January 2017 Community Playthrough - Secret of Mana

[GrayGhost81]

For the second year in a row I have the privilege of hosting the first game of the year and once again, with the help of my co-hosts, I've come up with a game that I know will fire up the community and start off the new year with a bang! It has been a while since we played any RPGs, and we played way too few in 2016. We decided to start the new year off right with Secret of Mana for the SNES, WiiVC, Android and iOS.

[img width=700 height=393]https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mGK3usiX31s/maxresdefault.jpg[/img]

As the second piece of the Seiken Densetsu trilogy, Secret of Mana follows many classic fantasy tropes of RPGs of the SNES era, and features a familiar top-down perspective. However, Secret of Mana has a rather innovative and unique action battle system where the characters' attacks must recharge over a short time before being effective again. Furthermore, unlike most JRPGs of the time, up to three players can play at once using a multitap! Gather the family around that old tube tv and join us!

[img width=403 height=358]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-044/ss/U-044-S-04900-A.jpg[/img]

Participants:
douglie007
fleach
grayghost81
noiseredux
raidou
singlebanana

Checkpoints:

[noiseredux]

well, I have this on Android and have really never played it. So looks like now I have a good excuse to do so!

[douglie007]

Well I'm in of course

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[singlebanana]

Really excited to play this one for the first time.

[MaterialHandlerMike]

I thought this one got played already, but then I just remember one of your co-hosts commenting, on how SoM is soo much better than Secret of Evermore, and thats where my confusion comes in.

[noiseredux]

app installed on tablet... doing best to resist urge to start playing now...

[Ikariniku]

I'm in.  I remember drooling over this game when I saw it in Nintendo Power, and now is as good a time as any to try it out.

[Raidou]

[img width=32 height=34]http://i1170.photobucket.com/albums/r534/Blood-Spattered_Angel/Secret_of_Mana_Dancing_Merchant.gif[/img]
I'm in!

[douglie007]

I have started, and had to remap the controller kept opening the menu to run.  anyone else changed things?

[noiseredux]

alright, I'm gonna fire this badboy up tonight. It's gonna be an interesting month. I'm juggling playing this here and Disgaea over at Racketboy this month. That's a whole lotta JRPG.

[GrayGhost81]

I have started, and had to remap the controller kept opening the menu to run.  anyone else changed things?

I was tempted but got used to it pretty quickly.

alright, I'm gonna fire this badboy up tonight. It's gonna be an interesting month. I'm juggling playing this here and Disgaea over at Racketboy this month. That's a whole lotta JRPG.

Coincidentally, I'm playing Disgaea 3 on the Vita right now, though it's just on my free time and I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to stick with it.


Anyway guys, I was stuck on Spikey Tiger for like two weeks before I threw in the towel and Game Genie'ed my way past him this morning. Since I'm way behind schedule on finishing, I'm thinking Spikey Tiger will be as good a first checkpoint as any. To those familiar with the game, does this sound reasonable?

[noiseredux]

No idea. Checkpoints throw me off. I just play at my own pace and hope I am doing it right haha.

[GrayGhost81]

That's how I prefer as it as well, I even run a lot of my playthroughs that way!

With this game I want to give as much guidance as I am able, due to the length of the game being slightly longer than we're used to.

[Raidou]

Anyway guys, I was stuck on Spikey Tiger for like two weeks before I threw in the towel and Game Genie'ed my way past him this morning. Since I'm way behind schedule on finishing, I'm thinking Spikey Tiger will be as good a first checkpoint as any. To those familiar with the game, does this sound reasonable?

I'd probably suggest completing the Underground Palace or the Pandora Ruins as a better checkpoint. By this point, you will have touched 2 of the 8 Mana seeds, gained access to magic, and will have toyed around with the leveling system enough to know what you're in for.

Out of curiosity, what level were you?  Spikey can be tough but he shouldn't be that much of a road block.

No idea. Checkpoints throw me off. I just play at my own pace and hope I am doing it right haha.

That's usually how I play... and I often end up beating games well ahead of the group. 

[GrayGhost81]

How's everyone doing here? Sorry for my lack of checkpoints so far, but I'm still lagging behind where I want to be.

For sure I think everyone should be past Raidou's suggested checkpoint of the Panora Ruins by now.

I got some good advice from Singlebanana who helped me make my party more aggressive, so we've gone from brain dead suicidal mannequins to a max aggression street gang automatically f*cking up anything in sight. It has totally changed the game for me to say the least.

I wasn't loving the game at first but as I am almost to the halfway point I am really finding a groove. Definitely falls somewhere higher than a Zelda game for me, though not as good as Chrono Trigger, and at this point probably edging out Illusion of Gaia. Definitely makes me want to play more SNES!