I’m sitting here trying to finish up Secret of Mana on my phone, but it’s getting to a point where I just don’t think it’s possible to continue. It’s really bad because I’ve beaten this game several times before. I wish I could just say that it’s because I’m getting old and suck at games now (which may be more true than I want to admit), but it’s actually because SOM for iOS is so, so badly balanced.
In the Super NES version, the game was pretty easy. If you get stuck somewhere, it’s because you forgot to buy the better armor at the last town. Maybe you played too fast and didn’t level enough (though level gains aren’t nearly as important as in, say, Dragon Warrior) and need to go back and grind a handful of bees or chobin hoods. Bosses were the only real challenge, and that was until you realized that spamming magic would essentially end the fights before they really began. What I’m getting at is that I never really faced a sticking point before. But now they’re everywhere! The game has been totally rebalanced in the enemies’ favour, and now the bosses are usually where you find respite from the terrible onslaught of death.
Mooks have been way upgraded for the iOS version of the game, their attacks doing a whole hell of a lot more damage than ever. Magic is even worse. And that wouldn’t be too bad on its own, but your character’s hit rates have gone way down. I swear nine out of ten times your attacks will whiff. I first got stuck in the upper land forest, where the combination of overpowered caterpillars and unhittable moles and fish ripped me a new one over and over again. I don’t remember ever using cups of life outside of bosses back in the SNES days, but by God, the merchants are sending their kids to college on my cup of life purchases alone this time around. It seemed like for most of the mid-game that every time I walked onto a new screen the sprite would be dead within ten seconds.
But a combination of grinding money and buying the (awesome) Gold Island armor as soon as possible really made the areas between getting Flammie (SOM’s airship stand-in) and entering the underground city really easy (or at least bearable). Now, in the underground city however, things have gotten retarded hard again. My armor is no longer game-breaking, but merely enough to keep my dudes from dying in a single hit. Making my way through a single hallway is tough, and getting from one end of an entire screen to the other without a casualty is nearly impossible. It gets worse too, because I’m stuck right before a boss with no supplies and no MP and he’s apparently immune to physical attacks? I definitely don’t remember this guy. So basically I have to work my way back out of this area (which is one of the longest dungeons) to get stuff, but getting out alive in my condition is going to be yet another nigh-impossible challenge (see the image above, and that’s right outside the boss room).
I remember a long time ago, when Secret of Mana was fun. But now it’s tedious and unfair and frustrating. I don’t like the iOS port, and until they put out a patch that at the very least puts my hit rates back to a reasonable level, I don’t think that I can finish it.