 If you're at all familiar with this channel, you'll know that I've blathered on about Seiken Densetsu 3 for a few years now, it's one of the best games to never leave Japan, and it's the sequel to the very popular Secret of Mana. Thanks to fan translations and emulations, Seiken Densetsu 3 is now able to be played today. So what's the deal with this game? How is it different from Secret of Mana, or from any other RPG for that matter? Right away, before you get started, there's 6 characters to choose from. You pick your main character first, that's whose story you'll follow throughout, then you pick two complementary characters. That sounds kinda intimidating at first, I mean, who do you pick and why? So I'm just gonna dive right in and talk about the characters and their strengths and weaknesses and their stories, first and foremost here, in a very generalized manner. Believe me, there's so much going on here that this video could be like 30 minutes long, so I'll keep it short. Each character has their own story background, class, and style of combat, but despite there being 6 characters, there's only 3 main story paths you can follow. So there are 3 pairs of characters that each belong to the same story arc, so to speak, all taking place within the same locations within the same time frame. Durran and Angela share a path, Kevin and Carly share one, and Hawk and Leese share a path as well. Now it does matter who you pick as your main character because that changes a lot of things, most notably who your villains are. Before I continue here though, there's some mild spoilers coming ahead, but each of these story events take place within the first 20 minutes of each character's introduction, so spoiler alert, but not really, I guess? Anyway, Durran is a fighter class who strength his melee combat. His story is that he's an orphaned mercenary swordsman, and one night there's an attack on his home at Valcena Castle, where he's left for dead. He recovers in vows to become the best swordsman in the world and find his revenge. Kevin is a grappler class, another melee fighter really, but he's born of a human mother with his dad being the beast king of Feralia, so he's half-beast. One night he ends up transforming into a full beast against his will, and he kills his pet wolf. He finds out his dad kinda instigated the whole thing and ends up renouncing his allegiance to the beast kingdom, and going off on his own in a quest to hopefully revive his lost pet. Hawk is a thief and can end up as the most well-rounded fighter in the game. He can eventually level up to a ninja, which is pretty damned awesome. Hawk is part of a thieves guild whose leader ends up under an evil spell. Hawk's best friend is killed, Hawk is framed for it, and thrown in jail, and he escapes, but he's gotta clear his name and reveal the truth about what's really going on. Angela is a mage and has the best attack magic in the game. She's also the princess of the kingdom of Altina, which is built on a frozen tundra, but the weather is kept in a perpetual spring thanks to the magic of her mother-queen Valda. The magic is beginning to fade for some reason, so she decides to recruit an evil mage and invade other countries to obtain more powerful magic, and eventually plans on sacrificing her own daughter for even more magic, I guess? Angela thinks this is bull crap, so she gets the hell out of dodge. Lease is an Amazon who functions as a really good teammate because she provides a ton of buff and debuff spells that are very useful throughout the game. She's the princess of the Wind Kingdom of Rolente, which is attacked by a rival nation, her father is killed, and her brother who she helped raise is kidnapped, so she's gotta track him down. And then finally there's Carly, who has the worst physical attack strength, but is the game's best healer. She's a cleric whose best friend Heath gets abducted, so she sets out to find him. Carly's kind of the comic relief character, a bit like the sprite from Secret of Mana. So, uh, yeah, obviously there's a lot going on here. Some storylines are pretty ordinary like Durans, but some are pretty interesting like Hawks. The big overlying theme tying everything together is this fairy that shows up all the way from the Holy Land to tell the specific chosen one, that's whoever you choose as your main character, that the monetary is dying. How do you get back to the monetary? Well, you gotta find the eight spirit stones to open up a gate. But yeah, the sheer scope of what this game pulls off is pretty damn amazing, and it's not just a lot of stuff for the sake of cramming a lot of stuff into one game. Everything feels organic, and the game's universe as a whole feels lived in and fully realized. Everything fits together really well. In fact, you do sometimes run into other playable characters here and there, and that's a nice bonus. And you know, you don't even need to play Secret of Mana or its predecessor, Final Fantasy Adventure, in order to get into this game's story. Seiken Densetsu 3 can stand completely on its own. Enough about the story. Another big reason Seiken Densetsu 3 stands out among so many role-playing games is the combat, and this is a better, faster, more polished combat system than Secret of Mana. Gone is the percentage bar that you had to wait to charge. Instead, you simply have to watch your character get back into attack position, which occurs much faster. So yeah, the combat here is fast and chaotic. A couple characters can even do two hits in one attack. The charged attacks are still here too. They're tied to consecutive successful hits, and that's its own separate power bar at the bottom here. So yeah, you hack and slash and hack and slash, but there's a bit more to it than that. Sure, you can just grind and level up like any other RPG, but Seiken Densetsu 3 puts more of an emphasis on how you develop your party and what weapons and spells you choose and how your party works together. In other words, the party you choose at the beginning of the game goes a long way toward how you enjoy Seiken Densetsu 3. My advice would be to form your party based on building toward one strength rather than balance. I know it might be tempting to have a little bit of everything, but for example, I think you're better off if, like if you wanted an attack magic party, you'd probably want Angela as your main character, and then Lee as your secondary character, since she has all the buffs that can enhance Angela's spells, and your third party member would probably be somebody like Carly or Hawke. If you want a strength or melee combat party, go with Doran and Kevin and just brawl your way through the game. And that brings me to the leveling system. Each level you reach, you're allowed to choose which skill you want to level up, but only to a certain extent. The game limits you from dumping all your stats into one skill. You can add to strength, for example, a couple times in a row, but the next time you gotta pick something else. That's probably a good thing, since otherwise you'd be able to just bulldoze your way through the game pretty easily. In addition to that, there's also a class system that's tied to the leveling. You can do your first class change once you reach a minimum of level 18 and your second class change at a minimum of level 38. Each character has a branching path that provides six possible classes, and of course, each class has different spells and even different special physical attacks. And it all happens by a matter of combining light and dark elements. For example, Hawke starts out as a thief, but if you select the dark class, he evolves into a ninja, changes up his look entirely and learns all new spells. Select the dark class again when you hit level 38 and he evolves into Nightblade, a total badass. You also have the choice to select the light class, which would make him a ranger and eventually a wanderer. Or you can combine the light and dark to make him a rogue or a ninja master. So yeah, not only does the story provide a crazy amount of replay value, but the class structure does as well. If for whatever reason you're still not sold on Seiken to Tetsu 3, even after all that, have I mentioned that this game is co-op multiplayer? That's right. Once you get that second party member, you can have a friend play along. That's pretty damn cool. There also exists a patch that enables a third player to control the third party member, but of course, you'd need an SNES multi-tap device to get that to work. I'd be remiss if I didn't talk a bit about the graphics and the music of this game. Arguably the biggest strength of Secret of Mana was its visual design and overall presentation. It's just such a great looking game with a bright color palette and distinct style that's unlike any other Super Nintendo game. Seiken to Tetsu 3 takes all the strengths its predecessor had in that regard and enhances them tenfold with smooth sprite animations for every spell and special attack, distinct looking towns, absorbing environments and huge bosses. I also love the callbacks to Secret of Mana characters that get visual upgrades like Watts and Niko. And of course, the soundtrack here is freaking incredible. Again, that's a huge strength of the previous game. And subjectively, I like the Secret of Mana soundtrack a bit better, but the music here is stunning, especially the segment where your character intro finishes up and it segues into the opening credits. Man, it gives me goosebumps every time. There's a lot of little moments like that that really add up that make this game memorable. Anyway, yeah, this has gone on long enough. I just wanted to tell you a bit about this game and why it's so freaking good and so highly thought of. A sequel to such a beloved game like Secret of Mana is a tall order and Seiken to Tetsu 3 absolutely surpasses it in just about every way. Most importantly, though, it really feels like a real sequel. There's lots of callbacks to old characters. There's familiar music, enemies in towns that will have you nodding your head and saying, Hey, I remember this, but in addition, it's just bigger, faster, more colorful. There's more to do and there's so much replay value here that it's almost overwhelming. There's a lot here I didn't even cover that I just want you to discover for yourself, like the day-night cycle that's similar to Breath of Fire 2 or the weekly system that makes certain spells more powerful on certain days of the week for God's sake. But yeah, Seiken to Tetsu 3 seems overwhelming at first glance, but once you dive in, it's gonna be hard to pull yourself away. This is one of the best video games that's never left Japan, period. And if you have an opportunity to play it, especially with a friend, you've gotta try it out. It's fantastic.