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Lately, I've been trying to really kill my backlog of games I've amassed over the years. Having heard really good things about Secret of Mana and generally enjoying Sword of Mana and Children of Mana, I picked this title up for the iphone while it was cut in price. However, since buying the game, I didn't bother to touch it for about a year's worth of time. While generally I enjoy JRPGs, I've kinda been burned out of them for the last couple of years and I have far less time for gaming now that I work.

That being said, I can happily say that I'm glad I pushed all the reasons I kept telling myself to not play the game aside and really gave it a chance. Consiquently, I've put at least 12 hours into the game so far and am reaching the conclusion of the game's story.

I think it's safe to say that Secret of Mana is one of those games that suck you into it's world and consistantly keep you wanting you to complete the next part of the story just to see what happens next. As a result, I think I'm starting to understand why the game is praised so highly by Mana fans:
-It's not your usual RPG fare, in that it's much more action based combat and stratagy involved.
-The graphics for a game of it's time are pretty and animation is smooth. Even parts of the game where it mixes 2D elements in a 3D space seem normal and unintrusive.
-Music does a great job of setting the pace which each location takes place.

The things that slightly bother me in playing:
-The iOS controls, which adiquate and workable, are a little unintuitive when it comes to movement, as the "control stick" adjusts based on where the thumb touches the screen. Normally this isn't a problem, until you start trying to access menus at critical moments.
- Sudden difficulty spikes. While there's been 3 that I've noted so far and are easily fixed with a little extra grinding, the most recent spike has been the most harsh as of yet.

I'll probably be trying to wrap up Secret of Mana later this week, but overall I think this was a worthwhile game and really deserves the praise it gets.