Like many other role-playing games of the 16-bit era, Secret of Mana displays a top-down perspective, in which the player characters navigate the terrain and fight off hostile creatures. The game features three such characters: the hero, the girl, and the sprite, named Randi, Primm, and Popoi outside the initial North American and European releases. The player can choose to control each of the characters at any time; whichever character is currently selected, the other two companions are controlled via artificial intelligence. The game may be played simultaneously by up to three players, made possible by the Super Multitap accessory for the Super NES console. The Virtual Console version of the game supports three-player gameplay via additional GameCube controllers or Classic Controllers.
Each character possesses individual strengths and weaknesses. The hero, while unable to use magic, masters weapons at a quicker rate; the girl is a healer, able to cast restorative and support spells; and the sprite casts offensive magic to damage and impair enemies. Upon collecting enough experience points in battle, each character increases in level and improves in areas such as strength and evasion. The trio can rest in towns, where they can regain hit points or purchase restorative items and equipment. Options such as changing equipment, casting spells, or checking status are performed by cycling through the game's Ring Commands, a circular menu which hovers over the currently controlled party member. The game is momentarily paused whenever the Ring Commands appear.
Combat takes place in real-time. Located at the bottom of the screen is a power bar, a gauge that determines the amount of damage done to an enemy when attacking. Swinging a weapon causes the gauge to empty and then quickly recharge, allowing that character to attack at full strength. The party wields eight different types of weaponry: sword, spear, bow, axe, boomerang, glove, whip, and javelin. All weapons can be upgraded eight times, and repeated use of a weapon increases its skill level to a maximum of eight, unlocking a new special attack with each level. Weapons are upgraded with Weapon Orbs, which are found in dungeons or earned by defeating certain bosses. The player takes each Orb to a blacksmith, located in most towns, who uses it to reforge one weapon.
In order to learn magic, the party must rescue spirits known as Elementals. The eight Elementals represent different elements—such as water, earth, and life—and each provides the player with specific spells. Magic has skill levels similar to weapons, but each magic spell costs magic points to cast.
At the start of the game, to reach a destination players must traverse an enemy-infested countryside. Travel may be expedited with Cannon Travel Centers, where the party may be launched to faraway destinations via a giant cannon. Cannon Travel usually requires a fee, but is mandatory to visit other continents later on. Later, the party is given access to Flammie, a miniature dragon which is controlled by the player and able to fly freely across the world, represented by an overworld map. These sequences make use of the SNES's Mode 7 capability to create a rotatable background, giving the illusion that the ground beneath Flammie is rendered in three dimensions. While riding Flammie, the player may access either the "rotated map", which presents the world as a globe, or the "world map", a two-dimensional view of the overworld.
Plot
Setting and characters
The story takes place in a high fantasy world, which contains an ethereal energy source named "mana". An ancient, technologically advanced civilization exploited mana to construct the "Mana Fortress", a flying warship. This angered the world's gods, who sent giant beasts to war with the civilization. The conflict was globally destructive and nearly exhausted all signs of mana in the world, until a hero used the power of the Mana Sword to destroy the fortress and the civilization. The world began to recover in peace. As the game opens, an empire seeks eight Mana Seeds, which when "unsealed" will restore mana to the world and allow the empire to restore the Mana Fortress.
The three main characters do not have names in the original SNES release, though their names appear in the manual of the Japanese release; and their names were added into the game in the iOS port worldwide. In all versions, the player can choose to name the characters whatever they wish. The hero (ランディ Randi), a young boy, is adopted by the Elder of Potos before the start of the game, after the boy's mother disappears. The girl (プリム Primm) is in love with a warrior named Dyluck, who was ordered by the king to attack Elinee's Castle. Angered by the king's actions and by her father's attempt to arrange her marriage to a local nobleman, she leaves the castle to save Dyluck and to accompany the hero as well. The hero and the girl meet the sprite child (ポポイ Popoi) at the Dwarf Village. The sprite makes a living by scamming people at a freak show held by dwarves. It does not remember anything about its past, so it joins the team to try to recover its memories.
Story
The game begins as three boys from the small Potos village disobey their Elder's instructions and trespass into a local waterfall, where a treasure is said to be kept. One of the boys stumbles and falls into the lake, where he finds a rusty sword embedded in a stone. Guided by a disembodied voice, he pulls the sword free, inadvertently unleashing monsters in the surrounding countryside of the village. The villagers interpret the sword's removal as a bad omen and banish the boy from Potos forever. A traveling knight named Jema recognizes the blade as the legendary Mana Sword and encourages the hero to re-energize it by visiting the eight Mana Temples.
