Secret of Mana -- Final Opinion.

So I've completed Secret of Mana on the Wii's Virtual Console. This is the second time I've completed the game of course. Waiting fifteen years or so to replay the game was actually helpful as I did not remember much of it. The game is good looking for a middle era SNES title. It's bright and colorful and there is a lot of animation on screen. Too much it would seem as flicker is common in combat. The battle system is still mostly fun. You'll have issues with the AI characters from time to time but they actually perform well enough. Especially considering it was on the bleeding edge of AI at the time. I didn't remember the lag during combat. Maybe it didn't bother me at the time. But this time I found it mildly annoying. The music is very good. The composition is strong and the sound quality is high. The story on the other hand is very much less than special. It probably explains why I didn't remember much of it as it's very disjointed and unconnected feeling. And it's just often bizarre. Overall the game is still solid fun and worth playing through. I just can't escape the feeling that this time around I was considerably less impressed with it. Unlike some of the other titles I've revisited on the Virtual Console like Super Metroid and A Link to the Past and Shining Force among others. Those titles remained as strong today as I remembered them originally. Secret of Mana just doesn't give me the same vibe.