Secret of Mana is a poem in a rhythmic, lively verse. Perhaps what this game has to teach more than anything else is the liveliness with which an experience can relate, and how such a sensory construct can pervade every aspect of interaction. Playing here is dancing in a sense, a series of measured exchanges taken against a variety of possible outcomes, each with a distinct rhythm and flow. Secret of Mana is one the few games that captures the experience not just kinetically, but perhaps visually and aurally as well, fulfilling an experiential space that is immersed in itself, rather than wanting of the player to fill in some aspect.
Thus, Secret of Mana is a fully realized world, with distinct peoples, lifestyles, and considerations for interactivity. Discussions take place almost playfully, where words bounce a sense of their awkwardness between interactivity and the aggression that lies underneath. The world is one which is born in conflict, a space where fading and waning occurs profoundly. Yet despite the reality of a world in loss, the experiences within are suffuse with vibrancy both in style and even color. Thus, while the world continues to visually compound an oncoming trauma, there is ever a visual consistency to the world that makes each space uniquely alive.
The liveliness is captured in the tones of the world as well, from the playful grasslands to the desperate forest, every space is a canvas drawn with a richness rarely seen. Secret of Mana is thus unique in the way in which capturing a space occurs on a microcosmic level, where the world is so impeccably large, that smallness relies entirely on constructing spaces to wrap around the experience. Capturing a moment in an experience where the play becomes about the space, where the environment fuses interactivity and reaction.
A fusion, a harmony of spatial ideas, is what embodies Secret of Mana. Having a conversation with a vendor is an action that occurs on the same level as the interaction with the game and the interaction in the game is itself working on levels that are discussing the discourse of menu versus action-driven interaction. Each discourse is a question relating to how an interactive interface relates to the individual, and at what ranges we decide to space the interactivity.
Secret of Mana is unlike a game because of the play between systems provided. Effectively, the player is playing two games, one of which is interface oriented, and the other of which is real-time oriented, but there is a level of abstraction, where the player finds the seemingly disparate melding into a single system that flattens onto the real-time. Few similar systems have since been attempted, due to some of the bigger questions relating to such a flattening, but the eventual transparency makes the interactive experience fascinating. The consonance in aural quality and hauntingly beautiful imagery provide a backdrop that cannot be ignored.
Recommended: Yes