Secret of Mana
"Secret of Mana" was directed and designed by Koichi Ishii, the creator of the game's Game Boy predecessor, "Final Fantasy Adventure". He has stated that he feels "Secret of Mana" is more "his game" than other projects he has worked on, such as the "Final Fantasy" series. The game was programmed primarily by Nasir Gebelli and produced by veteran Square designer Hiromichi Tanaka. The team hoped to build on the foundation of "Final Fantasy Adventure", and they included several modified elements from that game and from other popular Square titles in "Secret of Mana". In addition to having better graphics and sound quality than its predecessor, the attack power gauge was changed to be more engaging, and the weapon leveling system replaced "Final Fantasy Adventure"s system of leveling up the speed of the attack gauge. The party system also received an upgrade from the first "Mana" game: instead of temporary companions who could not be upgraded, party members became permanent protagonists and could be controlled by other players. The multiplayer component was not a part of the original design, but was added when the developers realized that they could easily make all three characters human-controlled.