Seiken Densetsu 3 (聖剣伝説3?, lit. “Legend of the Sacred Sword 3”) is a 1995 action role-playing video game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) for the Super Famicom. It is the sequel to the 1993 game Seiken Densetsu 2 (released as Secret of Mana outside Japan), and is the third installment in the Mana series… It features three lengthy main plotlines and six different possible main characters, each with their own storylines, and allows two players to play simultaneously. Seiken Densetsu 3 builds on the gameplay of its predecessor with multiple enhancements, including the use of a time progression system with transitions from day to night and weekday to weekday in game time, and a wide range of character classes to choose from, which provides each character with an exclusive set of skills and status progression.
it never got localized, just a romhack fan translation in 2000, making it yet another really cool thing that people don’t talk about here because their mom didn’t buy it for them as a kid. i mean, i don’t see anyone praising it as a game but it has some of the best pixel art i’ve ever seen. the rips for this game are decent but not as comprehensive as it deserves. anyway, screenshots:
^ that ground tile gets used for both snow and sand which i think is cute. there are so many little variations in the texture of the snowdrifts if you look closely enough
I played it like right when that romhack came out. it’s way good. I have basically nothing else to say because that was a long time ago and I haven’t played it since
i learned from chrono trigger that my patience with even really pretty and decently-designed RPGs is hilariously low but looking at and thinking about this game gives me some warm fuzzy feelings so i might still try it soon anyway
Know the coolest thing about it? There are 3 enemy factions fighting for the Ultimate Power Of Mana. One of them wins off screen, 85% through the game. Whichever faction wins depends on the main character you picked at the beginning of the game.
So there’s a split right at the end with three different routes, final dungeons, final bosses, and the only way to see the others is to restart the entire game
Pretty much everyone who was my age when the romhack came out played SD3, though a lot of us never finished it. I’m a little shocked S-E hasn’t re-released it much, and never in an English format.
Also, using the high-res mode to to stuff more & more detailed kanji into dialog was a clever idea.
I finished it several times, since you get different events for different trios of kids, yup and they have branching upgrade/class paths that change their colours and stats and gear and and and
Confirming Event status of the translation, when it finally happened
The combat’s treacle-y and a bit awkward, especially magic usage
Yeah, this. Seiken 3 was probably the first fan translation I ever played, as well as my first “omg RARE never released outside Nippon L@@K” game. I spent more time taking in the scenery and turning off background layers than I did trying to get further!
Yeah, I think part of the reason it doesn’t get talked about much here is that it was talked to death in the early 00s (which is not a bad thing). It was a beautiful game, though.
The only inveterate love I have for Japanese games revolves around the Chrono Trigger/Actraiser/Terranigma axis, so it’s pretty clear I need to play this game sometime.
I think I was so burned by this game never getting an official release that I kind of tried to pretend it didn’t exist for a long time. Eventually I tried to play it but didn’t get far because it felt weird to play on a keyboard, maybe I should give it another shot. It is real pretty, which I didn’t really appreciate at all at the time.
The screenshots and talk of the ZSNES generation remind me of the Pixels are not Square thread, and how square pixels are their own kind of visual nostalgia now that emulators have been around for years and years. More people have probably played this game (and many others) on emulator than on an actual console/tv set up. Maybe all the complaints of current ‘retro’ stylings not really getting it are missing the point, and at this point we’re mostly just nostalgic for emulation’s wild west days of yore.
Way way back Zsnes had multiplayer, I did an entire playthrough of this game with an online friend from across the ocean.
I think we went Hawk / Angela / Duran for the - hardest path -
It was the best!
I had the hardest time talking to him because Zsnes is in Qwerty and, coming from Europe, I was used to Azerty. Eventually I adapted, and had to readapt to Azerty later
This game’s hitboxes blow but at least this never gets as obnoxious as Secret of Mana’s invincibility frames. It feels real good to hit things with Duran’s sword.
I tried to play this online with a friend right after we finished Secret of Mana! We never got very far, something about it felt off. It’s gorgeous though, absolutely gorgeous. I should play this sometime, huh?
iirc this was the game where the characters are wearing pajamas while sleeping?
the best thing: this is sth. you can only discover when turning off layers in zsnes/[whatever-emulator-you’ve-used], and it feels like they knew all along that you’d be doing this.
also slots nicely into the Seiken Densetsu plotline, having a few setpieces that connect the dots between the games (mana tree + surrounding area)
played it w/ a friend as well, loved it, forgot everything about it besides those two things.
Yeah. I don’t think this game is as good as it looks. I’ve tried playing it multiple times but always felt this joyless tedium after a few hours. It can be slightly hard to pin down why, but there’s at least a couple problems I can name about it. One, the spritework is inexpressive. Compare the rabite:
SD2:
SD3:
Something is off. The SD2 sprite smiles, bounces, balances. The SD3 version kind of has an imitation of that. Every sprite in SD3 has this flat coldness to it, both player characters and enemies.
Second, if I recall correctly (I haven’t touched this in 5+ years so I forget the details), the battle system in SD3 locks you into a slow-mo fighting stance and forces you to painstakingly mash in front of every enemy until their health is drained. In SD2 there’s this feeling of bee-like agility – you have much more mobility than all the enemies, and you dart in and out to strike as your weapon recharges and their animations end. In SD3 you are just trading blows back and forth at close range like heavyweight boxers.
