 | Lost Advanced Civilizations in RPGs |
As I approach the end of Secret of Mana, I once again revisit the Lost Continent's subterranean subway, a fraction of a city within the fallen continent's ruins. When you arrive you are greeted mostly by ghouls as you transverse row after row of seats within the moving platform until you reach its end and exit through the other side of it, confronted by a nasty Eggplant Man spawning lethal beings with high attack power and evasion (this can be avoided if you ignore the last couple ghouls which are easy to deal with however.) It is quite something to find such places in a high fantasy game like Secret of Mana which otherwise has little connection to the real world we live in save for some sections here and there, such as the temple at Mandala, where you get information from orbs called "veedios" about the Mana Fortress and a hint of what happened in events before the game's timeline, all the while you also hear sound bytes of otherwise modern clips about game shows and news of kingdoms warring war with each other as well as environmental cautions on the misuse of Mana overall, which go dismissed in the same conversation. The remake revised said sound bytes to make it less coincidental but is still the same concept of a modern advanced civilization that was lost due to people's greed for Mana.
I've read some old theories on about how Secret of Mana could had been set in the future of our own world, being that besides the westernized trivia on said orbs and that subway scene along with some names of sites like Gaia's Navel that has connection with our very own Greek Mythology could be used as hints that we simply ceased to exist and this game is what became of our world.
This of course has been greatly debunked, mainly in turn because programmers and translators at that time had little time to completely localize said translation and would add western themes on text so people overseas would not feel "lost" as to what was being said in those "veedios." This and the fact other Mana games coming later having said connections with SoM would just kick said theory of being our world out for good.
This being said, the Lost Continent is just what remains of the OLD world in Secret of Mana, not our world, and gave hints of how life was on it before the events taking place within said game. The subway is filled mostly with ghoul enemies because, in my opinion, are the unfortunate beings that were caught on the disaster that happened in events before the game's storyline. Quite saddening if this is the case.
Other than that, this is a nifty segment of said game and and makes me wish there could be more of it just as well.
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