Talk:Mana (series)/Archive 1

First comments

"It is the cousin of Final Fantasy and SaGa. Seiken Densetsu is between these two game series in popularity, but closer to the former. The Chrono Trigger series is between Final Fantasy and Seiken Densetsu, both in popularity and the gameplay engine."

This sounds horribly awkward.Dustin Asby 06:04, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree, and the "brief release history" and "notes" sections feel out of place. I think a reorganization of the article is needed. xDCDx 13:12, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I had a go at the article, I think it came out okay. - Vague | Rant 04:25, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

Hardware

Wasn't Secret of Mana the first game to employ the FX Chip in its cartridge? At least, that's the name and what happened if I remember rightly... I think I may have read this on a website or else in passing somewhere (a magazine, maybe?) a long time ago. -User:LichYoshi Thu 09/06/05

According to MobyGames, it was beaten to market by a few months by Star Fox in both Japan and North America. It might have been the first third-party title to use the chip, but I can't think of an easy way to confirm that.... – Seancdaug 17:08, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think Secret of Mana uses the FX chip. The chip has a signature style of pseudo-3D that I don't remember seeing in that game. The only games I knew that used it were Star Fox, Stunt Race FX, and Yoshi's Island. --Vyran 1 July 2005 03:30 (UTC)

IIRC, it used the FX chip during the Flammie flying sequences. I seem to recall it using something slightly fancier than the SNES's own Mode 7 capabilities, but I can't remember what, precisely, and I may be mistaken altogether. – Seancdaug July 5, 2005 15:38 (UTC)

That might have been what I was thinking of. -LichYoshi 6 July 2005 07:03 (UTC)

It's just Mode 7 - [[1]] ~ Hibana

Order

I'd like to do an order of games section, much like there is one over at Legend of Zelda. However, I'm having some difficulties finding tenable information supporting this. I guess its Seiken canon that Seiken Densetsu 3 comes before Secret of Mana. The translators of SD3 (Neill Corlett et. al) state in their readme document that SD3 is "supposedly" a prequel to SoM. This determination possibly could have come from a game guide a friend of mine has or had, so I'm just waiting for him to get back to me on it. However, if anyone has any other sources for all the games, they would be much appreciated. -LichYoshi 02:43, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I seriously doubt that it is a prequel, in Sword of Mana confirmed what a few fans had already thought, Dark Lord (FFA, Sword of Mana) and the Dark Prince (SD3 fan translation) are one and the same (making Dark Lord the prince of Granz Realm and Isabellas apearance, it's known that the orginal SD1 translation has some errors as 'Castle Glaive' for 'Castle Granz', it's the same word in the japanese of SD1 and SD5). Since the male hero in Secret of Mana is suppost to be a direct offspring of the two main characters of FFA (thought that statement is in doubt too) it would be a sequel. the canons is no evidence as there where none in the original Seiken Densetsu, and the Secret of Mana refered to a the knight with the Manasword riding on a dragon (refering to the Cocobot in the first game). Chronology:

Legend of Mana (this title is outside of the main series, some kind of alternativ universe)

Final Fantasy Adventure/Sword of Mana (Dark Lord is first introduced as the main villan, Later replaced by Julius)

Secret of Mana (the son of the male and female heros from the last game is the main character)

Seiken Densetsu 3 (Dark Lord is reappearing as one of the 3 end bosses)

But it's save to say that, just as the Zelda series it has it's continuity errors (a single god beast in SD2 vs a god beast for each magical element in SD3). and there is not an official timeline. before Sword of Mana SD3 was believed to be a prequel after the release it's more likely a sequel

Your order does, of course, ignore the fact that in Secret of Mana you fight the Vandole Empire and in Sword of Mana the remnants of the Vandole Empire are mentioned.

After some thought, I'd have to say I'm totally unsure about order. Maybe there is one, maybe there isn't, but we'll never be certain. The suggestions Sword of Mana makes to its being a sequel to Secret of Mana are undermined by Legend of Mana stating that the metals (and Topple Cotton) are named after "where they were mined", yet giving no reference to the events of any other (currently released) game in its World History Encyclopædia. How you wish to order them is up to you. As for me, I'm happy with what I wrote about order in the Overview section. -LichYoshi 13:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Splitting up

What about splitting up this article into Seiken Densetsu 1, Seiken Densetsu 2, etc. to make it easier to read for users? I think this would be a good idea. Shanul 5 July 2005 10:07 (UTC)

I would agree (although the titles really should follow the North American naming conventions, so Final Fantasy Adventure (or maybe Sword of Mana?), Secret of Mana, Seiken Densetsu III. We've already got a seperate article on Legend of Mana, so there really doesn't seem to be much of a reason to stick the first three games together like this, IMO. – Seancdaug July 5, 2005 15:35 (UTC)

As Seancdaug noticed, I started the split already, a few days ago. I begun with Legend of Mana, which is my favorite from the series, but I am seriously considering doing SD3 next. It would be great if there were other editors involved, really. I would just like to ask that you guys tried to focus on gameplay aspects and such, instead of writing a transcript from the game's plot. That really doesn't help. Cheers and best of luck. --Sn0wflake 5 July 2005 16:33 (UTC)

I'm a bit sad that my plot elaboration has gone in the shift to SoM, but c'est la Wiki. Also, I'm partway through doing a further elaboration of the SD3 section in this article - would you people prefer I started a new SD3 page with it (and thus I cut back on my plot elaboration) or has someone beaten me to starting? -LichYoshi 8 July 2005 16:19 (UTC)

The old Secret of Mana section, in the way it was ported to the article, was slightly... hideous. I rewrote it in the best way possible, and I do believe the wording is much better now. Alas, by the time I got to the plotline section, I got tired of trying to salvage bits of information to rewrite, so I removed it temporarily. If you want to give it a go, have fun. It's looking very crufty and not encyclopedic at all, but it can be fixed, given a lot of patience. Regarding SD3, I did get started on it, but I am focusing on the technical aspects, so... I don't think our updates will overlap. Cheers. --Sn0wflake 9 July 2005 00:42 (UTC)

Move to SD3 is done (even though it logged me out for some reason ><). Gameplay's all yours to rewrite. I shortened the plot section I proposed, but any further cutting will start to delete what I feel are important gameplay and character points (but please feel free to try).-LichYoshi 9 July 2005 12:45 (UTC)

Originally planned for the Famicom Disc System?

I was browsing around the web and stumbled upon a message board that has some scans of an old Japanese magazine talking about a game called "Seiken Densetsu: The Emergence of Excalibur" that was planned for the Famicom Disc System before Final Fantasy Adventure was ever produced. Take a look: [2] [3] ~ Hibana 03:13, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I've seen this before, and I think it wouldn't be out of place on some page, whether it be Final Fantasy Adevnture's, Secret of Mana's or the main Seiken series page. Kidicarus222 03:25, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

More information here. There are some opinions from Kaoru Moriyama, ex-PR. However, if included this must be put as a rumour, as there is no way (other than contacting Squaresoft or Moriyama himself) to confirm this. -- ReyBrujo 03:40, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

LostLevels.org (generally a reliable resource) has a little more information: the name was trademarked, and it was made available for preordering (!), but it never actually moved beyond the planning stage. It was to have been a massive, five disk undertaking (which would have made it the largest Famicom/FDS game ever produced up until that time, and the second largest Famicom game ever, after Kirby's Adventure), and Square's management shot it down as impractical. From what I gather, it would have been a traditional RPG, not an action RPG, and really had nothing to do with the later Game Boy game. Square simply had the name "Seiken Densetsu" trademarked, and four years later decided that, rather than letting the trademark lapse, to recycle for a Game Boy title that had been originally conceived under the title Gemma Knights. Interestingly, the letter Square issued announcing the cancellation of SD:EoE (in November 1987) encourages people to reserve Square's upcoming game "in the same gist as Seiken Densetsu" – Final Fantasy. The long and short of it is that this certainly deserves a mention (probably in the Seiken series page), but we should be very clear that it has no real connection to the game actually released as Seiken Densetsu, and that, as far as anyone at Square can remember, not a line of code was ever produced. According to Ms. Moriyama, the original EoE project leader doesn't even remember exactly what the game was about anymore. – Seancdaug 04:23, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it could be made a Trivia in the FFA article, and maybe a part of the origin or background here. It should be relatively easy to see when Squaresoft registered the Seiken Densetsu trademark in Japan (that is, for a japanese or someone knowledgeable about japanese laws). That could add an important fact to see if all these comments are indeed true. -- ReyBrujo 04:42, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm inclined to keep any references to it confined to the series article, to avoid giving the incorrect impression that the Game Boy game is a remake of it. Other than the using the same trademarked title, they have nothing in common. That being said, I see no reason to doubt LostLevels.org – they're reliable and well-cited, and the magazine scans seem authentic. – Seancdaug 05:22, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Children of Mana

Today new screenshots of Children of Mana have been posted here. The scans show the japanese name of the three characters: Frick, Pop and Tumble. -- ReyBrujo 13:37, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Seiken Densetsu 4

Apparently, Famitsu has retracted it's statement of SD4 being announced for the PS2. They jumped the gun and changed it back to "Undetermined," which corresponds with the official WoM site, which still doesn't have SD4 listed for any console. - User:ClaudeLv250

Kanji characters.

Note: Imported from the Seiken Densetsu 3 page per Hibana's request.

I'd advocate we either mention only the proper English translation after the game titles (i.e.: Seiken Densetsu 3 (Legend of the Holy Sword 3)) instead of the Kanji characters, or both the English translation as well as the Kanji characters next to each other. The reason I believe this is worth bringing up is because not every user or visitor who will read through these pages may readily have a browser capable of showing Kanji characters correctly, instead showing this user a garble or a line of '????' followed by the number three. (i.e.: Seiken Densetsu 3 (????3)) For people who are not knowledgeable on Kanji or for people who do not have any background in Manga, adding solely the Kanji characters will tend to result in this extra bit of detailed information becoming lost to them under the current setup. Hence this proposal.

GoodLuckDie 19:15, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Concur. --Sn0wflake 23:58, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't really care either way as long as the article's are uniform, as I stated on the SD3 talk. By the way GoodLuckDie, I wasn't trying to bite you or anything. I was just a little tired of reverting anonymous edits on just the SD3 page. ~ Hibana 01:14, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

It wouldn't do much harm using both the kanji and translation. --Sn0wflake 01:53, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Keeping the original japanese name is important, as romanji alone cannot be used, and translations are never perfect. However, I agree with Sn0wflake, it cannot harm to have the japanese and the translation. -- ReyBrujo 03:31, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I've been bold and gone and added both the Kanji and the Rōmaji to the games pages except Children of Mana, as I can't read the kana clearly beneath the logo (I'm guessing it's チルデン　オフ　マナ?). -LichYoshi 00:46, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

You can also use the nihongo template to add kanji and romaji in a standard way. -- ReyBrujo 01:39, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

seiken densetsu naming

The first game in the series wasn't released in Europe. Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest is an entirely different game for the SNES which was released worldwide. As far as I am aware, in both instances the Final Fantasy name was just added to the American release to add some interest, they were completly unrelated. --KoopaPoopa 15:15, 26th January 2006 GMT.

Sorry, but that's wrong on both counts. Seiken Densetsu was renamed Final Fantasy Adventure for its North American release to cash in on the original NES Final Fantasy game, which had been recently released and proven reasonably popular there. No Final Fantasy games, however, had yet been released in Europe, so there was no brand name to cash in on. Because of this, the game was renamed yet again, to Mystic Quest (see here for release info and for box art). This was several years before the game Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest was released, and the two games had nothing in common beyond the similar names. Also, Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest was designed as a Final Fantasy title, albeit one targetted specially for beginning gamers and the North American audience (it was released in Japan under the title Final Fantasy USA: Mystic Quest). Again, because there were still no Final Fantasy titles available in Europe, the game was renamed for European release, this time as Mystic Quest Legend. I do, however, remember Nintendo Power joking about how the game was going to be called Mystic Quest: Mystic Quest in Europe. :) – Seancdaug 18:15, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

looks like i wasted my money importing Final Fantasy Adventure then, I had no idea. :)

New Link

Site that has a lot of information on Secret of Mana (and the Seiken Densetsu series): http://www.manaheavenly.net Perhaps it could be added to the links section?

Overview section

I've integrated parts of the Connections section that used to be over at Secret of Mana into the Overview section. If anyone feels that I haven't done a good enough job and would like to clean it all up, please be my guest. -LichYoshi 07:04, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Another SD1

Looks like SD1 is getting the remake treatment again. Or at leats the port treatment. Mobile Phone port--Claude 19:40, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I just read a tidbit about it, but couldn't find a good source. I guess the official site is better than anything else. Go ahead and add it to the main SD article. ~ Hibana 19:41, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I just saw the new WoM E3 trailer and this port is defenitely part of the World of Mana compilation, along with "an all new chapter" for mobiel phones as well. These two games may deserve their own articles under the WoM label.--Claude 21:16, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

"Friends of Mana" trademarked

Square Enix has trademarked "Friends of Mana" in the US. I have a strong feelign that this is the second, previously unnamed mobile Mana game, but I'll wait for official confirmation before adding anything.--Claude 08:12, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Where Angels Fear to Tread

When looking up the theme song I land on a disambiguation page, but when I click through to this page there is nothing about it... Shinobu 10:54, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Move to Mana Series

A Link to the Past has proposed moving the "Seiken Densetsu" article from here to "Mana (Series)" instead. Please join the discussion here and make your opinion known. This discussion was previously placed on this talk page, but it expanded to such a significant amount that it was taking up too much space on the main talk page. Ex-Nintendo Employee 22:13, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Final Fantasy spinoff

One of the people opposing the Mana move has suggested that we change the article to refer to the series as a spinoff of Final Fantasy. Comments? - A Link to the Past (talk) 20:21, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest that you finish your present argument before attempting to begin another one. When the matter of the current move is settled, then I would recommend it to be discussed, but not at this moment. Ex-Nintendo Employee 06:41, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't argue for it, that other guy did. - A Link to the Past (talk) 06:56, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of whether yay or nay, I simply feel that this topic could be better addressed when the attention of this article's editors can be better focused away from the previous argument. Ex-Nintendo Employee 07:03, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

No, I did not suggest anything to change the article to refer to the series as a spinoff, in fact, I have specifically mentioned and sourced that the official published material called FFA to be an FF spinoff but SD became a separate series at SD2. MythSearcher^talk 14:40, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we should refer to it as an FF spin-off unless there's an official source we can cite for that. In all honesty, doesn't every RPG by Square feel like a Final Fantasy spin-off? --SeizureDog 07:29, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Only one game in the series is a spinoff- that would be the original, whose full title is Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden. Gaiden, of course, meaning "side story" or "spinoff". As far as I am aware, no other titles contain the Gaiden moniker. Ex-Nintendo Employee 21:26, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Merger proposal of Elemental spirites into this article

As you know many people put a lot of hard work into this article, and I would love to help get it to Good article status. If merged into the main Mana series article, and with some out of universe sources, I bet it could do that. I talked it over with some people at the Square - Enix wikiproject and they sounded positive, so I'll propose it here. My goal is to featured the Mana series article, and adding the elemental spirits there would help a lot, and it's better to have 1 featured article than 2 kinda good ones :) Judgesurreal777 18:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

This IS the main article, I don't see any other articles with a full list of this series, both Mana (series) and Mana series redirects to this article. Do you mean merging the seperate games article back into this one? MythSearcher^talk 01:35, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't state it was the elemental spirites article that I thought we could merge into this one. Judgesurreal777 03:04, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

...the hell!?

I saw the "too long" tag and tried to figure out why it was added...only to find that the Mana Sword, Mana Tree, Flammie AND Elemental articles have been merged directly into this one? Who's bright idea was that?--Claude 22:32, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

They were unsourced and poorly written. It is a part of an effort to get this article up to GA status, not just have 6 articles, one of which is a start and 5 are stubs. Judgesurreal777 22:49, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like the opposite course of action to me. If they were such "poorly sourced" stubs then they needed expanding, rather than being cut and dumped into this article (actually they weren't originally cut at all, they were just dumped here completely intact, THEN all the info that made them stand alone articles was slowing being cut away). A bunch of snippets of "unsourced and poorly written" articles isn't going to shoot this one up to GA status. If anything, they should have been expanded since they did well enough to stand on their own for this long and then have a paragraph summary here with a link leading back to a improved main article on that subject rather than just cramming 7 articles into this one, which already needed help on its own.--Claude 07:26, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

All true, except for the unfortunate fact that none of these articles have any out of universe information about them, and therefore no hope of anything like GA status. Since they are combined here, they can be explored in the context of the series as a whole, which will definitely have some real sources, and can become GA status. Judgesurreal777 12:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia which focus is on out of universe information (unlike the Star Wars or Final Fantasy Wikias). Flammie is a fictional creature which has no relevance or influence outside of its fictional world; it means nothing for the real world, unlike the Seiken Densetsu franchise as a whole. If you want to write an exhaustive essay about Flammie's fictional life, create a Seiken Densetsu Wikia, don't write here. Kariteh 13:36, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

That's nice an all, but I didn't write the OMG EVIL Flammie "essay," and that doesn't change the fact that its content (as well as the other 6 articles) were simply dumped into this article and STILL suffer from the problems that supposedly plagued them as individual articles.--Claude 00:09, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

That's why the next step is to trim it and start building this article up with reliable sources, which everyone is invited to participate in doing. :) Judgesurreal777 02:10, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, let's get the work started. I find it curious that after all this time the Square Enix project still has NO Featured or Good Articles besides those of the FF project and Zeality's Chrono articles. Kariteh 08:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Just dropping by to defend the position you guys are taking... I wrote the bulk of the Seiken articles back then and I feel very glad to see things starting to shape up into a GA... :) --Sn0wflake 14:18, 17 April 2007 (UTC)