Head over to Secret of Mana: Redux’s Locations Page if you haven’t, because there are a ton of great beta images to sift through.
I’ve attached only a handful of them here, but go on and check out the main site and see all the neat things you may have never seen! ManaRedux has collected an awesome library of magazines with pre-release information over the years, and just keeps adding more to the site!

Over at the Wiki of Mana, Rabillion and Swordzman236 have been putting in a lot of work. The wiki opened almost a year ago and is already at over 2000 pages. It’s what you would expect from a Mana wiki: pages and pages of articles covering topics ranging from the games themselves to characters, monsters, items, and anything else you can think of. The wiki is also a treasure trove of images and sprites, some of which were contributed by us here at Seikens!

Currently, they have a big push for documenting the various collaborations the Mana series has had with other games. Did you know Mana characters have appeared in various Square Enix mobile games? Some of the collaborations date back to 2015 and 2016. As you can imagine, this information is not that easy to come by, as transient as mobile game events are, and that’s not even considering any Japan only events or games.

For that reason, they are seeking help! If you know anything about Mana crossovers or about Rise of Mana and Circle of Mana in particular, consider helping out!

Head over and check out what they have so far, here, and consider sticking around and editing! If you’d like to talk to the Wiki crew, you can find them on the Mana Series Discord.

I should have posted this a while back, as it’s nearly a month old now, but I figure better late than never!

Over at the Archive of Mana, Babasbackside put together a write-up of one of the scenarios from Friends of Mana. This is a Mana game that very little is known about, and the only info we’ve got will be found in the Archive I linked above. It’s very interesting stuff, so check it out!

Click here to read about the Legend of the Lampflower!

This scenario involves Mark, Jennifer, and Rachel from Legend of Mana (sort of anyway!) as well as a boss from Trials of Mana. What a strange game this was, if only more of it was saved. Baba made use of the sparse details about the game and the scenario from Japanese websites, and filled in the blanks for us as well. I found it very interesting.

If anything, you should check it out just for Baba’s great art. Just look at the piece to the right here. Stylish and clean, this is great!

Over at Secret of Mana: Redux you can read all about the Monsters and Bosses in Secret of Mana.

Not only will you find the most detailed data sheets out there, with the information within coming directly from the game’s code, but you’ll find translations of the Monster and Bseoss descriptions from the best official guide Square put out in 1993. I even helped with a majority of those translations!

You can learn some interesting facts reading through those excerpts. For example, did you know Silktails are mutated Rabites?
Did you know most of the mechanical monsters and bosses were built by the Empire to replicate the real life versions of those monsters you face earlier in the game?
Did you know the Kimono Birds command the Mad Mallards, and they’re both in a group called the dark knights?
Did you know Griffin Hands exist because a drunk guy thought it would be a good idea to chop off a Griffin’s leg?

You’ll also want to check out each of the Boss entries, because they have really fun little comics! I believe most were translated by Sevon (the SaGa sage).

Well now you do! And you can know more facts if you head on over and check it out!
You can read about more updates to the site here.

The videocassette is finally uploaded to youtube!

You can read more about it on the Secret of Mana: Redux page, and you can also read about all the effort to document this video on a post I made at the same site.

The video repeats after it plays once, so stick around for my annotations and translations added to the second half.

Head over to Secret of Mana:Redux to read an article I wrote about the search and rescue process for a rare promotional video cassette I just happened to buy in 2014.

Click here to read it!

It’s a return to form of the kind of things I used to write on this site way back in the day, in fact it links to an older write-up I did about a very different videocassette.

Here is how I feel about the whole thing:

There is a great new article over at Secret of Mana: Redux that explores how and why the Secret of Mana title screen is the way it is.

Click here to head over and read it! It delves into some tweets by Hiroki Kikuta, Koji Sugimoto, and Akari Ueda, all people who worked on the game back in the day! It’s quite interesting, and I won’t spoil anything about it in this post, so you’ll have to head over there to see what’s up!

The article was originally in Japanese, which you can find at i-mezzo.net if you’re interested, and it was translated by Sevon (the webmaster of the nifty Legend of Mana pages and intensely immense SaGa pages I keep bringing up).

It’s quite rare that a new site dedicated to one of the Mana games crops up nowadays, so this is worth a shout-out, especially given the depth of detail that is available on the site for those interested in a deep-dive into Friends of Mana.

If you’ve paid attention to our site, you’d notice I just copied that line almost wholesale from Kassidy’s post about Secret of Mana: Redux.

But this time we’re talking mostly about the Japan-only Friends of Mana!

Members of The Mana Series Discord Mataxia and jquestionmark compiled a bunch of images and links related to Friends of Mana, and babasbackside did the monumental task of translating all the details.

Visit Archive of Mana to check out all the great information that has never been available to the West before now!

The Friends of Mana section is the most in-depth, but in addition to that you can find bits and pieces from other games here and there, including some Legend of Mana concept art I had been meaning to post here.

If you’re in the mood for some new (old) Secret of Mana art, head over to Secret of Mana: Redux for a collection of images! There are also some new lore postings as well that I’ll mention below.

Characters: Serin – As seen on the right, there is a great piece of art from Dengeki Super Famicom showcasing Randi’s encounter with the mysterious ghost at the bottom of the falls.

Characters: Truffle – A cute bit of art of the characters meeting the folks from Matango. The characters seem a bit suspicious.

Characters: Luka – Scroll down a bit to see how Randi feels about Luka. 

Locations: Ice Country – Check out the bottom of this page to see some absolutely adorable outfits for Popoie and Purim, Randi isn’t looking too impressed, however.

Locations: Kakkara – About halfway down the page you can check out some art about an encounter with the Spider Legs, and continue on to read about a small piece of cut material from the game. 

Lore: Dengeki – Some new art from the 4/9/93 Square Power Book is showcased here, along with translations of the text accompanying it. Additionally, translations from the 5/14/93 issue can be found, including some Final Fantasy Adventure stuff, some backstory for Dyluck, and info on Popoie’s home!

Lore: Marukatsu – The 1/1/93 issue has some translations of very early information from the game, as well as many more comparisons to Final Fantasy Adventure. Head most of the way down the page for an absolute treasure trove of art from 9/10/93! Some really fun stuff here, don’t miss it! ManaRedux was able to get these art scans thanks to the help of bluebomber. Thanks!

Special thanks to Sevon (the webmaster of the nifty Legend of Mana pages and intensely immense SaGa pages) for all the help on many of the translations found on these pages! 

There are some cool new updates over at our affiliate, Secret of Mana: Redux! I’ll give you some highlights here, but you’ve gotta head over there for the full story!

Lore: Dengeki – February of 1993 has four new pieces of content with some cute illustrations! You definitely already know the game tips they’re giving you, but remember these were released months before the game!

Lore: Hippon Super! – February of 1993 again here, with more details about how Secret of Mana compared to the original Seiken Densetsu game, Final Fantasy Adventure. This is the kind of content I find really interesting!

Locations: Kakkara – Check out the small Dengeki article about the early history of the Moon Palace at the bottom!

Locations: Tasnica – Another little article from Dengeki at the bottom here, talking about the castle!

Locations: Lost Areas – Now we’re talking! This page is what Secret of Mana: Redux is all about. Check out all the crazy screenshots of places that don’t exist in the game anymore! A cannibal island that doesn’t exist, enemies in weird places, some whip areas that remind me of Final Fantasy Adventure map, and even more await you on this page. You won’t want to miss this page!

There is a whirlwind tour of the new stuff on Secret of Mana: Redux, and if you haven’t checked out the other pages on the site, make sure you do! There is a veritable treasure trove of content on the site that you can’t find anywhere else!