Here we’ll be reviewing some of the weird and wonderful things that can be found within Legend of Mana, either intentionally there, or left over in the files. We’ll be adding more to the list as we document them.
Elemental Requirements –
Secrets –
Tricks –
Unlockables –
Unused –
Elemental Requirements
These quests and pets require specific elemental levels on your lands to trigger.
Quests to Watch For
Seeing Double – Domina must have Shade level 3 and you must have completed The Little Sorcerers.
The Wimpy Thugling – Duma Desert must have Dryad level 3 and you must have completed The Blessed Elixir and Reach for the Stars.
Pee-Wee Birdie – Domina must have Wisp and Shade level 3.
Pets to Watch For
Chitto the Chobin Hood – The Jungle must have Dryad level 3.
Guri the Goblin – Lumina must have Dryad and Shade level 3.
Mambo the Tomato Man – Norn Peaks must have Salamander level 3.
Tikkle the Sahagin – Duma Desert must have Dryad level 3 and you must have completed The Blessed Elixir and Reach for the Stars.
Elysia the Succubus – Norn Peaks must have Shade level 3.
Fernando the Narcissus – The Junkyard must have Gnome level 3.
Capt. Dayang the Mad Mallard – Lake Kilma must have Wisp level 3.
Secrets
Pee Wee’s Demise
Be careful when interacting with Pee Wee at the “Mana’s Blessing” Inn in Domina. Talking to him 15 times will not only lead to his untimely death but it will also lock you out of the Pee-Wee Birdie quest later on. Miss Yuka will also be understandably upset.
A Chocobo as Your First Pet
Players of the original PlayStation version of the game who have a Final Fantasy 8 save on their memory card will find an Aerial Egg that hatches into a Chocobo when they attempt the Monster Corral quest.
Though this was obviously removed for the remaster, you can still get a Chocobo. Just go find some Aerial Eggs either on Luon Highway or the Norn Peaks.
The Fastest Wheel
After completing the Catchin’ Lilipeas quest, if you head into Polpota Harbor you will suddenly see a “quest” pop up entitled Polpota Grand Prix while Skippie races around causing a ruckus. He’ll soon find his way to you and hand you the “Fastest Wheel”. This is actually an Oak Wood Ring with only 3 magic defense. However, equipping it cuts your revive time in half and it supposedly speeds you up in battle. I didn’t really notice a difference. If you really want the faster revival time, you can head to the Tempering for Dummies guide and look into putting the Unicorn card on a ring.
On the original PlayStation game this was limited to players with a Chocobo Racing save on their memory card (Racing Lagoon in Japan), but in the remaster it is open to anyone.
Heishishorin
This special weapon is time gated, so if you’re looking for it make sure to be careful! Between the Ghost of Nemesis and Crimson Dragon quests, if you pay the Death Bringer a visit you will get a special cutscene where a couple of Skeletons stick you up for cash. Wait, they’re the Chobin Hoods from Niccolo’s Business Unusual! You can even throw candy at them again. After making them mad, they sic their new master on you, Deathbringer II. Looks like he has a bit of Jajara stuck in his bones. Defeating him will net you this special sword, and complete an otherwise difficult to find entry in your Monster Encyclopedia!
This is a pretty nice sword to get for free, it’s made of Altena Alloy, has 62 offense, and has +1 to the top row of stats.
This is available in the remaster automatically when visiting the Bone Fortress between the Ghost of Nemesis and Crimson Dragon quests, but in the original PlayStation game you would need a SaGa Frontier II save on your memory card.
In Japanese, the more apt translation is “Cinderforge Sword“, and it’s of course a reference to a SaGa Frontier II weapon of the same name.
Land Bopper Minigame
Once you have a 3 x 3 grid of lands placed on the world map, you can play this little game of Whack-A-Mole with them. Make sure all 9 are on screen, then hold L1 until the game starts. The lands will start small, and when you see them turn big just click on them to get some points. That’s all there is to it! There is nothing to win here, it’s just for fun.
Tricks
Renaming Items
Do you have a piece of equipment that you want to rename? Just enter your equip menu, select the item you’d like to rename, go to its status, and press the confirm button (X in the original PlayStation game) twice. There you go!
Unlockables
Increasing the Difficulty
After completing the game once, you can find “The Forbidden Tome” in your Encyclopedias. This allows you to alter the difficulty of the game. The screen goes dark, the music mutes, and you are faced with some questions:
“Do you wish to live in peace?” Answering “Yes” will put you in Normal Mode, and “No” will move onto the next question.
“Want a Nightmare?” Answering “Yes” will make an ominous sound and put you in Nightmare mode, increasing the difficulty by leveling up monsters.
“Wish to have a future?” Answering “No” will make an ominous sound and put you in No Future Mode where enemies are essentially at max level. Your other option is “…” which will simply leave things as they are.
You can read about how these last two modes affect Monster levels on the Monsters – Eggs and Drops page.
Pet Crabs
Cap’n Tusk expresses his gratitude in the form of crabs from Madora beach. By completing various quests for him, you’ll get up to 4 crabs to shove in your study. They are very brittle, but do come back if you accidentally crush them.
Penguin Roommates
By bashing enough crabs at Madora Beach, you can get some new roommates at the house! Valerie will join your household at 30 stomps, and at 32 you’ll get her and her baby! Read the Crab Bashing Guide for some tips on how to make this happen.
Shadow Zero Minigame
After completing all of the Jumi arc quests, head to the pub in Domina on Salamander day to find a Shadow Zero hanging out. Talk to him to start a game where you can win some nice prizes.
Unused Game Elements
Many of the discoveries in this section come from reading the Ultimania guide or from exploring the assembled graphics provided by Rufas at The VG Resource. It is very interesting to dig into the graphics contained, and who knows, you may find something for me to add to this page!
Placeholder Character
This funny little character appears all over in the game files, just a placeholder kept in maps where no characters appear. He comes with a face much like other characters, and has a silly little animation.
Just look at him go!
Land Make Gopher
Along with the Land Make graphics for Lumina exists this little Gopher. Or maybe Hamster. It doesn’t really look like a mole to me. I’m not really sure what animal it is. Perhaps early on the Land Bopper minigame was meant to be much more similar to Whack-A-Mole. It simply pokes its head up and then twitches its nose, I have reversed the animation at the end here to make it animate nicely.
Outskirts of Domina Houses
This entry is not very exciting, but graphics exist for opening the doors at these houses in Domina. Perhaps at one point this area was supposed to be more alive feeling than it ended up being in game. Here is something you can never unsee: the top left house in this scene has some missing pixels to the bottom left of its door. You can see the green background poking through.
Mark’s Basement
Hiding in plain sight, the graphics for this room have been sitting in the Domina sprite sheet over at The Spriter’s Resource for years just waiting to be noticed. And so I noticed them and edited them together!
What we see is a very dimly lit basement with a small area to sit, a cannon, a wine rack, and all sorts of various objects piled up along the walls.
This is the basement of Mark’s house, though where you would have entered into this area is unclear. The door doesn’t quite line up with anything in his house, but the map for this room is kept in the game files as part of his house. Perhaps it was planned for use in a cut scene, rather than being a place you actually visit. We just don’t know! Very little about this room has been shared.
The room was mentioned in an interview at the end of the Ultimania guide, at least. As translated by shmuplations:
—In the mystic city of Geo, there’s characters from the other Seiken Densetsu games in the temple, and other hidden easter eggs in the background there.
Tsuda: There’s so many cool characters from the previous games, we tried to include them there for a little extra mood and atmosphere. One of the maps we didn’t use had Vuscav (Booskaboo) from SD3 in the background too.
Indeed, you can see a small version of Vuscav in the bottom left next to a chest. It might be easier to see if you take a look at this design drawing provided in the Ultimania guide.
▲ The original drawing of the basement that was to be installed in Mark’s house in Domina. At the bottom left is the stuffed Vuscav that appeared in Seiken Densetsu 3.
The Ultimania guide also included a short question and answer section for nearly all staff members. One of the background and map graphics designers, Nobuko Hatayama, had the following to say in regards to “A Seiken Densetsu secret that only you know”:
Actually, Mark’s house had a basement! Somehow, it is gone (sweatdrop)
Well, now it seems we all know!
Geo Auction House
Similarly hiding in plain sight, the graphics for this room have been sitting in the Geo sprite sheet over at The Spriter’s Resource.
Here we see a grand dais adorned in gold with a beautiful table on display. This table would no doubt be where Kristie displayed items up for auction, because this is the Geo Auction House!
The pillar, door, and arches along with the gold color match perfectly with the Palace of Arts, and indeed these graphics were included in the game files along with the rest of those maps.
The room seems a bit empty, though, doesn’t it?
Digging more into the files, we find something very interesting. What I assume is a rough draft for a crowd was included in the game graphics!
We see three types of characters in three separate palletes standing in the crowd, and we have both forward and back facing sprites for each of them. No animations exist, these are included as background elements.
Beast Woman – This woman might fit right into the game with her monstrous looking ears, arms, legs, and tail, but do not be afraid! She is only out on a shopping trip, judging by the basket of goods she carries. Perhaps she was some kind of beastman like Sierra and Larc.
Faerie Monkey – This little monkey fella looks a lot like a faerie, but probably isn’t considering he’s showing up for an auction. I don’t think the faeries would put up with such a silly human thing. The ears on this one make me wonder if he was a forest person like Skippie or Bud and Lisa.
Normal Girl – This young lady with twin braids, a head scarf, and a dress might just have been the most normal looking soul in Fa’Diel. And she was cut from the game!
I could not find any drawings resembling these characters in the Art of Mana book.
The Ultimania guide also details a cut side quest from the Jumi Arc, entitled “Venus in the City” that would have used a Jewel Beast as a boss. The description for the quest is as follows:
Kristie receives a note from the Jewel Thief stating, “I’m coming to take the world’s best diamond.” Kristie does not seem concerned by the note at all. Inspector Boyd, however, attempts to set up a tight watch over the auction, but is turned away for being rude to the auctioneer. You break into the auction house on behalf of Inspector Boyd and lie in wait for the Jewel Thief. There, you find a beautiful statue made of pure diamond, “Venus”. This was, in actuality, Guardian Diana, the leader of the Jumi tribe.
This is quite interesting, when we take a look at the sprites for Kristie, Inspector Boyd, and Sotherbee (the auctioneer?) we find some neat sprites.
This set of sprites may be used in the game, I’m not actually sure, but they are interesting looking. We have Kristie giving a glare with her true eyes (they’re in her hair!), Boyd pulling out a book and taking some notes, and Sotherbee presenting a piece of paper.
This set of sprites definitely was not used! The Jewel Thief must have knocked people out in order to make away with the goods. We have Kristie getting up from being face down, Boyd on the ground perhaps adjusting his pipe, and Sotherbee taking a spill.
Maybe the Jewel Thief never made off with Diana, however, and this is actually how she ended up in the storage room. It’s too bad that is as much as we have about this room and quest line, but I think it was all very interesting to see!
While the auction house never got used in Legend of Mana, it did actually see use in Friends of Mana, a mobile game which used a lot of Legend’s graphics. Babasbackside from the Archive of Mana pointed this one out, thanks! Make sure you check out the Friends of Mana information there as well, there are a lot of interesting things you’ve likely never heard of or seen!
Unused Quests
Three quest ending screens exist which went unused in the final game. These quests must have been cut close to the release of the game, because I have found these three quests mentioned on Japanese language sites. Typically they just say that the quest is not in the game, I assume some old guides or magazines would have had them listed.
From left to right, we first have “Ice Flower” and “Lost Ties” which would have been part of the cut Siren arc (which was finally completed in Echoes of Mana), the final image with the Windcaller says “Duck the TNT”, perhaps originally all pets were to have a quest like Tikkle did.
In addition to the quest ending screens, there are several extra quest titles in the files. For this, I am referring to the text that pops up on screen when a quest starts. The previous three quests show up of course:
Along with the following (in the order they are found in the files):
Find the Winged Person – Maybe related to the Siren arc.
Stone Exhibition – Maybe related to the Geo Auction quest mentioned above!
Domina’s Mother
Big Catch
Delicious Part-Time Job
Just to be complete, the files for the quest endings also included the following graphic around 20 times. I believe this comes from a demo version of the game.
Stay tuned!
