News: Square Enix | The Secret of Mana Lives On! Page 1

Square Enix | The Secret of Mana Lives On!

05.07.2004

Square Enix Employs...
...To Resurrect the Mana Series!

Some C3 readers may recall us breaking the news of Square Enix wanting to push the Seiken Densetsu (Mana) series in the future as one of its key franchises, alongside the likes of Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and the increasingly third pillar that is Kingdom Hearts. Well now it appears to be happening, most likely thanks to the extremely impressive sales of the Brownie Brown GBA remake of the original Secret of Mana, titled Sword of Mana, in both Japan and the US.

Although details on what system this new game will appear on are currently unknown, there are some beautiful pre-production images to be found on the company's Japanese employment page. Currently, the positions that are available for prospective developers over in the Land of the Rising Sun include programmers, map planners, battle planners, art designers, character modellers, motion designers, effects designers and background modellers that can work with 3D graphics tools.

This all points to the game having a 3D feel that the GBA would struggle to cope with, thus almost certainly ruling out a direct successor to Sword of Mana on that 32-bit handheld. However, considering Square Enix's sway towards the Nintendo DS, would we be too eager to jump on the idea of a new game coming to the new portable PlayStation Portable competitor?

We shall wait and see...For now, though, check out those concept images right here:

Square Enix Recruitment Page [ Japanese ]

Or simply click the images below for a larger view: