Round 5: Secret of Mana vs Kingdom Hearts

[LINK398]

Two Action RPG's from the same developer that don't take themselves two seriously. (The first Kingdom Hearts) The later games started to go all over the place and weren't as good in my opinion. I was surprised at so many people in the RPG community talking about how great Secret of Mana is compared to other games released on the SNES. I haven't beaten the game but played a decent amount of it waiting for the epic story to start or the plot twists to come about only to be disappointed and read that they never come about in the game. With these games I'm gonna have to go with Kingdom Hearts just because I think the game is more fun gameplay wise while neither are button mashers I like the enviornments better in this game

[Dice]

I'd still say they're kinda different, but I'l play along.

Co-op: Secret (well, KH had none, but co-op is awesome)
Magic: Secret (first KH sucked for this, I prefer the roulette in BOTH Secret and future-KH's than going into a menu while you're fighting)
Battling: Kingdom (honestly, the weapon recharge thing in Secret of Mana sucked donkey dick)
Music: Secret (mainly because listening to some KH songs were just a musical portion turned instrumental for the whole stage *groan*; the "made for Kingdom Hearts" tracks [ie; not Disney-related] were great though)
Characters:  Kingdom, oddly.  Even if they are pretentious anime riddles where like half the cast has issues of mistaken identity or some shit.  Secret of Mana was kinda boring for this, but SeikenDen 3 was a vast improvement (dunno if we're getting into that here though)

[Agent D.]

Stop making these versus topics, I don't want gamefaqs here in my nice, awesome rpgfan forum.

Kingdom hearts has a better everything except coop, because it was made 10 years later. Release secret of mana with today's perks, and KH will be so second fiddle it's not funny.

[LINK398]

The purpose of these threads are for one myself to see other people's opinions on the games listed, which for one are not the most common games to be compared. (They are not FFVI vs FFVII threads) I try to pick some games that might have a little bit in common but wouldn't neccessarily be compared for any reason and also games that aren't talked about too much. I would understand if their was a Star Ocean vs. Tales thread to be called a repeat but, for example the DQ3 and FF3 thread both games are from the same generation of gaming, both from the two biggest RPG series and also have some gameplay similarities like the job system and both games also aren't know for having exactly epic stories. I was very interested and delighted to see the responses because they were both in depth and I had no idea about either of the games honestly. That's another thing I don't always weigh in on the games because some of them I want to find out more of them. Also if you're gonna complain about the thread don't post in it. By the responses in the other threads other users seem to like them. Also this week's thread I couldn't really think of two games to compare and I was actually thinking of making a final round thread but after this I'm going to continue making them lol

[Taelus]

Kingdom Hearts. I'm biased, though, because I've only played Seiken Densetsu 3 (which was awesome).

I didn't like SoM very much, but I also am slowly falling out of love with the disaster that the KH plot is becoming.

[LINK398]

I still don't understand why so many people like Secret of Mana lol. Is it just because they possibly played it when they were young maybe. I didn't even though I have the original cartridge I was thinking of playing it on the virtual console. I could care less about the co op gameplay but even the single player gameplay I kind of like because it keeps it from being a button masher. I enjoyed Secret of Evermore when I played through that game and people seem to rate that game far behind

[LINK398]

Yeah I enjoyed the first Kingdom Hearts and the second along with Chain of Memories the others are haven't even played and when I look at story explanations it's all over the place so much that I'm not even interested. That coupled with the characters going through the same worlds as the first games except for maybe a few differences kind of confuses me how the series is still so popular with fans talking about how great the newer games are. What made the first game great was just how simple the gameplay and story were while still being serious and entertaining all at once. The game never took itself too seriously which was also great because their are Disney worlds in it so it all makes sense. With the second game they started too become serious and besides that it was too long with having too see all the worlds again and the gameplay started to become repetitive with all the combos it was all just button mashing. I still liked the game though because it did add a lot of new worlds and characters and wasn't as serious as all the side stories coming out

[Aeolus]

Angel's Fears. 'Nuff said.

[MeshGearFox]

Terranigma.

[Aeolus]

The Effort Post:

I still don't understand why so many people like Secret of Mana lol. Is it just because they possibly played it when they were young maybe. I didn't even though I have the original cartridge I was thinking of playing it on the virtual console. I could care less about the co op gameplay but even the single player gameplay I kind of like because it keeps it from being a button masher. I enjoyed Secret of Evermore when I played through that game and people seem to rate that game far behind

Pretty much. But then again, I also played the full 3 player co-op between myself and my siblings. Its one of the few rare games that I could talk them into playing with me since we didn't end up at each others' throats too often playing this (just on who got the sword).

Anyways, there used to be a long ass rant on the, what I perceived to be, merits of SoM, but I realized I couldn't stop going off on tangents and not making a point, so I'm going to take a different approach to the matter instead. Also one on KH but less long and ranty (but still too long and ranty).

So to tl;dr myself, one game is an old ARPG that got gutted due to the Nintendo Playstation falling through but despite that still did some nice things and still feels like a proper game even in spite of the threadbare middle section, and the other is a crossover ARPG that didn't do a very good job in the whole 'crossover' department (i.e. very little of the OG content feels Disney-like while the FF characters are mostly shoved into one town and the Disney content felt like going through theme parks or carnivals and it didn't strike a particularly good balance between the two).

Music-wise SoM blows KH out of the water (not like that's very hard to do when most of your music is coming from elsewhere and your few contributions range to mediocre to suck).

Graphics-wise SoM is the better looking game since most of KH's stages feel more like themepark attractions rather than fully fleshed out environments, and I remember every non Disney stage but the island (as well as a couple of Disney stages i.e. Halloween Town) looking gloomy and dull for the most part, whereas SoM still looks fairly vibrant today with the occasional interesting setting (the Ice Continent, the Great Forest, heck even Gaia's Navel looked more interesting than anything in KH save for maybe the Hundred Acre Wood or some of Aladdin's and Tarzan's stages).

Gameplay-wise KH has better combat (being in 3D actually helped in this case surprisingly) and better AI partners (or more accurately fewer ways for the AI partners to get stuck on level geometry), but Secret has the better tools (you're not just limited to swords/keyblades, items consisted of more than just HP/MP healing) and better magic (despite the elemental attack repetition, had more variety and use compared to the six spells of KH and even then Aero and Cure were the only ones worth using most of the time), and character advancement is kind of a toss up between the two (weapon/magic skill levels is better than the gain stuff at level x and finding spell books laying about but some elements come far too late to be practical and MP restoration issues prevents more natural spell use, although the carting around, training, and upgrading 8 distinct weapons is clearly superior to getting half a dozen gimmick keyblades thrown at you which you promptly ignore as you grind to obtain the good keyblades).

My tl;dr for my rant's tl;dr is that Kingdom Hearts was a crossover that is technically superior to Secret of Mana but is ultimately held back by being a crossover title and not a standalone effort thus limiting the creativity being brought to the table (not like that would've been enough anyways given how mediocre of a crossover it was).


But seriously, Angel's Fears. 30 seconds after flipping on the power and without a single press of a button and you're getting your socks haunted off (and the rest of the game does a fairly good job of living up to the impression).

[GrimReality]

Secret of Mana wins on soundtrack alone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQChkLQV8_c&list=PL9B1F4546776E26A4

I played it when it first came out, so I may a bit bit bias, but I adored the game. Like a lot of SNES games, it still looks decent today.
Never played co-op despite having 3 brothers.
I never played a Kingdom Hearts game, but watched my wife play through 1 and 2. The battling seemed to be the best part.

[Klyde Chroma]

i have no frame of reference here really because my KH experience is very limited.... but I really can't imagine me enjoying a game more than I did Secret of Mana.... I don't think I've replayed any game as many times as I have SOM... the degradation of the series in the sequels that followed the 16bit era is tragic to me...

I remember as a child playing zelda and thirsting for more.... then secret of mana came out and I felt as though I knew from then on exactly what I wanted in a game... to be honest it was THE title that made me realize how much joy I could really derive from gaming, co-op and fantasy.... I also remember when I saw the first screens of chrono trigger and how excited I became at the prospect of a mana sequel... despite the glory that was CT I was still disapointed it was not a mana sequel....

I just replayed both SOM and SD3 within the last year and love them all the same... I want to give kingdom hearts a go later this year with the HD release but I can safely say its not gonna trump mana for me... I would be a fool to take up any title while harboring such expectation...that and well.... I have a real aversion to disney... I really couldn't stand disney, even as a child (my parents told me I would cry as a baby whenever they would try to put on sesame street or disney flicks-LoL)

[insertnamehere]

If you're having trouble coming up with a new topic, try SMT games.

[neogalahad]

BOTH games are notorious for not telling you were you need to go, and before anyone tells me that I'm a gamer that needs his hand held you are wrong. Some of the hints in Secret of Mana were only told ONCE and when you talked to that NPC again they would say random nonsense. Sage Joch was a dick!

I cant pick one over the other because they are from two different generations. If Secret of Mana came out the same time Kingdom Hearts did, then we would be closer to being able to compare the two. If you compare Dawn of Mana to Kingdom Hearts, hands down Kingdom Hearts wins. Also Secret of Mana is not a complete game, they were originally developing it for the Snes CD expansion but had to cut a lot of material because they had to fit it on the cartridge instead. This is also why the quality of the music is much better than most Snes games at the time.

[Dice]

Aeo: How did SoM give you more to do in combat?

but Secret has the better tools

I think BBS would like a word with you.

Has the composer (name is lost on me atm) done anything recent?? =/
I feel like it just ended after that series.