vegeta1215
10-12-2005, 04:28 PM
I finished playing Legend of Mana a week ago, and thought I'd give a little review of it.
Legend of Mana plays very differently from other Mana games. You don't have a centralized story but instead have a bunch of side stories mixed together in one game. In the game you get artifacts that you place on a map to create locations. These locations are like islands that you walk to - each is self contained. The first one you create is your house, and eventually you get artifacts to create towns, forest areas, deserts, mountains, etc - places you would expect to see in a world. The game consists of you traveling to these different islands, meeting characters, and playing through quests. Quests are the heart of the game and each one involves a set of characters, and they have you do various things including battling through small dungeons, meeting with different characters, and performing different tasks. To activate quests you have to talk to the right characters at the right time. (quests are in Sword of Mana for the GBA too, but they are extras as opposed to being the entire game like here) The rewards from these quests often include artifacts to create new "islands" to visit in your game. After completing a good bit of the quests - roughly 50 or so out of the possible 67 - you can "beat" the game. I did about 60 of them.
Sounds cool right? There are many things good about the game, and there are many things I don't like about it. I'm going to break it down now.
Story:
The stories for the Mana games have never been anything special, so not having a central story to this one doesn't bother me. Of the many quests you will play, you will get wrapped in a few big side-stories including the Matilda & Irwin story, Dragon story, and the Jumi story.
These are pretty interesting, but some of them do get confusing since there are so many characters in the world and you will be going back and forth between the stories throughout your play. However, there are parts of the game where things get dull, and you will be looking everywhere to activate some quests. Some gamers might not want to put up with it all.
Also, there aren't many familiar characters from earlier Mana games, except maybe a few including Watts (who is a kid in this game for some reason!), and the Inn Keeper (turbin wearing guy). There's no Neko - instead we have a fat rabbit-like creature named Niccolo. He's kinda funny and has a lot of personality, but he's no Neko.
+Cool idea
+Interesting stories
-Few if any familiar characters
-Playing through the quests can get boring
Graphics, sound and music:
The characters and emenies are drawn in the same way they've always been drawn, which is a good thing. But the environments are the big change - they are so gorgeous! It feels almost like you're running through paintings, that's how good they look. The only bad thing about them is sometimes its hard to tell where a door or a path is in some places. I kinda wish you had those little red arrows directing you like in FFVII.
The music and sound is great. No complaints here.
+Terrific graphics
+Terrific sound and music
-Sometimes hard to tell where you can go in the environments
Battles:
Battles are a mixed bag in this game. When you fight, you fight with light and strong attacks that can be comboed together. In addition, you can assign "abilities" to two buttons. These include things like jump, guard, dash, etc - different things you can do in battle. As you use different abilities in combination, you will learn new abilities such as slide, bash, back-flip and so on. The cool thing is using abilities in combination with different weapons will allow you to learn special moves. You can set a special move to each of the L and R buttons on the PSX controller, and unleash them when your battle gage becomes full (ala SD3). Another new features is when you defeat an enemy, crystals (exp points) and money pop out, so you and your buddies can scramble for them.
Now the bad - you cannot run away from battles. Once you engage an enemy or group of enemies, you are stuck on the screen until you beat them. Also, the battles and boss fights are pitifully easy, and even if you happen to die, you will be revived at the beginning of the battle. (I don't mind this so much). There is a hard and very hard mode to the game, but they are not accessible until you beat the game for the first time.
+Cool new battle system
+Learning ablities and special moves are fun
-Battles are too easy
-Cannot run from battles
Multiplayer:
The main draw of the Mana series imo has been it's multiplayer. No other RPG let you fight with two other friends like Secret of Mana and SD3. Now I said "buddies" in the last section didn't I? Sorry, I didn't mean to mislead you, but the multiplayer in Legend of Mana is almost non existant. You play as the main character (boy or girl), and throughout the game different characters join you to play quests, but they don't stick around very long. A second player can control these characters, but it's not nearly the same as having the same character all the time and building them up.
To try and make up for this, Legend of Mana has Pets and Golems. Pets are monsters you can raise to fight along side you. They grow levels just like you, but trying to figure out how they grow is really tough. I didn't try it, but I think a second player can play as a Pet. Golems are little mechanical creatures that you build from different materials to fight for you. These I've read cannot be controlled by a person. Me, I never built a Golem cause the process sounded to complicated. Also, it's not like I needed one since the game was so easy.
In short, the main draw of the Mana series, it's multiplayer, sucks in Legend of Mana. The Pets and Golems are a cool idea, but they are not replacements for real multiplayer.
+Pets and Golems are neat and let you do some customization
-No real multiplayer
-Many (like myself) might not want to spend the time to raise Pets and build Golems
-You don't need Pets or Golems cause the game is so easy
Weapons:
At the start of the game you get to choose which weapon you start with. You can choose between the standards: sword, spear, axe, flair, bow, staff, hammer, etc. After you start the game you can purchase all the others if you want. I played through with mainly the knife, sword, and spear. Again, using the different weapons in battle will gain you different specials for that weapon. Each weapon combos different too, so it's fun to play around with.
After you meet Watts, you will be able to forge and temper weapons/armor from raw materials (which seem to be the only thing you find in treasure chests in the whole world) I'm not going to explain how the forging/tempering works - it's basically the same as in Sword of Mana. However, unlike in Sword of Mana where you can see the results of your work before you do it, in Legend of Mana you cannot, so forging weapons is hit or miss. Will Vizel Gold make a stronger sword than if I use Hal Aerolite? You can't find out until you make them both. This makes weapon building a tedious task. Honestly I got along fine without forging anything. As I've said, the game is easy, and if you buy weapons/armor from shops or use the ones you win from battles, you'll be fine.
+A variety of weapons
+Different weapons means different fighting styles in battles
-Forging and Tempering is frustrating
-Forging and Tempering is not needed (at least in the first play through)
I can see where the Pets and Golems along with the ability to forge stronger weapons and armor would come in handy in the hard and very hard game, but it's unfortunate that you have to beat the game in the normal mode before being able to access the harder modes. Also, I don't know who would have the patience to raise/build strong Pets and Golems and forge/temper good weapons and armor since you have to search so much and fight so long to get the food/materials you need, especially since you can't run from battles.
Ok, I can't type anymore. I hope this has given you a run down of some thing to expect in case you get this game. It's fairly hard to find now, and even though it has it's problems, there are a lot of good things about the game. And like other Mana games, it has it's own charm. I recommend any Mana fan at least check it out.
6/10 (same score I gave to Chrono Cross http://www.armageddongames.net/showpost.php?p=964256&postcount=7)
Legend of Mana plays very differently from other Mana games. You don't have a centralized story but instead have a bunch of side stories mixed together in one game. In the game you get artifacts that you place on a map to create locations. These locations are like islands that you walk to - each is self contained. The first one you create is your house, and eventually you get artifacts to create towns, forest areas, deserts, mountains, etc - places you would expect to see in a world. The game consists of you traveling to these different islands, meeting characters, and playing through quests. Quests are the heart of the game and each one involves a set of characters, and they have you do various things including battling through small dungeons, meeting with different characters, and performing different tasks. To activate quests you have to talk to the right characters at the right time. (quests are in Sword of Mana for the GBA too, but they are extras as opposed to being the entire game like here) The rewards from these quests often include artifacts to create new "islands" to visit in your game. After completing a good bit of the quests - roughly 50 or so out of the possible 67 - you can "beat" the game. I did about 60 of them.
Sounds cool right? There are many things good about the game, and there are many things I don't like about it. I'm going to break it down now.
Story:
The stories for the Mana games have never been anything special, so not having a central story to this one doesn't bother me. Of the many quests you will play, you will get wrapped in a few big side-stories including the Matilda & Irwin story, Dragon story, and the Jumi story.
These are pretty interesting, but some of them do get confusing since there are so many characters in the world and you will be going back and forth between the stories throughout your play. However, there are parts of the game where things get dull, and you will be looking everywhere to activate some quests. Some gamers might not want to put up with it all.
Also, there aren't many familiar characters from earlier Mana games, except maybe a few including Watts (who is a kid in this game for some reason!), and the Inn Keeper (turbin wearing guy). There's no Neko - instead we have a fat rabbit-like creature named Niccolo. He's kinda funny and has a lot of personality, but he's no Neko.
+Cool idea
+Interesting stories
-Few if any familiar characters
-Playing through the quests can get boring
Graphics, sound and music:
The characters and emenies are drawn in the same way they've always been drawn, which is a good thing. But the environments are the big change - they are so gorgeous! It feels almost like you're running through paintings, that's how good they look. The only bad thing about them is sometimes its hard to tell where a door or a path is in some places. I kinda wish you had those little red arrows directing you like in FFVII.
The music and sound is great. No complaints here.
+Terrific graphics
+Terrific sound and music
-Sometimes hard to tell where you can go in the environments
Battles:
Battles are a mixed bag in this game. When you fight, you fight with light and strong attacks that can be comboed together. In addition, you can assign "abilities" to two buttons. These include things like jump, guard, dash, etc - different things you can do in battle. As you use different abilities in combination, you will learn new abilities such as slide, bash, back-flip and so on. The cool thing is using abilities in combination with different weapons will allow you to learn special moves. You can set a special move to each of the L and R buttons on the PSX controller, and unleash them when your battle gage becomes full (ala SD3). Another new features is when you defeat an enemy, crystals (exp points) and money pop out, so you and your buddies can scramble for them.
Now the bad - you cannot run away from battles. Once you engage an enemy or group of enemies, you are stuck on the screen until you beat them. Also, the battles and boss fights are pitifully easy, and even if you happen to die, you will be revived at the beginning of the battle. (I don't mind this so much). There is a hard and very hard mode to the game, but they are not accessible until you beat the game for the first time.
+Cool new battle system
+Learning ablities and special moves are fun
-Battles are too easy
-Cannot run from battles
Multiplayer:
The main draw of the Mana series imo has been it's multiplayer. No other RPG let you fight with two other friends like Secret of Mana and SD3. Now I said "buddies" in the last section didn't I? Sorry, I didn't mean to mislead you, but the multiplayer in Legend of Mana is almost non existant. You play as the main character (boy or girl), and throughout the game different characters join you to play quests, but they don't stick around very long. A second player can control these characters, but it's not nearly the same as having the same character all the time and building them up.
To try and make up for this, Legend of Mana has Pets and Golems. Pets are monsters you can raise to fight along side you. They grow levels just like you, but trying to figure out how they grow is really tough. I didn't try it, but I think a second player can play as a Pet. Golems are little mechanical creatures that you build from different materials to fight for you. These I've read cannot be controlled by a person. Me, I never built a Golem cause the process sounded to complicated. Also, it's not like I needed one since the game was so easy.
In short, the main draw of the Mana series, it's multiplayer, sucks in Legend of Mana. The Pets and Golems are a cool idea, but they are not replacements for real multiplayer.
+Pets and Golems are neat and let you do some customization
-No real multiplayer
-Many (like myself) might not want to spend the time to raise Pets and build Golems
-You don't need Pets or Golems cause the game is so easy
Weapons:
At the start of the game you get to choose which weapon you start with. You can choose between the standards: sword, spear, axe, flair, bow, staff, hammer, etc. After you start the game you can purchase all the others if you want. I played through with mainly the knife, sword, and spear. Again, using the different weapons in battle will gain you different specials for that weapon. Each weapon combos different too, so it's fun to play around with.
After you meet Watts, you will be able to forge and temper weapons/armor from raw materials (which seem to be the only thing you find in treasure chests in the whole world) I'm not going to explain how the forging/tempering works - it's basically the same as in Sword of Mana. However, unlike in Sword of Mana where you can see the results of your work before you do it, in Legend of Mana you cannot, so forging weapons is hit or miss. Will Vizel Gold make a stronger sword than if I use Hal Aerolite? You can't find out until you make them both. This makes weapon building a tedious task. Honestly I got along fine without forging anything. As I've said, the game is easy, and if you buy weapons/armor from shops or use the ones you win from battles, you'll be fine.
+A variety of weapons
+Different weapons means different fighting styles in battles
-Forging and Tempering is frustrating
-Forging and Tempering is not needed (at least in the first play through)
I can see where the Pets and Golems along with the ability to forge stronger weapons and armor would come in handy in the hard and very hard game, but it's unfortunate that you have to beat the game in the normal mode before being able to access the harder modes. Also, I don't know who would have the patience to raise/build strong Pets and Golems and forge/temper good weapons and armor since you have to search so much and fight so long to get the food/materials you need, especially since you can't run from battles.
Ok, I can't type anymore. I hope this has given you a run down of some thing to expect in case you get this game. It's fairly hard to find now, and even though it has it's problems, there are a lot of good things about the game. And like other Mana games, it has it's own charm. I recommend any Mana fan at least check it out.
6/10 (same score I gave to Chrono Cross http://www.armageddongames.net/showpost.php?p=964256&postcount=7)