Secret of Mana is one of my favorite multiplayer games. It basically satisfies all three of my requirements for an awesome game:

1) Sprite based gaming
2) RPG adventure
3) Multiplayer gaming

I think the most important requirement was the fact that I could play with 2 other friends at the same time helping each other out. For a kid growing up in the nineties, this led to a lot of really late night sleepovers adventuring through the world of Secret of Mana. The story was captivating, the diversity of weapons and spells were vast, and the graphics were beautiful. The one major flaw I saw in this game that sometimes ruined the multiplayer fun was the fact that every time you wanted to switch/use an item, weapon, or spell, one had to access the ring menu list to select the desire outcome. This led to the game pausing momentarily while the player chose what he/she was looking for. During the normal monster fighting parts, a momentarily pause was acceptable. However when a boss battle occurred, the amount of stopping to select a spell or heal often made the flow of the game very hard to understand. This was especially frustrating when the game has more or less a real time combat approach and not a true turn based system. When this monthly musings topic came up I thought of two different ways to change the item/spell ring system so it would be more accessible to a real time combat system.


Retroactive Solution) Utilizing a Gameboy (GB) or Gameboy Advanced (GBA) Link Up



This method is obviously not possible to correct the problem when the game originally came out, but I think an individual item menu screen via GB or GBA would be a great idea. There was the GB player for the SNES and GB-GB communication was possible so it could have possibility been option, even though very remotely. Even tough Crystal Chronicles may not have been a great game as a whole, I really did like the use of the GBA for character control. When I played Crystal Chronicles I would always think this is how Secret of Mana should have been. The player would be able to select items, spells, or weapons on the fly within the GBA screen without interrupting the other players and thus making combat more fluid and possibly more complex. The downsides that I see from this method are 1) It is a retroactive solution to make a GB or GBA perform certain functions that they were not capable of at the time of the game release 2) this is a very costly method, 3) I don’t think a GB has enough buttons to properly handle Secret of Mana’s gameplay, and thus would require a GBA (was not out at the time of the game). However, if SquareEnix made a remake of this game that utilized a GBA or even better a DS for player control, I would be in favor for this option.


More Reasonable Solution) HUD Modification



This method would simply place a simplified ring or selection system next to the character’s health bar for the character to select the proper spells. Secret of Mana’s button mapping was very simple, and there were many unused buttons that could have been used to scroll through a small list of times or spells. As seen in the picture above I have the item/spell/weapon selector in the region colored, and the player would use the L,R, and Select (I don’t remember if these buttons were unused) to choose which ring and item in each ring on the fly. Think of Super Metroid’s secondary weapon list (missles, bombs, etc…) but more complex. The technological capabilities of the SNES to be able to handle the additional user input from three sources all at once is a good concern and could be what limited the implementation of this system. Another concern would be the added screen area consumed by the addition to the HUD. However, I believe this would be a more acceptable solution for the ring system at the time of the release of the game.

Even though with this setback, Secret of Mana is one of my favorite games, and probably my favorite multiplayer game. One really needs to get 2 friends together to full enjoy this game and even though the combat may be choppy due to all the stopping for item select I highly recommend playing such a gem!

- Mike