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Secret of Mana |OT| Remaking The Mana Sword

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
No, that wasn't in the original but it should have been added here.

Thanks, I guess I just mis-remembered there being blue and orange colored arrows. Seems like it'd be pretty easy, since although armor covers a couple of stats, I'm half-way through the game already and have yet to find a single piece of armor that doesn't just increase or decrease them all at once.

Played about 7 hours of this now - and I'm still loving it. I am starting to see some of the complaints about the combat not feeling like it's connecting and the hitboxes though, on some of the enemies that I have to wail on for a while. Sometimes my hits will knock an enemy down, and they won't get back up for like 30-45 seconds and any hits they get while they're down don't "count", so that's kind of annoying. On the plus side, I finally figured out how to assign magic to shortcuts, so that is streamlining the process of leveling it up quite a bit. Leveling up my characters as well as the weapons and magic is still one of my favorite things to do in this version just like the original.
 

sublimit

Banned
Hmm i keep hearing complaints about the hitboxes in this game. It would be nice if they could fix this with a patch.
 
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TFGB

Member
I’m enjoying this. I like the fact that you can only level up weapons depending on how many weapon orbs you have, and can only level up magic depending on how many seeds you have...even though I had to find that out by myself as there’s bugger all documentation on it!

Once you understand the mechanics, this makes for a laid back low-difficulty JRPG that doesn’t feel frustratingly difficult or overwhelming. It makes a nice stop gap till Ni No Kuni II also.
 
Once you understand the mechanics, this makes for a laid back low-difficulty JRPG that doesn’t feel frustratingly difficult or overwhelming.
Everyone else feel it's laid back?

... Does everyone else feel the original was? o.0

Maybe because it was one of my first RPGs... and I was a child lol... but am I the only one that thought SOM was hard? I remember dying even to the antlion a few times and I had to level up a bit, and I distinctly seem to remember getting stuck at the spiky tiger and my butt kicked.

I don't really remember too much difficulty after that but I think after the antlion and spiker tiger -- and also just because I started to really love the game -- I think I started grinding a lot so I was probably a bit overpowered ;p I think things change once you get a few magic spells to spam too I guess. But before that, I clearly seem to have a memory of having difficulty with the game lol.
 

Petrae

Member
Yup. This is a disappointment. I find myself wanting to fire up the original release instead of continuing to play this version. The new music isn’t good, the visuals aren’t as appealing as the original’s, and there’s something off about the play controls.

Too bad.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Everyone else feel it's laid back?

... Does everyone else feel the original was? o.0

Maybe because it was one of my first RPGs... and I was a child lol... but am I the only one that thought SOM was hard? I remember dying even to the antlion a few times and I had to level up a bit, and I distinctly seem to remember getting stuck at the spiky tiger and my butt kicked.

I don't really remember too much difficulty after that but I think after the antlion and spiker tiger -- and also just because I started to really love the game -- I think I started grinding a lot so I was probably a bit overpowered ;p I think things change once you get a few magic spells to spam too I guess. But before that, I clearly seem to have a memory of having difficulty with the game lol.

The game is really as laid back as you make it - it starts off somewhat difficult as you can't really grind anything but character levels, but then gets progressively easier once you unlock more weapon orbs and mana seeds. Then, you can grind character levels, magic levels, and weapon levels to make the game much easier. I've got 12 hours in now, and the past two hours I think I've just spent level-grinding which is generally pretty laid back. That grinding will make the rest of the game a breeze.
 

Zog

Banned
I've gone back to the SNES version (SNES Classic). In the Upper Land too many enemies just lay there for extended periods, must be a bug but most importantly, the text is just too small on the Vita. The strain is giving me a headache.
 

TFGB

Member
Everyone else feel it's laid back?

... Does everyone else feel the original was? o.0

Maybe because it was one of my first RPGs... and I was a child lol... but am I the only one that thought SOM was hard? I remember dying even to the antlion a few times and I had to level up a bit, and I distinctly seem to remember getting stuck at the spiky tiger and my butt kicked.

I don't really remember too much difficulty after that but I think after the antlion and spiker tiger -- and also just because I started to really love the game -- I think I started grinding a lot so I was probably a bit overpowered ;p I think things change once you get a few magic spells to spam too I guess. But before that, I clearly seem to have a memory of having difficulty with the game lol.
Maybe I’m still too early on in the game. I had defeated Boreal Face but don’t know how far I am into the game as it’s my first time playing it. I think I’m about 6/7 hours in?

Maybe it gets much tougher. I’ve probably jinxed myself now lol. :/

I got the Plat for The Tenth Line a few weeks back and, by comparison, I found the final bosses in that rock hard.
 
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TFGB

Member
Got the Plat after nearly 32 hours of play time.

I enjoyed it until the grind for the orbs and final colectibles began to take its toll. The amount of CE-34878-0 crashes I had was unforgivable too, and it seems to be a common problem with the PS4 version.

Roll on Ni No Kuni II!
 
I'm about 8 hours in, and so far it's surprised me in both good and bad ways:
+ like the art 'style' more than I would have thought
+ combat is pretty fun and the hitboxes/combat system feel pretty faithful
- combat hasn't aged very well without the same 'visual satisfaction' of the OG (more on that in a sec)
- THE GAME CRASHES A LOT ... like, every 1.5-2 hours now. 6 times total in barely 3 days -_-

playing it with the original soundtrack and no voice overs, so it sounds fine, too ;p I listened to the OST online first and while a few tracks sounded faithful or even improvements, there were a lot that I thought had very uneven tone fluctuations or tonal shifts. overall still prefer the original score.

I think if I have one complaint, it's not the graphics 'style' per se but the 'perspective' -- and I find it takes a lot away from the sort of 'side-scroller action' feel to the original the remake trying to stay faithful to the camera angle (being 3D just changes the perspective)

the more I played it, there was something visually I couldn't quite put my finger on though that I didn't like, and it wasn't the art style... and I just realized it's actually the perspective.

the reason why SOM was such a great 'action' game was because the pixels had a side view, and it made ways it felt like a Streets of Rage, TMNT, Knights of the Round, etc. you had cool sprite attack animations that you could clearly see from the side.

but with going full 3D and a proper '3/4' perspective, now in the remake we just mostly stare at the top of their heads ...

you never really get a good view of the combat =(

and I realize that more than the art style, what I hate is that they didn't adjust the 3D perspective more to the side or something
 

God Enel

Member
I'm about 8 hours in, and so far it's surprised me in both good and bad ways:
+ like the art 'style' more than I would have thought
+ combat is pretty fun and the hitboxes/combat system feel pretty faithful
- combat hasn't aged very well without the same 'visual satisfaction' of the OG (more on that in a sec)
- THE GAME CRASHES A LOT ... like, every 1.5-2 hours now. 6 times total in barely 3 days -_-
Agreeing with you on everything and the crashes are extremely annoying. I am eight hours in as well (playing with friends) and the game crashed like 8-9 times up until king midas and the golden city. So yeah about each hour youre going to have a crash.
Seems to me like a fucking cashgrab and thats whats mostly pssing me off. My friend paid 40(!) bucks for it and you get this?! Like seriously? how can this shit pass quality control? Is there even one? I will now consider two times buying something from square. Left a really bad taste in my mouth.
Otherwise the gamee is okay. Original is still better.
 
yeah I feel as if even though the combat 'feels' good, I really miss the original 'side view' of the sprite attack animations.

as I was playing it, I kept thinking to myself: 'is Secret of Mana overrated?' why did I enjoy grinding this game back in the day so much. the combat 'charge' system ain't that great, mechanically.

and I realize, so much of it was the combat 'aesthetic,' almost like a Knights of the Round or something side-scrolling beat 'em up. it was fun to grind because you had great visual satisfaction: 8 cool combos to unlock per weapon; 8 distinct weapons. It was never that it just 'felt' good to control, it was because it was so satisfying to watch it.

and even though the remake nails the control, it complete loses that same combat aesthetic.
 

God Enel

Member
though I have to say I hated the bow, bumerang and spear in the OG game. In the remake they are way better to use and way more fun than back Then
 
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