Incidentally, I occasionally see people disputing this claim through my site tracker. The reason for my belief is that a similar face appears on the moon in Final Fantasy 4 (right screenshot), and that one is nearly-identical to the image in Viking Orbiter 1's photograph (except for the color). Some people call these Moai heads, but I think they are more likely to have been based on the 'Face on Mars' originally photgraphed by Viking Orbiter 1: The one in the right screenshot is nestled in the mountains to the south of Empire Southtown. The one in the left screenshot is in the Northeast corner in the middle of the ocean and appears as a single black pixel on the full map of the world. Secret of Mana has two strange hidden 'faces' located on the world map. It's corrected when you leave Sage Joch's cave. The background doesn't scroll as much as it should as you're climbing the mountain, resulting in you being unable to see the sky when you reach the top. This strange phenomena is caused by what appears to be a scrolling error. Standing outside the cave, the background is trees.īut enter the cave and leave, and the background is sky!

Check this page for more blatant examples. After all, nudity was no stranger to NES and SNES games by the time Secret of Mana was released. Since it's somewhat-rare that the books land on this page, it's possible they never saw it and thus were unaware of its existence. It is not clear how this made it past the Nintendo censors and into the American version of the game.

In fact, it seems you're more likely to get a glimpse of this easter egg with the Mystic Books because there are more of them around, increasing the odds of one turning to this page. I've heard that the National Scar was called a 'Porno Book' in the Japanese version, although even if that's the case, this bit of trivia is true of both the National Scar and Mystic Book. Here is a screenshot and an enlarged picture of the National Scar: This is absolutely 100% true and can be seen on any copy of the game. This causes the books to become visibly 'embarrassed' as they nervously flip to the correct page. However, every once in a great while, they'll 'accidentally' land on a nude centerfold spread of a woman lying on her belly. The Mystic Book enemies (found in the Ice Palace) and the National Scar enemies (found in the Grand Palace and the Mana Fortress) are both flying spellbooks that occasionally land, flip through their pages, and cast a spell based on the page they land on. Nudity, Nekos, & the Mysterious Face on Mars Secret of Mana Oddities: Nudity, Nekos, & the Mysterious Face on Mars SECRET OF MANA ODDITIES:

Shadows of evil sword glitch