Seiken Densetsu 3 (Japan) [En by LNF+Neill Corlett+SoM2Freak v1.01] [Title Hack by Dragonsbrethren v1.0] (~Secret of Mana 2) ROM

Wow. This game is the grand hidden gem in the SNES library.

Seiken Densetsu 3 is basically the sequel of Secret of Mana, released in 1995 in Japan. It never got released overseas though, my best guess is probably censorship reasons.

The story in Seiken Densetsu 3 is rather unique, because you can choose 3 out of 6 characters to play, and their stories are intertwined with each other. This encourages multiple playthroughs of the game. The big red line of the story is pretty simple, though, some can say it's pretty underwhelming than the last game. Basically, the Tree of Mana is dying and chaos began to rise. Your main character is chosen to gather the eight spirits and pull the Sword of Mana to restore order. There's more to it, but I won't bother spoiling it for now.

This game looks fantastic, with detailed sprites and environments that are a joy to look at. The soundtrack's great too, but there are some songs where I feel the instruments don't match up.

The combat has been refined from the previous game. You know when at Secret of Mana you have to wait a little bit until the meter fills up then you can attack? Well in this game, your character will show just a short animation when he's ready to attack, making the flow of the game goes faster. The enemies are more aggressive too, and since you got three characters in your party, combat is a fun, exciting, and hectic mess. You can also cast spells and do B Attacks (often referred as BAs). It's basically a super move that you can do when you fill a meter up.

Another thing that stands out from this game is Class Changing. Each characters has different classes and you can upgrade their class to a better one. You can change classes twice, and every class change has different branching paths, adding more replayability.

Overall, I think Seiken Densetsu 3 is an amazing RPG that not a lot of people have ever played. If you loved Secret of Mana or just loved RPGs in general, then please, try out this game. You're gonna love it.