When comparing Secret of Mana vs Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, the Slant community recommends Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions for most people. In the question“What are the best Android games without in-app purchases/paywalls?” Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions is ranked 36th while Secret of Mana is ranked 57th. The most important reason people chose Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions is:
To simplify how the gameplay works it is a bit like playing chess where in each turn needs to be scrutinized in order to find the best play on the board. Being that there is a large amount of RPG elements thrown into the game, these choices become even more complicated while also adding a huge amount of options to the game.
Specs
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Pros
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.
Pro Deep turn-based tactical combat that you can easily sink hundreds of hours into
To simplify how the gameplay works it is a bit like playing chess where in each turn needs to be scrutinized in order to find the best play on the board. Being that there is a large amount of RPG elements thrown into the game, these choices become even more complicated while also adding a huge amount of options to the game.
Pro Masterpiece
This tactical RPG always ends up destroying all other alternatives with jobs, skills, stats, items, story, and enhanced dialogues. If only it had better graphics, it would be mainstream.
Pro For a mobile release, this is a large game with many hours of content, which is often rare on the mobile platform
Being that this is a port of a console game the player will find the length of the title much more than the average mobile release.
Cons
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.
Con Touch controls feel awkward to use
The touch controls use an on screen dpad overlaid on top of the game. This means fingers move cover some of the game field or action when trying to maneuver.
Con Poor port on Android
There is no immersive mode, which would allow this to be fullscreen on devices that have the Android navigation bar. On top of this the game is letterboxed on both sides of the screen do to it being a port of the port for iOS. There is also no other Android specific features to speak of in the game either.