Secret of Mana: the seed that awakened my love for JRPGs

There’s an image that has never left me.
A slightly blurry CRT screen, the saturated colors of the Super Nintendo, and that enormous tree appearing before my eyes — as if it had always existed.
In the background, a strange sound I had never heard anywhere else but recognized instantly: the call of whales.

I was still a child. I didn’t know the words ecology, loss, or even RPG.
But my body understood before I did.
Those sounds tightened my throat, the pixels felt more real than my own bedroom.
And that tree? It wasn’t scenery.

It was a promise: that a world wider, deeper, and more mysterious than anything I knew was waiting for me.

That was my first encounter with Secret of Mana.
And without knowing it, my initiation into the world of JRPGs.

The child in front of the screen: discovering a universe

I hadn’t played Final Fantasy yet.
I didn’t know Midgar, Spira, or any of the worlds I would travel later.
Secret of Mana wasn’t a classic to me — it was simply my first step into another universe.

From the very first moments, something pulled me in.
The vivid colors, the intro music that seemed to tell a story before I even pressed “Start”…
And the feeling that the controller had turned into a key.

Suddenly, I was that boy with the sword.
Not by choice: by inevitability.
Head down, I dove into the game the same way I’d later dive into life: driven, unthinking, carried by a need to move forward.

Every action became ritual:
running, waiting for the gauge to fill before unleashing a strike, opening the ring menu to find a spell or item.
Three simple gestures that became a second nature through repetition.

Even today, I think I write and create the same way: I rush in, I charge up, I pause to choose.

The shock of emotion: losing a companion

Secret of Mana also taught me something I had never experienced before: loss.

When one of the three characters dies at the end… I wasn’t ready.
It was sudden. Violent.

It wasn’t a mechanic.
It was an absence: someone I had laughed with, fought alongside, grown with.
I was attached to him despite his questionable humor and stubborn personality.
And suddenly, he was gone.

I remember the exact moment I realized Secret of Mana wasn’t “just a game.”

It was a story capable of tearing something out of me.
Of creating a real emptiness in the middle of a pixel world.

Loss. Sacrifice. Revelation. Three words that shaped that moment and maybe everything I look for in narratives today.

Because JRPGs aren’t just entertainment.
They’re an education in emotion.

The beauty of imperfection

What I also love is that Secret of Mana wasn’t perfect.

Some characters lacked depth.
Some bosses were strangely easy.
And then there were the weird bugs: vanishing chests, inaccessible paths, odd little glitches.

But that’s what made the magic.
I spent hours imagining hidden seeds, lost towns, secret Easter eggs.

These imperfections gave the world its singular identity — as if the world sometimes slipped out of its creators’ control.
As if behind the machine, there was something fragile, handmade, deeply human.

Even today, I prefer worlds with rough edges.
Shaky pixels, little bugs, looping tracks that don’t quite fit.

Because that’s where imagination lives: in the cracks, not the polish.

Cooperation: sharing a world

I didn’t always play alone. Sometimes friends grabbed the second controller.

And again, Secret of Mana did something unique: it was a real multiplayer adventure. Not a token 2P mode where the second player barely matters.

Here, for one of the first times, we advanced together.

What struck me wasn’t strategy or difficulty.
It was the absence of tension.

Everyone naturally found their place:
the warrior, the healer, the mage.
No competition, just a quiet harmony.

Maybe that says something about me.
I love worlds where cooperation unfolds without effort, where roles balance themselves.

No grand speeches, no ego.
Just moving forward together, like the roots of a tree intertwining.

The resonance today: the child with the sword and the adult who writes

Today, when I think back to Secret of Mana, I realize something:
I never really stopped being that boy with the sword.

I still move forward head down.
Still efficient, still determined, still going straight to the point.

But something has changed: my dreams have broken along the way.

Maybe that’s why this game still resonates.
Because it reminds me what it means to believe, to hope, to move forward without fear.

It reminds me that before becoming an adult, I was a child who stood in awe before a giant tree and pink flamingos and that wonder is a weapon far stronger than any defense we build as we grow.

I didn’t understand ecology back then.
But I recognized the whale song.
I sensed—without knowing—that nature had a voice.

The Mana Tree wasn’t a resource — it was something sacred, something to protect.

Years later, when I see the adult I’ve become, I realize I was right to shiver.

What this game taught me without saying it

If I had to summarize what Secret of Mana gave me, I’d say three things:

1. A taste for worlds: :ot backgrounds but entire universes waiting to be discovered.
2. the value of friendship and cooperation: moving together, each in their role, without stepping on one another — one of the most important lessons there is.
3. the strength of loss: growing means accepting disappearances, sacrifices, and dreams that shatter.

And deep down, maybe all of this prepared me for what I do today: exploring, storytelling, transmitting.

A universal meditation: why some games become personal myths

Why is Secret of Mana more than a nostalgic memory?

Because to me, it ticked three boxes that turn a game into a personal myth:

It spoke to my senses — through sound, color, music — before I could even understand it.

It broke me through loss, a raw emotion that made me grow up without noticing.

And it opened a door, a breach into other worlds, into the JRPG genre, into the idea that a game can be larger than the player.

I’m convinced every player has their own Secret of Mana. A game that isn’t just a game, but a root.
A root that continues to nourish the way they see the world.

Conclusion: returning to the tree

When I close my eyes, I can still see that intro screen.
The enormous tree, the whale song, the flamingos gliding past, and that music that grabs you by the gut.

I’m no longer the child discovering the world.
I’m no longer just the boy with the sword.
I’m someone who has grown, lost, learned.

But the tree is still there.

And that’s the magic of Secret of Mana.
It’s not just a game — it’s a root-tree.
It connects the child I was to the adult I became.

It reminds me that despite broken dreams and failures, there is always a world to explore, always a strength to rediscover, always a whale song in the distance to guide me.

And maybe writing this article is, in its own way, my return to that tree —
the one I loved protecting every single time I played.