World Map Redux

"Secret of Mana...probably would have been much longer, and I think that when you play it you can get a sense of areas where it seems that something might be missing…"  Ted Woolsey, Secret of Mana's American translator

When Secret of Mana was first conceived, it was intended for the planned Sony CD-ROM add-on for the SNES.  With the anticipated memory space, the reality of longer games with more complex elements was on the horizon.  As the story goes, Nintendo did not receive the favorable deal it was hoping for with Sony, and went behind their backs and tried to get a better deal with Phillips.  This produced an irreparable rift between the two entities, and the CD-ROM add-on was cancelled with the technology later being the basis of Sony’s first Playstation console.

All of this happened during Secret of Mana’s development, and what was planned for the game had to be greatly reduced.  As we’ve discussed before, a lot of material was broken off and reused for Chrono Trigger. But even after the project split, developers still had to fight against the limitations of the SNES hardware as well as a Christmas 1993 deadline for the American release, and the game was further cut.  Since then, there has been much discovery and speculation of prerelease elements not present in the final game. One of my goals with this blog is to collect these discoveries.

As this Unseen64 article shows, there was a working beta, which was probably incomplete. Considering how close this is to the final concept, Secret of Mana was certainly its own project by then.

Three years ago, I happened upon this map:

It was one of the catalysts for creating Secret of Mana Redux.  To my knowledge, this is the earliest representation of the world map that was released to the public.  

Not too long afterwards, this map surfaced:

This comes from a Japanese “scoop guide”, the likes of which were common means of promoting upcoming games.  According to tcrf.net, an accompanying caption reads:

“Below, you'll find the world map of Seiken Densetsu 2. Did you notice that it differed slightly from the map we'd previously shown off in this publication? There are more continents than before, and it seems there are more mysterious locations.”

The “map we’d previously shown” refers to the first map above.  The interesting feature of both maps is that the bottom right hand corner is obscured.  This is where the Lost Continent is in the final release, and it seems that it may have been a late addition to quickly tie up loose ends.

As of late, two more maps have been discovered.  The second I’ll get to later, but the first is a revised version of the scoop guide map:

The most noteworthy additions were more content at Tasnica (lower left) and the Empire (mid right). We still don’t have anything in the bottom right. Compare this with the final SNES map:

We see that those locations were heavily truncated, and the Lost Continent was added.  There’s also this guide map of the 2018 remake, whose original source I can’t pinpoint:

Today, we’re going to examine the various locations of the game using these maps, and see how they evolved over time.  We’ll use a lettering system:

I - First prerelease map

IIa - Scoop Guide Map

IIb - Later version of the above

III - SNES map

IV - 2018 map

Disclaimer: any location on a prerelease map could be a mockup---they may have had an idea where they were headed, but just decided to present the general idea at the time.

First Area

I mentioned that there was another map that was recently discovered.  The text surrounding I indicates that they teased a small part of the world before.  Until now, this teaser map was missing from the conversation, so I asked Clyde Mandelin of Legends of Localization (the source of most of the prerelease maps) if he could locate it, and he graciously searched and eventually found it.  

Below is the map I received in the my inbox (left) along with the same area from III (right):

This first chapter is the most detailed.  Multiple paths exist through the scenario in a way not present beyond this point.  Comparing the two maps, it seems that the developers stuck with their original intentions for the most part.  Looking at the same area in IIb, the overall layout of the early map was still the direction they were going in late in development:

There were a fair amount of minor changes that occurred between IIb and III as things got fleshed out.   I’m not going to be exhaustive but we will take a look at some specific areas:

The area by the Water Palace changed quite a bit, and this may be more cosmetic than anything. Here’s the Unseen64 screenshots featuring the square river which was removed in the final release, along with the surrounding area:

All of these screenshots seem to come from the IIb era.  As seen in the third screenshot, some time between I and IIb, the pathway from Potos to the Water Palace (with Neko’s house along the way) was removed and replaced by a forest. Unseen64 recently posted this clearer map from that point:

This pathway was added back for the final release (III). However, you’ll see that the overhead view and active view do not line up exactly, meaning that this area was still being developed after III:

I’ll take the time to mention that the detailed overhead map was eschewed in favor of a general representation in IV. I believe this is one of the reasons why cannon travel would not have looked right in this version:

One thing that seems to be missing are the transporters to the Haunted Forest.  This upper part of this area was represented on the map with a texture not found in the final release.

You can see what this texture looked like here. I imagine this was to obscure details that were too complex to represent on the overhead map:

Without the transporters, it seems that originally, there may have been a way to walk there:

The active view has a clearing that can't normally be seen. It may have been a westward exit:

This entire part of the Haunted Forest was either a general representation, or something that did not make it to III, which also does not represent the area in the final game:

Here's Gaia's Navel looking south at the area between Pandora and Kippo. This area was also redesigned for III:

Kakkara

In I, Kakkara was essentially a blob, with only the town and the Moon Palace placed.

IIa has vastly more terrain, and now The Fire Palace is present where it is in the final game:
 

However, there doesn’t seem to be a footpath to the Moon Palace.  This was fixed in IIb, which reduced extra space north of the Moon Palace and added an entrance: 

Despite this addition, there’s really no reason to access the Moon Palace by foot.  Note the palette error; Kakkara looks more like the Ice Country here. In III, the space on the western part of the continent was excised.

In 2018, some dummy locations were added in on the bottom portion to give it more detail (IV):

As we'll see, many areas have dummy locations. Considering that they don’t actually point anywhere, they were probably added for scenery, but why confuse newcomers?  One of the main complaints about the remake is that it’s too hard to find things on the map.

The Empire

I’m fairly certain that this is the Empire in I:

By IIa, the Empire had broken from the Ice Country and become its own continent:

The grass had been cleared for content that was placed in IIb:

You’ll note that this is far more intricate than what we end up with in III:

Both Northtown and Southtown were substantially reduced, and some islands were removed.  The one in the sea between Northtown and Southtown is here:

The Northtown Palace, which was much larger in IIb, is joined in the east by a large area that has been completely deleted from the final game (III).  It’s possible that Northtown was a different location entirely. Southtown was much larger and the cannon travel was far away. We can see it here:

Note how the river runs through the city.  It appears that the mysterious spinning object was here in Southtown, meaning that it was moved to Northtown some time between IIb and III before being removed from the game entirely.  In-game dialogue notes that Southdown is “much lauded”...but I believe they were referring to the prerelease city as this is the mighty Empire's Southtown in the final game:

This is the open area at the bottom part of town leading to the Cannon Travel.  Not much had been added here yet, and probably never was:

For the 2018 remake, more dummy locations and roads were added, giving the Empire a larger scope, at least visually.

Ice Country

It seems that the developers had tall intentions for the Ice Country.  A complex wilderness was planned, similar to the first part of the game:

But that was pared down for phase II: 

The original idea may have inspired the Ice Country in Secret of Mana 2:

For III, more detail was added to the Scorpion village, locations were moved around, and some cosmetic elements were added:

For what it’s worth, the wilderness in the final game is one of the least developed areas, with some maps almost identical:

Pure Land

The Pure Land was mostly unchanged through all phases:

Upper Land

The Upper Land is yet another area with ambitious plans in I:

We were back to basics by IIa:

You’ll note that the map was reoriented, and Kakarra was now attached to this part of the world.  Other than a river, not much changed in IIb:

And it more or less stayed that way for the main release (III).  The path to the cannon travel was removed and it was pushed further out, indicating that the area that connected them may have been a late addition.  The Wind Palace area also received some detail:

For what it's worth, the ROM is full of huge maps with hardly any content. Matango itself uses less than 20% of the total space that was cleared. Even then, a lot of it is just filler:

Lofty Mountains

It’s difficult to say whether there were lofty plans for the Lofty Mountains.  Take a look at I:

Other than the placement of the mountain, It seems that this concept was more or less set.  Even the caterpillar forest in the bottom right and the waterfall on the left were present at this point.  In Phase II, it was more or less identical to what we got in III:

You’ll notice that they removed the wide area to land in.  I’ve speculated that Mandala was not originally reached with Flammie, but was accessed from a beach at the bottom of the mountain from which you would have traveled up.  

Tasnica

Another area that suffered much in the reduction department was Tasnica.  I shows plans for an intricate scenario:

IIa had pared things down closer to what we have in the final:

Like the Empire, Tasnica was further developed by IIb:

...but cut all the way down to one palace by the time of the game’s release (III):  

We explored Tasnica in detail here. Dummy locations and roads were also added here in the 2018 remaster to make Tasnica more than just a castle on the water (IV):

Other places of note

I has a few islands that are not present in the final game, one of which may be an early version of Gold City. They've been moved together in this shot:

Other than losing a river, Gold City was pretty much the same after phase II.

This could be the Lighthouse given its location:

The Lighthouse as it appears in the final game is not present until IIb.

~

This is the best picture yet of Secret of Mana's development. It doesn't tell us what was cut, but it gives an idea of the scope of the original plan. It's up to Square to reveal the rest someday.

Next: Music of Mana, Part III

Acknowledgments: A huge thanks to reader Karsten Beoulve for checking over some of the locations with me, and helping in designing the graphics.  Also massive thank yous one thousand times to Clyde Mandelin of Legends of Localization who continues to find good stuff all these years later, and is kind enough to scan it.

The screencaps of the prerelease video come from OKeijiDragon's YouTube channel.

Unseen64 allows their work to be used under this license. Further screenshots come from the StrategyWiki, which are used under this license. Additional maps from FantasyAnime and severinsen's DeviantArt page.

The image of the SNES CD-ROM comes from Wikipedia (By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51320134).

Square owns SoM.

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