Secret of Mana Remake: Limited Quantities and Exclusive to GameStop

If you’re looking for a physical copy of Secret of Mana‘s remake on PS4, you’ll have to go to GameStop (Latin America will have more options) and supplies will be limited.

The game is set for release February 15, 2018. You can find it at GameStop in the US, EB Games in Canada, and ‘participating retailers in Latin America’.

Looks like a photoshopped spec box to me. If that’s the real thing, I shudder to think where else they cut corners on.

In the never-ending quest to sell pre-orders, you’ll receive the following bonus costumes:

“Moogle Suit” for Randi, Primm and Popoi, “Tiger Two-Piece” for Primm and “Tiger Suit” for Randi and Popoi.

The original is a fascinating JRPG from a golden era on the SNES. It combined JRPG mechanics with hack ‘n slash, presenting the package with beautiful color and vibrancy.

It was quite a wacky game for the time as well. While many JRPGs take themselves super seriously, Secret of Mana introduced you to surreal characters and had a general sense of playfulness not usually seen.

Interestingly, the game was originally scheduled to be released as a launch title for the SNES-CD. When the deal with Sony fell through, the game had to be drastically cut to fit the relatively minuscule storage of a cartridge. The original game had multiple routes and endings but the cartridge version was much more linear. Even the plot was changed, as Director Hiromichi Tanaka stated the original tone was much darker.

Perhaps the worst cut was the English translation, done in just 30 days to meet the North American Holiday deadline. Because of the ‘fixed-width font’ used to display the english text, huge swaths of dialogue had to be cut, brought to the bare minimum.

The problems converting a CD game to cartridge influenced Squaresoft to move the Final Fantasy series to the Playstation, abandoning the long relationship they had with Nintendo.

There you have it, a flawed classic that heavily influenced the gaming world in unintended ways.

Again, the remake will be released on PS4, Vita, and PC on February 15th, 2018.