Seiken Densetsu Manathread

[Nickakyoin]

(ok, technically almost 35 years)

Well, this is, a thread to one of the most underrated Square Enix franchises (alongside Star Ocean, I suppose).
I got into the series by trying Secret of Mana on Wii Virtual Console but got stuck and then got distracted to return on FF to finally beat the main games.
With the Collection of Mana I beat the og first one, "Final Fantasy Adventure". I tried Adventures of Mana on PS Vita and...yuck.
Just recently beat Trials of Mana remake (with Duran, Riesz and Angela) and loved it!

Which is your favourite one? Which other SD/Mana are you planning next to play/beat?

 

[Xdqwerty Xdqwerty]

I was playing children of mana but decided to delete the ROM cuz I was finding it to be quite repetitive

 

[FateLanegod]

The last one I played was Heroes of Mana.
If you suck on RTS like me and want something easy, this is the thing. But the usage of touch screen via emulator is a bit awkward. Nevertheless I enjoyed the game.

 

[χKai]

My first experience with the Seiken Densetsu series begins on the Final Fantasy Adventure cartridge for the original GameBoy, though, it was being played on my GBA SP back when I still had it; a limited edition NES style GBA SP that I had acquired through somewhat nefarious means.

I had began my security job, and needed something to keep me busy for long stretches of time, sometimes several hours, so I picked up the game (I don't remember what friend I was borrowing it from) and was thoroughly enjoying it. The internet, while around, was still not as prevalent as it is today, and back then I didn't have access at work. So I had to figure my way out without walkthroughs, some say it's the only real way to play a game. I think some cryptic bullshit is just too hidden to make a game accessible. In any case I was lov8ng Seiken Den.
Yes I knew back then it was the first Mana game.

Anyway, getting back on track, I was working security guarding a fridge factory and doing basically secretary work, typing info into the computers and letting truckers in and out the gates. Well, the inevitable happened and someone came to ask me to let them in; otherwise, do my job. So I did what was expected of me, and went back to my game.

Well, I had just gotten through some pretty hard parts, saved it after a room with a big fight. And.. what, the door locked behind me as I came in? Oh. Well that's no problem, I'll just use one of my.. Oh. I have no keys? And the enemies won't spawn in either?

I guess it's a common issue in that room, but back then I had no idea. It was my first time playing and I was really loving the game, but I didn't want to start over and put all that work into getting through it all again, I was almost at the end! And I haven't brought myself to play through it since.

I'd love to play the other games in the series, but I'm kind of a stickler for playing games in sequential order; a havit I've only recently been breaking. I was much more OCD about my gaming experiences as a kid, playing through a game I knew was considered 'bad' just to get to the others in the series. But if/when I eventually  do beat Seiken Densetsu and move on to the rest of the series, I'm going to insist on playing through them with a friend. Multiplayer action-RPGs just aren't the same without the Multiplayer Action.

 

[PhaseJump]

I just grabbed a copy of Collection on the Switch, already owned the series on everything else over the years. Got Secret and Trials remakes on Steam and fell off of them halfway through.

I don't really care for the series one way or another. Secret of Mana was a good action RPG that was way too overhyped.

The rest of the games in the series are a bit weird, like the SaGa games, and slightly off putting enough to the point that I would rather be playing other games.

 

[Metroid_Hybrid]

Whenever I see the Japanese name of the series, my mind always shifts to Seiken Densetsu 3 for the SFC/SNES.

Despite owning physical CIB copies of several entries in the series, SD3 is still the only one that I've played all the way through... way back when I was still in high school..

 

[nobitakun]

View attachment 119753

(ok, technically almost 35 years)

Well, this is, a thread to one of the most underrated Square Enix franchises (alongside Star Ocean, I suppose).
I got into the series by trying Secret of Mana on Wii Virtual Console but got stuck and then got distracted to return on FF to finally beat the main games.
With the Collection of Mana I beat the og first one, "Final Fantasy Adventure". I tried Adventures of Mana on PS Vita and...yuck.
Just recently beat Trials of Mana remake (with Duran, Riesz and Angela) and loved it!

Which is your favourite one? Which other SD/Mana are you planning next to play/beat?

How can someone get stuck in Seiken Densetsu? lol. I've finished that game dozens of times, since I was a kid and never got any trouble on progressing until the end, and when I was a kid I had 0 knowledge of english. I can't possibly remember any point in the story where that could happen if the text language is understood...

Seiken Densetsu is a really good RPG with a few bugs that make it even funnier. The co-op mode makes it clearly better than the remake, just for that. The game does not deserve any more attention as it got a remake and was re-released throughout multiple platforms, so anyone who wants to play it got it covered.

I finish the game at least once a year because I can't possibly get bored from playing it, but it would be a lot funnier to have someone to play with :)

 

[PSVitaForever]

My very first experience has been "Seiken Densetsu 3" with English patch, emu on pc, though I don't remember how I found out about it (I was young and with no consoles, so really no idea how I found out). I think I haven't finished it, but I enjoyed what I played. After that, I tried "FF Adventure", same: quit it because of other things, but I liked it and the remake on Vita is in my backlog.
I loved "Legend Of Mana" for his graphics and the nice way to build the world, I started it on pc but quit very early, I completed it later on psp.
In my backlog I also have the titles on Nintendo DS ("Heroes" and "Children"), and "Sword of Mana".

 

[Nickakyoin]

Alongside FF Tactics (and DQ Caravan Monster if that counts. Kinda), Sword of Mana is one of the few Square Enix GBA games I definitely wanted to get fully into. I liked what I've managed to play but idk if on emulator rather than real hardware.

I have the DS games: Heroes seems fine, but kinda a watered down version of XII Revenant Wings (probably a crappy take, I'm sorry). Children of Mana played nicely.

How can someone get stuck in Seiken Densetsu? lol. I've finished that game dozens of times, since I was a kid and never got any trouble on progressing until the end, and when I was a kid I had 0 knowledge of english. I can't possibly remember any point in the story where that could happen if the text language is understood...

Seiken Densetsu is a really good RPG with a few bugs that make it even funnier. The co-op mode makes it clearly better than the remake, just for that. The game does not deserve any more attention as it got a remake and was re-released throughout multiple platforms, so anyone who wants to play it got it covered.

I finish the game at least once a year because I can't possibly get bored from playing it, but it would be a lot funnier to have someone to play with :)

Secret of Mana wasn't much obvious when I was younger, but now yeah, it goes more with the flow. Og Trials of Mana, especially when you're not familiar with the places, doesn't progress as steadily as you would think. But you need to take attention in there, especially for what NPCs tells you to where to check out (unlike the remake that pins automatically everything). Guess it's part of old JRPG charm.
However...FF Adventures is indeed dispersive with the whole map it has. Like, c'mon, you wanna tell me you didn't got lost there even once?

 

[Tonberry]

These games excel at the aesthetics, from art and graphics and music, but I've always found the actual games themselves to be kind of lame, though I've only played a few.

• Secret of Mana I've never really liked very much, always found it frustrating to play.
• Legend of Mana is like the best looking sprite-based game ever imo (or at least one of them), and the music is legendary, but again the actual gameplay is really stiff and not very fun at all.
• Trials of Mana felt okay what little I played of it, but the horrendously ugly cutscenes with their motion-capture and abysmally poor voice-acting threw me off and made the entire game feel cheap.
• Haven't played Visions of Mana yet, but I do want to give it a shot as I thought it looked somewhat decent.
• I also played a bit of that Adventures of Mana game, which was fine but super budgety-feeling.

Still with all that said, I think the series are absolute top-notch as far as art and sound goes. No game really feels as "fairy tale"-like, as them.

 

[Strategist's icon Strategist Strategist]

Final Fantasy Adventure was a decent GB game but very derivative of Zelda. Still, some of the features in FFA would be borrowed for future Zelda games. Secret of Mana was one of my favorite SNES games as a kid, but I admit its flaws are more noticeable compared to modern games. Seiken Densetsu 3 on the SNES is probably the peak of the series. Legend of Mana was an interesting experimental iteration of the series, but the non-linear aspect got on my nerves. I fell off the series after Legend.

 

[Tonberry]

Final Fantasy Adventure was a decent GB game but very derivative of Zelda. Still, some of the features in FFA would be borrowed for future Zelda games. Secret of Mana was one of my favorite SNES games as a kid, but I admit its flaws are more noticeable compared to modern games. Seiken Densetsu 3 on the SNES is probably the peak of the series. Legend of Mana was an interesting experimental iteration of the series, but the non-linear aspect got on my nerves. I fell off the series after Legend.

Would you recommend Seiken 3 over the remake? I always loved how the graphics looked but I only ever had a japanese rom when I was a kid (I assume it's translated now?).

 

[Strategist's icon Strategist Strategist]

Yeah, the SNES game is more like Secret of Mana. You said you didn't like SoM that much so maybe you won't like it. However, SD3 does fix a lot of the flaws of the previous version with the slow charge meters. It is still the same hack and slash experience fundamentally though.

I don't know too much about the remake, but the voice acting is horrendous, so I prefer the non-voice acted SNES.

Would you recommend Seiken 3 over the remake? I always loved how the graphics looked but I only ever had a japanese rom when I was a kid (I assume it's translated now?).

 

[Tonberry]

Yeah, the SNES game is more like Secret of Mana. You said you didn't like SoM that much so maybe you won't like it. However, SD3 does fix a lot of the flaws of the previous version with the slow charge meters. It is still the same hack and slash experience fundamentally though.

Thanks, I'll definitely try it out at the very least!

 

[χKai]

Still with all that said, I think the series are absolute top-notch as far as art and sound goes. No game really feels as "fairy tale"-like, as them.

That's it, that's what I was trying to say!!
It's Fairy-Tale-ish to the maximum, even the music and atmosphere constantly has you submerged in it, and everywhere in the game has it despite being vastly different types of locations.

I don't think even the Fairy Tale games themself have as much of this aura.

 

[Nickakyoin]

Final Fantasy Adventure was a decent GB game but very derivative of Zelda. Still, some of the features in FFA would be borrowed for future Zelda games.

Hold on a sec. Which features exactly? I know that FFA came before Link's Awakening. I always thought FFA was 50/50 Zelda and FF since it has most assets from the NES/Famicom games of the latter.

 

[Strategist's icon Strategist Strategist]

Hold on a sec. Which features exactly? I know that FFA came before Link's Awakening. I always thought FFA was 50/50 Zelda and FF since it has most assets from the NES/Famicom games of the latter.

FFA came out in '91 and had the whip to cross gaps. Link to the Past had the hookshot and came out in '92. Probably more of a coincidence than anything else but you never know.

 

[Nickakyoin]

FFA came out in '91 and had the whip to cross gaps. Link to the Past had the hookshot and came out in '92. Probably more of a coincidence than anything else but you never know.

Yeah, if it is just only for that I kinda doubt. FFA came out at end of June in Japan while ALTTP technically in november 1991. Doubt that in a little more than 4 months they ripped it off while managing at the same time to make a huge game like ALTTP lol. It was definitely already in development by then. Then who knows, but Square was in good terms with Nintendo at the times.

 

[χKai]

Can't imagine Zelda without the hookshot..
My mom was the one who introduced me to Zelda, she was known for her skills.
One day, she brought me to the bus stop for school and needed to cross the busy main street to use the phone booth to call my dad. She said, "I wonder if I can use my hookshot to get over there". That's how you know a game's got you hooked: when you start applying it's mechanics to the real world.