Mana (series)
Square trademarked Seiken Densetsu in 1989,[1] intending to use it for a game project subtitled The Emergence of Excalibur, and led by Kazuhiko Aoki for the Famicom Disk System.
The letter also suggested to consider placing an order on another upcoming Square role-playing game in a similar vein: Final Fantasy.
Legend is a 2D game like its predecessors, despite the PlayStation's 3D focus, because the console could not handle the full 3D world Ishii envisioned where one could interact with natural shaped objects.
[9] The first of these was the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, and Square Enix intended to have campaigns for other series whereby multiple games in different genres would be developed simultaneously.
He had held off on designing new Mana games after Legend was unable to meet his desires, until he felt that technology had improved enough to let him create what he envisioned.
[12] In April 2007, a month after the release of the final game of the World of Mana, Ishii left Square Enix to lead his own development company, named Grezzo.
[21] When working on the series, Koichi Ishii draws inspiration from abstract images from his memories of childhood, as well as movies and fantasy books that captivated him as a child.
Nonetheless, among his literary influences, he acknowledges Tove Jansson's Moomin, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.
[7][23] Japan North America PAL region The first game of the Mana series was marketed in Japan and the United States as a Final Fantasy game and drew many stylistic influences from the Final Fantasy series, but deviated in that it presented real-time, action-oriented battles comparable to The Legend of Zelda, rather than traditional turn-based battles.
[27] Trials of Mana introduced a degree of non-linearity to the series, allowing players to choose at the beginning of the game a party of three members out of a total of six characters.
[28] The original Super Famicom version was never released outside Japan due to technical bugs and it being too large for Western cartridges.
The game features temporary sidekick characters that the player can recruit, breed or build, and a weapon and armor creation and tempering system.
[21][22] It was born out of the desire to make a real-time strategy game similar to Age of Empires, StarCraft, and Warcraft: Orcs & Humans.
Set in the new land, Miste, the story revolves around the angelic Lasta and the demonic Darka engaged in an ages-long war for the mortal world.
The soundtrack features contributions by composers from previous Mana games, (Tsuyoshi Sekito, Kenji Ito, Hiroki Kikuta, and Yoko Shimomura) and was released on April 23, 2014.
[42] Japan North America PAL region Sword of Mana is a full remake of Final Fantasy Adventure developed by Brownie Brown.
[26][50] Although not part of the series, the spin-off Secret of Evermore, developed by the North American Square Soft, was also built upon the "Ring Command" system.
[56] Usually, an anthropomorphic cat merchant is found outside of town areas and allows a player to save the game and buy supplies at high prices.
[30] Rabites, known as Rabi (ラビ) in the Japanese versions of the games, are cute, fictional, rabbit-like creatures appearing as a common enemy in the series since its beginning.
[74] The Rabite resembles a bodiless, one-toothed rabbit with large ears that curve upward and form a point at the tip, and a round, puffy pink tail that moves by hopping along the ground.
It is most commonly yellow colored, but also pink, lilac, black, and white, and are variously minor enemies, "superboss" characters and even friendly units and pets.
Additionally, they appear in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance in the description of one of the game's optional missions as an endangered species due to being poached for good luck charms.
[81] Rabites have appeared prevalently in several pieces of Mana merchandise, including plush dolls, cushions, lighters, mousepads, straps, telephone cards, and T-shirts.
Despite difficulties in dealing with the hardware limitations, Kikuta tried to express, in the music of Secret of Mana, two "contrasting styles", namely himself and the game.
[90] Kikuta worked on the music for the two games mostly by himself, spending nearly 24 hours a day in his office, alternating between composing and editing to create an immersive three-dimensional sound.
[104] A collection of four-panel comic strips, drawn by various authors and titled Sword of Mana Yonkoma Manga Theatre, was published in Japan by Square Enix on January 16, 2004.
It included a questionnaire that, if sent back, allowed participants to win illustrations signed by Koichi Ishii and Shinichi Kameoka, as well as special T-shirts.
[105] Enterbrain also published a Sword of Mana manga adaptation in Japan on February 25, 2004, drawn by a collaboration of authors led by Shiro Amano.
RPGFan called Final Fantasy Adventure one of the best things to happen to the Game Boy,[124] while IGN considered it the best action RPG on the console after The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.
[131][132] The NPD Group ranked Legend of Mana as the top seller the week of its release, and in 2006 was re-released as part of the Ultimate Hits series.
