Secret of Mana Remake - Review

Mike Moehnke · March 2018

What happens when a widely-cherished Super Nintendo RPG gets a remake that doesn't change much? The result will doubtless be different for everyone, but here's a review abundantly demonstrating one reaction.
Dissatisfaction will result.

Powerlord · March 2018

At least Square-Enix remade the second game in the series for a change. We've already had two remakes of the first game.

Now, as you said, we need a remake of Seiken Densetsu 3 that actually gets released in the west.

LordGolbez · March 2018

Except if they remake SD3, they better well alter much, because SD3 sucks as is. You want to complain about enemies who are evil without nuance? At least you know who they are and their aims more or less. SD3's villains are incoherent. They pop up out of nowhere like you're supposed to know wtf is going on with them and leave precious little in clues to what they're about at all. That complaint can be leveled at the whole flow of the game as well. But the worst part is the gameplay including being filled with interminable enemies that take forever to kill. Any complaint that can be leveled about SoM gameplay is magnified 100fold in SoM (seriously because that's about how much longer it seems to take to beat a boss).

VeghEsther · March 2018

The game crashing bugs did however kind of make it unplayable thank god for AUTO saving else I would have not bothered to play the game on my PS4 at all and yes even the 1.02 patch does NOT remove the game crashing at all.

DarkRPGMaster · March 2018

VeghEsther wrote: »

The game crashing bugs did however kind of make it unplayable thank god for AUTO saving else I would have not bothered to play the game on my PS4 at all and yes even the 1.02 patch does NOT remove the game crashing at all.

Not really unplayable, because as you said, Autosaving often mitigated this. Though it could just be me, but the only time I ever saw a crash was when I was grinding for weapon/spell levels or for a rare drop.

Wheels · March 2018

Only hit one crash in my playthrough

watcher · March 2018

All I've seen would qualify this as a remaster rather than a remake. And a mediocre one at that.

Wheels · March 2018

watcher wrote: »

All I've seen would qualify this as a remaster rather than a remake. And a mediocre one at that.

how is completely replacing the graphics and engine not a remake?

Clix · March 2018

Wheels wrote: »

watcher wrote: »

All I've seen would qualify this as a remaster rather than a remake. And a mediocre one at that.

how is completely replacing the graphics and engine not a remake?

Yeah, it is more in the vain of FFIII and IV's remakes for the DS. It is structurally the same game as the original but re-built and in some places, reworked. That said, the Mana remakes are definitely more conservative in implementing changes to the original.

LordGolbez · March 2018

Wheels wrote: »

watcher wrote: »

All I've seen would qualify this as a remaster rather than a remake. And a mediocre one at that.

how is completely replacing the graphics and engine not a remake?

Yeah, comparing slapping some smoothing filters on a PS2 game to completely redone graphics, regardless of how dated they look, is pretty absurd.

Wheels · March 2018

that's not even going into how well they replicated the gameplay of the original (for better or worse) in said brand new engine.

TheMoose · March 2018

I played the "Secret of Mana" remake.

While the graphics and sound track are an improvement from the Super NES version, the biggest complaints are poor hit detection as hitting an enemy doesn't always generate damage, and let's not forget the frequent "Blue Screen" crashes which makes it a disincentive to grind out your spell, weapon, and experience levels.

Not even the updated patches, like Version 1.02, seem to work. If it did, I wouldn't have experienced at least seven "Blue Screen" crashes so far and counting.

If it wasn't for the auto save feature, "Secret of Mana" would have been a disaster.

For a company with a reputation for producing high quality games like Square Enix, they should have known better than to produce a game with "Blue Screen" crashes and bugs like "Secret of Mana".

Let's hope future remakes and new titles, including "Final Fantasy 7" and "Dragon Quest 11", won't have any "Blue Screen" crashes.

LordGolbez · March 2018

I think the ability to patch games with updates has made game companies across the board more careless about releasing buggy versions of games.

Orophin · March 2018

I was contemplating playing the game long enough to max out the spells and weapons like the ye olden days, but my backlog is so huge now I just couldn't be bothered.

The inn scenes were rather amusing but didn't add much to the overall gameplay.

Magic is still overpowered and can carry you through most fights. (not a gripe, just an observation)

I think I had a handful of game crashes, but the autosave was extremely helpful for getting back to where it stopped.

I find it might be harder for a newer generation of gamers to get into this. The people that played the original understood its quirks and would probably come to expect those things to re-surface, but anything less than smooth gameplay nowadays is likely to turn people off. There doesn't seem to be much tolerance for "cell phone game graphics" either. (a common complaint on the Steam boards)

Jmustang1968 · March 2018

TheMoose wrote: »

I played the "Secret of Mana" remake.

While the graphics and sound track are an improvement from the Super NES version, the biggest complaints are poor hit detection as hitting an enemy doesn't always generate damage, and let's not forget the frequent "Blue Screen" crashes which makes it a disincentive to grind out your spell, weapon, and experience levels.

A big complaint of the original SoM is the hit detection as well. Like it was mentioned, for better or worse they replicated the old mechanics. Wouldve been nice if they had cleaned it up.

watcher · May 2018

Yes, technically it's a remake. But it's basically a carbon copy of the original with newer graphics, poor quality newer graphics and game crashing bugs. No notable additional content or features for a game that was well known to have significant content cut from the original.

LordGolbez · May 2018

Question: Is it actually a hit detection problem (i.e. the proper place to attack doesn't sync up properly with the enemy sprite) or a hit rate problem (i.e. there is a hit "detected," but the chance of a random miss is high). As I recall, it seemed the potential to fail to hit was high with certain types of creatures like the replicating blob creatures, so I think I tended to assume it was a hit rate issue. Then again, I do recall certain weapons being more effective, which might suggest that something of their trajectory makes it easier to hit the right target area. Anyway, I think it's not something I would likely be able to tell the difference between with any level of certainty, but someone who knows the programming might be able to say better.

Michael Baker · May 2018

I always figured the slime monsters had a really high evade, which was why they always seemed to skip back half a space to avoid getting hit.

For me, it was more a matter of how often the little MISS icon kept popping up. In other words, not a problem with hit detection, but instead with how the game didn't seem to want my weapons to do anything. Even really high-level charged attacks that definitely connected with a boss's hit box would whiff that way.

Magic seemed to be nerfed some as well. I had issues with getting any spell to hit hard enough to make a difference for much of the game, even with higher skill levels attained through a lot of pointless casting. Bosses which I clearly remembered nuking to death with fireballs and other assorted effects were taking single-digit (often 1) damage from everything including the element they were supposedly weak against. And the fact that Magic Reflect never seemed to wear off actually screwed me over a few times.

TheAnimeMan · May 2018

You could cast dispel to get rid of magic reflect

DarkRPGMaster · May 2018

gaijinmonogatari wrote: »

I always figured the slime monsters had a really high evade, which was why they always seemed to skip back half a space to avoid getting hit.

For me, it was more a matter of how often the little MISS icon kept popping up. In other words, not a problem with hit detection, but instead with how the game didn't seem to want my weapons to do anything. Even really high-level charged attacks that definitely connected with a boss's hit box would whiff that way.

Magic seemed to be nerfed some as well. I had issues with getting any spell to hit hard enough to make a difference for much of the game, even with higher skill levels attained through a lot of pointless casting. Bosses which I clearly remembered nuking to death with fireballs and other assorted effects were taking single-digit (often 1) damage from everything including the element they were supposedly weak against. And the fact that Magic Reflect never seemed to wear off actually screwed me over a few times.

The game is heavily expecting you to grind things out, both for weapons and spells. If your magic is maxed, usually everything just rolled over dead within a few casts, even bosses. Most bosses I laughed at because it only took several spell casts and regular attacks to make them fold.

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Secret of Mana Remake - Review

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