Darkness sweeps the
troubled land as, mana’s
power fades…
People await a hero who
will wield the sword…
Excaliber, Herald, Gigas..
The blade has many
names, for it has been
celebrated in myths and
legends throughout time,
but all of these speak to
just one weapon:
the Mana Sword

Seiken Densetsu 2: Secret of Mana is probably the best known installment of the Seiken Densetsu series, and got most of us outside the land of the rising sun hooked. The Action-RPG was released in Japan August 6th, 1993, and in the USA the October 3rd. It did not make it to Europe, however, for another whole year, being released November 24th, 1994.

The game was originally developed for the short-lived Sony CD addon for the Super Nintendo, however when Nintendo decided to scrap the Sony CD project, Squaresoft redesigned the game to be released on the standalone SNES, after receiving a considerable graphics downgrade and removing a large amount of content. Even then it stretched the console.

Sporting colourful graphics, upto 3 simultaneous players via Multitap, an engaging storyline and one of the most critically acclaimed videogame soundtracks composed by Hiroki Kikuta, the game has made it into several Top 100 game lists, and continues to hold a replay value that has fans constantly hoping for a new title in the series to live up to the grandieur of Secret of Mana.

The main characters comprise a Boy (often referred to as Randi) who removes the Mana Sword from its resting place and upsets the seal that keeps the monsters away from his village Potos, a Girl (Purim) in search of her fiancé that her father sent to defeat the witch Elinee, and a Sprite (Popoie) who is trying to return to his village in the Upperlands after losing his memory. Under the guidance of Jema and Sages Luka and Joch, and with the help of Flammie, a young white dragon, they will set out to foil the plans of Thanatos and Emperor Vandole to revive the Mana Fortress that long ago threatened to destroy Mana.

Fans also have been hoping for some time now that Square-Enix will someday re-release the title, and its sequel Seiken Densetsu 3, on a new generation platform and return the game to the state it was in before the SNES reduction was put in place, but sadly no sign of this happenning has shown itself on the horizon more than a quote from Koichi Ishii saying “if the fans want it, it is possible”.

The fans’ prayers were answered in a way. On September 9th 2008 the game was released on the Wii Virtual Console, in its original state as seen on the SNES. This then reached the US on October 13th and Europe on December 26th, both the same year.

In May 2009 it was announced that Secret of Mana would be released for Mobile phone in June 2009. It will be made available for the FOMA 903i phone under the Japanese mobile phone operator NTT DOCOMO.

In 2010, Square released a port of the game for the iPhone, as well as re-releasing the soundtrack on iTunes. The game received a graphical makover, and uses a virtual joypad on the touch screen for controls. It launched at the price of $12.99 from the AppStore.

But time flows like a river…
…and history repeats…