Thursday, September 27, 2012

Video game visual art

I come back to this image a lot.  I like it so much.  I don't own The Secret of Mana, and I don't necessarily have enough time to play it all the way through.  And also, I don't have a partner to play it with, which is important.  But I do have the soundtrack!  And I do have this image.  



Viewing this image gives me something akin to playing the game.  The cartoon characters against a backdrop of lush beauty seems to convey to me the meaning of this game.  As if the 30 hours of gameplay can be compressed into a single image.  

I decide to look up the author of this image.  His name is Hiroo Isono, and he has bunches of very similar work.  In fact, the above image is essentially one of his regularly produced images that features the Secret of Mana characters.  I really like his stuff!

Now, we in America weren't lucky enough to get Seiken Densetsu 3, which would have been Secret of Mana 2.  However, I see that Hiroo Isono's was also hired to do the art in that game, and also Seiken Densetsu 4.  This makes me glad, because I really do love his style.  Check him out, there are some good galleries online.  

2 comments:

  1. First off, 30 hours!? I don't know what the time was I had on that game, but I'm pretty sure I spent "over" 30 hours and I never beat it. I don't remember exactly where I was at, but it was very close to the end of the game. I think I was leveling up spells and/or summons.

    I also couldn't get into the co-op aspect of the game. I know I played with another player (you maybe) a couple of times, but I never felt comfortable. It might've just been as simple as "I want to play right now, but don't want to wait for Player 2."

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  2. Okay, well, maybe I was off with my estimate. The thing is, the majority of the time I played this game I was player 2. Either with you, or with Armando. I played through a little bit solo, maybe 5 hours or so. But most of it was spent being the Sprite, whom I prefered greatly to the girl.

    So, being player 2 all the time, I loved the co-op aspect. I wish there was a re-release with online play. I've played legend of mana on DS, which is okay, but I'd rather just play through Secret again.

    One last thing is that I remember getting some Mario Paint sprites for the Hero of Secret of Mana. Good times.

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