Is it accurate to compare nostalgia to a hallucinogenic drug? Or is it merely a defensive act to preserve the least-jaded part of ourselves? That ignorant innocent of childhood that saw no blemishes, just the wonderment of new experiences. Every scar and scab was a point of pride, and broken bones became future stories of youthful adventure.

Or, in regards to games, we brushed away all the poor design in favor of the things we loved.

Like everything on the Internet these days, I feel response to the Secret of Mana remake has been limited to binary extremes. Either this remake is precisely what people wanted – a response seeming to be limited to the consumer spectrum – or it is a disservice to the original and would be better off not existing – the common conclusion of members of the press.

It’s amazing this title hasn’t sparked another bloody battle in the eternal feud between Dead Gamers and press.

Perhaps the fact that I never actually owned Secret of Mana contributes to my more moderate response. I could only borrow the cartridge from friends when I was young. It’s possible the only time I even completed the game was in 2003 during Freshman year of College, one of Rochester’s daily blizzards an adequate excuse to skip class and play the game on emulator. I hadn’t revisited Secret of Mana until giving it a whirl on the SNES Classic just a couple months prior to this writing.

While Secret of Mana was always a beloved game, it was so rarely in my grasp and played that it held a less significant place than Square’s other releases on the platform. Other releases such as Mega Man X, Star Fox, Super Metroid and A Link to the Past would similarly become more cherished in memory and foundation. I do not have the same emotional attachment to Secret of Mana nor its mechanics.

So what does that make the remake to me?

A curiosity. For the most part the game adheres so closely to the original that I have to wonder what its purpose even is. Very little in regards to the game’s mechanics have been changed, going so far as to have the companion A.I. swing desperately at the spawn point of an invisible enemy. While certain exploits have been removed – such as timing the casting of spells so that you might infinitely stack damage upon a foe – other odd quirks and behaviors persist. The three-enemy-sprite limitation is maintained as best as possible, for example, despite modern systems being capable of handling more.

The localizers even went so far as to maintain a lot of old names and monickers from the SNES version. Rather than facing down the ferocious Hell Hound you find yourself confronting the much less threatening Heck Hound. Even though you can hear the Japanese voice track refer to the summons as Salamander and Djinn, they retain their SNES translations of Salamando and Sylphid.

To say that the game is completely unchanged would be deceitful. There have been some A.I. logic slips, such as the aggressive, rapid-fire nature of ranged attackers. Chobin Hoods have a seemingly iron-clad defense, never hesitating between each loosed arrow. Boss creatures, on the other hand, seem much less aggressive. Or perhaps it’s merely that each swing relies on much more precise hit-detection, making it easier to parry and avoid their blows.

In fact, freedom of movement likely contributes most to each version’s differences. The player is free to dodge and strike from any angle as opposed to the limited eight or four of the Super Nintendo. Whereas a strike may just slightly miss due to some wonky hit-detection in the original, it’s much more guaranteed in the remake. The most difficult equipment to adjust to would be the ranged weaponry, but the new engine includes some subtle aim-assist to make that less of a problem.

While it is for these adjustments I think I prefer the remake, there are also some that seem pointless or even detrimental. Gone is the Action Grid of the Super Nintendo that had allowed a greater degree of control over comrade hostility. Instead, the player is limited to three obvious options. Each ally either targets the same foe as the player, a different foe, or supports another ally. The secret fourth option – if you wish your friends to avoid combat as best as they can – is to have them support one another, thus providing no target. This feels less like control over the system and more like tricking it.

There has also been quite a bit of hullabaloo over the ring system no longer circling the selected character, but given how often my allies were off-screen I imagine this may have been a technical decision. The original Secret of Mana prevented the player from moving on if their companions became stuck behind a physical obstacle. The remake has no such problem. In fact, if such a thing is to happen the player may simply open up the ring menu, and upon closing it their companions teleport more closely.

Such a quirky lack of polish feels in line with that old Super Nintendo era of gaming, don’t you think?

While the ring system’s original design was clearly intended to communicate which character the player was currently controlling, the remake has shifted that communication to the ring selector’s color. Blue for the boy, pink for the girl, and green for the sprite. As such, I never found it troublesome to figure out whom it was I was controlling or commanding. Perhaps this is not an obvious enough tell for some, but I only noticed it as an issue or change after others griped.

Which is what it comes down to. Most of the “inferiorities” of this version of the game are mere gripings. The mouths do not move in cut-scenes? Oh well. They didn’t on the Super Nintendo, either. While it certainly feels odd after going through the trouble to make such set-pieces cinematic, one has to wonder if the game is actually made worse by it.

I would actually say, in some ways, yes, but not because the mouths don’t flap. Despite these efforts to take select scenes and portray them in a more modern fashion, there are other story segments executed with the same primitive mannerisms as the original. Theoretically this shouldn’t seem worse, but instead the sudden appearance of character models or awkward marches feel cheaper. Rarely have I seen this called out by reviewers, at least not nearly so much as the lack of flapping gums. The juxtaposition between cheap story-telling tactics against the improved presentation is the most jarring shift for me.

Despite being no different than the 16-bit presentation, I would argue that it looks more fitting for such sprites to be portrayed in an old-fashioned and limited manner. By bringing the game to life in gorgeous and vibrant 3D character models, occasionally taking the time to direct the scene in a cinematic fashion, sticking to such limited techniques feels… cheap.

Yet I got over it. I got over it because, despite the changes and adjustments, I was having fun. It was still, at its heart, Secret of Mana. Any other gripes I have are not the fault of the remake, but of the game’s original design as a whole.

Which is why I think there might be such a great divide. For one audience, the adjustments and changes are so minor that it may as well be the game they played years ago. “This is how a remake should be,” my friend Luke tells me. On the other hand, the press scores are, I think, a reflection of resentment. This remake did not allow the reviewers to experience their childhood anew. All the old flaws of the game persisted, and the improved presentation was… well, it was on a budget.

Gamers, press, and old fans can duke their nostalgia out all they want. To me, the greater question is whether anyone that had never played the original Secret of Mana should instead play the remake.

My answer is yes. If anything is going to drive them away from the game, it’s all the old flaws that Secret of Mana always had. The action-RPG genre has evolved in so many ways that the game would never be as impressive as it was to that original audience. The story was never all that good, either. At the very least, the lack of cartridge limitation means the translation can breath rather than truncating all the dialogue like a children’s book.

The one-of-a-kind aesthetic of Secret of Mana is still intact, and that’s about the only thing this game can offer a modern audience that feels lost compared to modern contemporaries. So if a new player is going to experience this game for the first time, at least allow them the modern conventions of being able to swing and dodge in any direction while the game auto-saves during every screen transition. Those are the greatest reasons to move on from the Super Nintendo original.

Just make sure you patch it first. Those bugs are awful.