More speculation on deleted content Secret of Mana

I've posted in the past about speculation as to where content was deleted. I have another thought. There are 4 places in the game where "Phantom and a Rose" (the "sad town") music is played:
Pandora, Sprite's Village, Kakkara, and the Moon Palace. In 3 of those places, you can do something to fix the problem, and "Phantom and a Rose" stops playing, and is replaced with a happier song. However, there is no way to restore the Sprite's Village and stop "Phantom and a Rose" from playing there. Maybe originally there was intended to be some way to restore the Sprite's Village?

I donÄ't think so. While a lot of content was cut, the sprite village is a major story event that works towards the plot with the mana dragon.

Obviously the most content was cut between the Empire North Town and the Tree Palace. The whole story speeds up by a good deal and weapon orbs and Mana seeds were thrown after you. Gold Island and Moon Palace are ridiculous short. But this is just one example.

We all agree that most of the deleted content was between the Empire and the Tree Palace. But I was speculating on other areas where content could have been deleted. I have 2 other ideas:

1. I read about a glitch where you can try to enter the Moon Palace early, but Karon will be "out to lunch". As far as I know, there is no way to legitimately reach the "out to lunch" message. Obviously there was originally intended to be some legitimate way to get the ferry before you were supposed to, and Karon would have been out to lunch.

2. If I remember right, after returning the Mana seed to the Fire Palace, there is no story reason to go to the Empire, other than a woman saying she wants to move there, and the fact that Cannon Travel now offers it as a destination, and you've been everywhere else that you could go. Maybe there was intended to be some story that would have sent you to the Empire?

mitsguy2001 posted...

1. I read about a glitch where you can try to enter the Moon Palace early, but Karon will be "out to lunch". As far as I know, there is no way to legitimately reach the "out to lunch" message. Obviously there was originally intended to be some legitimate way to get the ferry before you were supposed to, and Karon would have been out to lunch.

By running vertically you can reach the ferry early by the time right after the events on the sand ship. However, you can land on the screen south of the ferry as soon as you have the drum. Yet the Gold Palace must be cleared in order to enter Moon Palace. The exact trigger is sealing the light seed. Before that, Karon is still absent.

2. If I remember right, after returning the Mana seed to the Fire Palace, there is no story reason to go to the Empire, other than a woman saying she wants to move there, and the fact that Cannon Travel now offers it as a destination, and you've been everywhere else that you could go. Maybe there was intended to be some story that would have sent you to the Empire?

Lets assume this game would have a quest log. At this point, you would still have two "main quests" and one "side quest":

Main Quests:
1. Finding and sealing all the Mana seeds.
2. Looking for Sage Joch in the Upperland.
Side Quest:
3. Looking for the Sea Hare Tail.

1. This one is out of the question due to absolutely no hints about a seed being at the Empire.
2. The search for Sage Joch on the other hand fizzles out during the events in Matango. Your route to the Four Seasons certainly serves finding the Upperland. While the Lofty Mountains are in the vicinity of Matango, you soon realized there is no path within walking distance from there. So you are kind of distracted looking for the white dragon and then King Truffle tells you about the Fire Seed. After that, the search for Joch isn't mentioned again until the King presents you the drum at North Town.
3. Although there is the request looking for the Sea Hare Tail, this is rather a side note than an actual quest. Without any advice where to look for it, it could be in the Empire just as well as anywhere else.

So another reason to travel to the Empire could be attacking them rather then waiting for their next assault. Technically, you are dealing with the empire, especially Geshtar, in the recent past anyway. However, neither the party ever talks about landing a preemptive strike nor they roughly have the strength to do so. Just imagine a battle with Sheex, Geshtar and Fanha simultaneously.

So, this is truly an argument for the golden thread being lost at this point. Not that this in untypical for RPGs, though. But I've always wondered how these things could have lined up in the first place.

The other interesting thing is that Jema tells you to find Sage Johk to learn about true courage, and then visit the 8 palaces. But you can't actually find Sage Johk until you've visited 7 of the 8 palaces. Maybe originally, you were supposed to find Sage Johk before visiting any of the palaces (other than the Water Palace).

I love this game.

I am more concerned about the missing 4th player and removal of enemies, AI and mechanics

Was there a planned 4th player? This is the first I've ever heard of that. What do you know about the planned 4th player?

mitsguy2001 posted...

Was there a planned 4th player? This is the first I've ever heard of that. What do you know about the planned 4th player?

Well, it was not planned, in fact, multiplayer was not planned at all, "it just happened"

However the 4th player was considered, makes me wonder how the game would have changed (spells, character introduction)

What was scrapped were many enemies and lands, which was a shame

http://www.seikens.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3556

Here's a few things, deleted/dummied content wise, I've found while digging though the games code.

1) There is a dummied out status effect that appears to be a early form of Tangle. It has a status popup message and a status screen message that's also unused. It mostly works if you re-enable the status effect.

2) That unused diary entry actually has a trigger set in the game....on Turtle Island of all places. (Also, the exterior map for Turtle Island shows the turtles head, but its always out of camera range)

3) There are messages for fearing Luna and Dryad, but you'll never see them since the game will forcefully remove the weakness from anyone who has it.

4) Armor is setup to provide elemental resistance, though none of them actually do.

5) Boss weapons can have type affinity, but again, none do. (And wouldn't work even if they did)

5) There's a popup message that says "Recovery Failed!", but I can't find any way to actually trigger it.

6) Pygmy status was probably meant to wear off on it's own and be mutually exclusive with Moogle.

7) Lunar Message has an 9th effect that can never happen.

Bonus Bugs:
1) The Hit Up buff is comically broken.
2) Doom Wall's desperation attack "Cave" is actually "Cave In".