Mana (series)

• 1. Introduction

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  The Mana series began not as its own creation, but as a side story attached to one of gaming's biggest franchises. In 1991, Square released Final Fantasy Adventure on the Game Boy, a handheld game carrying the Final Fantasy name. Within two years, that connection was severed, and Mana struck out as its own world. What followed was more than three decades of action role-playing games, orchestral concerts, manga adaptations, and a mascot rabbit creature that somehow became more beloved than the sword it appeared alongside. How did a canceled Famicom Disk System project from 1987 become a franchise that had sold over 8 million copies by 2021? And who was the one designer whose vision shaped nearly every corner of this fictional world?

• 2. The Canceled Predecessor

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  Square trademarked the name Seiken Densetsu in 1989 for a project subtitled The Emergence of Excalibur. Led by Kazuhiko Aoki and planned for the Famicom Disk System, it was advertised as spanning five floppy disks, which would have made it one of the largest games developed for that platform at the time. Pre-orders were accepted, and the ambition was clear. Then management canceled the project before it got past early planning. In October 1987, customers who had placed orders received a letter confirming the cancellation and a full refund. That same letter pointed them toward another upcoming Square role-playing game in a similar vein: Final Fantasy. The name Seiken Densetsu sat unused for years, waiting for someone to pick it back up.

• 3. Origins of the Mana World

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  Koichi Ishii directed the 1991 Game Boy action role-playing game that revived the Seiken Densetsu name. The game was originally developed under the title Gemma Knights before being renamed Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden, published in North America as Final Fantasy Adventure and in Europe as Mystic Quest. Its sequel, Secret of Mana in 1993, dropped the Final Fantasy branding entirely and established the series as its own identity. Ishii's philosophy was unusual: in his view, Mana is not a series of video games but a world that can be explored through video games. He drew inspiration from his memories of childhood, from movies, and from fantasy books that had captured his imagination. Among his acknowledged literary influences were Tove Jansson's Moomin, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Ishii deliberately avoided set conventions, keeping his influences wide and non-specific. Secret of Mana itself had a more complicated origin: it was originally planned as a launch title for the Super NES CD-ROM Adapter, but when that add-on was canceled, the game was cut down into a standard Super NES cartridge, with many of the cut ideas appearing in other Square titles.

• 4. Recurring World and Characters

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  At the center of every Mana game sits the Mana Tree and the Mana Sword, called Excalibur in the English version of Final Fantasy Adventure. The Mana Tree is a source of magic that sustains the balance of the series' world, while the Mana Sword is the tool used to restore that balance when it is lost. If the Mana Tree dies, a member of the Mana Family becomes the seed of a new Tree. The Mana Tree is destroyed near the ending in both Final Fantasy Adventure and Secret of Mana, though in the former a character becomes the new Tree. Elemental Spirits, also called Mana Spirits, govern the magic elements and serve as the core of the games' magic system; eight types have appeared since Secret of Mana, each embodying a different element with names drawn from mythology. The distinctive Ring Command menu system, developed by Ishii and improved by Hiromichi Tanaka, appeared prominently in Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana. Each ring presented a set of icons with a textual explanation, navigated by rotating the ring left or right, and the whole system was designed to remain accessible to newcomers and veterans alike. Final Fantasy creatures like Chocobos and Moogles also appeared across multiple installments, reinforcing the series' origins even after the Final Fantasy name was dropped.

• 5. The Rabite and Flammie

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  Rabites have appeared as common enemies since the beginning of the series. The creature resembles a bodiless, one-toothed rabbit with large upward-curving ears that form a point at the tip, and a round puffy pink tail, moving by hopping along the ground. Most commonly yellow, Rabites also appear in pink, lilac, black, and white, and their roles range from minor enemies to superboss characters to friendly pets. The creature's cultural reach extended beyond Mana itself: Rabites are mentioned in Final Fantasy X-2 through an accessory named Rabite's Foot, and they appear in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance as an endangered species being poached for good luck charms. Merchandise has included plush dolls, cushions, lighters, mousepads, telephone cards, and T-shirts. Flammie, sometimes spelled Flammy, is a species of flying dragon blending draconian, mammalian, and reptilian features. Flammies typically serve as a means of transportation, letting players ride on their backs across the game's world. In Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana, the Super NES's Mode 7 graphic capabilities allowed players to control a Flammie from either a behind-the-back perspective or top-down view, flying over a scrolling landscape. In story terms, Flammies were created by the Moon Gods and are part of an endless cycle in which the strongest Flammies, called Mana Beasts or Benevodons, destroy the world before the Mana Sword and Tree restore it.

• 6. Composers and Soundtracks

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  Final Fantasy Adventure was composed by Kenji Ito; it was his second original score. Hiroki Kikuta composed both Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana, working mostly by himself and spending nearly 24 hours a day in his office, alternating between composing and editing. Kikuta aimed for two contrasting styles in the Secret of Mana score, wanting it to be neither pop music nor standard game music. He considers that score his favorite creation, and his compositions for both games were partly inspired by natural landscapes. In 1995, he released an experimental album of arranged music from the two games, titled Secret of Mana +, which consists of a single 50-minute-long track. Yoko Shimomura composed Legend of Mana's score and considers it the work that best expresses herself among all her compositions. The main theme composer for Dawn of Mana was Ryuichi Sakamoto, with Ito serving as the main composer assisted by Tsuyoshi Sekito, Masayoshi Soken, and Junya Nakano. The Secret of Mana opening theme, Angel's Fear, was rated number 7 on one outlet's list of top RPG title tracks. The Secret of Mana soundtrack was also among the first official video game soundtracks released in the United States.

• 7. World of Mana and Departure

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  In 2003, Square Enix developed a strategy it called polymorphic content: releasing well-known properties across multiple platforms and genres to reach as wide an audience as possible. The first application of this idea was the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. By early 2005, Square Enix announced the World of Mana project, extending that same strategy to the Mana franchise. Four games followed in 2006 and 2007, each built for a different platform and a different genre. Children of Mana was an action dungeon crawler for the Nintendo DS, developed by Nex Entertainment. Friends of Mana was a Japan-only multiplayer role-playing game for mobile phones. Dawn of Mana was a 3D action-adventure for the PlayStation 2 and was considered the main entry of the four, released in Japan as Seiken Densetsu 4. Heroes of Mana was a real-time strategy game for the DS, developed by Brownie Brown, a studio founded by several developers of Legend of Mana. Ishii served as director and producer for Dawn, and the theme he pursued for the whole subseries was exploring how to add the feeling of touch to a game. A fifth World of Mana title was considered for the Wii in 2006 but never entered development. In April 2007, one month after Heroes of Mana released, Ishii left Square Enix to lead his own studio, named Grezzo.

• 8. Legacy and Sales

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  Secret of Mana shipped over 1.83 million copies worldwide. The original Seiken Densetsu sold over 700,000 units, while its remake Sword of Mana sold over 277,000 copies in Japan. Legend of Mana sold over 400,000 units in its first week in Japan alone, the highest-selling release that week in the country, and over 700,000 copies in Japan by the end of that year. By March 2011, the series had sold over 6 million units in total; that figure had grown to over 8 million by 2021. Critics consistently praised the early games while rating the World of Mana titles considerably lower. Secret of Mana ranked number 97 on Famitsu's list of the top 100 games of all time. The Secret of Mana soundtrack was also featured in the third Orchestral Game Concert. A 3D remake of Secret of Mana for PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Windows was announced on the 25th of August 2017 for release on the 15th of February 2018. During the series' 30th anniversary stream, Square Enix announced Visions of Mana, the first mainline installment since Dawn of Mana, with Ishii contributing updated creature designs and Masaru Oyamada heading the project as producer.