If you're like me, then you're probably playing Monday's Virtual Console release of Secret of Mana. The only excuse I'll accept is massive head trauma--and we're talking brains-leaking-from-a-gaping-wound trauma. That's the only way you can explain not playing Secret of Mana for the low, low price of eight bucks. Why, in 1993 I had to do some hardcore begging to get my parents to drop 60 dollars on this game, and that's back when American money had value!
But I digress. After playing Secret of Mana, you've probably recognized two distinct facts: 1.) The game is awesome as hell, and 2.) It's also buggy as all get-out. I've never been privy to any real game-destroying antics, but the general weird glitchyness of Secret of Mana always made the game feel like its programming was held together by bubble gum and string. We can't exactly blame Square's Iranian super-programmer Nasir Gebelli, though; while originally designed to take advantage of the doomed SNES CD add-on (which eventually became the Playstation), Secret of Mana was hastily transformed into a regular-old SNES game once Nintendo washed their hands of CD-ROM technology. This change left some unfortunate problems in its wake.
Unless you're very unlucky, you're probably not going to run into all of SoM's glitches yourself; so let's thank god for kind, obsessive folks on the Internet, who have taken the trouble of documenting all of the weirdness of Secret of Mana. Granted, a lot of these findings are pre-planned, intentional weirdness, but a good portion of these discoveries are simply batshit insanity of the mathematical variety. Trust me; if you thought a roving pack of Shadow Zeros was simply the stuff of schoolyard myths, you need to educate yourself.
Related Links:
The Dividing RPG: Secret of Mana
Ten Reasons Why Secret of Mana Sucks
Virtual Console: Now the Best Thing Ever