Square Enix’s ‘Adventures of Mana’ makes a surprise appearance on PS Vita

By Danny Cowan June 28, 2016

adventures of mana makes a surprise appearance on ps vita advmana header — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Square Enix’s throwback action-RPG Adventures of Mana is now available for download on the PlayStation Vita in North America and Europe, arriving as an unannounced surprise for series die-hards.

Adventures of Mana launched earlier this year in Japan, where it was titled Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden. While mobile ports of Adventures of Mana saw a worldwide release via Google Play and the iTunes App Store, the PS Vita edition was never announced for North America or Europe prior to today’s sudden launch.

“When Adventures of Mana was originally released, a lot of PS Vita owners were disappointed that we couldn’t launch it worldwide at the time,” Square Enix community manager Dan Seto explained. “Since then, the development team have been working extremely hard to bring it over so I’m really happy to let you guys know that your voices were heard and the team is really happy to bring Adventures of Mana to the PS Vita community and celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Mana series with you all.”

Adventures of Mana is a remake of Final Fantasy Adventure, an action-RPG originally released for Nintendo’s monochrome Game Boy in 1991. In Japan, Final Fantasy Adventure was known as Seiken Densetsu; a Super NES sequel later made its way stateside under the new title Secret of Mana.

The Mana series saw many sequels and spinoffs in the years afterward, including the PlayStation 2’s Dawn of Mana and Children of Mana for the Nintendo DS. Adventures of Mana is the first series entry to see a stateside release since 2007’s Nintendo DS prequel Heroes of Mana.

Adventures of Mana features the same storyline as its 1991 Game Boy predecessor, updating the experience with 3D graphics and a redesigned control scheme. While previously released mobile ports of Adventures of Mana mapped controls to a touch-based interface, the PS Vita edition features a more traditional dual-analog configuration, potentially making it the definitive version of the game.

The PS Vita version of Adventures of Mana is priced at $14, and is available digitally via the PlayStation Network.

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