When comparing Adventure Bar Story vs Secret of Mana, the Slant community recommends Secret of Mana for most people. In the question“What are the best JRPGs (Japanese role playing games) on Android?” Secret of Mana is ranked 2nd while Adventure Bar Story is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose Secret of Mana is:
Twenty some odd years later and Secret of Mana is still considered one of the best action role playing game experiences there is.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Well-balanced mix of entrepreneurial and combat-RPG mechanics
While the dungeon-crawling and recipe-management components of Adventure Bar Story could each get tiresome on their own, alternating between the two keeps both fresh.
Pro Gameplay is balanced without in-app purchases
The premium items available in Adventure Bar Story are most accurately described as optional cheats. The game is not overly difficult or otherwise restricted without them.
Pro Impressive strategic depth
Purchases must be balanced between adventuring gear and cooking supplies. Adventuring is the cheapest way to get ingredients and the only way to advance the story. But adventuring will never provide enough of certain stables (salt, milk, etc.) so you'll need to spend a lot of your cash on them, along with additional kitchen equipment and (optional, but convenient) recipes. You can't just ignore cooking, either -- in addition to being your primary income, character levels are gained only by eating!
Pro Has stood the test of time
Twenty some odd years later and Secret of Mana is still considered one of the best action role playing game experiences there is.
Pro Unique ring command system allows for easy menu selection
The ring command system used for selecting equipment and other options is still as innovative today as it was back in 1993.
A first at it's time, the ring command system allowed for users to select their weapons and equipment easily without having to leave the main game screen, making for selecting quite easy.
Pro Shift in gameplay for Squaresoft/SquareEnix made RPGs
Secret of Mana features a top down real time battle system akin to other action role playing games such as Legend of Zelda that at the time was a large shift from the turn based fare that Square created. Even today Square Enix does not foray too often into the action role playing genre, making for a unique experience when it comes to Square created titles.
Pro Considered one of the best stories in RPG's young and old
While the outline of the story is the normal RPG fare, where a young boy is tasked with saving the world, the characters and their journey still holds up as one of the best ever written.
Pro Colorful 16bit era graphics
Secret of Mana was created at the height of the 16bit SNES era and utilized some of the most colorful and stylized fantasy role playing game graphics. While it would have been nice to see Square polish them up a bit for HD devices, they still hold up, especially in a market that has many games designed with bit graphics as a current trend.
Cons
Con Recipe discovery doesn't always make sense
Trying original recipes is not completely essential, but definitely an important game feature. Sometimes, ingredients go together exactly as you would expect based on other in-game recipes or real-world equivalents. Sometimes, all the things that should work don't.
Con Aesthetically bland
Graphics, sound and dialog are adequate but nothing more.
Con Progression is slow
It takes several hours just to encounter all the core gameplay elements.
Con Graphically, almost a direct port
Square Enix has done nothing to polish the graphics in this port which for the price point is a little disheartening. The black borders on both sides of the screen are also disappointing. To see Square do so little to accommodate HD devices and their swath of screen sizes, it makes one wonder how they get away charging the prices they do.