The Seiken Densetsu art book, Art of Mana, released in English a while ago. It’s been out in Japan for a very long time now, and this is the only time one of these style books has made it into an English translation which is awesome.
Head over to Square-Enix’s Amazon listing to buy a copy for yourself.
I have not updated the site with my collection of Mana related things in a long time. I’ve got a lot of interesting items I could share here. This one, however, is rare enough and relevant enough at the current time to make a post for.
As you can see, it’s a Casio G-Shock watch with “Secret of Mana” printed on the band.
Yup, that’s the extent of it.
But there were only 200 of these made.
The DW-8000s are fairly uncommon watches in and of themselves, and the avid vintage G-Shock collector community still demands a decent price for them, but they’re not impossible to get your hands on. But the fact there are only 200 with “Secret of Mana” printed on them made me think I would never get my hands on the thing. But here it is.
Just like any other DW-8000 it has “Fox Fire” EL backlighting, a red buffalo skull in the background, and the text “TIME TO GET TOUGH” scrolls by when you press the light button.
When Seiken Densetsu 3 was released in Japan, there were a number of items given away as raffle prizes. 200 of these G-Shock DW-8000-1 watches were given out, making this item quite rare. It’s very interesting, though, that the watch is related to Seiken Densetsu 3, but says “Secret of Mana” on it. It makes me wonder if the plans back then were to keep going forward with the “Secret of Mana” moniker if the game came out in English. In fact, if you look next to the watch on the raffle flyer, you can see a Mana stone with “Secret of Mana” printed on it just like the watch. Seems like that might have been the case. It also makes me wonder when the name “Trials of Mana” was decided upon, because it certainly wasn’t back in 1995. Just some interesting thoughts.
The other items I have from the raffle include the playing cards and the prologue book (5,000 each). Both of those items came out in non-raffle forms though. I’ve seen many of the phone cards (1,200) for sale on auction sites, but don’t own any. I’ve decided against collecting them because phone card collectors are insane and demand incredible prices for the things. Maybe someday I’ll go after them, but I’m not that interested honestly.
Anyway, that’s just a small update on my collection.
Looks like we’ll be able to play an official translation of SD3 after all these years!
It’s coming in the form of a new 3D remake!
Trials of Mana sounds kind of fitting, with all the characters going through their own trials throughout the story. What do you think of the name?
Collection of Mana, releasing today, includes Final Fantasy Adventure, Secret of Mana, and Seiken Densetsu 3.
I’ve finally managed to get myself white listed on the site again, after 5 long years, and magically enough the post I bring to you today is about exactly the same thing I posted about last time.
Except this time it’s finished.
Head over to sd3.ocremix.org to check out the SD3 OverClocked ReMix album, “Songs of Light and Darkness”, it’s taken a while but it’s finally here.
The second song on the album is especially on the nose, literally mentioning the “long long time” and “it might take 5 years but it reached the last stop” in its lyrics (I didn’t expect lyrics going in; also my last post mentions it being in the works for 4 years, so I guess we’re looking at almost 10 or so now, what an endeavor!).
Thanks to Rozovian for keeping me updated all these years on the project, and congrats to you and yours for seeing this all the way through. Also thanks for giving me an excuse to use the Mana Music Monday tag again, even though it’s technically Tuesday now. But late updates are nothing new around these parts!
Anyway, great job to all involved, and I look forward to listening through the entire thing.
My main man Faalstar hooked me up with some information about the Android version of Secret of Mana.
Until August 18th you can pick it up for 50% off on the Google Play market.
I’ve been playing this app for a while on my phone, and I gotta say, it’s neat to play through and see the changes they’ve made to the graphics and writing. Give it a look if you’ve got a phone that can play it!
Square Enix has announced that Yoko Shimomura will be releasing a Legend of Mana arrangement album, Promise, on September, 30th 2015.
You can see a little video about it with a jazzy bit of Domina’s music, here.
The big SD3 remix album I’ve posted about in the past is coming to completion it seems. Rozovian, the guy behind the project, recently told me:
“… we’re now just a few little tracks from being done with the music, and then it’s just up to ocremix to decide when to actually post the album.”
Pretty awesome, right? Seems like only yesterday we first heard about this project… oh that was over 4 years ago?
That’s a long time!
But check this out, there is an almost 10 minute preview over on youtube for your listening and viewing pleasure! Watch it out below and you’ll see the wait has been well worth it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6POgzKDcbE
Just a small little shopping channel update, an item I haven’t seen in a very long time appeared on eBay recently:
Legend of Mana Rabite Zipper Pull and Phone Card
It’s a little Rabite zipper pull along with a pre-paid phone card that comes in a neat little cardboard frame thing. The price is pretty ridiculous I think, but generally only the phone card shows up in auction, and I haven’t seen a complete set of this since I bought my own probably over 5 years ago now.
Keep watch on the auction to see if the seller ever drops the price, or if you’ve got money burning a hole in your pocket pick this item up.
There are two things that really define my child hood, and those two things are Secret of Mana and LEGO bricks. LEGO enthusiast Deviet recently uploaded what I can only describe as a childhood dream come true to Flickr, just check out that thumbnail to the right!
You know that’s one of the coolest things you’ve ever seen, so click this link to see it in all of its glory and from a few different angles as well:
Secret of Mana by Deviet at Flickr
While you’re there you should check out some of the other amazing builds in Deviet’s gallery. The attention to detail in all the different scenes is incredible, and I can’t get enough of all that plasticy green nature goodness.
