Secret of mana

[Anonymous No.637283]

Hey vr. I'm going to play through secret of mana for the first time today. Picked it up from a flea market for 10$ on Sunday. Think I got pretty lucky! What should I expect from this game? Any tips? Is it all its been cracked up to be?

[Anonymous No.637291]

Beware of tigers

[Anonymous No.637304]

>>637283

It's really good but... its really grinding heavy...magic spells take forever to level and you need them.

Hitting mechanics can be a bit wonky and basically its exploiting the weakness and spamming the same magic over and over again by going into the menu over and over again...

[Anonymous No.637329]

>>637283
>exploiting the weakness and spamming the same magic over and over again by going into the menu over and over again...
Is there a rom hack or anything that fixes this exploit?

[Anonymous No.637327]

SANTA CLAUS IS GUNNA LEAVE COAL IN YOUR STOCKING.


UP YOUR ASS.

[Anonymous No.637347]

play secret of evermore instead, it's like the dude-version of secret of mana. More dark gritty colors instead of all that pink and purple shit.

[Anonymous No.637356]

>>637347

[Anonymous No.637380]

A dead CMOS battery.

[Anonymous No.637396]

>>637380
The battery seemed fine this morning. All the save slots were filled.

[Anonymous No.637408]

>>637304
Spell grinding.. Great.

[Anonymous No.638430]

Depends OP, if you're playing it solo, it's still fun but you'll feel it's overrated. If you have friends to play with, it's one of the best games ever made.

But >>637304 is right, the spell level and weapon level system can be kind of grindy, there's also the rare drop equipment and weapon orbs in the mana fortress that you'll grind for if you really want to be a completionist. That's just part of old RPG's. RNG loot grinds and forcing lots of combat to level something up, whether it's character level, or in this case weapons and spells.

Still a lot of fun though.

[Anonymous No.638442]

>>637347
I tried to play through Secret of Evermore again a few weeks ago.

It hasn't held up well, to me, compared to Mana.

[Anonymous No.639834]

>>637283
Got 2 friends OP? No? Then don't play Secret of Mana until you do. It's the best with friends.

[Gray Blob !1fuckupmdM No.639854]

Speaking of Mana, I've been playing through Final Fantasy Adventure today and it's got me hooked!

All the townspeople speak like they're in a cult or something though. The dialogue is so concise that it's almost nonexistent.

Try it if you like Zelda clones!

[Anonymous No.639917]

>>637408
Wasn't there a really easy way to grind spells? Like you can just keep casting it on a single enemy or something while it's stuck behind some foliage or something? It's been quite a while since I've played SoM/SD2 but from what I remember, if you grind your spells you'll be golden.

Also I agree with many it's alright alone but way more fun with friends (even if it's two players)

[Anonymous No.639942]

>>639917

You can cast over and over on the same target even though it's overkill. You wait until just after the spirit finishes it's summon animation then bring up the menu again.

It means you can camp 1-2 mobs right near an inn or other source of restoring mana.

[Anonymous No.639952]

>>637329
just start playing the game. when we all played it as little kids, we didn't have the infinite resource of the internet to help us. it's fun if you jump in, try to make the best of it, and experience it for yourself. it's not fun if you read about how to min-max the game before your first playthrough.

"grinding" isn't actually a problem if the game is fun. if you're wandering around enjoying the world and figuring out where to go, you can easily level up. if you look up the fastest route and where all the secrets are located to speed through the game, then grinding is going to feel like a chore.

[Anonymous No.640416]

>>639952

I figured that spell grinding trick on my own without the internet.

See the thing about "exploits" is, if you make a process fun, people don't LOOK for possible exploits to make a chore less tedious. But if you make a process tedious and dull, like grinding levels, weapon levels, magic levels, etc, people look for every shortcut possible, because it's boring, but they want the results.

[Anonymous No.640442]

>>639834
takes a bit of time before anyone else joins your party though

[Anonymous No.640527]

>grinding in a mana game

[Anonymous No.640546]

>>637304
>spell grind
half true, if you go to a mana seed where someone will heal you quickly (mana including) Primm is easy to spam mana to level up.

[Anonymous No.640562]

>>640527
I'm with this guy, I didn't have to grind in either SoM or SD3 and I don't consider myself exceptionally good or anything.

[Anonymous No.640571]

>>640562

it's not grinding character levels, it's grinding weapon skill and spell levels. Spells do more damage/healing/last longer if they're higher level, and the higher level they get, the more times you have to cast them to level them up further. At level 8, you have to cast them 99 times to get 8:99 which gets the level 9 spell 99% of the time.

Weapons you get up to level 8 skill level that allows you to do level 8 charge attacks, there's a little more variety there since charging all the way up takes a long time, but sometimes the attack patterns are worth it. I usually go with charge level 6 myself because of it's wide sweeping attacks with most weapons. With bows and javelins and boomerangs you charge them up all the way to get more range with them, a bow charged to level 8 can shoot across the entire screen, where uncharged bow shots go maybe 1/4 of the distance.

[Anonymous No.640575]

>>640571

and SD3 you needed to grind to get the items that allowed the second class change, and the best equipment from seeds.

[Anonymous No.640639]

>>639952
>it's fun if you jump in, try to make the best of it, and experience it for yourself.

This.

Don't listen to anyone else in this thread, OP - go find your fave weapon and start leveling it up to unlock neat new ways to kill your opponents.

[Anonymous No.641331]

>>639834
I would get friends to play and I even have a multi tap but were all so busy I feel like we would play together once and then we wouldn't be able to get back together for months. So I'm just going solo for this one. Can friends jump in at any time?

[Anonymous No.641919]

>>637283
Probably in the top 3 of my favorite SNES games. Such a good storyline, and always full of action and mystery. It'll take some practice, but you'll get use to it. Once you get to using magic, that's when shit gets tense. 10$ is a sick deal for this game. Enjoy

[Anonymous No.641936]

i had trouble getting into this game. at first i liked the RPG-spliced-with-zelda combat feel but how the fuck do you deal with your teammates? the friendly AI is so dumb in this game, they just run in and get their asses smacked. was i doing it wrong?

also, the magic system of having to repeatedly go into a menu felt extremely clunky.

it makes me sad because SNES was probably my person most cherished vidya era.

[Anonymous No.641998]

>>641936

You can set the AI's behaviors, it's a grid system so you have a spectrum of attack or guard and a second spectrum of approach or keep away. You can make them approach with a melee weapon but keep their guard up to avoid attacks, and you can give them ranged weapons and tell them to attack but keep their distance. You can even tell them to keep their weapon charged up to a certain level before every attack (though that can make walking around slow as they're holding a charge)

[Anonymous No.642071]

>>640416
>See the thing about "exploits" is, if you make a process fun, people don't LOOK for possible exploits to make a chore less tedious. But if you make a process tedious and dull, like grinding levels, weapon levels, magic levels, etc, people look for every shortcut possible, because it's boring, but they want the results.

it just depends on what your intentions are. back then, i would just play a game to pass the time. i wanted to progress the game, but it didn't really matter how long it took. i was just enjoying the experience. nowadays, people sit down and say "i want to beat X game", and then they get upset when their min-maxing strategy makes the game unfun.

of course there's nothing wrong with exploits or min-maxing. i do it all the time. however, if you want to experience a retro game for the first time, you should do it in the same context that everyone else did.

[Anonymous No.642443]

>>642071

It's not so much about min maxing, I never get to max level in every game.. it's COMPLETIONISM that drives most people.

So that means in a lot of games, you don't get level 99, but you get high enough level to get all the spells that character will learn (if spells are granted at levels), so that you have all spells available, and collect all the gear, even if you don't actually need it to complete the game. It's possible to complete SoM with just the purchased vestguard, needle helm, and gauntlets, but people really want to find that power suit, faerie cloak, griffon helm, faerie crown, and faerie rings, and all the weapon orbs, and be able to use the maxed out spells because they have cool visual effects.

I remember the first time by chance I got a level 9 spell off, at first I thought the game froze on me while I was casting dark force cause everything stopped, and then a new visual effect for dark force played out.... so then I had to get to where I could do that with all the spells because it was awesome.

[Anonymous No.642482]

>>637304
I never grinded spells and I did pretty good.
The only times you NEED spells in on bosses, and you can make do with replenishing your mana with walnuts.
Exaggeration, as grinding often tends to be.

[Anonymous No.642523]

>>641998

hmm, ill have to try again someday. to be honest i had tried it on my iphone because they released it in the app store. will have to emulate it properly soon.

[Anonymous No.642747]

I had Secret of Mana as a kid, and I loved it, in fact I loved it so much I think it's actually the first game that ever actively tried to max out everything on. I got to level 99, and maxed out all the weapons and spells and even spent hours hunting monster drops to get the best equipment.

It wasn't that hard, if you've ever tried to max out characters in an FF or DQ game, SoM is a cakewalk in comparison. As far as leveling spells, a few things to remember: they level by element, not by individual spells. When the sprite casts a Gnome spell, Gnome gets the experience and all of the Gnome spells level up with him. Although you do have to separately level the sprite's elements and the girl's elements. But the point is you only have to cast one spell for each element, so just look for the one with the quickest animation and spam that over and over. The girl is easier to level since most of her spells target party members, just have her waste all her MP right before you stay at an inn or something. Also the spell levels are capped by how many Mana seeds you've found. If you only have two seeds, the spells are capped at level 2, when you find another seed you can level them to three, and so on. It's less tedious if you level them throughout the game instead of all in one go. On a side note weapon levels are capped by the number of upgrades each weapon has had, when something get's maxed out, switch to a weapon that isn't maxed yet. Even if you're not planning to max out everything in the game, it's helpful to pay attention to what needs to be leveled up and what can't be leveled up at the moment so you get your stuff stronger faster.

[Anonymous No.643338]

Don't miss the easter eggs

[Anonymous No.643352]

>>640442

A half hour to an hour? Not so bad for a one of a kind co-op experience.

[Anonymous No.644896]

How about Legend of Mana?

Is it really as good as it's made out to be or it's just the sex appeal?

[Anonymous No.644956]

>>644896
10/10 game my game for life son. I dare say its like a fine piece of art.

[Anonymous No.647197]

>>644896
Started playing that game as a young child. Cried so many times during this game it is so damn good. Has great replay value.

[Anonymous No.648285]

>>644896
Flawed but good. It has the most charm of all the mana series.

[Anonymous No.648309]

>>644896
A+ game, and I hate the Mana series.

[Anonymous No.648347]

>>644896

Thought it was really good. Gameplay is simple and kind of mashy but addictive.

[Anonymous No.648891]

>>640571
Except you don't NEED to grind spells or weapons.
If you stick with one or two weapons for each character they'll get pretty high on their own. Spells are slower but the most useful ones will be used a lot anyways so they'll wind up higher naturally.

[Anonymous No.648951]

I got lost at the beginning of the game then never touched it again.

[Anonymous No.649441]

Sell it immediately, just saw it in store for $200. Don't play worthless shit, the battery will die in 2 seconds.

[Anonymous No.649475]

20 years later, and it's still the GOAT