Secret of Mana - Meaningful Decision Making and Interest Curves

Title: Secret of Mana

Developer/Publisher: SquareSoft, now Square Enix

Original release date: August 6, 1993

Mechanics and Exploration

Secret of Mana is a 16-bit top-down Japanese role playing game. The player has three characters in which they can switch through or they can have a friend or two play with them cooperatively on the couch. Each switchable character has a strength and weakness, allowing the player to switch as they need to or communicate for help with someone they’re playing with. The main character, the boy, is a weapons master and has no problem wielding any weapon you collect in the game though he is unable to cast any magic spells. The second character, the girl, is mainly a defensive mage and, though she can wield any weapon in the game, some weapons allow for a higher ease of use than others. The sprite is easily able to wield any weapon, though she’s best with a spear, and she can case offensive magic. The magic abilities are unlocked after defeating each boss in each Mana Temple. The world is rather open and has a nice ease of flow, allowing the player to pace themselves moving from Mana Temple to Mana Temple, unsealing mana seeds.

The HUD is very basic while traversing through the levels. The numbers displayed are the player’s life. The bar underneath is a gauge that empties and recharges as the player hits attack. This is a real-time strategy, which allows the player to carefully plan their attacks and not just button mash through the entire game. There are only eight weapons to choose from and upgrading the weapon requires prolonged use of them.

The bar will recharge and if the player hits while the bar is still charging, the attack will be weakened. This fight with the snow dragon demonstrates the bar changes. The player has to explore to get to these points in the game so this would be an example of a high challenge portion of flow. Though the player still has choices while in a battle, having a menu they can flip through and pause the game.

Player Decisions

The player has a lot of freedom to explore certain areas of the game while other areas are liner and force a player path. The combination of the two adds to the flow of the game, creating moments of boredom and moments of anxiety frequently. When a player is in combat, they have an enemy health bar visible, allowing for the player to plan their attacks based on the opponent’s status. The player is faced with choice from the very beginning of the game, where you fall into the area and have to explore a map that appears open but will block the player with bushes, grass and rocks until the player acquires the sword. After that, the player can open new areas by cutting the grass or bushes with the sword.

As the player goes through each area acquiring more weapons, meaningful choice is made on duration of having said weapon equipped as that is the only time weapons receive experience to be upgraded. It can determine difficulty of player’s success. In addition to that, the player has to make meaningful choices on when to attack enemies. The player has to wait for their weapon to recharge before hitting again so every strike needs to be carefully thought through. If the player does not make the right choices on when they attack, the player is more susceptible to damage thus suffering a consequence for their failed strategy. Upgrading weapons also requires the player to make meaningful combat choices to achieve. Upgrades are earned by defeating bosses, sometimes multiple times, and locating chests. If the player does not take the time to explore for these upgrades they can still make it through the game but the challenge will be increased. Upgrading magic also creates meaningful choice on balancing player success in battles. There is defensive and offensive magic to upgrade based on the player play style. Magic is slowly acquired and so are the level ups for the casters. Because of that, the choices the player makes in these upgrades will greatly affect their play difficulty, mana power, and capability of attacking certain enemies because of their elemental resistance. If they miss out on an element, they will not able to continue through certain areas of the game.

Pacing, Flow, and Interest Curves

The pace of the game is up to the player and encourages flow. The player can slow it down, take their time to level up, and have an easier time of completing the game in a more effective way or they can quickly go from one area to the next, increasing the difficulty level of the game. From the beginning of the game a clear idea of goals are set and explained to the player. The player will have to travel from palace to palace collecting orbs for his sword at the end of each one. Each dungeon area increases in difficulty and progressing through each area gives immediate text pop up feedback, which will allow the player to adjust their strategies accordingly. While going through each area, there will be basic, lower level enemies the player can grind on to achieve levels or they can go into the dungeon areas and increase their challenge. While traversing through the dungeons, the player will have to use different weapons collected to allow them to proceed through. For example, an axe may be needed to cut through vines or a whip may be needed to go across a gap.

The player can go back to any area at any time so they are easily able to balance between their idea of their skills and what they think the challenge is going to be like. This gives the game the flexibility to cater to the player’s interests and pace of their play through. As a result of that, I do not believe the pacing needs to be improved because leaving that up to the player is a great choice.

My own interest curve had quite the regular amount of flow. I would start off with some interest after getting my first taste of the story. Then I would go grind which would bore me and lose my interest. Once I go into a palace area and adding more features to my play experience with a little puzzle solving and new enemies would skyrocket my interest. After getting through that, I would reach a boss stage and the victory in that would spike my interest yet again. In the end, I get more story progression and the cycle starts all over again. That’s the basic structure of interest throughout the entire game and I believe it to be a reasonable interest curve. As you go through each area and find other means by which to travel, the interest can yet again change but this curve gives the most basic outline of interest in Secret of Mana.

Sources:

Finnegan, L. (2015, April 7). Secret of Mana: A Good Game With The Great Cut Out. Retrieved from http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/pixels-and-bits/13744-Secret-of-Mana-Could-Have-Been-Great-With-Its-Missing-Content

Major, N. (2012, March 16). Nathan vs. Video Games: Secret of Mana. Retrieved from http://nathanvsvideogames.blogspot.com/2012/03/secret-of-mana.html

White, N. (2012, July 9). Greatest Video Games Ever: How Secret of Mana Perfected the Action RPG -. Retrieved from http://goodmenproject.com/moustacheclubofamerica/greatest-video-games-ever-how-secret-of-mana-perfected-the-action-rpg/

The Let's Play Archive. (2011, August 1). Retrieved from http://lparchive.org/Secret-of-Mana/