Shade

February 28, 2021

Shade is the Mana Spirit of darkness, and most of his lines were cut from the English release.  The Japanese script establishes him as the former king of Mavolia. Shade tests the party by fighting them as Lime Slime, a boss that taxes the SNES so much that it had to be programmed into the background using Mode-7 techniques. The Slime is a resident of the Palace of Darkness; the Fundamental Knowledge Compilation reveals that the three central cores are powerful demons that react to darkness, and live in the Palace to escape any light.

SHADE: I am the Spirit of darkness, Shade. Once, as the king of Mavolia, I made the world tremble in fear.  Even still, my powers were sealed away by heroes in the ancient past.  You, who defeated the incarnation of my power, must be the new heroes. In accordance with the laws [of Mavolia], my powers pass to thee… 

Further ideas about Mavolia appear in Japanese guides, and were planned for inclusion in the 2018 remake before being cut.  The fan-made script patch Secret of Mana: Reborn implemented some of these in Shade’s speech:

SHADE: Mavolia exists due to the chains of anger, envy, resentment and negative feelings towards others.  There, power is life.  It is proclaimed that those with strength rule the weak.  Indeed, anger, envy, resentment.  These negative emotions are what feed the subjugation of lesser beings and they tempt humans into defiling their souls with darkness.  At which hour a human makes a contract with Mavolia, those humans gain the power they seek in exchange for their pure heart.  Now, they’re in the darkness and do not wish for tranquility.  They may reside in the human realm, but their person is reclaimed by the underworld.

Shade’s magic is only available to Popoie, and as a result, he doesn’t have a saber spell. Memory was still set aside for this in the ROM, though it may have just been for completeness:

Localization Notes

• True to his ancient design, Shade speaks in archaic Japanese, perhaps comparable to the language of the King James Bible.  As Taosenai says, if you were to place Luka in the Edo period of Japanese history, Shade would be in the Heian.