I had recently played the original on my SNES Mini for a bit of nostalgia. The pixel art and chip tunes were still beautiful, but the gameplay wasn’t that fun if I’m honest. However, I played this remake for a couple of hours today - getting as far as I had got on the original - and gameplay wise it was far more smooth and enjoyable. I also liked the new cutscenes and general presentation of things. The graphics were serviceable, but unspectacular. None of the rearranged music was as good as the originals. Auto save was very handy.

Jrpg de la vieja escuela, superficial pero divertido
Empezar describiendo secret of mana es bastante fácil.
Coge un jrpg de la vieja escuela, añadele una historia simple como la del primer final fantasy, recoge el sistema de combate de chrono trigger y unas invocaciones la mar de útiles y simpáticas, metelo en una batidora y sale secret of mana.

Creo que pesa la nostalgia, en los tiempos que corren la gente espera que secret of mana fuese un juego nuevo y aunque sea un remake es asi con todas sus letras, se ciñe al original pero solo con un lavado de cara 3d al que dicen que le sienta mal por pura nostalgia. Es cierto, el de Super Nintendo tenia una magia especial, pero tras acabar de finalizar ambos he de decir que son prácticamente iguales y el de super nintendo es un producto de su epoca.

Graficos:
Se pretendía hacer el mismo juego en 3d, eso es. Es verdad que son gráficos de ps2 mas que ps4 pero la compañia no pretende otra cosa lo muestra desde el primer trailer, pero su precio de 39,95 no hace justicia, es un remake que debería salir por algo menos aunque claro también podrian haber decidido no hacerlo, creo que hay que tomarse el juego como un indie dentro de square, algo asi como lo es lost sphear. Pero con una base de antaño exitosa

Jugabilidad:
Su punto negativo, Prim y Popoi, si no fuera por las invocaciones no valdrian para nada, no atacan solo cuando les da por ahí, he probado varias configuraciones y todas hacen lo mismo, en el tiempo que Randy pega 10 veces a lo mejor uno ha dado un golpe, con esto me refiero a randy de principal porque bien es cierto puedes cambiar a cualquiera en mitad de la batalla lo que si te permite usar a todos.
Por otro lado el sistema a la vez es simple y poco intuitivo, las habilidades no se pueden ejecutar si las manejas tu correctamente, las invocaciones por otra parte si, que aconsejo usar asiduamente.
Es su punto mas flojo, eso si logra ser divertido extrañamente

Sonido:
Composiciones retro de altisima calidad, hoy en dia dan nostalgia y se repiten al mismo tiempo, pero de verdad puedes sentir esa esencia de antaño de final fantasy, chrono trigger y demás que perdura en sus notas, hay temas como el de los boss bastante repetitivos pero añaden tension y otros magnificos, hay que amar lo retro. Estan remasterizadas y a quien no le guste puede coger las de 16 bits que es una de las opciones (por mucho purismo que haya y yo amo secret of mana, suenan mejor las remaster)

Historia:
Randy enccuentra la espada del mana y tiene que salvar al mundo, un grupo de villanos intenta avivar el bastion de mana que equivale a lo contrario, la historia se ciñe a esto no tiene más. Pero hacerse a la idea de que es un jrpg de 1993 ayuda para quererlo, es simple pero dinamica, activa, funciona. Pero no va mas alla.

Innovación:
Valorar este apartado siendo un remake de casi 25 años es insulso, en concreto es 0, no hay innovación en nada, solo en lo gráfico, por otra parte es lo que se buscaba.

Conclusión:
Ha sido una experiencia gratificante, es menos de lo que recordaba pero a la vez funciona como llamada a la nostalgia, no es pero que el de snes ni mejor es lo mismo aunque da menos espacio a la imaginación al infantilizar los personajes y no estar como te los imaginabas pero a la vez mas delicia visual y colorista.
Un buen jrpg de la vieja escuela aunque hubo mejores logra destacar.

You could certainly tell that this was from the SNES era. Having not played the original I was not so sure on what to expect. By today's standards I don't think you could say this game is great. The plot is pretty generic, the combat is a strange mix of real time but waiting to actually attack. The OST was butchered in this version as well. I still really enjoyed the game despite all of this. It had enough simplicity that it was fun to just run through and play the game without being bogged down by complex systems or the need to grind.

The SNES version is one of my favorite games of all time, but this one just didn't do it for me at all.

The gameplay felt noticeably slower than the original. I wasn't a fan of the new soundtrack, the new look, or the voice work. I had a couple dozen crashes throughout the game - with the final dungeon being nearly unplayable, crashing several times per hour.

Playing co-op with friends was a lot of fun on the original, and being able to play through the game with a friend online could have made this more tolerable - if the game ran better. This omission adds on to an already long list of missed opportunities.

Definitely a disappointment. There are other, much better ways to experience this game.

I stated this in my SNES SoM review, that SoM is my favorite game of all time. So I was very excited for this remake.

Then it came out. And you know what? It plays exactly the same way as the original with some QoL tweaks. I won't repeat what I said in that review. Which is why I am confused as to why people who say they like the original's gameplay, but hate the remake's gameplay. It's the exact same. Maybe it just highlights the originals flaws a bit more? Doesn't matter, it plays the same with some improvements. For example, they add shortcut buttons to make the combat faster. Use to be you had to pause the game mid-combat and navigate through menus to choose a recovery item or a spell or a weapon to use. Now, you just assign that spell/item to a button, and you're good to go. It's not perfect, but it helps make the combat keep pace.

Story is basically a copy/past of the original translation with some slight tweaks. For example, Popoi in some translations is considered a boy, in others Popoi is considered a girl. In Japanese, they are neutral. They kept them as neutral in this version, which I think fits better for a sprite. I still refer to Popoi as a he, though.

So...using that as a springboard, this is where the remake starts to suffer. They added voice acting which is...ho boy. It's not great. Most of the voices themselves sound fine, but the acting is a mess. I feel part of that is due to the original script being very very dated, and I feel the other part of that is due to bad directing. People like to harp on the actors being bad, but being within the industry a lot of the time it's just bad direction, limited recording time/budget, and just saying "good enough" and using whatever. I'm not saying that is the case here, but it feels that way.
But here's the interesting thing. This game adds some extra scenes at the Inns that are decently acted. Scenes that were not in the original game. It helps flesh out the characters more, making them a bit more likable. But the point being that these scenes are mostly decently acted and fun. This is what leads me to believe that the original's script may have contributed to this game's voice acting being pretty bad.

The other glaring issue is the graphics. Personally, I don't think they are bad. They're fine...but in comparison to the original? They're bland. The original has gorgeous sprites that are bursting with color and charm. These graphics? They're colorful, but...also not? It's hard to explain. People say it looks like a cheap phone game, which I think was the original intent. They released Adventures of Mana, which is another remake of Final Fantasy Adventure but for mobile phones, a few years prior. The graphics are the same. AoM's graphics were praised, but that was for mobile standards at the time. SoM's remake was for standard platforms (and Vita), so people were expecting more. Also, they have no lip syncing. No mouth flaps at all. So the graphics fall flat, but they aren't bad. Just...flat.

The music? The remake's music is WORSE. Some remake songs are either fine, or HORRID. Which is weird because the amount of remixes or arrangements for the original you find online are usually really good. I have no idea how they botched it up, but at least they give you the option to use the original sound track.

From what I remember, the dungeons are in-tact and not changed...except the last one. In the original, the last dungeon has different areas you have to fight through, but they were usually big sprawling areas. In the remake? The areas are there, but each room is its own screen. Meaning every time you enter an archway it needs to load the next area. I have no idea why they did this, but it slows down the pacing of this dungeon. This dungeon is suppose to be a gauntlet, making you think quick, choosing whether to fight or flee. But this version is just...boring with too many loading screens.

So given how much I complained, why did I give this game 4 stars? Because it still plays like the original with gameplay improvements, you can turn off the voice acting, and switch the soundtrack to the original. This game, gameplay wise, is technically superior to the original. So I like it. But the rest was botched. I don't feel the same "magic" that I do with the original.

But is the game good? Yes. Are the remade things in this game good? Mostly meh. So just turn them off/switch them to the original. However, I will still recommend the original with the re-translation patch than this one. But this one isn't as bad as people make it out to be.