Children of Mana - thoughts?

[vegeta1215]

I've been waiting for Children of Mana to come out for a while, and now that it's out, I've having second thoughts about getting it, mainly because it has gotten very poor reviews thus far.

Most reviewers describe the game as a dungeon crawler, and a very shallow and tedious experience. I'm curious of what some of you think of it? I'm a Mana fan and am tempted to buy it regardless, but I don't want to keep buying bad Mana games if it means Square Enix is going to keep making bad Mana games.

Also, anyone play Magical Starsign? That game is made by Brownie Brown (whose team made the original Secret of Mana when they worked for Squaresoft), but that has received last luster reviews too

[Orion]

Creepy... I just came on to post the exact same topic... I'm also curious if anyone has played it and what they thought of it.

[Warlock]

I've played it a little bit.

Basically, the reviews are sort of right. It's *fun*, but it's *NOT* a Mana game, at least in the traditional sense. That aspect disappointed me greatly. Here is the basics:

You start out by picking one of four characters. This is the *only* character you get throughout the whole game (so no, the others don't join your party - you can't even have a party). I forget the names, but there is a guy, a girl, a sprite, and that rabbit guy from Legend of Mana.

The game is *extremely* mission-based. It will be something like, "Oh no, something is happening at the Mana tower!" and then you'll go to a non-interactive world map, click on "Mana Tower" and then you'll be in the dungeon. You go floor to floor, fighting monsters and collecting little mana sapling things (I forget the exact name) which is a fancy way of saying "key" to the portal ("door") to the next floor. After like 10 floors, you fight a boss. Some more story ensues, and then you are off to another location that is pretty much identical except for the terrain and monsters.

There are also "quests" you can do, which is like "kill all the rabbites" where you will go back to a previously beaten dungeon, and they will change "boss" floor into a random monster floor based on your quest. I think there are also "get X item" or something quests too, I dunno. Then you get a reward (item, money, etc) for doing that.

You get to carry along *one* spirit with you (i.e. Undine, Wisp, Salamander, etc etc) which can do either a "helpful" (i.e. Secret of Mana girl magic) or "attack" (i.e. Secret of Mana sprite magic) spell. You get so little MP that these guys are basically worthless. Bring Wisp along and just use him to cure yourself ;p I am playing the main guy, so maybe if you play the girl or sprite characters you get more MP and magic is more imporant. I dunno. No idea what the rabbit guy does. You can swap out spirits in between dungeons, and you can *only* swap equipment when you are not in a dungeon (gay).

There is also a "stone" system where you basically get a 4x4 grid and you can put different stones in there for like +1 ATK and crap. It seems largely pointless. Like, I thought maybe I'd get some kind of bonus for having say, all red stones. Nope. You can "equip" some extra attack moves (like I got a sonic wave attack) through this, but otherwise I don't know why they really bothered.

Like I said, the game is not *bad* persay, but it's just so disappointing and not nearly as good as I thought it would have been. I havn't really played it since the first day I got it (Nov. 1st) because I'd rather play FFXII/FFV, etc. From what I hear, it's really short - like 5 or 6 different dungeons. Then of course you could play quests and stuff I guess but that seems pointless.

[vegeta1215]

Although I had criticism for Legend of Mana, I didn't mind how differently it played compared to earlier Mana games. (plus it still had a lot of charm) Children of Mana just sounds very different - like a different game just set in the Mana universe. I can't imagine what that Mana themed RTS game is gonna be like.

I'm definitely picking up FFV though. I played it on ZSNES years ago, but I'd love another go at it.

[Warlock]

Although I had criticism for Legend of Mana, I didn't mind how differently it played compared to earlier Mana games. (plus it still had a lot of charm) Children of Mana just sounds very different - like a different games just set in the Mana universe. I can't imagine what that Mana themed RTS game is gonna be like.

I'm definitely picking up FFV though. I played it on ZSNES years ago, but I'd love another go at it.

Yeah, Children of Mana sort of *plays* like a Mana game, but the style is very very different. It's almost more like a Diablo-styled game (and the rooms are randomly generated here too, forgot to mention that). But not quite as good as Diablo

And yeah, FFV is freaking addictive. The *only* reason I picked it up already was because it was on sale last week (otherwise I have *way* too many games to play right now). And I havn't been able to put it down all weekend

Though it pisses me off - Sun. night I spent a long time skilling up Jobs by killing Skull Eaters (basically, gray squirrels that can insta-kill a party member with their attack and are immune to most attacks - you kill them by controlling the guy and having it kill itself ). After all that, I stupidly decided to cast a spell on the guy, and suddenly there were SIX of them. I couldn't run away fast enough /cry So I lost all that progress But at this point I say screw it, I'll find something that's easier to kill in world 2

[vegeta1215]

Where was FFV on sale?

One place I leveled up a lot was in some cave in the 2nd world, near where you get the Odin summon. I remember just using that summon over and over again to kill screens full of enemies (cause one or the two possible Odin summon moves slices every enemy in half for a one hit kill) Great game though. It will be fun getting all the jobs again - plus the bonus ones.

If I can get Children of Mana for cheap I will pick it up for sure. I just wish Square would port SD3 to the GBA. It's what we all want, am I right?

[Warlock]

Where was FFV on sale?

One place I leveled up a lot was in some cave in the 2nd world, near where you get the Odin summon. I remember just using that summon over and over again to kill screens full of enemies (cause one or the two possible Odin summon moves slices every enemy in half for a one hit kill) Great game though. It will be fun getting all the jobs again - plus the bonus ones.

If I can get Children of Mana for cheap I will pick it up for sure.

Best Buy had it for $30 - everywhere else I saw said $35. But maybe it wasn't a sale, I dunno. But I used a $20 and $5 gift certificate from Reward Zone and basically got the game for $5

[Orion]

Anyone hear anything on SD4 lately?

[Warlock]

Anyone hear anything on SD4 lately?

I think I heard January? Or at least early 2007. I'll definately be picking that one up. The way I understand it, it's a bit more traditional (but then again, I thought this one was too -_-). I suspect it will be something more akin to Zelda or Dark Cloud in gameplay (I do believe you can jump though)

I'm still waiting for Seiken Densetsu 3 GBA/DS translated version tho (that is, an announcement that it's being made )

[ctrl-alt-delete]

I bought Magical Starsign, and it is pretty fun from what I have played so far. Give me some more time to play through it, and I will tell you more.