Mana creators revisit Square’s early development years

Square Enix’s Mana series is marking its 35th anniversary with a rare conversation between three people who helped shape its earliest years. In a new interview tied to the official anniversary roundtable, Koichi Ishii, Hiromichi Tanaka and Yoshinori Kitase revisit the original Mana project, the constraints of older hardware and the way their experience fed into later Square RPGs.¹²

Kitase’s unusual route into development

Kitase explains that his career at Square began after he submitted a university graduation film, rather than a playable game. He initially spent time testing and writing reports on other RPGs before being assigned to the first Mana, then known as Final Fantasy Adventure in the West. Ishii provided broad design plans and Kitase helped turn those ideas into data and a working game, despite being new to development.¹

The interview presents that early responsibility as a defining experience. Kitase says he learned how games communicate through timing and presentation, while Ishii recalls relying on him to take a large and difficult role. Their memories also show how much of the work was once organised around paper documents, hand-drawn maps and close collaboration between a small group of creators.¹

Making large ideas fit small hardware

The discussion moves through the technical compromises behind the 1990s Square catalogue. The developers compare the visually ambitious direction of Mana and Final Fantasy with the more data-conscious approach used on Romancing SaGa. Instead of laying down every map tile individually, designers could define shapes and coordinates to save space, although doing so demanded its own kind of craft.¹

That trade-off is useful historical context. Old hardware did not simply make games smaller; it forced teams to decide which visual effects, maps and interactions deserved precious memory. The creators also discuss the cancelled Super Famicom CD-ROM direction that helped lead to Secret of Mana, and the relationship between that project and Chrono Trigger.¹

Why the anniversary conversation matters

The official Square Enix presentation describes the roundtable as a look back at the series’ origins, its relationship with Final Fantasy and the development stories behind the early games. The programme features Ishii, Tanaka and Kitase, with the full conversation available through Square Enix’s official video channel.²

The interview also turns towards modern development. The creators expect AI and established engines to make prototyping and implementation faster, but they are cautious about copyright and about treating automation as a replacement for human direction. Their shared point is that tools may help turn one idea into a finished project, but the initial spark still has to come from people.¹

Our opinion

The strongest part of this anniversary coverage is that it avoids reducing the Mana series to nostalgia. The value is in the working detail: paper maps, memory limits, inexperienced staff being trusted with real responsibility and visual ambition being balanced against hardware reality. Those stories explain why the early games feel distinctive more effectively than another list of release dates would. It is also refreshing to hear veteran creators describe AI as a tool for speeding up experimentation rather than a shortcut around taste, judgement and authorship. The roundtable is worth watching because it connects beloved games to the people and production choices that made them possible.