Sorry, not my cup of mana...i meant not my cup of tea!But i may give it a try.

User Rating: 9 | Seiken Densetsu 2 SNES
This "cup of tea or mana" is both sweet & sour, sweet & bitter.You need a lot of patience & skill if you want to drink it.
Secret of Mana is an action JRPG made by Square Soft that ironically looks very similar with Zelda-ALttP.It is clearly no match for Chrono Trigger & Final Fantasy 3 on the SNES, not even for Super Mario RPG.It tries to fool you with amazing visuals & an "out of this world" soundtrack to let you think it's an "elite" game, but it's not.It was clearly inspired after ALttP so lacks originality.It has some innovative stuff like multi-player & a Menu in the form of a Ring that personaly i find it very annoying.You rotate in circles the objects that you have in your inventory-yes i hate it.The gameplay is clumsy & frustrating.At every 3-5 meters that you cover you have to slay a rabite or a bee it fragments the game, it takes too much time to get from point A to point B to complete your objective.The boss battles are ridiculously dificult & i don't even know where to go as the whole map represents a gigantic labyrinth.Too many ways to go too & your party members don't have a great AI, they sometimes get stuck in the way & you need to stop or even go back a few meters so they can get through.
The story is about a civilization that abused of Mana's Power to create the Mana Fortress & this angered the Gods that sent beasts to destroy it.A war started & Mana seemed to dissapear.A hero comes & destroys the fortress with the Mana sword & time repeats itself...then the game begins with our protagonist that has(Elvis has left the building lol:)has left Potos village where he lives, joined by 2 friends to seek a fabled treasure.They reach a waterfall & our protagonist falls & he is called by a misterious voice.A sword that was stuck in the ground was calling him(another cliche, rip-off whatever).He pulls it & "opens Pandoras Box".Monsters suddenly appear from nowhere(like cute little Rabites:) & he heads toward the village.Everybody was shocked when they've saw the fabled Mana Sword in the hands of our friend.Now the sword bearer must restore peace.It seems that it was predestined, like in Lord of the Rings something similar...begins a complicated quest to restore the swords powers by gathering 8 seeds from 8 palaces & bla-bla-bla.8 seeds, the equivalent of the 7 cristals from A Link to the Past.In his journey, a sprite & a noble girl will join him.& along the way you will find a cat that misteriously teleports herself from vast distances to aid you:save the game, buy stufff etc & he welcomes you with the sound "purr".Yes the game has amazing amazing special effects especially when you are in the forest & with the help of music it makes it a very special place.You get to travel around the World Map by cannons that you find in random places, a possible source of inspiration for Super Mario 64.Secret of Mana has an impecable presentation & intro that already immerse you into this fairy tale of a game.In those moments you literally feel that time stops, freezes.The soundtrack & visuals are all that is worth after all in Secret of Mana, they make you blind & they get stuck into your head forever but my final thought is that it represents a very well camouflaged path to frustration.It's a very hard game & it's little innovative but overall it's a rip-off.