With Square Enix remaking the old FF games for DS, why haven’t they remade The Secret of Mana? One of my favorite 16 bit era games. And just think how much fun the co op could be if they made it wireless.
Come to think of it why no Chrono Trigger either? Didnt these games sell well?
They certainly don’t have the name recognition of Final Fantasy these days. How did Children of Mana do?
I thought I’d heard there were some ownership/rights/royalty issues around some of the earlier Square titles.
I wish they would put out Secret of Mana. I absolutley adored it. They should just put it out on the GBA like they’ve done with the Final Fantasy games.
A thread on GAF recently had some info on this. Basically, the designer of the original said something to the effect that the more current versions of the Mana games are more in line with what he wanted them to be so the original is really not something he wants to revisit in any way.
Of course, the newer Mana games mostly receive middling reviews and less interest than the original, so whatever.
Weird. I haven’t enjoyed a Mana game for ages…
Disappointing. The newer games don’t hold a candle IMO.
Well, the gameplay of Children of Mana was like taking a jar full of pennies, dumping it on the ground, refilling the jar by picking them up one at a time, then repeating ad nauseum. I played it all the way to the end hoping it would get better - it doesn’t.
This did two things for me:
a) Killed any enthusiasm I ever might have had for playing another Mana game.
b) Made me extremely dubious of Kitsune’s judgement, because he loved this tedious little button masher :)
Isn’t everyone dubious of Kitsune’s judgement?
Secret of Mana is my favorite SNES game, period. If they remade it for the DS and put in co-op via wi-fi/internet and I would snatch it up like that.
Mind you, I’ve already played it co-op online via emulator, but official support is always nice.
You had me at “remade it for the DS” but wi-fi multiplayer would instantly make it my favorite DS game.
I’ve just started up Legend of Mana through the emulator on my PSP. It’s no Secret of Mana but it aint too bad.
While I absolutely loved Secret of Mana back in the day, I’m not sure it will have aged very well. Offensive magic wasn’t really all that well integrated into the game; spells ignored all the positioning and charging mechanisms, so the optimal boss strategy was rapid-fire spell spam. And the dialog and plot haven’t aged very well: It’s all very minimal and one-dimensional.
This is all a long way of saying that a DS-port would be a wasted opportunity: This game is one rewrite away from being a new classic.