The Mana series just turned 35 with a retrospective trailer and a massive sale

Square Enix has released a 35th anniversary retrospective trailer for the Mana series alongside a massive franchise-wide digital sale. The one-and-a-half-minute video traces the lineage of the action RPG franchise from its 1991 Game Boy debut all the way to the upcoming release of Visions of Mana.

The franchise originally launched as a spin-off called Final Fantasy Adventure (known as Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden in Japan) before dropping the Final Fantasy branding to become its own distinct entity. It was an ambitious attempt to put a Zelda-style action game on a portable system. The series truly found its identity with Secret of Mana on the Super Nintendo in 1993. That game introduced the Ring Command menu system and drop-in cooperative multiplayer. Over the last three and a half decades, the series has bounced across the Super Nintendo, PlayStation, and modern consoles. Square Enix outlined the full anniversary plans on its official topics blog.

The anniversary event includes a steep digital sale across the PlayStation Store, Nintendo eShop, Steam, and mobile storefronts. The biggest draw is the Collection of Mana. It bundles the first three games for 950 yen, an 82 percent discount.

The Collection of Mana includes Final Fantasy Adventure, Secret of Mana, and the original 16-bit Trials of Mana. That third game is a massive deal for retro fans. It originally launched exclusively in Japan in 1995 and did not receive an official English localization until this collection arrived in 2019.

The discounts also cover almost the entire modern catalog. Visions of Mana is 60 percent off. The discount drops the price to 3,511 yen on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Steam. The 3D remakes of Trials of Mana and Secret of Mana are also heavily discounted, along with the remaster of Legend of Mana.

Vinyl pressings and environmental storytelling

The celebration also included a special music livestream with series composers Hiroki Kikuta, Tsuyoshi Sekito, and Ryo Yamazaki. Kikuta explained his philosophy of treating the game audio as environmental storytelling. He designed melodies to represent the pulse of the world tree and nature itself. He noted that the melody must breathe just as the forest breathes within the game. His work on Secret of Mana is famous for its unconventional time signatures and heavy use of custom instrument samples pushed into the Super Nintendo sound chip.

The stream confirmed a new Mana series vinyl collection containing high-quality pressings of classic arrangements from Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana. The composers also detailed the official Visions of Mana original soundtrack. Sekito explained the technical challenge of maintaining the classic 16-bit warmth alongside the full orchestral arrangements allowed by modern hardware.

The Mana series has always occupied a strange space in the RPG landscape. It never quite reached the sales heights of Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. Its commitment to action combat and lush, watercolor-style art direction kept it alive through multiple console generations anyway. The 35th anniversary push is a good excuse to revisit the early games, especially at these prices.