The SNES sequel to Secret of Mana that is 100 times better than any Mana game that came after it…

Secret of Mana was one of my favorite games on the Super Nintendo, and I remember being extremely disappointed when I found out that Squaresoft wasn’t going to bring it’s sequel over to this side of the pond… especially after having Gamefan tease me with some great screenshots (I still have a copy of that magazine somewhere…) Luckily one very talented Neill Corlett created a translation patch way back in 2000. I’ve probably attempted to play Seiken Densetsu 3 many times since then, but seven years later, I finally got around to giving Seiken Densetsu 3 a full play through… and I am not disappointed.

For the uninitiated, from wikipedia:

Seiken Densetsu 3 (聖剣伝説3, Seiken Densetsu Surī?, lit. “Legend of the Holy Sword 3″) is the third video game in the Seiken Densetsu series of console role-playing game developed and published by Square Co., Ltd. (now Square Enix Co., Ltd.) and the second and final main Seiken Densetsu series title to be marketed exclusively for the Nintendo Super Famicom video game console. The game features three lengthy main plotlines, six different characters, each with their own storylines, and a wide range of classes to choose from, which provides each character with an exclusive set of skills and status progression. All of these makes the game highly replayable through hundreds of different character and class combinations. The game also makes use of a time progression system, with transitions from day to night and weekday to weekday in game time, adding to the game’s challenging gameplay.

Seiken Densetsu 3 does everything Secret of Mana does, only better. Music and gameplay are solid, and nothing gets my motor running like colorful sprites. If I had been able to play this back in my middle school days I am sure I would have never discovered masturbation because I would have spent hours and hours leveling up my characters and trying to get all of the subclasses. The lives of millions of kittens would have been spared.

One problem I did have with the game, and this might be due to the fact that the translation by Corlett was unofficial (albeit still decent), was that the story felt really choppy. I’m going to try to give it a second play through with some different characters just to see if it was just limited to the character I picked. (Damn you Duran and your slow ass sword swinging!)

If you haven’t played this gem yet, I highly recommend it. There seems to be tons of links to the translation and game itself via google. Also, Squeenix also seems to have a penchant for re-releasing games so I wouldn’t be surprised if this one got released on the DS or PSP.

Score: 8.5

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Knytt