As a longtime, die hard fan of Secret of Mana, hearing for the first time that the game would be — in a sense — revived through both PlayStation 4 and the Vita made me a bit emotional. Secret of Mana was the first RPG to ever grace my childhood, and I was forever changed in every positive way possible the moment my eyes and ears were introduced to, what I still believe to be, one of the most beautiful, melodic and sentimental games in the history of my generation. The game led me to fall in love with other role-playing games, with a few of my favorites being Chrono Trigger, Illusion of Gaia, Secret of Evermore, EarthBound, Breath of Fire and Final Fantasy. Thinking about it now, without the presence of Secret of Mana, I wouldn’t have the privilege of being a member of the Nintendo Wire team, as I can imagine my passion for Nintendo wouldn’t be as strong as it is today without the SNES classic — I owe the game a lot.
I’d been one of the people who’d been holding onto the dream of seeing the original Secret of Mana available through Virtual Console on my 3DS. Even after that letdown, I’ve trudged on, maintaining a sense of hope for the future. I was ecstatic to learn that Square Enix had shared a new video of the new Secret of Mana a few days ago, this time featuring the opening movie for the game. Without hesitation, I hit the play button and was both mesmerized and sent back in time as the familiar chords of the intro floated into the air, completely submersing me in nostalgic euphoria.
Having grown up in a purely Nintendo household, I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m still primarily a Nintendo fan who has had little interest in diving into the worlds of PlayStation and Xbox. So, needless to say, I was a bit heartbroken to hear that my beloved Secret of Mana wouldn’t be making its way to my Switch, but would instead find a home on two of Sony’s consoles on February 15th, 2018. That doesn’t mean I’m still not hopeful that this new Mana experience will make its way to systems outside of Sony though. I’m a “glass half full” kind of gal, and there’s no stopping me from believing that I’ll one day be able to pay homage to a life-changing game by playing a remake of it on my Nintendo Switch.
You can watch the original announcement trailer for Secret of Mana below.
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Written by Lauren Ganos
Creative Director, Managing Editor
Designer and writer by day, gamer by night, Lauren dreams big when it comes to creative endeavors. Perhaps that's why she's taken on the roles of creative director and managing editor for Nintendo Wire. If she had a video game superhero alias, it might just be The Visionary, a true keeper of imaginative order.
