SNES Longplay [214] Secret of Mana (2p) (part 3 of 8)

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Played by Ironsharp & KTheorem

A classic and innovative-for-its-time 1993 action-RPG by (then) Squaresoft for the SNES. Up to 3 players take control of a Boy, a Girl, and a Sprite (an androgynous fairy-like creature) as you hack-and-slash your way through a truly bizarre mishmash of several different storylines. Ironsharp controlled the Boy (as well as commanding the Sprite's magical attacks) and KTheorem controlled the Girl. Excessively long segments of magic skill leveling were cut. Try to guess which palette-swapped sprite will be the next boss!

Ironsharp's comments (Boy/Sprite): While the game certainly is a classic and is very much beloved, it has tons of flaws (most of which are exacerbated in co-op play) that render it nearly unplayably tedious at times by today's standards. The slow nature of physical attacks makes magical attacks a necessity but the game's magic/weapon skill system is unneccessarily grindy. Thus, we gave up maxing out our skills when it became increasingly tedious to do so, but it didn't even affect the difficulty by much. Highlights of the game's fun-factor include the first third and the last dungeon.

KTheorem's comments (Girl): As the weaker of the two player characters I found much of my time sitting back while Ironsharp hit the enemies punctuated by, as the game went on, increasingly longer and longer recovery/charge cycles. That got boring. The sprite hit-stealing the charged attacks just made it worse. The game would have been much much better if the punishment for attacking an enemy was only the recovery and not also the period of invulnerability. Even the 3 pallet swapped dragons would have been tolerable. -
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