Let’s Play Secret of Mana!
So every year in April I play or at least start a let’s play of what I consider to be one of my favorite games of all time. Top 5 (or eventually Top 10) shit. I’ll do you one better, Secret of Mana has the distinction of being one of my top 3 favorite games of all time, along with Illusion of Gaia and Final Fantasy 7. Yeah that’s probably it… anyway this is one of those moments where I get self-conscious about talking about myself a little too much, let’s talk about the game itself.
Let’s Play Secret of Mana:
Secret of Mana is an interesting hybrid which does a lot of things really, really well. For instance, it’s part RPG, albeit a basic one, where you level up your party members in level, weapons, and magic. It’s also part adventure/action in the way the combat works in real time.
The combat and gameplay in general flow seamlessly as you conjure up your spells or just whack into an enemy melee style with one of the 8 weapons in the game.
The music is excellent and some of the pieces are among my favorites of all time. The snow forest comes to mind when I mention that. Fuck.
Graphically it was kind of beautiful, even down to the grainy sort-of-3D overworld shots during canon or dragon travel.
Anyway, the story in this game is Hollywood good, and not in the cheesy shitty way; it’s a beautiful combination of drama and a lot of comedy (which 8 year old me definitely appreciated), epic stakes, memorable and lovable characters.
On top of everything else, this game is uniquely multiplayer, and what I mean by that is that you won’t get a multiplayer experience like this anywhere else from this era of gaming. It’s also one of the only three player games I can think of… well the only right now in this moment.
In Secret of Mana, everyone controls one of the three main characters so you can develop your own unique set of magic if you’re the girl or the sprite and develop your skills with one or many of the 8 weapons. And the whole time you’re still a very intricate part of the story as opposed to other multiplayer games where the other players are just kind of there.
It’s a great game to play through with a friend, and I was fortunate enough to play through the game with one of my best friends in Todd.
Matt joined in for the first couple of videos before figuring out the game wasn’t for him, but Todd stuck it out with me through the end and we had a great time, so a big thank you to him for joining me throughout.
I could say a lot more about this game, but when you own a let’s play channel with hundreds of let’s plays of classic games from over the years as I do, citing this as one of my top favorite games of all time speaks for itself.