I was doing a little preliminary reading on this game (mostly to see where it fit in the timeline) and discovered something very interesting about this franchise. The Final Fantasy Legend franchise was actually first released in Japan as the Saga franchise and was rebranded when it was released over here but actually had nothing to do with Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy Adventure is the first game in the Mana franchise but was actually originally produced with the Final Fantasy name in Japan.
The first sequel to Final Fantasy Adventure? Secret of Mana. One of the best games of all time! Secret of Mana was a Zelda style adventure game with 3 characters. Normally the second two would be AI controlled (with very limited programming available from a menu) but you could actually use the Super Multitap to hook 3 controllers up to the SNES and have all 3 characters controlled by players. I can still remember my brother playing as the little red haired dude and wanting the axe. (You had one copy of each weapon type so only one person could use a given weapon.)
I had actually played a game in the Saga series: Romancing Saga. I only played it for a brief period of time before turning it off and not going back. I don't remember why I soured on it but I just couldn't get into it for some reason. Maybe that explains why I haven't been a huge fan of the FFL games. They just aren't my style of game? On the other hand I really loved Secret of Mana so I now have high hopes for Final Fantasy Adventure.
I must say I didn't know that Secret of Mana actually is descended from the original Final Fantasy. From the same company, sure, but not that it had such direct ties. Cool!
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ReplyDeleteFinal Fantasy Adventure is one of my top ten favourite games ever, but I only tried Secret of Mana for the first time in the last few months - I was quite surprised at how little I liked it. I found the boss battles very annoying - I think I wanted them to be just like Zelda or even the FFAdventure boss fights, but the Secret of Mana bosses seem to be more like typical JRPG bosses where you have to level up to stand a chance (partially because taking damage is inevitable).
ReplyDelete"Sword of Mana" is the GBA remake of Final Fantasy Adventure. I could never bring myself to play the remake, because reviews said the remake is pretty mediocre (like most of the Mana games after the SNES).
Top ten, eh? That's some pretty high praise. I seem to remember Secret of Mana being a much better game with at least one other player (though when you want to go in different directions it became a sheer battle of wills to see who would give in first since the screen would not scroll if you were on opposite sides!)
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