When comparing Dungeon Hunter 5 vs Secret of Mana, the Slant community recommends Dungeon Hunter 5 for most people. In the question“What are the best ARPGs (action role playing games) on Android?” Dungeon Hunter 5 is ranked 4th while Secret of Mana is ranked 6th. The most important reason people chose Dungeon Hunter 5 is:
The developers have provided the game with a well-written and intriguing story and the voice acting is decent, which results in a fun narrative experience.
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Pros
Pro Interesting story and good voice acting
The developers have provided the game with a well-written and intriguing story and the voice acting is decent, which results in a fun narrative experience.
Pro Lots of content
Dungeon Hunter 5 offers a lot of content, there are 69 different missions to play in the story mode of the game. There is also a PvP and a multiplayer co-op mode present for online interaction.
Pro Immersive mode
Dungeon Hunter 5 has built in immersive mode on Android devices with Android 4.4+.
Pro Social multiplayer
There is a social multiplayer aspect to Dungeon Hunter where in a player can raid their friends or strangers bases to try to earn extra money and loot. Of course the PvP is not real time and is played out by a UI taking control of friends or strangers bases.
Pro Card collection and fusing mechanics
In Dungeon Hunter 5 all loot is earned as cards, these cards can be fused to upgrade them and also earn special upgrade fusion bonuses. The whole card system mechanic is very similar to Puzzle & Dragons fusions system.
Pro Small mobile friendly missions
The single player missions in Dungeon Hunter 5 are pretty short, making for a good on the go experience that can be completed in short bursts.
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 Uninspiring PvP mode
Dungeon Hunter 5 receives most of its praise for the single player and co-op campaigns, but the player versus player mode is uninspiring and not very fun to play.
Con In app purchases used to remove false limitations
The main aspect of the included in app purchases is to remove wait times and long grinding sessions. Of course the game was specifically designed to have the obstacles in order to force players into paying repeatedly over the games life. Essentially, an endless money suck.
With in app purchases ranging from $0.99 - $99.99 per item it is pretty obvious that the game was designed to pull in as much money as they can convince people to plunk down.
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.