When comparing Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition vs Secret of Mana, the Slant community recommends Secret of Mana for most people. In the question“What are the best Android tablet games?” Secret of Mana is ranked 12th while Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition is ranked 63rd. 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.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Interactive stages make the fights more dynamic
Most of the characters have some way to interact with environment and use it for battle. Superman can lift a car and throw it at his opponent and Batman can attach a bomb and explode it. This gives more variation in attack patterns, keeping you and your opponent guessing.
Additionally, you won't always end a fight in the stage where you started. This is because using a power move near the edge of a stage will cause you to transition to another stage. When transitioning you'll see a cut-scene and end up in a new stage. One such area is the Batcave where there's the upper and lower level. You can either throw your opponent down to the lower level or pound them into the elevator and ascend to the upper level.
Pro Fantastic audio
From the sweeping orchestral score to the outlandish sound effects to the superb voice acting the game really shows polish in the audio department, which really helps with the immersion of the game and the world it is trying to portray.
Pro Great fun for DC fans
The game has 30 characters from the DC universe. This includes fan favorites such as Batman, Superman, Flash, and Green Lantern.
All the characters have decent story arcs, fitting well into the "Superman going rogue" storyline. The character interactions before battles provide additional exposition. It's especially fun hearing Joker mock Batman. Or seeing Lex Luthor meet a different kind of Superman.
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 Single player has low replayability
Like many fighting games the single player components are a bit thin and wear out fast. Once each character story has been beaten there is little reason to revisit the game other than for multiplayer.
Con Poor character animations
For the most part this is a slick looking game, but there are times when the animations break immersion. The movements of almost all characters are very stiff and at times they even look like inanimate objects. This is especially noticeable during some of the super abilities such as the Batmobile. The character on the receiving end would just stand there and stiffly turn their head towards it.
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.