World of Mana is there a chance for this broken world

[seraphimdreamer777]

I've been searching the web for any updates of World of Mana series. A series gone downhill and I blame it on one game Secret of Evermore set to be released at the same time as
Seiken Desetu 3. I know I know I spelled it totally wrong at least I think I did. But Secret of Mana was one of my favorite games on SNES and they totally screwed the game over after SoE came out and kept the game Secret of Mana 2 as I believe they planed to name it from ever making it out of Japan and later a game called Legend of Mana would be released. Not a real bad game but it didn't live up to the name and then from there the series started building a coffin but has the last nail been put in or do you think Wii Channels can pull it out with the re release of Secret of Mana on VC I want to see this series survive at least till SD3 Makes it over here to North America maybe as a DS or PSP port with Secret of Mana and maybe Final Fantasy Adventure finally colorized and Legend of Mana maybe but I already have all but Heroes of Mana and the ones released in japan only but hopfully I'll have those too! Oh and Sword of Mana I don't see it as an accurate enough remake of FFA Sorry.

[Erpy]

I recall I've read somewhere that the statement that SoE was released INSTEAD of SD3 (meaning SoE is the reason SD3 was not released in the US) was a myth.

[seraphimdreamer777]

Well then it was Squaresoft as it was called at the time that screwed the series if I believe if it would have been released It would have probably kept the team that originally made it from splitting up of Which I believe I heard at the gay gamer website of which I just happened to come across for the first time ironically. But anyways I'm not exactly sure though. I went through all kinds of sites but I think it's the one that said the team split up that made SD2 and 3. But anyways SD 1 was good also being it was so much like Zelda and Link's Awakening would not come out till years later and Legend of Mana was good but not as good so they I can't say for certain it could of been the team splitting of which it would be their fault or it could be Squares fault. But even still they should have stuck to the formula when making later games keeping the same game play and multi player where any one can join in rather than needing extra cards and having separate story lines for other characters and worst of all making three save spots when you have four different characters to play as.

[Lady Pyro]

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here, but I ADORE the Mana series, and honestly, I liked the switch up from Secret to Legend. It was just something so different, whereas I find Sword similar enough to secret if I feel nostalgic (And Dawn I'm still working my way through, it's good fun but it's a BIG time consumer).
Secret of Mana was one of the first RPGS I played, and it was the only multi player one, so sharing that entire game with my sister only made it a thousand times better.
I got it one year for my birthday and I remember mom telling me: "I don't know what it's like, but it was one of the cheapest ones there." We plugged it in and didn't stop playing for months. Now, in a semi-ironic twist, what I got as the cheapest game on the shelf sells for 75 bucks online.
But this is all opinion and back story. I still love the series and love the new twists and turns it takes. A tiny but of familiarity and a whole new setting. It hasn't stopped being fun for me yet, and it's never been disappointing (I'm looking at YOU Suikoden!). I've never played the ones that weren't released in North America, so I guess I'm not an expert, but as someone whose enjoyed the series for over a decade I have to say I don't see it as a broken series at all.

[seraphimdreamer777]

Well I guess your right. I do like all the Mana games but it's just I guess I'm judging the newer games on the fact that they are different from what I played when I was a kid and what I've read online I'm not saying they suck. But at the same time I wish there would at least be one like exactly like Secret of Mana and I heard SD3 was very close while Dawn of Mana was well I haven't played it all the way through yet and the only real problem I had with it was it had very loose RPG elements to it but the story and game play were pretty good and Children of Mana I'm just pissed that it had 4 characters and only 3 save spots. I still have Secret of Mana in my FC Twin from when I first got it not Mana but the FC Twin I got the FC twin one year ago I've had my copy of Mana since I'd say the 6th grade. Yea I remember going in the woods with my plastic sword and hunting monsters from the game of course now that I'm grown up hunting imaginary monsters would make me look crazy but hey at least I can look back.

[Lady Pyro]

Hey I can dig it, I'm just in the minority whose a bit bored of gaming rehashes, as fun as they can be. I love Twilight Princess but it's really just Ocarina reloaded so there's really no challenge for me. I really liked the first Kingdom Hearts for being so innovated with the battle system and ideas, then KH2 I got 100% on my first run through.
I find if I want the same feel to a game with a whole new experience, Mana is one of the few series that offer up.
That's not saying I don't enjoy familiarity, I mean how else would I have gotten through so many Final Fantasy games?

And all our imaginary monsters can from the Heroes 3 game. We were awesome Warlords traipsing through the woods and summoning armies of monstrosities. Good times!

[Brainiac]

Honestly I think part of the problem is S-E hasn't quite gotten out of the "three pillars" mindset the company advocated at formation. Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, and Dragon Quest get all the juice; as a result, the lesser-known series like Mana and SaGa kinda get shafted (or utterly left in the dust, like Chrono). Series for which the company (or original companies) only served as publisher, like tri-Ace's Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile, have fared a little better.

[Schloss Ritter]

At this point, I'm satisfied with the SD3 fan translation hack and would rather not see it become hard to find due to Square finally making an official port. I still haven't gotten around to playing it though, but I've gone through SD1 (aka FF Adventure) and SD2 (aka Secret of Mana) multiple times each. I plan on getting around to the later SD/Mana games one of these days.

About Secret of Evermore: that was done by a team at Square of America, specifically brought together for the task. There was going to be another team working out of Square's main HQ in Japan to translate SD3, just as with previous games, but they decided not to. It was another case of "this game is too hard for Americans", and also, the Japanese text for SD3 was so compressed that it was thought impossible at the time to fit the more verbose English language on the cart. The translation hackers were barely able to do it without breaking the ROM, if I recall what I read correctly.

Another great franchise at Square that crashed an burned is the SaGa series. The first three were on the Game Boy and released in the US as FF Legend 1-3. But then they never bothered to translate the next trilogy, Romancing SaGa, for the Super Famicom into English on the SNES. Fortunately, SaGa Frontier 1+2 for the Playstation were translated and pretty well done, but unfortunately they weren't promoted very well and many FFL fans did not even know of the SaGa connection or missing 16-bit games. Unlimited SaGa for the PS2, from what I've read, strayed way to far from traditional mechanics in its experimentation with new concepts, and pretty much bombed and killed the series. RS1 finally got ported to the PS2 in 2005, but it was overshadowed by big name titles that came out before and after and the aftermath of the Square-Enix merger. Too bad there isn't even finished translation hacks for Romancing SaGa 2 or 3 (or even the original release of RS1) either

[Lady Pyro]

I hold out hope for another 'Chrono' game but if it never comes around, then at least Trigger and Cross are still fun enough to me to offer up plenty of replay value, not to mention many surprise endings.
I own SaGa Frontier and don't think I ever finished it. I'm not sure why I just couldn't really get into it. Which is weird for me.

Of course at this point I'm so bored of Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts that I'll take any RPG that offers up ANYTHING different. Which is why I've started playing Overlord! Horrah!

[seraphimdreamer777]

Well I'd have to say Square was bad for saying games were too hard for NA gamers. I have made it far in FF2 with no problem and they said it would be to hard then again I don't know if they changed any of the games physics. But I liked the story and characters of which I know aren't real popular to many fans but I liked the game and found it somewhat easy if not easier than the first and if I worked on a new Chrono game I'd say I'd combine the time travel and the parallel world concepts but unfortunately I don't work for square Enix. Even if I did I'd probably wouldn't even be able to make the games I've wanted to make Gothic Girl Mary of which was supposed to an adventure RPG I was making with AGS but quit cause it was too time consuming for one person to work on and my dream game from when I was a kid The Adventures of Joey and yes my real name is Joey at least for now.

[xKiv]

Too bad there isn't even finished translation hacks for Romancing SaGa 2 or 3 (or even the original release of RS1) either

The (unofficial) translation patch for RS3 I used seems to be reasonably complete. At least I got to the end and didn't run into any uncomprehensible content.