own the SNES version but since sold it (in the hopes of raising the money to get a mint one... I never followed through on that it seems!)  I'd really like to try it in multiplayer this time though - a low level run perhaps?  I just need to find someone else who also has the time to play it!

I've played all the way through Secret of Mana at least three times on the SNES, and I never ran into any game ending or crashing bugs, but I did see lots of weird glitch type stuff like floating Nekos and the massive inconsistence with Level 9 weapons (sometimes you could continue leveling and sometimes it just stopped adding EXP) and Level 8 spells (as to whether or not their special animation would play).

Concerning the leveling systems themselves, I agree that both the weapon and magic ones are pretty stupid.  I much prefer weapons/armor to be purchased as in SD1 & 3 and magic to be learned by class type (FF4 and SD3).

Anyway, I think SD2/SoM is a great game, but it is my least favorite of the original SD trilogy.  SD3 takes the top pick, though I do agree with whoever mentioned the slow movement and long, difficult battles.  I've read there are a couple game ending bugs surrounding inventory management, but since the game is in Japanese, I was using a FAQ while playing and it warned me of them beforehand so I made sure I had enough room in my inventory for the story items.

I read something about save files being erased when one saves at the "final save point" (I'm not sure which this is) or something, but it never happened to me, and I played the heck out of this game back then.  I never ran into any game-crashing glitches at all.  I guess I lucked out.  SD2 was pretty much my first complete (I say complete because Willow was technically my first RPG, but I had no awareness of the genre at the time) RPG experience, Square or otherwise.

I've played SD3 and it was fun for a playthrough, but during my second playthrough I grew tired of the button-mashing nature of it.  Getting rid of the percentage bar for attacks was a mistake.  I also have a problem with the blacking out of your options when someone else is casting a spell and with the final job classes coming too late in the game to get much use.

I'm kind of curious, for those of you who played the game, did you max out all of the weapons and magic? If so, did you consciously alternate between weapons and magic just to increase their levels, or did you just use those weapons and spells you thought were most usefull or effective at various points in the game and ended up maxing them all out naturally?

I felt similar about the change from SD/FFA/MQ to SD2/SoM, I preferred to not have to press a button to start the power up loading but instead having to avoid doing any attack. Feels a lot more tactical to me, and the slow crawling characters while power loading suck.

There was this guy who was staying with my sister back in....hell, must've been '97. Shane Hall. He was big on fighting games, but had never played an RPG in his life. I introduced him, and he played through every SNES RPG I had during that summer. Not just playing, DESTROYING. Maxed out characters, every sidequest...he barely slept. I bring this up because he'd also managed to max every weapon in Mana to Level 9. Apparently enemies in the final dungeon will, once in a blue moon, drop a final hidden upgrade to a weapon for maxer-than-max power. I'd never found such a thing, and in the days before I came to the Internet my mind was sufficently flayed.

Yeah, they do. Not often though. I never got remotely close to leveling up each weapon to its max but I did often get the spear and sword (my favorite weapons) up to level 8.

The area I did most of my leveling up in was the grassy area before the trials (with the gorgeous music).

Nice. I wonder if he remained an RPG nut.

I did get my Spear and Sword up to level 9. Wasn't all that useful though.

Concerning a bug/trick, glitches happened to me often throughout the game, upon which I hit the reset. What was interesting though, was battling the "dragon" ; ) for the final boss.. I ran out of chocolates and sweets, and even honey.. I had NO healing items left. What I did was then to time very precisely, the moment where the dargon comes swooping across and use the dwarf hammer item to change myself into a mini-me at that moment. Apparently the game loaded one action and ignored the other (being attacked) if you did it right. Didn't work for all attacks, but saved me enough to complete the game.

Well, back in 1993 - 1994 when I was playing the game, I had no money so I was only receiving games as gifts.  As such, I either had to spend tons of time with the few games I actually owned or not play at all.  So I leveled the hell out of everything in SoM.  The weapons I kept switching to whatever needed leveling while the spells I tediously power leveled.  Not fun.

Thanks for the responses everyone. I decided I'll keep levelling up Popoi's magic, but leave Prim's alone (exept for her healing spell that is). I'll keep upgrading the weapons as well, since doing so is not nearly as tedious as levelling up magic, and I actually use the various weapons in the game. That should be enough not to turn the game into a mindless level building drag.

Another weird thing about using magic is that you only get experience points for the number of times you cast a spell. So the game actually encourages you to, for example, go through the process of casting a healing spell three times for each of your party members instead of just using the same spell on all of them at once, while both ways cost the same amount of MP.

I just finished the Matango Kingdom part of the game BTW (the place with all the Toadstools running around) and the place looked awesome. Kind of reminded me of Chrono Cross' art style. At least as far as graphics are concerned the game has managed to surprise me in a positive way.

My brother and I had a similar experience on our game, although it occured on our second playthrough. After we defeated Ice Gigas (I think), the Sprite vanished. We thought we had uncovered some hidden sidequest and searched everywhere for him/it, but ended up having to start a new game because we couldn't move on without him.

Yup, except back then I usually got stuck as the Girl >_<  Playing the support character was rather boring, at least up until she finally got Lumina/Wisp.

I think we got all of the magic up to level 8, but because of bugs we didn't receive weapon orbs after some of the boss battles and thus could never max out our weapons. I believe we did all maxing after we beat the game.

We utilized the same trick, except we would cast the Girl's healing spell (or some other support spell) on everyone. Again, if timed right, it would prevent damage. Good times.

I think I was usually the girl as well. I was certainly never the boy. One of the more traumatic memories is near the end of the game when I died and my other two friends refused to revive me. It was really cruel!

the only glitches I ever came across in the game was if there were too many sound effects, they kept cutting across the music. Didn't recall any other glitches to be honest. But that was 10 odd years back!

LOL

This reminds me of a short review I wrote on SoM on my (dead) Blog half a year ago.
That game is buggy as HELL.

http://amazingu.blogspot.com/2006/02/se … -mana.html