Secret of Mana's Cover Art

Tell me something: Have you ever just stopped and LOOKED at Secret of Mana's cover art? Like, just sat and really gave it a proper once-over? If you haven't, here's your chance:

SoM Cover Art

Now is it just me, or is that a ludicrously good piece of art for a video game cover? I mean, look at the damn thing. Look at the complexity of it! Save the picture and then zoom in on it if you want to. Look at the lines in the bark, the detail given to the individual leaves. I'm no artist, so describing this properly is not a task I'm likely to succeed at, but the dedicated level of detail in this piece alone is way beyond almost any other RPG official art I've seen to date, and certainly far, FAR advanced of any RPG of the 16-bit era Secret of Mana hails from.

Beyond just the skill and depth, though, the art for this game's impressive also for its size. It's not just that it's a great piece of work--it's really quite big, to the point that Squaresoft unfortunately had to crop out a fair chunk of it for the actual game cover and instruction manual. A shame, really, because the quality of the picture is consistently high from top to bottom. This is no small, simple picture; this has not only the quality of a real piece of art, but the size as well.

Lastly, I'd like to note that SoM's cover art also has merit in true artistic value. I mean, so far I've mentioned the technical qualities, and those are impressive, but this scene is more than the sum of its parts. It directs your attentions and imparts meaning, even emotion. Look at the way it's arranged. The entire thing is meant to express the incredible grandeur of Nature, embodied in the monumental central figure of the Mana Tree. This is a picture that gives exactly the sense of awe that standing before a massive tree of life should.* While the game's major characters are present in this picture, they are dwarfed, and so removed to their corner at the bottom that I daresay no one who sees this will realize at first that they're even there. That's certainly a different perspective to have in a game's main art piece; usually any characters who make it onto the cover art are thrust to the center of the picture's attention, sometimes in an almost painfully crude manner (see Breath of Fire 1 and 2's cover art for a couple of examples of this). Here, however, it is the power of the scene itself that is emphasized as important, and by extension, the overall theme, tone, and purpose of the game, rather than just the actors that see its events through. To supplement this idea even further, the first colorful, non-plant thing the eye is drawn to in this picture are the flamingos flying past, again putting a stronger emphasis on the natural world, and hence the scene itself, than on the human factor.

It's very different, very artistic, and very, VERY far above the norm for RPG cover art. Hell, half the time the cover art for RPGs is just the game title done up all fancy, maybe with a little uninspired background design. Even when you do get a proper scene or character shot or something, it's never anything you'd really call art, at least not on the level of Secret of Mana's. I suppose it doesn't really matter too much as long as the art attracts the attention of potential buyers, or whatever function cover art is supposed to serve. Nonetheless, the one for Secret of Mana is really just awesome, and deserves some praise.















* Ironically, the actual scene in Secret of Mana in which the party reaches the Mana Tree not only fails totally to recapture the moment's majesty that this picture depicts, but seems to basically not even bother to try to.

Seiken Densetsu 3's Characters

After over a month-long absence, I give you...a lame post. Awesome.

I'll admit right now: doing a cast list for Seiken Desnsetsu 3 is a daunting task. Not because I don't think this game's cast deserves to be ridiculed for being shoddy and poorly-conceived characters there to be personality-less drones who forward the plot. Rather, because this cast is so incredibly boring that it's really hard to find a decent characteristic in any one of them that significantly sets them apart from the others.


Duran: You know, I know I harp on the fact that RPG hero dudes are very often boring, featureless blocks of wood that you could randomly switch around between games, and no one could tell the difference. I really wish I could think of new and funny ways to express just how blandly heroic these sword-wielding idiots like Duran are, but I just don't have the imagination. Suffice to say, there's really nothing about Duran that sets him apart from Claude (Star Ocean 2), or Cless (Tales of Phantasia), or Dart (Legend of Dragoon), or Lufia 1's hero, or Ratix (Star Ocean 1), or dozens upon dozens of other such faceless do-gooders.


Angela: Angela suffers a tortured existence as one small and limited sprite shouldered with the heavy destiny of being her game's entire share of T and A.


Kevin: Okay, now, I'm not saying that the loss of a pet isn't a sad thing, folks. I understand it hurts. I've kept some wonderful little creatures of my own in my time, and they've all passed on when it's their time, and it always makes me tear up at least a little to part with them.

But when you have a character whose entire motive for his heroic actions in the game is to avenge the death of his dog, you have done something wrong as a writer.


Lise: "My little brother's been kidnapped! Am I a bad enough Amazon dudette to slowly meander my way through the plot to rescue him?"


Fairy: This little semi-mascot for the team has the unenviable task of constantly having to remind these idiots that they actually have a job to do and should cut their aimless wanderings short to get it done.


Hawk: Being a thief using daggers motivated out of a need to save the chick he's into, Hawk reminds me suspiciously of Locke (Final Fantasy 6) at times, particularly given the name similarity and the fact that they're both Square characters. Aside from the aspects of his personality where this comparison can be drawn, though, there's not much of interest about Hawk.


Carlie: Carlie is a half-elf with the mind of a child who has the hots for a priest dude who stands about 5 feet taller than her. This jonesing for some hot priest-on-midget-half-elf-child action is what keeps her going for at least most of the quest.

Seriously, people. What is with these half-elf kids in RPGs?



You know, this game is just screaming to be made into a porno. Duran's the big muscular guy, Angela's the woman with the enormous boobs who wears scanty clothing regardless of setting (I mean, she IS wearing an over-glorified bathing suit while living in an arctic queendom), Hawk is there as an extra just because there needs to be another guy, Lise is there for the lesbian scene (she's in an all-girl amazon army, and all), Kevin the werewolf's there to please furries, and Carlie is the half-human nymphomaniac midget. Tell me this isn't the perfect cast for a porn flick.