Mana (series): the story on HearLore

Mana (series)

In 1989, Square trademarked a name that would eventually define a generation of role-playing games, yet the project it was meant to support never saw the light of day. The original concept, titled The Emergence of Excalibur, was an ambitious five-floppy disk game for the Famicom Disk System led by Kazuhiko Aoki. It was designed to be one of the largest titles developed for the Famicom, a technical feat that required unprecedented storage capacity for the era. Square solicited pre-orders from eager customers, but management abruptly canceled the project before it advanced beyond the early planning stages. In October 1987, the company sent letters to those who had placed orders, informing them of the cancellation and refunding their purchases. The correspondence even suggested that these customers consider placing an order on another upcoming Square role-playing game in a similar vein: Final Fantasy. This aborted project laid the groundwork for the Seiken Densetsu trademark, which would eventually be repurposed for a completely different game directed by Koichi Ishii in 1991. That game, originally developed under the title Gemma Knights, was renamed Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden and published in North America as Final Fantasy Adventure. It was a Game Boy action role-playing game that served as a side story to Square's flagship franchise, but it would eventually shed its Final Fantasy ties to become its own entity.

The Birth of a World

The true identity of the Mana series emerged in 1993 with the release of Secret of Mana, a game that severed all narrative ties to Final Fantasy to establish its own mythos. Originally intended to be a launch title for the Super NES CD-ROM Adapter, the game was forced into a standard Super NES cartridge when the add-on was canceled, resulting in the removal of many ideas that would later appear in other Square titles. Hirō Isono provided the artwork for the game, creating lush forest landscapes that became a visual hallmark of the series. The game introduced a seamless, real-time battle system developed by Koichi Ishii and improved upon by Hiromichi Tanaka, designed to be playable by both newcomers and veterans. This system was coupled with the distinctive hierarchical Ring Command menu, where players navigated icons by rotating a ring and switching menus with up or down buttons. The story revolved around the Mana Tree, a mystical source of magic that sustains the balance of the world, and the Mana Sword, used to restore that balance when it is lost. The game featured recurring characters like Watts, a dwarf blacksmith wearing a horned helmet, and Neko, an anthropomorphic cat merchant who allowed players to save and buy supplies. The Mana Tree and the Mana Sword became recurring plot devices in every game of the series, with the Tree sometimes being destroyed and a character becoming the new Mana Tree to ensure its survival. The game also introduced Elemental Spirits, beings who govern the magic elements of the series' world, and Rabites, cute rabbit-like creatures that became a mascot for the series.

Common questions

When was the Mana series first trademarked by Square?

Square trademarked the name in 1989. The original concept titled The Emergence of Excalibur was an ambitious five-floppy disk game for the Famicom Disk System led by Kazuhiko Aoki. Management canceled the project before it advanced beyond the early planning stages.

Who created the Mana series and what is their design philosophy?

Koichi Ishii created the Mana series as a fictional world illustrated by video games. He draws inspiration from abstract images from his memories of childhood and influences like Tove Jansson's Moomin and J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Ishii considers the series a world rather than a set of games with concrete chronological links.

What are the recurring plot devices in the Mana series?

The Mana Tree and the Mana Sword are recurring plot devices featured in every game of the series. The Mana Tree is a mystical source of magic that sustains the balance of the world, while the Mana Sword is 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.

Which composers created the music for the Mana series games?

Final Fantasy Adventure was composed by Kenji Ito, while Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana were composed by Hiroki Kikuta. Legend of Mana's score was composed by Yoko Shimomura, and Dawn of Mana featured Ryuichi Sakamoto as the main theme composer. The music has received wide acclaim and fan enthusiasm.

When was the new mainline installment Visions of Mana released?

Visions of Mana was released in August 2024. It was formally announced at The Game Awards 2023 and is considered the first mainline installment since Dawn of Mana. The project was headed by producer Masaru Oyamada while Koichi Ishii worked on the updated creature designs.

How many copies has the Mana series sold worldwide as of 2021?

By 2021, the game series had sold over 8 million copies. Secret of Mana has shipped over 1.83 million copies worldwide, and Legend of Mana sold over 700,000 copies in Japan by the end of its first year. The original Seiken Densetsu sold over 700,000 units.

The 16-Bit Masterpiece

Secret of Mana was originally intended to be a launch title for the Super NES CD-ROM Adapter, but when the add-on was canceled it was cut down into a standard Super NES cartridge, with many of the cut ideas appearing in other Square titles. Hirō Isono provided artwork for the game including forest landscapes. It was followed in 1995 by the then Japan-only Trials of Mana, which was originally planned to be released in English as Secret of Mana 2, but technical issues and localization costs prohibited the release. The final new game in the series' initial run is the 1999 Legend of Mana, developed for the PlayStation. Legend is a 2D game like its predecessors, despite the PlayStation's 3D focus, because the console could not handle the full 3D world Ishii envisioned where one could interact with natural shaped objects. 2003 saw the release of Sword of Mana, a remake of the original Seiken Densetsu for the Game Boy Advance. The remake was outsourced to Brownie Brown, which was composed of many of the Square employees who had worked on Legend. In 2006 and 2007, four more games were released as part of the World of Mana subseries, an attempt by Square Enix to release games in a series over a variety of genres and consoles. These were Children of Mana, an action-oriented dungeon crawler game for the Nintendo DS; Friends of Mana, a Japan-only multiplayer role-playing game for mobile phones; Dawn of Mana, a 3D action-adventure game for the PlayStation 2; and Heroes of Mana, a real-time strategy game for the DS. Children was developed by Nex Entertainment and Heroes by Brownie Brown, founded by several developers of Legend, though Ishii oversaw development of all four games. Three more games have been released since the World of Mana subseries ended: Circle of Mana, a Japan-only card battle game for the GREE mobile platform, Rise of Mana, a Japan-only free-to-play action role-playing game for iOS, Android, and PlayStation Vita, and Adventures of Mana, a 3D remake of Final Fantasy Adventure for the PlayStation Vita, iOS, and Android. In addition to the games, four manga series and one novelization have been released in the Mana franchise. In August 2024, a new mainline installment in the series, titled Visions of Mana, was released.

The Polymorphic Strategy

In 2003, Square, now Square Enix, began a drive to begin developing polymorphic content, a marketing and sales strategy to provide well-known properties on several platforms, allowing exposure of the products to as wide an audience as possible. The first of these was the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, and Square Enix intended to have campaigns for other series whereby multiple games in different genres would be developed simultaneously. Although no such project for the Mana series had been announced by this point, it was announced in late 2004 that an unnamed Mana game was in development for the upcoming Nintendo DS platform. In early 2005, Square Enix announced a World of Mana project, the application of this polymorphic content idea to the Mana franchise, which would include several games across different genres and platforms. These games, as with the rest of the series, would not be direct sequels or prequels to one another, even if appearing so at first glance, but would instead share thematic connections. The first release in this project and the sixth release in the Mana series was announced in September 2005 as Children of Mana for the DS. Four games were released in 2006 and 2007 in the World of Mana subseries: Children of Mana, Friends of Mana, and Dawn of Mana in 2006, and Heroes of Mana in 2007. Each game in the World of Mana series was different, both from each other and from the previous games in the series. Children is an action-oriented dungeon crawler game for the DS, developed by Nex Entertainment; Friends is a Japan-only multiplayer role-playing game for mobile phones; Dawn is a 3D action-adventure game for the PlayStation 2; and Heroes is a real-time strategy game for the DS, developed by Brownie Brown. While Ishii was the designer for all four games, he served as the director and producer for Dawn, which was considered the main game of the four and was released as Seiken Densetsu 4 in Japan. The theme of the subseries for Ishii, especially Dawn, was about exploring how to add the feeling of touch to a game. He had held off on designing new Mana games after Legend was unable to meet his desires, until he felt that technology had improved enough to let him create what he envisioned. A fifth game for the subseries was considered for the Wii in 2006, but did not enter development. In April 2007, a month after the release of the final game of the World of Mana, Ishii left Square Enix to lead his own development company, named Grezzo.

The Karmic Connection

The Mana series is the result of Koichi Ishii's desire to create a fictional world. In Ishii's opinion, Mana is not a series of video games, but rather a world which is illustrated by and can be explored through video games. When working on the series, Koichi Ishii draws inspiration from abstract images from his memories of childhood, as well as movies and fantasy books that captivated him as a child. Ishii takes care to avoid set conventions, and his influences are correspondingly very wide and non-specific. Nonetheless, among his literary influences, he acknowledges Tove Jansson's Moomin, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. While some titles of the World of Mana series do share direct connections with other installments, the games of the series have few concrete links. There is no overall explicit in-game chronological order. Further, according to Koichi Ishii in 2006 the games do not take place in exactly the same world, and characters or elements who appear in different titles are best considered alternate versions of each other. Instead, the connections between each title are more abstract than story-based, linked only on the karmic level. Complicating this assertion, Ishii has also said in an interview that Children is set ten years after Dawn, while Heroes is set one generation prior to Trials of Mana. The Mana Tree and the Mana Sword, called Excalibur in Final Fantasy Adventures English version, are recurring plot devices that have been featured in every game of the series. The mystical Mana Tree is a source of magic that sustains the balance and nature of the series' world. The Mana Sword is typically used to restore this balance when it becomes lost in the games. Final Fantasy Adventure explains that if the Mana Tree dies, a member of the Mana Family will become the seed of a new Tree. A sprout of the Mana Tree is called a Gemma, while protectors of the Tree, who wield the Mana Sword, are called Gemma Knights. In Trials of Mana, a Goddess is said to have turned into the Mana Tree after creating the world with the Mana Sword. The Mana Tree is destroyed near the game ending in Final Fantasy Adventure and Secret of Mana, but a character becomes the new Mana Tree in the former game.

The Sound of Mana

The Mana series has had several different composers. Final Fantasy Adventure was composed by Kenji Ito; it was his second original score. Ito's music is mainly inspired by images from the game rather than outside influences. The scores for Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana were both composed by Hiroki Kikuta. Despite difficulties in dealing with the hardware limitations, Kikuta tried to express, in the music of Secret of Mana, two contrasting styles, namely himself and the game. This was to create an original score which would be neither pop music nor standard game music. Kikuta worked on the music for the two games mostly by himself, spending nearly 24 hours a day in his office, alternating between composing and editing to create an immersive three-dimensional sound. Kikuta considers the score for Secret of Mana his favorite creation. His compositions for Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana were partly inspired by natural landscapes. In 1995, Kikuta released an experimental album of arranged music from the two installments, titled Secret of Mana +, which features one 50-minute-long track. Legend of Mana's score was composed by Yoko Shimomura, and of all her compositions, she considers it the one that best expresses herself. Kenji Ito returned to the series with Sword of Mana. He also composed roughly one third of the Children of Mana soundtrack, while the rest was composed by Masaharu Iwata and Takayuki Aihara. Ito was the main composer for Dawn of Mana, assisted by Tsuyoshi Sekito, Masayoshi Soken, and Junya Nakano, as well as main theme composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. In North America, purchasers of Dawn of Mana from participating retailers were offered a sampler disc, titled Breath of Mana, which features a selection of tracks from the game. Shimomura has returned to the series with Heroes of Mana, while also contributing one song to Rise of Mana. The music of the Mana series, especially Secret of Mana, has received wide acclaim and fan enthusiasm. The Secret of Mana soundtrack was one of the first official soundtracks of video games music released in the United States and thus before fully mainstream interest in RPGs. The Secret of Manas opening theme, Angel's Fear, was rated at number 7 on IGNs Top Ten RPG Title tracks, calling it a magical title song that captures our hearts. It was also featured in the third Orchestral Game Concert. Secret of Mana is also the number 6 most remixed soundtrack on the popular video game music site OverClocked ReMix, with Trials of Mana tied at 18.

The Cursed Legacy

The Mana series has been mostly well received, though each title has seen varied levels of success. RPGFan called Final Fantasy Adventure one of the best things to happen to the Game Boy, while IGN considered it the best action RPG on the console after The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. GameSpot referred to Secret of Mana as one of Square's masterpieces on the SNES. The game has appeared on several list of top games, including ranked number 97 on Famitsu's top 100 games of all time. Trials of Mana was called easily one of the best RPGs to come out of the 16-bit era by Nintendo Life. Famitsu rated Legend of Mana at 31/40 and Heroes of Mana at 32/40. The NPD Group ranked Legend of Mana as the top seller the week of its release, and in 2006 was re-released as part of the Ultimate Hits series. Many of the World of Mana titles have not been as critically successful as the original five games in the series, and though the franchise has been praised for their attempts at trying new ways of experiencing the games' fictional world, there have been various gameplay design flaws that have hindered the later games. 1UP.com commented that despite the game's excellent presentation and storytelling, Dawn of Mana did not match the level of gameplay of the early Mana games. Prior to the World of Mana games, RPGamer called the series a treasured favorite. After the release of Heroes of Mana, they commented that the World of Mana series is cursed, and the future of the series looked bleak. The Mana series has sold well overall, and as of March 2011, series titles have sold over 6 million units. The original Seiken Densetsu sold over 700,000 units, and its remake Sword of Mana sold over 277,000 copies in Japan. Secret of Mana has shipped over 1.83 million copies worldwide. Legend of Mana sold over 400,000 units in its first week alone as the highest-selling release that week in Japan, and over 700,000 copies in Japan by the end of the year. Children of Mana sold over 281,000 copies in Japan, and Dawn of Mana sold over 410,000 copies worldwide. Heroes of Mana sold over 178,000 copies worldwide. The PlayStation Vita version of Rise of Mana downloaded over 100,000 times. By 2021, the game series had sold over 8 million copies.

The Return of the Sword

The Mana series was put on hiatus until 2013, when Square Enix released Circle of Mana, a Japan-only card battle game for the GREE mobile platform. It was followed in 2014 by Rise of Mana, a Japan-only free-to-play action role-playing game for iOS, Android, and PlayStation Vita, and in 2016 by Adventures of Mana, a 3D remake of Final Fantasy Adventure for the PlayStation Vita, iOS, and Android. On the 25th of August 2017, a 3D remake of Secret of Mana was announced for PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita and Windows, for release on the 15th of February 2018. A 3D remake of Trials of Mana and localization of the original game (as part of the Collection of Mana) were announced via Nintendo Direct in 2019. During the series' 30th anniversary stream, Square Enix announced a new mobile spin-off game, Echoes of Mana, as well as the new console game with involvement from the series creator Koichi Ishii. Titled Visions of Mana, it was formally announced at The Game Awards 2023, and is considered the first mainline installment since Dawn of Mana. The project was headed by producer Masaru Oyamada, while Ishii worked on the updated creature designs. A five-volume manga based on Legend of Mana was drawn by Shiro Amano and published in Japan by Enterbrain between 2000 and 2002. It features a comedic story about the game's main character, here named Toto. A German version was published by Egmont Manga & Anime in 2003. A collection of four-panel comic strips, drawn by various authors and titled Sword of Mana Yonkoma Manga Theatre, was published in Japan by Square Enix on the 16th of January 2004. It included a questionnaire that, if sent back, allowed participants to win illustrations signed by Koichi Ishii and Shinichi Kameoka, as well as special T-shirts. Enterbrain also published a Sword of Mana manga adaptation in Japan on the 25th of February 2004, drawn by a collaboration of authors led by Shiro Amano. Two days later, Square Enix published a two-volume novelization of Sword of Mana in Japan written by Matsui Oohama. An original manga, named Seiken Densetsu: Princess of Mana, taking place 300 years after Children of Mana and starring the descendant of Ferrick, was drawn by Satsuki Yoshino and published in the Japanese magazine Gangan Powered from the 22nd of July 2006, to the 27th of May 2010 and collected into five volumes.