"Secret of Mana" is the second part of the Seiken Densetsu series programmed by Squaresoft and released in 1994.

What made this game special was the 3-player-mode for which you needed a special adapter; also, the 76-page long game guide with all the information about the game were quite a special thing.

Originally, the game was planned to be on a planned CD accessory for the SNES which was planned but in the end never released (instead, Philips and Sony - who both worked on such an accessory - both released their very own CD-based console), thus the game had to beshortened to fit on a regular SNES cartridge. Still, the game looks and sounds amazing for its time.

Especially the colorful design of the characters, monsters, and the overall scenery of the game gave gamers the impression, that the game was targeted towards a younger generation of gamers, still, the game had and still has a huge fanbase.

To give you an example:
Besides the empire there's a small gang of hoodlums who make the impression to be quite dumb. During the first encounter the gangmembers sic the (now out of control) robot Thrillboy. His weapon is a hammer which is able to shrink your characters - after you win the battle you're able to use this weapon.

For this boss, both versions are identical as you can see on these pictures:

Altered Boss:

When you later run into the hoodlums again inside the mana fortress, they sic their updated robot at you - Killroy. In the Japanese version it's equipped with a chainsaw and uses it to attack you. In all the Western versions of the game, this boss is just a re-colored version of the robot of the first encounter - however, the hammer no longer shrinks you when you're hit.

The reason for this seems to be the US-adaptation of the game (which in fact also affects all the other Western versions). However, it's unclear to whether this is just a mistake that happened during the re-programming of the game, an intentional alteration, or simply censorship (after all, a chainsaw is quite a violent weapon to use). Thus, you will have to make up your own mind about it.

Uncensored (with chainsaw):	Censored (without chainsaw):