The Lost Continent

February 28, 2021

The Lost Continent is exactly what its name implies. The only remnants above sea level are sections of coral, and the lonely Tree Palace. Ruins of a technologically advanced civilization from ancient times also rest with the Continent. The game depicts an underground city with escalators and a subway, and the Mana Fortress itself is buried here. Reading both the game’s script and the “setting guide” for the Japanese remaster, it seems that it was lowered by the first Mana Sword hero who created a mechanism with which it can be raised—by unsealing the eight Mana Seeds found throughout the world. There’s also the Grand Palace, an amalgam of the eight Mana elements, which is connected to the Tree Palace.

As you can guess, The Tree Palace/Underground City/Grand Palace sequence ends up being a mess of plot points and threads that got tied up at once, as well as otherwise unrelated areas that were stitched together. In-games maps from Fantasy Anime:

Development

This area only appears on one prerelease map out of several that exist. The scenario may have been constantly changing, as pieces of deleted rooms were left out of bounds:

Other than its shape, little is known about the development of the Lost Continent:

I always thought that it was a very unsettling place. There weren’t many 3D(ish) video game maps at the time with expansive, vacant, strangely colored landmasses, especially when the rest of the world is what you’d expect. Let’s take a look:

Not a place I’d want to encounter while parasailing.  And this is an aerial view of a real coral reef:

This has always bugged me.  I got stuck up here awhile back, thinking there had to be a way out, but it seems there’s no peg on the lower level to whip back to.  Probably something unfinished, but why leave it in the game where a player could get stuck? 

Localization Notes

• The Grand Palace is amusingly localized as, “Dämonenfestung” in German, “Demon Fortress.”