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To me, this is the preferred hack solely for a few things on top of the relocalization:

• The title screen restoration (who in SquareSoft thought it was a good idea to crop the original JP title screen?)
• The hack's Variable Width Font (it is 100% cleaner to read than the thinner and ugly default font)
• Some graphics are restored to its original Japanese release (i.e. title screen, Death Machine, etc)
• Names are not stuck to only using caps only

It has a few flaws, however:

• Almost every armor (mainly) and items are renamed (spells too but it's self explanatory)

This makes it hard to look at Wiki sites and guides to pinpoint which item/equipment is which. Fortunately, this can be remedied by just looking at the sprites for each item/equipment/spell (and the cost for each) and then look up other websites that provide the info of each equipment/item (such as FantasyAnime's Ultimate World Map for equipment/items). They're just name changes anyway, and most of the time the armor you see in stores will make you sell off your old armor anyway (when you get the chance) and almost everything (including the weapon orbs) is hard to miss, even if you explore a bit (that one helmet in the Pure Land is the only missable item). It's just inconvenient if you're looking at guides and Wiki pages, but again there's always workarounds (until the hack gets updated to include the original names anyway, I'll update if that's the case).

• "(Monster) gets whacked!" got changed into just a simple "Critical hit!"

While that one, in my opinion, is subjective to how you may feel about seeing crits, seeing that kind of removes the charm and it got reduced to something simple instead. Yes it makes sense, but that's pretty much the only thing that didn't get brought over from the original Ted Woolsey localization personality.

• Some background graphics flash when certain spells like Acid Storm gets used on your party, although I honestly don't remember if that's also present in vanilla SoM and visible in emulators. [DISREGARD POINT. See Edit]

• An inconsistency in the Weapon/Magic Skill Levels menu descriptions

The weapon menu says [Press the "Attack" buton to begin] ("buton" typo included) and the magic menu says [Push the "Attack" button to begin].

Regardless, the Pros of this hack on top of the main relocalization script makes it worth playing, and the problems are just "meh" and can be brushed off, hopefully when the people involved in this patch can revisit this, they can smooth it out (but it's been like 3+ years since the last update, so it's more or less unlikely). Most of these Pros aren't seen in the Secret of Mana: Reborn retranslation patch. I'd say this is the closest you'll get for playing SoM in its original form because of those changes and I had an enjoyable time playing though it.

(Played on original hardware with an FXPAK Pro. Similar results will occur with the Super Everdrive.)

EDIT 7/16/2022: Ignore point 3, must have been my SNES that's doing the glitchiness. I now use an RGB modded SNES Jr with a c11 cap replacement and so far it doesn't have that effect anymore for some reason compared to my regular SNES.

The only thing that I would love to see done differently about this hack is reverting "Critical Hit!" to "[monster name] gets whacked!" in the battle dialogue box. I know it's more accurate or mature or whatever to say "Critical Hit," but the "... gets whacked!" message is simply delightful and should have been retained.

Other than that, I absolutely adored this hack. It's incredible how much of a cumulative impact minor textual and graphical changes can have on a classic game. It's like meeting an old friend you've lost touch with over the years and they are somehow more generous, thoughtful, and kind than you ever could have imagined.

The script is great and makes the game feel like it has so much more life than the original. I strongly recommend it along with the screen scrolling hack.

This hack uses the FuYoSa Variable Width Font edition as a base, a good base to use, but that damn spelling error with the guy on the Turtle Island who says "I'm was born in the empire" instead of "I was" is still there, a leftover from the FuYosa script that perhaps the new team didn't catch.

Other than that one gripe, this patch is pretty amazing and does as much as it can to restore changed graphics, item names, boss names etc. This patch goes above and beyond what is expected. I hope the team responsible for it will keep working on it.

........... ADDENDUM ...........

Oof... There's more errors than just that one actually.

Some of these grammar mistakes make it very evident that it's just leftovers from when a thing used to be called something else.

Like changing Elementals to Spirits. You changed the word but not the grammar around it.

In English we put an "An" behind words that begin with a Vowel.

Example: An apple. An orange.

But for CONSONANTS, you just use A.

A banana. A pear.

You wouldn't say "An pear." That just sounds weird. But you WOULD say "An apricot."

Other errors in the text are just common spelling mistakes that got overlooked.

The green haired man in Pandora Castle says "My life is precious, so I'm 'quiting' the army." Without the extra T in "quitting" it looks like "quite-ing."

I originally thought that it was only the Turtle Island man saying "I'm was born in the Empire" but apparently that was only the tip of the grammar and spelling mistake iceberg for this hack.

Don't get me wrong!! I love the hack!! And these mistakes were likely around before in the FuYoSa VWF hack. But I really just want to see all those bizzare errors in the text pounded out until the text looks like it could be a retail release.

Speaking of retail, though... even in the official localization by Ted Woosley there was some weird stuff. The sentence about the dwarves in Gaia's Navel.

Redundancy check, Mr. Woosley! You said "weapons" twice in the same sentence! You only need it in there ONCE.

"The dwarves in that cave know a great deal about weapons" - would have been a sufficient sentence. But Ted wrote it as "Dwarves live in that cave. They make good weapons and know all about weapons."

So even the original U.S. localization isn't without its own problems.

I understand that the SoM Relocalized project was a labor of love for all who were involved and I'm certainly not trying to trash it. But those grammar and spelling errors are pretty darn strange. Not as strange as the intro to Zero Wing, with its "All your base are belong to us" memes, but it still makes me pause and stare at what I'm reading.

I really do hope that Timbo and the rest of the team that made this patch will keep working on it.

So, all the in-game dialog text looks better and easier for read, but for me the menu text when I go to check stats or edit the text box or controls, etc, is all blurry.

Is this a known in? Is there a fix?

I feel like I prefer going with the slightly less legible but graphically still correct original dialogue text if it means the menu text also looks right too.

The rest of the fixes don't matter to me personally so much to be honest. I just want all the text in the game to be easy to read and display correctly.

The original "Secret of Mana" was a major success when it was first released on Super Nintendo on August 6th, 1993. As a follow-up to "Seiken Densetsu" on Game Boy (re-named "Final Fantasy Adventure" in North America and "Mystic Quest" in Europe), its action RPG formula successfully carried the torch of its predecessor, while also using similar themes reminiscent to "The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past". While its translation by Ted Woolsey was not perfect (much of the game's English script insertion was very limited from its original Japanese translation at the time), it still proved as a worthy addition to the action-RPG genre in terms of its amazing 16-bit graphics, gameplay, and beautifully composed soundtrack (courtesy of Hiroki Kikuta). Followed by "Seiken Densetsu 3" on Super Famicom (which never saw an official release in North America or Europe) and nine more titles (including two completely different remakes of FFA and a remake of SoM released in North America and Europe last year), it remains as one of the greatest games of all time! In addition, FuSoYa's Variable Width Font English retranslation (released on February 9th, 2000) made the gameplay experience even better!

Sadly, in spite of its impressive 3D redesign, improved retranslation, and usage of voice acting, last year's SoM remake did not live up to expectations due to an irritable assortment of glitches and bugs and the removal of certain memorable aspects contained in its original 16-bit counterpart (e.g. no mode seven canon travel). Overall, it was simply not worth shelling out the original retail price of $39.99. Thankfully, this new patch by Timbo exceeds expectations by not only restoring uncensored graphics, but also expands upon FuSoYa's retranslation with some more improvements. The new crisper, cleaner title screen and updated opening text crawl is also a nice touch!

Put simply, this is THE definitive version of SoM and is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for all fans (old and new) of the Mana franchise! Do NOT waste your time with the official 3D remake on Steam. Stick with Timbo's patch here instead. You will NOT be disappointed!

I was waiting this for many years, who would guess this were be finally restored and released at the day of my birthday? Thank You for the birthday gift! Liked a lot! :D