Mana Tournament! Who's the greatest Secret of Mana character of all? Already some upsets in the Pandora region! pic.twitter.com/4EirVmOEqx
— ManaRedux (@ManaRedux)March">17, 2026
It's been a while, but I'm getting through these! Time for another video from the YouTube Channel of ManaRedux. Time to learn the history of the world map. My first experience with the world map of Secret of Mana came when I first borrowed the game from my aunt. She had already beaten the game, and I enjoyed loading up her save to see all the cool stuff I could do on her file while I struggled endlessly to beat the Fire Gigas on my own. That took a while, because I was young and did not understand leveling up. Unable to make it through the barrage of Goblins and Chess Knights with enough items and magic to beat the boss, I attempted to use barrels to sneak past them all to no avail. Anyway, one time when exploring my aunt's save, I ended up calling Flammie. I had no idea what was going on, or that I could even land, but it was sure cool to zoom around looking at all the scenery. Let's get to the video.
The Evolution of the World Map
The much more detailed world map iterations are so cool! I wish the game could have kept the more detailed mapping that the early game areas have. Though, that may have made the copy pasted maps of the later game overworlds (Upper Lands and Ice Country in particular). I thought this video would only focus on the world map with Flammie, but the screenshots of early ground level areas were a great inclusion and very cool to see. Seeing some of the more recent remake world map was cool too, considering I have not looked into that one much.
Dark Horse Books is publishing "Legend of Mana: The Art of Mana???30th Anniversary Edition" in English for the first time.
This 80 page book was originally published in Japanese and came with the collector's edition of the remaster back in 2021. Four years later, it will be more readily available for anyone who was unable to purchase the game. I got the collector's edition back then, but I've never actually opened the book up. I should get around to that, it's probably pretty awesome. Might as well buy a second copy in English I suppose.
Read more about it here.
You can find it on Amazon, here.
The collector's edition also came with a plushie of Li'l Cactus, and wouldn't you know it, that plushie is currently on sale for Black Friday over at the Square Enix Store along with a few other Mana goodies.
You can find Li'l Cactus here.Let's watch another video from the YouTube Channel of ManaRedux. This time, we're learning about the Upper Land. As a kid, I got hard stuck at the Fire Gigas fight for a very long time. I borrowed the game from an aunt, and I didn't quite understand leveling. After finally beating the Fire Gigas and moving on through the game, I feel like things really opened up at the Upper Land. This place felt remote with its lack of real cities (until Matango which feels so different) and deep caves. Later on, after getting Flammie, I took notice of the lack of detail the area had on the map. It was such a large area, but the actual maps were not nearly as large. That always stuck out to me.
Behind the Scenes of The Upper Land
Starting out, we go over the map discrepancy. Exactly what I was looking for! The Moogle village always stuck out to me as weird without buildings, so it's neat to see they were initially planned. Finally, all the detail of the Wind Palace is very interesting. Overall some really cool stuff!
I've been gone for a bit, and in that time ManaRedux from over at Secret of Mana: Redux has been busy making videos for his YouTube Channel. I'm going to watch through them when I get time, and you can watch along with me if you'd like. Or just go binge watch all seven right now. Me? I'm gonna take my time.
Two Northtown Anomalies
These two anomalies kept me pretty busy guessing as a kid. I always wondered if the weird secret passageway in Northtown mentioned on our Secrets page had something to do with the carousel looking thing. As for the door in the resistance base, I think kid me chalked that one up to the base actually being a much larger operation with multiple levels only accessible to the most trusted operatives. Obviously, with Popoi in tow, Kristie wasn't taking any chances.
On second thought, that one was pretty short so I'm going to watch another. Some of the others are quite a bit longer, but the first couple are short.
The Mysterious Deleted Path
This video has some great information and footage about early versions of the early game map. The little islands with the whip poles on them remind me of the area surrounding Wendel in Final Fantasy Adventure. The Garuda from FFA showing up, along with a small dock that looks perfect for a Chocobot to take off from just emphasize the similarities to me. It's awesome to see these glimpses into early development. It's just a shame the entire game could not have had this much time poured into it (looking at you, Ice Country).
If you liked the content in the videos, make sure to check out all Secret of Mana: Redux has to offer.
