Should I start with Secret of Mana?

[Knyght]

Are Legend, Trial, and Vision of Mana all continuation of each other?
Are they all the same characters or whole new stories and settings?

[Peh]

They are not related to each other by story or characters. Start with Secret of Mana, though.

[Casual Amateur]

Those 3 game play differently from what I remember. It doesn't it really matter where you start first.

[Minneyar]

They have some recurring elements between them, but aren't directly connected. You can start anywhere.

The 3D remake of Trials seems like it's the most similar to Visions, and it's otherwise the most recent game, so that's a good place to start if you want something modern. The original Secret and Trials are also both good if you're in the mood for oldschool SNES action RPGs, just bear in mind they've got some rough edges due to being relatively early ARPGs. Legend is very good but I don't know if I'd recommend it as somebody's first game because it probably has the most complex gameplay mechanics of any of them (and it does not explain its mechanics to you at all, you're expected to just figure it out), but that's still fine if it's appealing to you.

[Doresh]

It's really a lot like Final Fantasy and other JRPGs, where the individual entries are standalone, but share some common features (in this case really anything starting with "Mana").

The closest thing these have to shared characters would be the Mana Spirits, but even if they're the same in every game it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

[Morgan]

Originally posted by Knyght:

Are Legend, Trial, and Vision of Mana all continuation of each other?
Are they all the same characters or whole new stories and settings?

If you want to get the full story of the Mana series then you should start with playing Pong before you start playing Visions Of Mana!

[Doresh]

Now that bit of deep lore isn't necessary for a beginner

[Morgan]

I should have been more clear. I should have specified what I meant because there have been several versions of Pong.

I was talking about the original pong. It is called Table Tennis for the Magnavox Odyssey. That is where you should start.

[RPG Gamer Man]

If you want the order of games, they go (at least on steam):

#1. Secret of Mana.
#2. Legend of Mana.
#3. Trials of Mana.
#4. Visions of Mana.

There are some missing off steam though, so if your interested in playing ones not found on steam, you may want to do some research on what those ones are.

NOTE: Based on timeline in the games, there different though. That order is different. I am not sure the timeline order, but i know the release order at least.

[RPG Gamer Man]

I would also recommend Final Fantasy Legend 1-3. Although technically there not Mana games, there is alot of influences in them that were put into the mana games. I especially like the third legend game where they time travel. If you have a nintendo switch, those games are available on there. I wish they would port them to steam, but like everything else....some stuff never makes it to pc.

[Morgan]

You have to start with the 1st video games ever made. New video games are inspired by what came before them.

[Doresh]

Originally posted by RPG Gamer Man:

I would also recommend Final Fantasy Legend 1-3.

I'd recommend it for no other reason than SaGa being amazing.

[Alastor]

If you're wanting to play through all or a majority of the series, I'd always recommend release order. Here is the first four games in the series.

1. Final Fantasy Adventure (Gameboy)
2. Secret of Mana (SNES)
3. Trials of Mana (SNES)
4. Legend of Mana (PS1)

There were a couple of DS and a PS2 game after those but I am not as familiar with them to give proper input. The first game has a GBA remake titled Sword of Mana and Trials of Mana has a modern remake of the same name if you prefer something more up to date. I'm not as personally familiar with the original game on Gameboy but I can vouch for the 2nd through 4th games being good fun, especially if you can get a co-op partner for any of them. Shame the new one will not be including co-op, but I'm still excited for it.

[MJAndre]

Think of the Mana games the same way as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, or Bravely Default.
Each entry is its own unique take.

[darth.crevette]

For all that is holy, do not start with Secret of Mana. It has aged very badly, and will put you off from the entire series.
You definitely should play it at some point though, it is still considered a classic for a reason.

[Amaterasu]

Originally posted by darth.crevette:

For all that is holy, do not start with Secret of Mana. It has aged very badly, and will put you off from the entire series.
You definitely should play it at some point though, it is still considered a classic for a reason.

Because people who played Secret of Mana had that as their only Mana game until things like Sword of Mana came around