Coming to the Nintendo Switch on June 1st, 2017 is Seiken Densetsu Collection, or as the series is more commonly known in the West, Secret of Mana (which is actually the U.S. name of the first SNES installment) or the Mana series. The collection features the first three games in the series: Seiken Densetsu (Final Fantasy Adventure), Seiken Densetsu 2 (Secret of Mana), and Seiken Densetsu 3.
The Mana games are a series of action RPGs that have been hit or miss when it comes to Western releases. It first hit U.S. shores as Final Fantasy Adventure on the Gameboy, so for a long time many people believed it as actually a Final Fantasy spin-off. Final Fantasy Adventure takes you on a black-and-white quest to defeat the very cleverly named Dark Lord.
Next, we received Secret of Mana for the Super Nintendo, a colorful, awesome (if not a bit glitchy) game with an amazing soundtrack. Secret of Mana marks the first appearance of one of Square’s staple creatures, the Moogles in the U.S., though their actual first appearance was in Final Fantasy 3 for the Famicom. Japan received a second Super Nintendo era title known as Seiken Densetsu 3, which to this day has never seen an official Western release. It wasn’t until the PSone era that we’d see another Mana game in the form of Legend of Mana, but that goes beyond the scope of this post, so I digress.
Seiken Densetsu 3 was unique in that it let you choose from six main characters with three main plotlines, making for excellent replay value. The game also really showed off what the SNES could do graphically, featuring some of the most colorful and detailed sprites in the system’s library.
It has only been available to Western audiences in the form of a fan-translated ROM, and if this Switch collection does not see a U.S. release that will remain the only way unless you brush up on your Japanese. The Switch is region free, so if you can read Japanese or don’t mind missing out on the story, this collection will do the trick. Here’s to hoping for a Western release, but if you just can’t wait, see the links below!
Pre-order here:
Play-Asia
CdJapan
Hobby Scratch 
Oh man, I’m really hoping we get a localized version of the game here. Compared the their other massive projects like Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy XV, I don’t see it taking that many resources to translate a 20+ years old SNES game. I’d buy it in a heartbeat is SE was able to deliver this! 😀
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Sure, I’ll look you up. Thanks for the offer, I appreciate it.
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