I was WRONG About the Secret of Mana Remake - Casp

[@drcidd8153]

You're wrong about the shoulder buttons not being used in the original secret of mana. You could hold either L or R while charging a weapon to strafe. It was pretty useful honestly.

[@Caspicum]

Oh shit! I've just tested this out, and you're right! It's largely a useless addition, as all it really seems to do is lock your direction while you move. I guess, if nothing else, it saves you one direction tap when unleashing. All these years and playthroughs and I've never discovered that. There you go.

[@Stratelier]

I can see why they wouldn't keep it for the remake, though, given combat now has 360 degree movement and attacking.

[@drcidd8153]

Totally, it's not necessary at all in the remake version of the game, but knowing about it makes the original game a lot less painful.

[@Cidwel]

What!?!?!? And I was considered the biggest fan of secret of mana!

[@jelhaj7769]

you suck at games. and reading manuals.

[@Alte.Kameraden]

Actually the graphics are from a low budget mobile game. They used already existing 3D assets from mobile versions of Secret of Mana to make this remake. There is an Entire video dedicated to the comparison, exact same character models and everything.

[@Caspicum]

Yeah! Someone else told me about that, and apparently the advertising for Adventure of Mana (or whatever it's called) was extremely poor, so it didn't circulate too much. I wondered why it looked like a mobile title, and that's because it literally came from a mobile title.

[@callespringer9718]

It's probably been mentioned by people already, but those hexagonal columns are clearly modeled after real-life basalt columns. Which while looking somewhat "artificial" at a first glance indeed are fully naturally formed. The "Giant's Causeway" formation in Northern Ireland is perhaps the most famous basalt formation, but there are thousands of them around the world.

[@EdreesesPieces]

Yeah when I saw the, reminded me of "Devil's Postpile" national monument in California

[@Noki_Kelevra]

It's called columnar jointing and it's basically what happens when certain types of volcanic rock cool, shrink and get cracks. There's one Let's Player, Keith Ballard, who studied geology, and made a video on columnar jointing and its use in video games. It's most often used to make an area look fantasy-ish or more outlandish. For example, the Elder's Recess area in Monster Hunter World, or one particular area in Dragon Age Inquisition's first map.

[@NicolaiKecskes]

They are petrified trees! Let's take "the devil's tower" for example that's a huge tree-stump from ancient times. The titans and the giants cut the trees down. But yes there's thousands of them. Volcanos and magma doesn't form like that at all.

[@Xbob42]

Yeah sure, those columns look about as real as birds!

[@NicolaiKecskes]

@Scott Pilgrim That it is! The silica world is all around us... if it looks like a giants head it most certainly is. Real Scientists tried to petrify a piece of wood with water and alkali-metals and guess what... they managed in two weeks in about 60°C...

[@RurouniZel]

A Link Between Worlds showed how angling the 3D models makes for a much better viewing experience overall, I wish this remake had taken that approach.

[@Caspicum]

Absolutely. I never realised how great that addition in Link Between Worlds was until playing this game.

[@GayLPer]

I was actually checking the comments just to see if anyone brought this up. Very good point, and yeah, this remake *really* could've used something like that.

[@Eric-yt7fp]

Yeah, LBW is the best example of how to do 2/3 perspective fixed camera 3D.

[@MegamanGuy444]

I'd still recommend the original more than the remake. One of many reasons: it wasn't lazily made.

[@Caspicum]

I can't even argue with that.

[@SBaby]

It's a hard decision. I would say play both and then decide. But don't let anyone tell you which one to play.

[@Archloop]

@@SBaby This. I actually enjoyed both experiences separatedly, although the similarities.

[@SenkoVT]

@@SBaby i mean in the remake u have voice over AND original music ost. The only thing that im missing is the art style. But by fixing alot of things the remake lost some charme imo. They still have major flaws like softlocking. Near the end i got tired and rushed to the end. Big mistake, the mana dragon pretty much insta downs u if u dont have good armor and doesnt take dmg without thousands of +atk spells and level ups. In the original it was all about timing and skill no matter which level u were

[@philipxxxdj]

@@SenkoVT i think the music is better in the original they changed a lot of it so it sound diffrent

[@jordanneal576]

Could have done what they did with A Link Between Worlds. They actually slanted every model.

[@Smaxx]

Don't forget A Link to the Past still used a different perspective/view (e.g. seeing bottom walls), so slanted objects might have looked even more weird.

[@Stratelier]

No mention of the ring menu system here? (Or was that covered in the previous episode...) Choosing to center the ring onscreen instead of around the character it belonged to breaks the VERY THING that made the original ring menu so intuitive. In the remake it's basically just "another menu but circular".

[@Caspicum]

I've always hated the ring menu, and I did cover why in my original video. My gripes with it here are more or less the same, and I hate repeating myself. That said, I agree with your observation. There's probably a reason they didn't have a character-centred ring, but it still would've been nice.

[@Stratelier]

In the original, depending on camera placement it was possible for up to half of the menu to be offscreen (never the half under the cursor, however). The main appeal of the ring menu was how minimalistic it was: it wasn't a separate 'menu screen' but an overlay on the game screen.

[@darkstonian]

I agree, but they did it because since you are not screen bound when in single player, if you opened up a party member's menu the screen would have to snap to wherever they are and off of you to recreate the original. And I guess they didn't wanna put that in cause if your trying to drop spells and things the screen would be jumping all over the place, which I can appreciate

[@tymcbee]

I was disappointed in Elinee (the witch) character model. When I played the original, I always assumed she had transformed herself into a young looking, attractive sorceress, and THEN became a gnarled old hag once the magic wore off. In this game, she is an ugly old hag in both forms.

[@tymcbee]

I just feel like they misinterpreted a lot of the monsters...or were overthinking them. Elinee was a favorite of mine, even with her brief appearance because of what you mentioned, I could use my imagination. I pictured her as a glamorous sorceress in a hijab abusing her powers and then reverting to a small OLD grandma/cat lady once defeated. All of this was lost due to them misinterpreting the whole scene and exchange. It's sort of what the Wild Arms remake (Alter Code F) did to one of its primary antagonists, the character's appearance was supposed to facilitate a big reveal later on in the game, but during the remake, they misinterpreted the character's appearance and gave away the whole reveal.

[@Caspicum]

Wasn't Alter Code F that awful hex-based strategy RPG? I've not played much Wild Arms, but that game is something else.

[@tymcbee]

No, Alter Code F is a remake of the original Wild Arms. You are thinking of Wild Arms 4. That hex battle system was terrible to be honest, lol. I recommend Alter Code F, but NOT WA4.

[@Caspicum]

I was thinking of XF! I knew it was F-something.

[@MrSerpico145]

@@Caspicum I recommend the original, if you haven't played it. A classic jrpg experience.

[@Dhalin]

RE: Your missing with weapons: You are simply too low level. Your AIs are stronger/smarter because they are much more aggressive and this gives you the illusion that you can push further into the game at lower level, so you do that (because hey, who likes grinding?). BUT, the Remake has *the exact same attack/defense/accuracy/evasion values* as the original did. Judging from your HP meters in the clips (those values are the same between versions), you are severely under-leveled so yes you will miss like crazy. I mean, c'mon, the Sprite only has 197 HP Max while fighting the guy before Flammie? Try killing something now and then. You should not be taking 40 damage hits every couple seconds from that guy. The game is designed in a way that if you kill everything you come across as you journey, you will be at a "sweet spot" -- just enough XP/levels that you will comfortably kill everything in your way. If you start skipping enemies because that's easier to do now, you will fall behind and you will be weak as crap. But yet there is some variance where you could skip a few enemies (such as ones that require magic to kill, or incredibly annoying ones like slimes), but you can't skip entire dungeons worth of enemies and expect to be strong enough to handle the next. RE: Stunlocking Bosses with Magic: They actually *reduced* this in the remake. You can't do it as easily or as often as you could in the original. Certain spells like Freeze and Gem Missile could stunlock a boss until it dies. However, in the remake, there's a split second pause where you can't cast another spell on the enemy and this split-second pause can cause some bosses (such as Gigas) to enter their immune phase. For example, the Flame Gigas in the Gnome Temple. You can stunlock him in the original by just casting Freeze, all you need to do is press the menu button as soon as the screen darkens a little and just keep doing that. However, in the remake, the split second pause gives the Gigas time to split up into its cloud form, guaranteeing that it will at least get to attack you at least once or twice. RE: Weapons: Whip/Axe needed? I always give the Axe to Primm and the Whip to Popoi and have Randi use whatever I want to use, and I control Randi full-time. If I run into a whip-gap, I'll switch to Popoi. If I run into some stalactites, I'll switch to Primm. This has the added bonus of keeping Popoi (who has the weakest defense) away from enemies as the AI is rather smart about how to use a whip. No weapon swaps needed. Now, granted, yes, they *could* fix the hot swapping system, but until/unless they do, this is just a tip. That way you can set your shoulder buttons to Cure Water + Whatever Attack Spell Next Boss is Weak Against like I do.

[@Dhalin]

A small addendum to my comment about stunlocking: In the original you had to work around the 999 damage cap, so I suppose you couldn't fully stunlock a boss from 100% to 0% because you had a limit of 999 simultaneous damage. But still, especially for that Flame Gigas, you could kill him in "two" attacks because all you needed to do is cast enough Freeze to hit the 999 damage cap, let the 999 appear on screen and then stunlock him again and... boom. Fight is over and the boss only had 2-3 seconds to even move. Later enemies, though, have 3k+ HP and get 3-4 opportunities to actually do something.

[@Caspicum]

The first point is iffy, because Secret of Mana isn't a hard game, so grinding is entirely unnecessary. Other than a wee-bump at the start to get midget and gril up to speed, anyway. When I move through areas in JRPGs, I kill anything I encounter and then keep moving forward. If it gets too hard, I might go back and do a cheeky grind. Wasting time with grinding you don't need to do isn't a good thing, and I've got a video coming out over the next few days where I kinda talk about this. As I said, the missing was a minimal issue, but it seemed more frequent even when comparing the two games directly one after the other. I think what the cause may have been that a "0" damage now registers as a "miss", so it's just a misplaced criticism as opposed to anything functional or mechanical. I did notice that window, and I mentioned it to someone else that they added a slight tweak, where if the enemy has a spell queued, that would trigger before yours. However, because of the shortcuts, it was way easier to time that shit, and magic stun-lock was still ridiculously OP and easy to pull off. It needed a bigger overhaul. I didn't get into that too much in the video because not a lot has changed, and I just couldn't be bothered. The Whip/Axe on midget and girl is a decent fix, but I hate having my guys bogged down with horrible weapons for the sake of a design flaw. I like my midget with a bow or a spear, and my girl with gloves or a chakram and god damn it not even Square-Enix themselves can stop me! KZbin didn't alert me that you commented 2 days ago, sorry I missed it until now! Thanks for the comment!

[@Dhalin]

Well, my point about the grinding was that in the original, you probably killed a few extra enemies because your AI was so terrible (which made you feel weaker) and in the remake the AI is much better and more aggressive which might lead you to believe you are stronger than you actually are because you have more competent help. But then, also, another thing about the original is a lot of times, when you swing at an enemy, you hear this "whoosh" sound and absolutely nothing appears on the screen. That's actually a "miss" but it doesn't *say* that with actual letters. In the Remake, however, this giant "MISS" is kinda hard to, well, miss. lol. I remember, for example, the Kimono Birds or the stupid hedgehogs they spawn being lousy for it, it would take 5, 6, 7+ swings to hit one of the stupid things in the original. Buuut, as I said above, your HP values look a little lower than mine typically are. That's what led me to believe you were skipping a decent number of enemies. I suppose it's just my playstyle that I get extra XP? As for the Axe/Whip, yeah, in the original I did something similar but then I also had them to 'stay away/never attack' because their AI was just that terrible. I killed everything myself, lol. Now in the remake... I find that the Sprite does OK with the whip -- they stay back which is preferable and they have rather excellent aim with it. The girl does OK with the Axe -- she has enough Defense that she's not in trouble if she steps into melee, and the Axe is a Tier A weapon (with identical attack as the Spear at same level) so it's not like she's losing attack power and again, the AI knows how to use it properly. I suppose it'd been nice to use varied weapons, though once you get away from areas where you need these weapons, you can swap them I suppose. Just thought I'd suggest it anyhow. And Magic being OP in a game that is called "Secret of Mana"... I suppose it is fitting. A little too OP, though, even in the original. Bosses still die in seconds and they can hardly retaliate, lol. Remake, Original, doesn't matter. They are both laughably easy games because of it. It's just that Spiky Kitty is much easier in the remake because A). They removed a lot of BS I-frames, and B). Your teammates can actually fight for a change which means spiky kitty dies much faster than he used to. And np about the response time, I'm used to it hehe. Lots of times I don't get a response at all on other channels.

[@Dhalin]

Also I'll be looking forward to that video you mentioned... I've played a lot of SNES, some PS1 and PS2 RPGs and I'm kinda curious to hear your thoughts on various games and how much level grinding they expected players to do. I wonder if you have similar opinions as me, and such.

[@Smaxx]

On my very first playthrough on consoles back in the 90's I permanently stun locked pretty much any boss using sprite's magic. You could just constantly cast spells and the bosses couldn't react while the spell animations played. You'd just use the spell again the moment the cast animation is through and they could only move maybe one frame (or none at all).

[@MeanimeGD]

The graphics are from a budget mobile style. Using the Adventure of Mana style that came out on mobile before this remake.

[@Caspicum]

That blew my mind when I found out (unfortunately, after this video went live). How lazy could one company be?

[@queenmarsia]

Randy GD lll

[@trueblueclue]

It's Square Enix aka Mr. Sell Ya Boi Nostalgia. They don't give a shit anymore.

[@HyperGamer14]

I don't get it. Everyone loved the art style in the Adventure of Mana remake but then Secret of Mana did it and suddenly its bad. WTF?! It's not like SoM was the best looking SNES game or something. The new graphics are absolutely okay and have a lot of little details. (also the rocks already looked fake af in the original so I don't get the criticism) Also the remake added new dialogue and everone was like "wtf is dis?!" (and I don't know why) and the different style of cutscenes added something: Visible emotion. Sure, the game only uses simple animations but it's better than nothing. (and I say that as someone who played a lot of oldschool JRPGs) Overall SoM just didn't age well and almost everybody blames the remake for it although it's the best version of the game.

[@UToobUsername01]

It's about power differences. For mobile and portable devices we expect less detailed models and textures because they would go unnoticed on tiny mobile screens but not on a home theatre set up in the living room. On home console we can see all the imperfection and barebones texture maps because you've blown it up and stretched out the little detail on to large surface so that it looks ugly. That's why people went easy on Adventure of Mana because it did not come out to the bigscreen. You don't see people complain about blurry textures and low poly models for the port of Super Street Fighter 4 on the 3DS in reviews do you? But if you were to take those same low detailed models and textures and place them on PS4 you would see people outraged that they have to pay full price for an ugly game. Those details on tiny screen were appropriate for tiny screen not home theatre. Power differences! We expect better visuals for more-capable home console screens. As for SOM original aging badly, that is to do with hardware limitations of the time , not developers being lazy or being cheap lol. In fact the original got praised for it's graphics back in the day. Whereas the remake is justifiably being criticised for its looks because the lack of detail is more due to laziness and not the limits of the tech TODAY. Therefore it gets low score for a wasted opportunity. It's like giving a man a super car but they never drive it fast. May as well just drive a cheap car and save the money. This remake is a program (the driver in my analogy) using high performance home machine (the super car which is built to run fast) but the program/driver never utilises the power of the machine/super car by racing it. This game should have been priced very low for what you can buy today for home console. In fact they could do what SNK did for King of Fighters 14 and release patch to upgrade visuals if they wanted to.

[@cameronmoore7675]

It's nice to see someone giving the remake a fair shake. The original, though it may be a classic that is dear to my heart, was definitely rough around the edges. It's obvious that the developers were still learning to program with the new hardware; Secret of Mana 2 was far more solid in many regards. I guess it's only appropriate that the remake is also rough around the edges. It would've been nice to get something better, but I guess it is what it is. At around 8:03, you mention the remake's very big artistic problem of the camera angle giving you a bad angle on all of the 3D models, and that you're not sure how they would've solved it. There is a game that solved that exact problem! The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, which similarly remade many characters and environments from A Link To the Past on SNES, solved this problem by designing the environments in an inclined fashion and tilting all of the 3D models with the camera angle in mind. The result looks fantastic, and you can only notice the visual trickery if you're able to view the world from an angle that the game normally doesn't let you.

[@Caspicum]

I don't know how I missed this, because I've read the bloody developer interviews where they spoke about angling the models. A few other people reminded me, and it shows that 2D combat could work with an oblique perspective, if the models were slightly rotated. Also, yeah, after I wrote this script, I checked a few remake videos out and people are railing this game. I can't blame them, it's got some huge flaws, but you gotta give credit where credit's due.

[@michaelsong5555]

I think you give SD3/Trials of Mana (snes version) far more credit than it deserves. That game was slow. Very slow. Loading was slow, transition was slow, and the battle itself was slow (because you can't run during the battle, which made you a sitting duck). It was graphically very beautiful though.

[@cameronmoore7675]

​@@michaelsong5555 What I was talking about were the two games' technical performance, as well as the finer points of design when it came to hit detection and game feel while attacking. Secret of Mana's framerate chugs regularly during gameplay, and has this awful tendency for attacks to land several seconds after they were thrown out. Battle regularly worked in a way in which you'd attack an enemy while they were in the middle of an animation, the game would wait for them to finish that animation (mostly hitstun or an attack/spell), and THEN register the hit. This led to battle feeling very loose, in which you didn't even know whether you landed an attack until several seconds later. Even worse, this also worked in the reverse direction, so you'd regularly get in situations where enemies get you in a brutal stunlock loop, so you just have to sit there and wait for them to kill you, or for you to luck out and they stop attacking. As for SD3's slower movement speed during battle, I can understand disliking the lack of mobility, but that's more of a qualm with a deliberate design rather than the game being janky. All enemies were designed around that slow player movement, so I was fine with it. Hits registered quickly and decisively, and the wait between attacks was significantly lower. I liked it better overall, but to each their own. Not sure what you mean about long loading times, though. I've never experienced lengthy loading with any SNES game, SD3 included.

[@michaelsong5555]

@@cameronmoore7675 When you pause (to access the equipment menu, or to switch the items in the storage), it takes forever to get there, and to get out. That's what I meant by long loading time.

[@cameronmoore7675]

@@michaelsong5555 Ahh, okay. That's fair. It does take forever because of that fade-in / fade-out effect.

[@Zanji1234]

i kinda find it funny when someone says "the remake is soo bad with the story"... and then i see the original and the story is also kinda barebone and has some really dump jokes in it. i CAN understand that somebody didn't like the "budget look" of it... but in some reviews i've read about the bad handling of the story which was "more detailed" in the original and i feel like "are you REEEEEAALLY sure about that? you remember the goblins cooking you and then go off because they wanted to see a TV show?"

[@Caspicum]

Yeah, it's a pretty faithful remake. Really, all it adds is a few quality of life changes, which are fairly spotty in and of themselves, and a shittier art style. idk what it i about 16-bit graphics but they destroy this nu-mobile lookin garbage

[@SuperKlaptrap]

The original didn’t give you very much indication if your attack was evaded or simply didn’t connect so I would imagine that the remake adding a miss indicator would make it feel like more of your attacks missed but I don’t really have any experience with the remake so I can’t be completely sure.

[@Caspicum]

The "miss" thing was just a replacement for "0" damage from what I can see, but that was probably a reasoning behind it!

[@systemafunk]

@@Caspicum There were also many times when you would just not register anything outright. Turtle enemies in their shell for example, or drops while they are in certain frames of their movement. Also, it could be that the meter wasn't full, since after the first few areas even 99% will register a miss. If anything should have been changed from the original it is that. It could have increased the chance of a miss the lower you went, but still usually give you some damage. I like the way the game starts out where a hit at 80-90% will register about 30% damage, so there is incentive to wait, but at least you can interrupt an enemy with a weak hit.

[@ddddmmmm9026]

I just ordered secret of mana for the snes today and was regretting it due to the remake being way cheaper now. After watching this video, it’s worth every penny after reminded of enix.

[@setteplays]

The perspective in 3D "I see only heads" thing was solved brilliantly in Zelda A Link Between Worlds, where they made all the models in an obtuse angle, so when you see from a top-down perspective, all the character details are very visible. And I love your critique and subtle sarcasm, your content is amazing.

[@15Seili]

I thought the same when he complained about it. Zelda ALBW did is so much better and the graphics are much better in general for a 3ds game compared to a PS4/PC release.

[@setteplays]

Yes and they move in all 8 directions smoothly without being distorted even... being actually distorted. It's like... putting effort into making something work, right?

[@Mepholar]

SD3 very fun game. I've played through it several times... 4 or 5 I think... Anyhow: combat in 3 is mostly better. They vastly improve the weapon technique system so you don't have to hold and charge. Surprised they didn't convert this SoM remake to include it somehow. Spells don't stun lock; a major flaw in SD2. I don't remember bosses being harder though (unless you just mean can't be abuses with spell stun lock). I do think the bosses in SD3 gain extra phases or modes. The story is ok once or twice, but [minor spoiler rest of sentence] different lead characters only affect set key points in the main story via a few cutscenes and a single dungeon. The story itself felt more streamlined, to me, too compared to SD2. 3 antagonistic organizations but because they're showing all 3 they never develop them beyond wanting power. Character development has less grind but more research/ luck for advanced classes-- some of which are just better.

[@Mepholar]

Some foot notes. SoM bosses are a lot of fun if you prioritize damage spells for field and dungeon enemies, and limit yourself to weapons and buff/ debuff/support spells for bosses. I know some people can't play that way though, knowing there is a more optimal play strategy they aren't using. As to weapons missing more... not sure. 'Course I was always eager to grind a new weapon or spell rank after obtaining an orb or seed. Loved seeing the upgraded visual effects and techniques. I think higher ranks boost accuracy as a byproduct.?

[@KingTaltia]

8:40 "I'm not sure how they'd remedy the top down perspective" Legend of Zelda A Link Between Worlds. They designed the game at a 40 degree angle, when you get through the mask the game puts up it's super offputting, but there's no instance of that happening in game, so clearly it worked.

[@Caspicum]

Had a few others mention this, and you're 100% right. Where were you guys when I needed you 3 weeks ago during scripting? God, so inconsiderate.

[@WalkingGirlKoi]

My issue with the artstyle is exactly how it lacks any detail. RPGS are great at making people be in awe at their surroundings, but in here there's just some bright colors in greenery and that's it. And besides that the character designs being cutesy is perfectly fine, but nothing significant makes the cast stand out to have their own unique identities (excused with the original I guess, but still.)

[@FraterOculus]

It's shit. It's utter watered down pandering bullshit to appeal to morons, as is always now standard in the RPG genre

[@Caspicum]

What butters my scone is that the bright colours in the remake still ain't got shit on the original. If you look at the comparison of greens in the forest sections, the nuSoM art style seems so washed out and garbo. It's unfortunate to say the least.

[@dartanionff11]

Lets wait for the ff7 review when all the interviewers say: "I wish they stuck to the old formula, the graphics the way they were made the game the way it was and now they have changed everything for the remake."

[@Caspicum]

People are already saying that. It's fun to watch people flip their shit over trivial things.

[@Zeverinsen]

The difference between the FF7 remake and SoM is that they always put effort into Final Fantasy visuals, because it makes up at least 50% of the entire franchise. Additionally, FF7 was made in "3D", and intended to look more like the modern FF games if the technology had been available, unlike SoM, so it only makes sense to give it a true 3D remake. I personally think the FF7 remake was s fun twist on an old game, but the thing is: they actually put effort into it.

[@Iad83]

I feel the remake deserves more credit than it's getting tbh. I understand the complaints about keeping some things less faithful to the original, but I'm seeing arguments on both sides of this. Some fans wanted it to be more like the original, others wanted it to have more updates. I'm on the side of more updates, particularly with combat, but I see the devs getting shit on both sides of this. It's a no win situation for them so I try to be charitable. Really, I'd love it if people could mod this like an Elderscrolls or Fallout game. Adding more areas, updating combat, and maybe smoothing the visuals could really send this remake to the next level imo.

[@Caspicum]

That'd be fuckin' sick. If they added a steam workshop, or official mod support, it'd almost be worth $40.

[@da12ofSpades]

Finally somebody calls out the camera in SoM. I thought I was the only one who was really bothered by the choice to only scroll when you're near the edge of the screen.

[@marcelodarruda6293]

About the OST of Secret of Mana Remake, I only say two things: Excellent and at the same time inconstant. This is because Kikuta had to deal with, I'm almost sure, more than 20 people. For besides the solo artists there are also the musical groups with many members in the team. There goes everybody: Hiroki Kikuta, Noriky Kamikura, Tsutomu Narita, ARM (IOSYS), Kikuo, Yuzo Koshiro, Sasakure.UK, Junichi Sato, Haruka Shimotsuki, Tsuyoshi Sekito, Koji Yamaoka, DÉ DÉ MOUSE, PinocchioP and Sachiko Miyano. And I'll tell you the truth. This DÉ DÉ MOUSE did such a troublesome and hateful job, that I do not know how Kikuta, who supervised it, and Square Enix let it pass. Seriously, their work was BAD, but so bad that "A Curious Tale" became a meme in the KZbin video. Messages like: "The guy slept when he was writing, and then he fell on the notes." "Someone with tied hands does better." "They started hitting the keyboard in a disorderly way." Sad. But it was not only in this song: "Together Always" already starts to disgrace at the beginning of the game. "The Color of the Summer Sky" is irritatingly annoying. "Distant Thunder" looks like a fart inside the ear. "Live Time for Love" ... Seriously, they had to give the music of the last dungeon to them? "I will not forget" is a kind of redemption after so much mischief. But there were the saviors. The legend Yuzo Koshiro shows why he is a legend in the new remakes of "A Wish ...", "The Wind Never Ceases", "Still of the Night", "One of Them is Hope" and "Dancing Animals". He does pretty along with the others like sasakure.UK who did "Phantom and the Rose", "What the Forest Taught Me", "The Legend", "A Bell is Toiling". Noriyuki Kamikura, with "Fond Memories", "Mystic Invasion". Tsutomu Narita probably made the most impressive and shocking conversion of the game, "The Secret of the Arid Sands", as well as making the equally impressive "Eternal Recurrence" and the long-awaited "Prophecy", which also is very beautiful. "Whisper and Mantra" changes focus and is a quiet song, worthy of the palace of Sage Luka. Haruka Shimotsuki lends her beautiful voice to "Spirit of the Night." That's what I can highlight. From the horrible DÉ DÉ MOUSE. To the best ones like Tsutomu Narita and Yuzo Koshiro. An excellent OST that could be better if they changed or did not use certain composers. Get more alert and clever in a possible Remake of Seiken Densetsu 3. About the remake, I loved it. I prefer it over the original. The movements of 0% to 100% was the best improvement, and it is very good to can go in any direction. The Voice Acting was not so good, but I liked it overall. The graphics were smooth and sharp (60FPS, 4K, baby) and the textures are not so terrible, places like Flammie Sky were nice well done. Very good game in the end.

[@Caspicum]

It all makes sense now. I did wonder why the OST was so inconsistent, and here's my answer. Thanks for the comment!

[@SBaby]

I'll say this about the soundtrack of the remake. There were only 3 tracks I didn't like. Unfortunately one of them was the main town theme, and you hear that one all the time.

[@renereyes2648]

Well the English voice cast was ok at best. Thankfully the Japanese audio was available as well and felt more natural, especially in the new welcomed INN interactions between the party. And for those that are nostalgic for the SNES soundtrack that’s also included as an option if the new one isn’t for you. So while some feel this remake was lazy there was plenty of love put into it yes they used the same engine from Adventures of Mana a mobile/PS vita title which is a more faithful remake of the first Seiken Densetsu aka the Final Fantasy Adventure aka Mystic Quest in Europe.

[@etherspin]

As Secret of Mana was some golden age of SNES action RPG pixel art magic where graphics and soundtrack distracted very well from some borked mechanics. I haven't played the remake yet cause it isn't on my systems but considering the history of this series I would prefer 1080p/720p 60FPS 2D pixel art that is basically the concept drawings scanned in and supplemented with all the extra frames of animation required. Convoluted way of saying that we are in an age where our consoles can make the original artwork manifest as an actual game in super fluid 2D that looks like a Studio Ghibli animation

[@Caspicum]

I would honestly prefer that to the current art style. That sounds amazing.

[@maxis2k]

Couldn't agree more. This is the problem I have with the remake. I don't care about high fidelity models or detailed textures or all the other stuff this review was complaining about. I care about them keeping to the intended design of the original game. Mana had one of the most unique designs in gaming, meant to look like a fantasy story book. And the remake just doesn't hit that style. It would have been better to keep the game 2D like the original but have hand drawn sprites and backgrounds, like a Vanillaware game. Heck, I'm getting pretty hyped for the SD3 remake (now called Trials of Mana), but even then I'm still on the fence about how the 3D models look. It certainly looks a lot better than this remake though.

[@MidoseitoAkage]

@@maxis2k Sound great on a paper. But in reality, that would ask too much times, sources and money to made it full 2D animated and hand writing like a Studio Ghilbi animation. And it is nothing wrong to made it 3D in the first place. So it is better that you deal with it because Enix would never made this kind of idea. Edit : Plus they are busy with FF15, so that would risk made the compagny down. So it is better to take your nostalgia pink glasses off for once and look this game in another way.

[@andrewmartinsharples]

regarding the whip-posts, they could have just made it have some form of "smart equip" system, where if you don't currently have the required weapon equipped, pressing either shortcut button would automatically swap to the whip, do it's function, then swap back to the weapon you had prior...

[@Caspicum]

Exactly, like a contextual prompt! I'd argue it should just be removed entirely, or used significantly less. Having the first instance of the shortcut is bloody brilliant, but copy/pasting it everywhere is so redundant.

[@travisbashore]

its* function

[@andrewmartinsharples]

what they should have done regarding the shortcut buttons is simply allow you to press and hold the bumber to bring up a wheel with favorite spells, items or weapons, use the stick to select what you want - pressing both left and right bumber could bring up a shortcut wheel for Randi...

[@Caspicum]

Another better method than the one they went with.

[@vincepalejr6621]

It doesn't tell you when Buzzbee gets Whacked. 1/10. Literally Unplayable. But seriously, great review, and the remake makes it a much more playable game in 2018.

[@Caspicum]

RIP Buzzbee. Whacked by Crono with mana sword.

[@khatharrmalkavian3306]

They did screw up buzz bee's ambient sfx, though.

[@smashfoley7210]

I dont give a shit what anyone says about this game, I thought it was awesome I loved every minute of it.

[@cameronjackson4652]

I agree. These complaints seem rather petty.

[@robcotto7081]

Agreed, had fun platinuming it, and likely won't be playing the original again

[@Anail_Mhin]

Same here. I really had fun with it and have nothing to complain (well the price tag maybe)

[@jgtogi6839]

Did you crash 10 times in the game like I did? Did your guys teleport outside the world into black space preventing you from moving several times as well? You either have a weird standard for enjoyment or had a completely different experience than (and the user reviews will back me up on this) most people.

[@Anail_Mhin]

Nope, nothing alike. Just ONE crash and thats because windows decided to update while I was playing. Aside from that, I had a lot of fun with no issues. And I would be mad as well, if I had made your experiences with the game

[@charlesgray6385]

The better editing seems to coincide with an increase in sarcasm. Good work Casp!

[@Caspicum]

I'm not a creative editor which is generally why I don't go too hard on unnecessary editing, but sometimes... Sometimes *my hand is forced and I gotta slap some shit on the timeline* . Some would call me a hero. Me mum is kind to me.

[@charlesgray6385]

Casp Some would call you a hero, others a legend, mums are good for cheerleading, but either way I’m glad your hand was forced. It was a good video man!

[@Caspicum]

I appreciate the kind words, me boy.

[@siskavard]

All of these improvements mentioned can all be found in romhacks for the original game, notably Secret of Mana Turbo

[@Caspicum]

Isn't that crazy how Square are capable, but simply choose to not do the right thing?

[@TheGameGrinder]

My only real complaint with the remake was the menus and weapon swapping. I didn't like the stun locking bosses bit either. Despite that, I love both almost equally. I still haven't decided which I'd recommend if asked since playing the remake. The original is a classic for good reason though, can't deny that.

[@Caspicum]

I think if the remake weren't $40, it'd be far easier to recommend.

[@TheGameGrinder]

Yeah that's definitely a piece that forget about, then again I'm the idiot who spends 100+ on collector's editions too.

[@DiscoLem0nad3]

Almost lost me when you brought politics into it, but the clarification made me a subscriber.

[@Caspicum]

based. that wasn't even me getting political, it was a tongue-in-cheek joke at the expense of someone else who was being. Unfortunately, I didn't telegraph it so people thought I was genuine. Stupid move in hindsight, ngl. i try not to get political, politics are stupid

[@DiscoLem0nad3]

@@Caspicum ...and I'm back with a sub

[@cuff2860]

My biggest complaint was that the ring menu doesn't circle around the specific character you're trying to access so you don't know which of the additional characters you're accessing until you've found specific differences such as buff magic or offense magic. I can get by with it but that lack of specification has slowed me down ALOT in my battles. I'd have also liked to see an increased difficulty mode. Whether I remember it that much harder or I've become a far better gamer in my adult life, this game was super easy to beat and I only died a handful of times from stupid blunders versus actual difficulty.

[@JimPanzeeEsq]

She is the one! Sailor Moon!!!

[@SevenDayGaming]

You know, I have to say, I actually liked the remake. I don't care about the art style, and I never found the shortcuts, leaving me mostly using melee. That, honestly, made the game better.

[@jasminekaram880]

Seiken Densetsu 3 had better boss fights. Also known as Secret of Mana 2 and was released for the Super Famicon in Japan and can be played in English and other languages through emulation and repdoruction carts, one of the best SNES RPGS and you can't spam bosses with magic in the same way and it contains alot of replay value.

[@Caspicum]

I've been planning to play that since my original Secret of Mana video almost 3 years ago. God, time flies. I will 100% make some time for it this year, because it looks fantastic.

[@jasminekaram880]

Casp I truly recommend it. Truly a beautiful game! Some of the best graphics and sound for any SNES game. A more fluid battle system with more intelligent AI and more tactics involved than stun locking and spamming magic. You choose three out of six characters to have in your party and who ever you pick as main will have great effect on important plot points including the end of the game including different final bosses. Other than having having the variety of the characters, you have a class change system and you change class twice and what you can choose the second is dependent on what you chose the first time. So no playthrough of the game is never exactly alike.

[@Caspicum]

I wish it worked properly on the SNES Mini. That'd make life a lot easier. I might have to emulate it, unfortunately :(.

[@jasminekaram880]

Casp have not tried it yet on my SNES mini, so do not know if it works or not there. But there is good reproduction cartages, some who even come in boxes and with a manual and etc.

[@jasminekaram880]

Casp for an example of a good reproduction cart for you North Americans. kzbin.info/www/bejne/kHLNfniKrbufsJY

[@dirtpoorchris]

I think if secret of mana was 10 bucks they somehow woulda made MORE. Dunno how they can hype it up now.

[@illusion274]

This remake was perfectly fine and even gave the option to switch back to the original soundtrack. Had a blast playing through it

[@EXHellfire]

even though I quite like this version of it and have it on Vita, there's one thing about it that still just can't seem to sit right with me. The SNES original had been stripped down to its barest minimum to fit the SNES cart after that CD nonsense failed. I guess no one outside of Square knows where the design documents went or if they still exist, but this remake was a chance to get into the entire experience. This is basically just a remake of the incomplete thing we had in the end. It could have been the entire idea materialised...

[@Caspicum]

That's another great point. I do wonder how different it would've been, since the SNES still had the same computational power, the storage medium would've just been larger. I don't think the CD expansion thing added processing power or RAM, but I could be wrong. If that's right, we probably got *more or less* the intended concept.

[@EXHellfire]

@@Caspicum Never saw this lol but the whole deal is, we got like maybe one quarter of the entire game concept, world and story from what they had originally designed, because of the SNES cart limits

[@michaelcoffey1991]

Kudos to you for making a video updating your stance on a game, few reviewers do that.

[@Caspicum]

I also did it in my Dragon Quarter video! I think it's interesting when you find out you're wrong, or see shit from a new perspective. Far more interesting than a flat review.

[@CQCorruptionQuest]

Responding to your point at 8:10. The only real way I could see them capturing the full body shots would be doing what Link between worlds does and that is angling the characters where they show more than just their head while also still looking like they're on the ground. Since if you were to take the camera out of place in LBW you would see they're all slightly angled and not actually walking flat on the ground like they do in the remake of SOM. I don't really feel if they were slightly angled like that would ruin the combat as well since it's not by a lot

[@tengoken4313]

Remake may be better than the 2 but still way inferior to seiken densetsu 3 which still hasn't released officially in the us. This was a super lazy port.

[@MarMaxGaming]

Nice discussion! I actually liked the way the screen didn’t move around perfectly with your character, because things could sit still for a battle for the most part. And the game is so pretty on the snes!

[@Inuyasha463]

Thanks for this. All the gripes you had about the camera and combat in the original game were the reasons I never got very far in the SNES version. In particular, the fact that the camera doesn't move until you reach the edge of the screen was infuriating. Now that I know the remake fixes a lot of those issues I might just have to play it....if I can get over those nasty ass graphics :(

[@Caspicum]

The price is a bit much, but if it goes on sale, it might be worth it! Probably not an awful idea to wait for a couple more patches.

[@010RTT]

The better question is "what was right about the secret of mana remake" But the answer to that would be easy. Nothing.

[@TheGunmanChannel]

Women having a meaningful role in society 😆😆😆 I'll sub just for that line.

[@Caspicum]

I try to be funny. Sometimes it pays off. :^)

[@conanedogawa4798]

Point of irony, that "woman" was actually a male transvestite.

[@boglioalfonso]

"It's just a throwaway gag, don't take it seriously"

[@conanedogawa4798]

I'm aware of that. I'm just pointing out that the fact that the "woman who has a meaningful role" actually being a man dressed as a woman makes this already horrible slap-in-the-face of a joke even dirtier.

[@HoganLegDropSoup]

while I don't actually agree, it's funny as fuck. I also enjoy Jim jefferies

[@paulunga]

8:33 Zelda A Link Between Worlds is a good example of how to do 3D with this perspective. 10:00 Oh, so the way most modern JRPGs that aren't Final Fantasy still do it. Unless they're major cutscenes, you still have people standing around awkwardly, pantomiming actions like handing you an item occasionally.

[@Caspicum]

Not even a big fan of Zelda but Link Between Worlds is the shit hey

[@diannerenard]

Honestly, the original was kinda lame. I remember liking it long ago and when i played it again last year, it felt extremely dated and didnt age very well. Judging by this, remake is easily as good the game can get without changing its fundamental game mechanics

[@Archloop]

6:51 "I don't know what I want, I'm just unhappy" must be actually a very relatable thing for players and developers.... specially when making a sequel/remake.

[@Caspicum]

That might be the best thing I've ever said tbh. No pointless attempt to justify my stupid opinion, just venting about nothing for no reason. You're definitely right about the remake/sequel thing though. Remakes typically split a fanbase, and sequels often kill franchises entirely.

[@Archloop]

@@Caspicum Hahaha! Yes, it's a perfect neutral and honest remark. And yeah, precisely. The responsability of such a task is... incredible. The feeling of "it's THAT story, again" must be really well produced, on every level, to get rid of awkwardness.

[@TheKharymusic]

I appreciate the technical issues they fixed in the remake like running, field of vision, etcetera, but visually? It's just really inexcusably bad imo. Same with the ffvi rehash. I really don't want to knock anyone who prefers the new visuals, but this isn't how I wanted to remember these games. At all

[@Caspicum]

God, don't get me started on the FFVI remake. It looks even worse than this.

[@TheKharymusic]

Casp exponentially worse. Lol

[@BrianQuest64]

All the changes make you way stronger. Melee weapon range and weapon hits counting during magic animations are 2 examples. If you have sprite and girl both cast attack spells and the MC keep striking: all the damage will count

[@Endymion766]

I loved the original, hated the remake. The soundtrack is horrific and game keeps crashing. It's really a shame.

[@Caspicum]

I only had 2 crashes, but I've heard the PS4 version is insane with crashing. Absolutely unacceptable.

[@Endymion766]

Yeah I have the PS4 version. It's unplayable. I gave up on it.

[@Caspicum]

That's so ridiculous. The Steam version crashed twice for me over about 30 hours, which isn't too bad. It's a perfectly acceptable amount for a pre-patched game to crash, especially when it has auto-save. Ideally, it'd be 0, but I'm sure the PS4 owners would rather 2 crashes than it being unplayable. What a bloody hopeless company Square are.

[@HansAlRachid]

Superficial as it may be, I just can not bring myself to accept these visuals. The aesthetic of the original (especially in concert with the soundtrack) was such an integral part of the experience for me - it felt like exploring a magical world to my dumb kid brain, goddamnit. These new visuals could not look any cheaper if they tried. Maybe the game itself is alright, sure, but that's _such_ a disqualifier for me that I can't get over it. God I wish Collection of Mana was on Steam.

[@WyllCKP]

6:51 "I don't know what I want. I'm just unhappy." The quote every gamer lives by :)

[@njalsand133]

too much loading when switching rooms. Screen goes black for too long

[@Kaslo25]

Was.... was that terrible sailor moon humming?

[@Caspicum]

:)

[@sanyr80]

12:52 The old "all the devs would have had to do is _____" argument. Anyone who has worked in any kind of a mature software development company will tell you that features that go into a product are subject to being requested by business before (or, sadly and painfully, during) development, and approved by business after the fact. That means less time needs to be spent writing pseudocode and more time should be spent asking why Square-Enix missed an opportunity for a really great usability enhancement instead. On the other hand, this game crashes so god damn much it's entirely possible that an auto switching hotkey was outside the capabilities of the developers.

[@Caspicum]

That's more or less my running complaints, but if a layman like me can tweak their current system to function better, how in the bloody fuck did they miss it? I'm also not entirely sure they are capable of much, given that Mana was basically copy and paste with new assets.

[@TheXev]

Now that SD2 has been remade, we can finally move on to remaking THE BEST GAME IN THE FRANCHISE... cause once you SD3, you never go back! I just hope that game gets the polish it deserves. I can't imagine that SquareEnix won't localize it into English officially for the first time. In English, we really missed out as 3 of the best RPGs of the 16-bit era: Seiken Densetsu 3, Tales of Phantasia, and Star Ocean.

[@Caspicum]

That OG Star Ocean on my backlog right next to SD3. ONE DAY.

[@lullylew9083]

please please please let it happen!

[@robcotto7081]

I played the original over a dozen times, proud to say I won't be touching it again after playing this one. Regardless of what people say, this game was well done.

[@nezkeys79]

Youre right about the functionality but i still prefer how the original game looked

[@DudeManForever]

Thank you for admitting this. Many people were wrong about it. You know what would make it even better? Online Co-Op. LOVE THIS GAME!!

[@Caspicum]

I don't know if they were wrong, as much as they were overly-harsh, and probably for good reason. I mean shit, look at the visual style, and the horrid sound track. That said, I did try to be as fair as humanly possible.

[@DudeManForever]

Haha, I was ready to turn my speakers off but then I realized that you can switch to the original sound track (ost). Thank goodness! Some of the remastered music sounds good though. I find myself toggling that back and fourth.

[@DudeManForever]

I'm really happy with all the love the game gets in general. First the IPhone then a remastered version?! I've played through this game like 20 times, never gets old. Seiken Densetsu 2-2 anybody?

[@tepandflash5950]

Ofcourse you were wrong, this game is magical both the original amd remake.

[@Caspicum]

Outside of some of the tracks from the original, and the great pixel art, there's nothing particularly magical about it. The game itself got some big old issues.

[@kbtdadap]

you just seem to whine and cry about minor things more than most ppl. that and you decide to make videos about it. DOesnt make you right, either way. Im betting mommy told you that you were special asa child huh?

[@Caspicum]

Nah, I just like making videos about the things I think about games. Who are you, Stefan Molyneux?

[@Caspicum]

nice meme, kid.

[@starscorpia4005]

I like how someone decided to not let nostalgia blind them and ignore every remake attempt at anything. Respect.

[@Caspicum]

BREAK THOSE NOSTALGIA SHACKLES!

[@Pickleton]

I still aint paying $40 for what looks like a fan game made with Unity. The DS remakes of FF3 and FF4 had far more care and effort put into them, and despite being made a decade ago have graphics not too far off from this remake. Not saying this game's a 0/10, but any remake of Secret of Mana that isn't at LEAST an 8/10 isn't worth it, especially with that price tag.

[@Caspicum]

The DS remakes of 3 and 4 look like trashola, 3 somehow fared slightly better than 4, but they both run at like 2fps anyway. With that said, I completely agree that they still look better. I can't blame you for not paying $40 for this trashola though. A few slight improvements here and there doesn't deserve a $40 price tag. Had they fixed it properly, and if the art style were slightly more pleasing to the eye, $40 would probably still be too much.

[@sheriffaboubakar9720]

Pickleton yeah, I would just emulate the original version for free

[@meganinja456]

The problem with your pseudocode example at 12:58 : -Press L to switch, which replaces L with your current weapon -Then press R, now replacing R with what was originally in L. Now your shortcuts are all jumbled up. The optimal solution would probably be putting a bit more code telling the shortcut to switch back to the player-set default the next time the current weapon is changed to anything else, to prevent the jumbling from occuring. Still pretty simple though.

[@Caspicum]

Well it's just to create a temporary rotation effect, instead of a simple replacement. Since all the shortcuts are infinitely rebindable, I'd say it's a non-issue, but they probably use arrays and shit for weapons anyway. It was just a super-simplified way to add a bit of non-restrictive functionality. There would be a better way to avoid the jumble though, but then you've probably gotta do pre-swapping checks to test for what's in L, and make extra variables to store other temporary values... I mean, It'd be simple, but for the purpose of this video, it's a bit much I think. I'm sure as fuck no programmer. Thanks for the comment!

[@meganinja456]

You're welcome and thanks for the reply! Honestly your solution got the point across and was probably perfect for the purpose of the video, but as a programmer I had to point out the jumbling. It happens to me all the time; I will think I discovered a simple solution to a problem I'm working on, only to find that my solution only partially fixes it. For what it's worth I seriously appreciate the brutal honesty of both this video and your original SoM video. I've discovered that real critiques of this game (well, at least the original game) are hard to find; I think most people played this game first as a child, and thus the nostalgia goggles and memorization of the game have blinded them a bit to its shortcomings.

[@Caspicum]

Funny thing is, my original video was going to be that. I played it to have a great time and came out the other side flustered and infuriated. It's why I try to avoid ruining other games for myself, and why replaying Alundra 2 was the worst thing I ever did!

[@meganinja456]

I'm sorry that the playthrough didn't quite turn out as expected. You weren't wrong to look back with fond memories for the game though. Games are like gems. They can be brilliantly bright or dull, and they practically always have flaws. Every now and then you have a gem with some deep flaws, but the gem's brilliance shines bright enough that the flaws are negligible in comparison. And I think as a younger person, that effect is amplified because we are enamored by the brightness of the gem. Secret of Mana certainly has that brightness to it, which is worth appreciating and is what makes people love the game regardless of age or time. But the deep flaws also are present. For me (and you too upon replaying, I suppose), it was just harder to focus less on the flaws and instead appreciate the brightness. I hope you can still see the things in the game which made you look back so fondly upon it (for Alundra 2 also). Even if you feel less about the games as a whole upon replaying them, know that you weren't wrong the first time you loved them. There are lots of games I love despite realizing and analyzing the flaws the game has. And even Secret of Mana can be that way. My favorite lets-player, Vinny of Vinesauce, loves Secret of Mana but he can still acknowledge the flaws in a way most fans of the game can't. And because of that, I enjoyed watching him play it even if I still don't like the game myself. So I guess my point is, if you find yourself feeling bad for replaying a game and not seeing it the same way as you first did, try to hone in on the parts that made you love the game in the first place. Even if that's not enough to love it again upon your replay, at least you'll know that you weren't wrong for enjoying the game in the first place. And I hope that will help you feel better about it.

[@Caspicum]

I actually derive quite a bit of joy from messy as fuck games, so Secret of Mana is right up my alley. When you learn how things work, the gloss definitely fades though. There's also something to be said for playing a game for funsies and going into it with a video in mind. It's a completely different mindset.

[@ilucasz]

I found this remake way better than the original game and I LOVED the art style!

[@Caspicum]

Now that's an opinion I've yet to hear. *HOW INTERESTING*

[@ilucasz]

Casp I really didn't have any particular reason. I just liked it that way... Ahahahah

[@Mepholar]

I like the graphics too. I find the graphics to be the closest conversion of sprite to render while maintaining the cartoony look of the sprites for the original. I have heard people complain the background doesn't match the character renders making it feel disjointed. I never saw that though.. the vibrant colors blend both together well imo.

[@Smaxx]

I think something many forget is that this is basically the art style the original game had as well (check concept arts etc.). They could just have done a better job regarding texture quality and polygon count (especially on PC).

[@diazdelosmuertos1503]

I agree with you, iLucasZ. I’m glad I’m not the only one. I thought some of the remixed music tracks were better than the original’s, but some of them weren’t. Overall, though-I’d rather play this one than the original. Especially in 2P Mode.

[@gixorz8534]

So a small nit pick I saw in the shop menus was not seeing if an equippable item was an upgrade or not. I don't remember if that was in the original or not. Also, I think they realized the weirdness with the character models being in 3D and could possibly be why there's a model viewer added in the remaster.

[@Caspicum]

I totally forgot there was a model viewer. That would've been much better for my point about that gay fish.

[@SuperHns]

I love the secret of mana remake, especially with the OG music score enabled.

[@Southwest4Life]

I was pissed when the game came out you couldn't tell what character's magic you were using until it went to the spells. They took about a week to patch that and then i was much more happy. The patch put the characters face on the screen showing who's magic you were looking at. Loved the remake. I did play the original day 1 as well.

[@eduardydearaujo9457]

When you say "lazzy" i dont know if is fair, you know, we even know the work conditions. Maybe is squareenix fault more than the dev team.

[@Caspicum]

That's a fair criticism. I think it comes across as lazy, but you're right, we definitely don't know how it was managed, or what went on behind the scenes.

[@systemafunk]

I'm sure it was Square and the constraints and budget they set, but I would also point out that that is Square being lazy. People rarely direct their frustration at the development house. Square clearly wanted to put in minimal financial and directorial effort, and wanted to capitalize on the retro movement. I imagine the dev house did about as well as they could within their constraints.

[@Caspicum]

but according to other people, you can't say square are bad because that's toxic behaviour. Man, people are fucking idiots.

[@SBaby]

10:02 - The original title was made at the exact same time as Final Fantasy VI, which had incredibly detailed sprite animations. So what's the free pass on the SNES version of SoM for?

[@Caspicum]

I wouldn't say FF6 had incredibly detailed sprite animations. Everything more complex than a standardized character sprite was entirely static, and the character sprites themselves only featured a handful of varying states. They used it well, but the SNES is only capable of so much, and I think Secret of Mana does a passable job given the constraints of the time. It's not out of place was my point. Copying the same motion and timing into a fully-3D game looks odd, and is awfully lazy. Also, go back to that point in my video and look at the way the protagonist's legs sway back and forth as he's about to fall. That's far better animation than anything a character sprite did in FF6.

[@SBaby]

I'm not disagreeing with you on the remake. I was just pointing out that FFVI, another Square game, managed it just fine with the limitations of an SNES cartridge, and it was around at the same time as Secret of Mana.

[@SamWeltzin]

I consider the original nearly unplayable without a second (or third if you have multitap) player, and it's largely for the mechanical reasons this version seems to have fixed. I won't be buying it, as SoM used to be one of my favorite games when I was a teenager and I played it a dozen or so times and don't need to experience it again, but it's good to know that the remake largely fixes some of the worst garbage about it, at the low, low cost of its soul.

[@Caspicum]

I swear to fuck I replied to this, but KZbin screwed me. If you've ever got that itch, and you can *borrow the game from a friend* or it's like $5 or whatever, it's worth giving a crack. You eventually become numb to the soulless shite, and end up having a decent time solely because of the gameplay improvements. That said, there're rom hacks which do the same shit, so mmmmmmmmmmmm.....................

[@SamWeltzin]

Fair! If I get the chance and have nothing better to do, I might check it out, just out of curiosity. Good to know it's not the irredeemable piece of garbage so many gut reactions made it out to be, though. Also fuck KZbin.

[@systemafunk]

It's really not unplayable. I mean, it's more fun with 2 players, but the magic system also kind of makes 2 players suck, as casting stops a lot of the action.

[@SamWeltzin]

I guess my patience is just significantly lowered in my "old" age, as I had a stint where I went back to some older games I loved as a kid to see how well they held up and had a lot of trouble playing SoM all the way through again. It's just so slow and clunky, and it's boring as hell. The music's still fantastic, and I like a number of the locales you go through, but everything else is way worse than I remembered it being. Just a personal opinion. If you still like playing it, more power to you. But I probably won't ever revisit it again.

[@systemafunk]

That is likely the case. It has happened to me as well with some games. I'm 37 now with 2 kids and barely enough time to play one game at one time and make it all the way through. I did however play the crap out SoM back when I was young, and also managed to play it through emulation several times since, so playing the game is still pretty easy for me. I tend to play the game at a pretty low level and the challenge makes up for the slower paced battles and the potential to abuse the magic system. I do think the overall pacing of the game and the level design is great though. It kind of drags once you hit Southtown, but picks up again once you get Flammie.

[@SBaby]

8:17 - I agree with this. But the problem is you have to choose between seeing where you're going, and seeing the entire sprite of the character or enemy. Otherwise, the only fix would be to change it to a third-person game, which would radically alter the mechanics.

[@SBaby]

They likely went with functionality over graphics here, which as I've said numerous times is generally the safe way to go.

[@Feelin_DanDy]

SNES original 4 life!

[@Caspicum]

As much as I like the new tweaks, and shit on the SNES one, it will always hold a special place in my nostalgia-fuelled opinion place.

[@Feelin_DanDy]

Yea, as much as some things were fixed, it doesn't have the charm and art of the original.

[@ZombieJesus1987]

Honestly, the only thing that bugged me about the remake is that they were too lazy to animate their mouths during cutscenes.

[@GreenFoxofWind]

I'm very rarely wrong about anything yikes, way to make me dislike you before even watching the video

[@Caspicum]

lol

[@vaderguitarplayer]

He's talking about his own opinion, dude. He's not saying that he's right more than anyone else, just that his first estimation doesn't vary often.

[@Caspicum]

I love you, Dracula, but don't bother responding to autismos who can't see obvious jokes :)

[@sleepingdragon3730]

Was this a joke too? Cause you're just making yourself sound like even more a douchebag lol

[@ShinobiNeon]

If you've never played Secret of Mana and just want to experience the story and gameplay for yourself, it's a decent and serviceable port, if a little expensive. It's certainly less expensive than tracking down the SNES cartridge. But if you're already a fan of the original SNES game and want to relive this classic, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Just go play the original game. lt'll disappoint you a lot less than this will.

[@Caspicum]

I think a lot of the disappointment comes from impossible expectations from fans. This remake is far from perfect, but if the devs strayed too far from the core game, there'd be a 'tism fit about how it's not Secret of Mana, yet this, a 1:1 copy with some objectively better functional changes gets railed because it's lazy. If it had a better art style, I think people would be a lot less harsh on it.

[@Evesrabbit]

Just get the SNES mini, it’s on that

[@isaacsmith1482]

Nah, I'll stick to the SNES

[@Caspicum]

You do you, baby.

[@EbonySeraphim]

Game development is a bit harder than you take it for. I've done gamedev as a hobby high school through several years after college grad. My professional job is as a Software Engineer. Your solution has a user experience problem: The weapon swap effect doesn't work well when you have two weapon shortcuts swapping the "current weapon" out. Let's say you want to primarily use the sword to fight, but sometimes secondarily you want to use the Bow. But you also need the Whip for utility purposes. When you've pulled out the Whip from the Sword, then go from the Whip to the Bow. What happens when you press the original Whip shortcut? Did it have a different 'previous weapon' for the button press, or is there a singular previous weapon? If there's only one, then the Whip shortcut key now thinks the Bow is it's previous, and the Sword cannot be restored without full menu access. A dev can still choose the behavior here, but what the quirks are and what makes a reasonable experience based on what most gamers might actually want to do and find intuitive requires a lot more level of understanding than folks with very little to no game dev experience tend tend to have. It not hard to implement these things, but if you aren't at least a pretty competent programmer (over 6 months) who's put in non-trivial effort thinking about how to write a game's systems, you aren't likely thinking it through. Either way, nice video. I got a good feel for what to expect for gameplay difference. I'm more interested in the remake of Seiken Densetsu 3 coming.

[@Caspicum]

The idea was super basic and would just trade variable values, it wouldn't be a hard bind. If L1 is Sword, and you swap your equipped weapon for L1, then L1 is now whatever your equipped weapon was. In its current form, the shortcuts are already hard-binds and they only allow for two different weapons at a time, and completely remove the ability to slot magic and items in. Any programmer worth their salt wouldn't even use variables, probably an array or other stuff that's far beyond my knowledge... Unless they're yandere dev. :^) I think I said in the video, it's not a great solution, but it's still better than having to load the menu every single time, and I could demonstrate it reasonably well with my minimal programming experience (at least I think it was demo'd pretty well, the video's a bit old). In hindsight, I'd probably set it aside to a brief mention and not an entire "pseudocode for day one babies" visual tutorial. I have made games in shit like VB, and dabbled in Java, C, as well as formally studied web dev and database design, so I'm decently tapped in to the fundamentals, but very far from an expert. The idea of the segment was to hammer the point without isolating anyone. The point was solely to show the lack of thought put into the remake over a functional replacement. Ideally, fully-pressing the right analogue stick would bring up a hot-swap weapon wheel, wherein all unlocked weapons were represented as graphics, and releasing the stick on whichever weapon would change it, with static positioning for the sprites to create an objective placement. Given that Secret of Mana's menus were designed with a visually-similar concept, it wouldn't be out of place at all. The Vita also has a second stick, so it would've been fine to implement on the native hardware. I'm also primed to see how they sort SD3, and even though it needs less improvements because map traversal (up to what I played) wasn't reliant on manual input and contextual weapon-wielding. There's still a lot of shit I'd like to see fine-tuned. I appreciate the comment, friend.

[@Subxenox15]

Lol, crybaby conservatives...Cuz we're the ones crying...

[@Caspicum]

God, why do conservitards get so buttmad about *jokes*

[@ECiriachi]

Because it's a stupid and offensive one maybe? Just maybe?

[@Caspicum]

Maybe I don't care if it's offensive. Maybe take a joke? This isn't a question? I'll put a question mark at the end anyway? Stop over-reading into throw-away statements. You look childish.

[@ECiriachi]

The only one one who looks childish is someone who uses offensive stereotypes to insult people for their opinions. Calling you out on your childishness is not childish.

[@Caspicum]

hahaha nigga what facts dont care about your feelings, okay gang?

[@MountainHomeJerrel]

Hey mate, thanks for creating and posting this video essay. A mate of mine really did not like the Remake and did not know how to put his thoughts into words. Having not played the game yet, this was a balanced and information video to watch. Keep up the great work. Cheers!

[@Caspicum]

Thanks for the comment! I hate the term 'video essay', because essays are refined, and generally composed. I just like to sperg into a microphone, but I try my hardest to be fair!

[@misterturkturkle]

"Square enix is generally not a game worth supporting" ... Stop vid. Unsub. Thumbs down

[@Caspicum]

Nigga if you watched past that, the next sentence is something to the effect of "These are the general complaints I've seen *other people* making about why they didn't buy the remake." Nice argument though, I'm completely swayed by your facts and logics. I thumbs down this comment xD get dunked on biiiiiiiiitch Don't be a corporate shill my dude. Seize the means of broduction and steal some whey.

[@kojinomaru7429]

for someone who criticized woman roles in old RPG's GAMES you are getting upset very quickly if someone criticized YOU ! even dropping the n bomb not cool mr.tuber not cool

[@Snickers1616]

Sorry, a company that takes a classic like Chrono Trigger and releases it in a phone game as a husk of it's former self instead of actually investing quality into a game that put the company to legend status, really has lost any respect that I once had. They did it as a cash grab and you know it. Pulling on our heart strings and nostalgia. Just... No.

[@InfiniteComboReviews]

You think that's bad? A commentor on my SoM Remake video started bashing me for what was written in the comments before even watching the video! Nice video overall man.

[@Caspicum]

I just want you all to know that you're special to me.

[@nidohime6233]

7:00 Have you ever heard of Giant's Causeway? This rocks columns exist in nature.

[@HeroChao132]

Funny thing, they didn't fix the crashing. They added the Auto-save as a way to combat the crashes rather than fixing them.

[@Caspicum]

I've heard the PS4 version is crash after crash. What an absolute joke.

[@HeroChao132]

Ah yeah, Jirard mentions this. It's a damn shame too, the game looks nice if it weren't for the PSVita (which may be why it looks like a mobile game.) Did you also happen to see the glitch where a party member is just...sucked into a void?

[@Caspicum]

I found no actual glitches in the unpatched PC playthrough, I only got two crashes. I was pretty lucky based on what I've read. I kinda want to see it though.

[@HeroChao132]

ProJared encounters ths glitch on his gameplay channel after getting Popoi, or the sprite. I believe the episode is called "Where's Popoi?"

[@loganhayse8771]

I was hoping the moogle suit and tiger bikini would lead into other costumes as well. I love wearing armor and seeing it on your character. Especially mix and matching.

[@tristanhowland8438]

did you really say that "women have a meaningful role in reality?"

[@tristanhowland8438]

dude this whole video is shite. what the hell man you aren't an artist or a developer. and having you as a game tester would be horrible for any company

[@tristanhowland8438]

like damn dude go play another game

[@Caspicum]

do women not have a meaningful role in society? wow i wasn't expecting this level of bigotry with my morning coffee

[@paulnewhouse5126]

Why does everybody keep saying the upper right map is form the original game? its not, its form the ios, android version.

[@Gildedtongue]

Two things with the remake that tripped me up was 1) the timing of combat is just a bit different. Not bad, but if you've played the original repeatedly and brought the game to muscle memory, it can take you off your game. But this shouldn't be an issue to most players. 2) the original game you had 4 directions to face, and in the remake it's a full 360 degrees, which made setting up tactics considerably different. Again, not a true dealbreaker, but if you're trying to play this like the SNES version, that's a potential hazard. Overall, I didn't really hate the remake. The only thing I wished there was, was all the stuff they had to cut out of the game to fit it from being the opening game of the Super Nintendo Disc Drive, to being able to fit on a standard cartridge.

[@Entropic_Alloy]

I wish this game had an online component for the multiplayer. That is what I really wanted, and thought I heard was coming, but I guess it was all just a fever dream I had.

[@khatharrmalkavian3306]

This is the most valid criticism of the remake. We've been able to play the original online since fucking 2001. It's absolutely embarrassing to release this without online multiplayer.

[@RockEsper]

Stun locking bosses with magic is a major issue and I'm kinda furious they did nothing to fix it. It ruins both versions of the game for me

[@Caspicum]

It was a bit different in the remake, where if enemies had spells queued or something, it'd sorta push your spell back a bit until theirs executed. It wasn't quite as easy to stun-lock them, but the shortcuts more than made up for that.

[@BaconSenpai]

How does it ruin the game for you? It's your choice to cheese the bosses... Every boss in the snes game is beatable with no magic, except a few times when you need an element cast on your weapon, but no offensive magic is ever needed.

[@Snickers1616]

This last time I played SNES SoM (last month actually), I actually attempted to not use magic with a few of the bosses that I normally do (the wall for example), but they kept pissing me off cause then they would stun me and it was like, NO, screw you! NOW DIE! >_< That being said, I did beat the final form of Thanatos with just my weapons. I think it depends on how hard you grind to build up your weapon skill.

[@BaconSenpai]

Pretty much. Charging attacks is necessary for most of them.

[@Caspicum]

That sounds like a bloody nightmare. It's unfair that enemies can blast you with unavoidable magic which completely locks your state for several seconds, and I'm pretty sure resets your charge level, so attempting a no-magic run on those wall bosses would absolutely infuriate most people.

[@kevindepuy5390]

This game was hugely Disappointing. Also they somehow made the combat even worse than the original. Now you can stack multiple hits on bosses ending fights like spikey tiger in 30 seconds rather than him being extremely difficult in the original, all because hits stack now and hp drains extremely fast compared to the original. That’s unacceptable to me.

[@Caspicum]

They did also make it so the tiger boss can't perpetually stun-lock you though. I'd say it's a worthy trade-off.

[@1RickyRice]

Secret of Mana on SNES is my most cherished video game of all time. That being said, I loved this remake. Just like you said, it stayed completely true to the original with some much needed added features to make it work today

[@michaeljijus980]

Oh thank you!!! Hilarious video!! I adore your juicy swearing!! You nailed it!! Now I defo going to play remake!! Till now I didn't touched it, because of your previous video!!! Iam glad cause you changed your mind!! Have a great day!!!

[@Caspicum]

You're a good boyo.

[@michaeljijus980]

Casp Yayyyy!!! Hilarious!!!!

[@NicolaiKecskes]

The new stone/mountain design is more true! The ancient trees were petrified and that's the reason for the hexagonal shape. Scientists managed to petrify wood in a lab proving that we once had enormous trees that became stone or rock...

[@badbob001]

If you look at the original SNES manual for the game, it looks like the character design and colors are faithful to the drawings from the manual.

[@Caspicum]

That might be true! I noticed the 'remakes' of FF5 and 6 use a similar style to that of the dwarfish 3D models from the PS1 booklets. I still don't think the FF ones are well designed, but it's cool to see the inspiration.

[@jessecummings5589]

Does nobody notice the difference in weapon charge? To me it was the first cringe i had in the remake because you move slowly and feels muddy compared to the snes while charging, and also the sound of charging threw me off. It's such a little thing but honestly why change something that was never broken in the first place😮‍💨

[@Caspicum]

I guess sometimes people just wanna change shit because they can. They never ask why the gate was there in the first place.

[@Gannarc]

I can overlook a lot of small things in the remake. But the only thing that shit me the entire playthrough was menu memory. Every time I'd want to cast a spell (outside of the shortcuts) the girls or sprites menu always came up on the same spell element every time. It never remember what I cast previously and i'd be forever turning the wheel to the same spells over and over.

[@Caspicum]

Yeah, they made the menu a bit dicky compared to the original, which is saying something.

[@sumez4369]

Check out what they did in Zelda: Link Between Worlds, they actually fixed the issue with models being only seen from the top and lacking character from it. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but basically every model is slanted a big which looks very weirdfrom a 3D perspective, but from the game's camera it looks great. The goal of course was to look more like Zelda 3, but for any game of this style, I think it's an incredibly important aspect, and I'm glad you pointed it out, as a lot of modern games seem to make the same mistake.

[@Caspicum]

Yeah! Someone else mentioned a Link Between Worlds, and it's a fantastic point. I guess it goes to show the difference between NIntendo wanting to nail a particular art style, and the nuSoM crew wanting to do the bare minimum.

[@firstcooommment3675]

A lil' off topic, you can ignore, but this vid reminded me of another franchise: 0:19 *DEMENTIA* This is the aftermath of the Darksouls 1 Remaster in one word. It was a decent but underwhelming update that split the fandom, due to expectations and execution. While some changes were nice, others fell through. And many complaints were aimed towards a lack of mechanics introduced in later games, not being in it.

[@MugenLord]

Love your perspective on the remake. I like this remake despite what some of the hate it received from longtime fans. I reviewed this a few months ago and I wouldn't mind going back to this game again sometime soon. Now Square Enix need to remake the other titles.

[@SBaby]

9:39 - Yes, because the biggest problem with modern animation is simplicity. It's not like cartoons that use simplistic designs ever become really popular or anything. Oh no, that would just be silly...

[@Caspicum]

Where'd you get modern animation from? I'm talking about Secret of Mana, my dude.

[@NatoonKids]

PSN Plus just added to their classics catalog... Man, when I saw at the Options you can use the Original Soundtrack, it was an instant Time Travel hearing that Intro Song again 😭😭😭💛💛💛