GuestLog in

Secret of Mana is probably the game I've played through the most to date. The only real criticism of this masterpiece, however, was the very low difficulty level. Even as a 13 year old at the time of the release, I already recognized the low difficulty level and deliberately avoided the intensive use of magic as much as possible during the first playthrough (especially in the boss fights).

Only recently I came across this "hard mode" ROM hack by chance and thought that this would be exactly the right thing for me.

But unfortunately I have to say at this point that this "hard mode" shoots far beyond the goal and must rather be called "hyper ridiculous hard mode". The basic idea of increasing the monster status and cost of equipment and items would be very welcome in itself, but this was made so exaggerated that the game is especially at the beginning of the sheer horror (not to mention the cursed lance, which almost always creates stronger enemies that destroy you with one blow). The boss fights are even worse. Practically every boss can wipe out the entire party with a single attack (physical or magical), without you really being able to do anything about it. Apparently, the creators of this hack didn't spend a second on extensive testing and balancing.

But yes, I actually played the game to the end in "hard mode" without cheats (yes, that is actually possible), but only using over 200 save slots. A difficulty level somewhere halfway between the original game and this ROM hack would probably have been just right.

My Tip: If you've made it to the High Lands and reached the Wind Palace with the third mana seed, take the opportunity here to level up intensively. On the one hand you earn a reasonable amount of EXP and GP in fights for the first time, on the other hand you can restore HP and MP of the whole party for free at the old man in the wind palace at any time. Here I recommend to grind to at least level 30 (level 32-36 is recommended). Only after that you will have fun for the first time. I recommend the same in the Imperial Castle (in the small room full of Emberman's) or in the Palace of Darkness (these Emberman's give a lot of EXP). And of course in Pure Land there is by far the most EXP when fighting, which you should use for intensive grinding.

The most important Tip: Use the lance orbs only up to the level 3 lance (Sprite's Spear). This weapon has the ability to balloon several enemies at once, which can then be killed completely safely. Only thanks to this weapon, the intensive grind was massively facilitated. The only disadvantage is that this weapon does not get stronger, and that the leveling up of the other weapons slows down, because a party member is constantly carrying this spear. Later in the game there is also a javelin orb with a similar effect (level 4), but it is much less effective because you can only hit single enemies with it (even if at a distance).

While the intiial idea of a ramped up difficulty intrigued me as a fan of the series who has beaten the game more times than a sane person should, the difficulty of this mod is nothing short of a lesson in save-state hacking.

The monster difficulty is ridiculous with rabites killing you in 3 hits in the early game to the bosses which spam multiple high-damage-hits, killing your whole party without even a chance to heal, that is, unless they 1 shot your party 5 seconds into the battle. Getting past Spikey in Elinee's Castle caused me to savestate hack just to stay alive and avoid the 1 shot party kills.

There is TOO MUCH grinding necessary just to get enough MP and magic levels just to progress past each area. Increasing the cost of armors was a good idea except that you cannot even buy healing items or especially Fairy Walnuts at $6000 a pop until you get to Matango which makes using magic useless until that point. It seems that this mod just randomly adds ub3r stats to each monster/boss without much playtesting.

While being only one of the few SOM difficulty mods, it unfortunately will put a bad taste in your mouth as the mod is sadly not very welll thought out. The mechanics of this game are totally off and it is not very enjoyable as it is not *HARD* but rather impossible without item, leveling, and exp hacking codes.

I don't know about most others, but I personally judge a role playing game based on graphics, battle system, story, and difficulty.

We all know this game has great graphics, a great battle system, and an acceptable story... unfortunately it never had difficulty... until NOW!!

One of the things I look forward to when playing a game is entering a new area or encountering a new boss... and then GETTING MY ASS HANDED TO ME and totally dying!!

Then... I look forward to leveling up, grinding, purchasing weapons/armor (if possible) then attempting the level/boss again, then of course... succeeding!!!

With any game, it is very important to me that I die at least once or twice with each new boss or dungeon... (sometimes more)

This hack does that!! I am through 95% of the game and I have enjoyed every moment of it.

Thank you!!!!

As someone who has beaten SoM many, many times over the last 2 decades, I was very intrigued by a hack that would increase its incredibly low difficulty. Unfortunately, this hack goes way too far and doesn't do much to balance the gameplay back into the players favor.

Almost everything done on the players end (equipment changes, changes to item stats, magic tweaks, etc) seemed really really reasonable and well done. To be honest, I'd love to just play a hack with these changes made to it, as they all seemed like sensible adjustments.

Then came the changes to enemy stats. Dear God, there is no mercy in this hack, not even if you beg for it. Stats were beefed up across the board, with no thought given to other mechanics that were secondarily affected by them (bad hitboxes, hit animations, invincibility frames, etc). The result is a game that forces power leveling down your throat, not to mention the use of the "9item" patch. I made it to the very end of the hack, but when I saw the 2nd to last boss had 36K (!) HP, I gave up trying this slog.

The idea to turn SoM into a true action RPG by balancing the gameplay is laudable, but there was not nearly enough thought put into balancing the dfficulty to properly account for the changes made on the enemy side of things. Avoid unless you have a plethora of patience.