RPGamers Network > Reviews > Game Reviews > Legend of Mana
The game begins with a luscious cut scene, showing the Mana Tree in excellent shades of green. The game offers little cut scenes, but the ones that are there are amazing. The game offers you to select either a male or female character. The male character looks like a female also but anyway, you name your character whatever you want and then begin the game, with a storyline and history showing. The game then goes to the World Map, which, like Legend of Dragoon, is just a place to get from one area to another, nothing more. You're given artifacts to place anywhere you want on the world map, but some quests require you to place things near each other, which you will find out. Anyway, the game begins there, at your Home (where else for Squaresoft
).
The game has an active battle system which requires you to fight numerous enemies in fairly small fighting areas (screen sized) which provides a slight challenge to the fairly easy game. You fight with a variety of weapons including Swords, Axes, Bows, Spear and Daggers. Each type of weapon has it's own set of different named weapons with attack powers etc... and each type also has it's share of Special Techniques (STs) which you use after being hit enough times, like limit breaks, except the bar goes up much faster (191 in total). Your character also has 26 Abilities to learn including Jump, Slide, Back-Flip and Somersault. All of those can help attack or evade enemies. To learn more STs and Abilities, you have to use a combination of 2 or sometimes more abilities in battle and gain the experience the enemies drop. Enemies also drop weapons, items and money. Money is only used to buy items and weapons at the shops, nothing more. In battle, you have 100% health every time (yes, no healing outside of battle necessary) but the 100% is just a percentage of a number in your status screen that shows your actual Hit Points. You can have a maximum of 999 HP and a level of 99 too.
As well as just you wandering the Earth doing stories, you also have an NPC and a pet monster. The NPC is usually a person involved in the particular story you're in. They can either be computer controlled or controlled by a second player, which adds more fun into the game as you get to fight against friends in the Battle Arena. An NPC could also be a character from another Legend of Mana game. The good part about that is that you can bring a low level character from your new game, shove it on the old game and level the character up really quick, so they can easily beat anything on the new game. This also works as more fun as you can battle your character against a friend's character and see who is superior. The pet monster is a monster that hatches out of an egg which you catch around the world. There are tonnes of monsters to find but you can only keep 5. They travel you also giving you a maximum of 3 at a time traveling. You have to feed your monsters with either meat that you gain from defeating enemies or fruit which you grow in a tree at your home. The little things always stick around even when NPCs finish their story and leave, and they can be quite powerful. One of the monsters includes the Rabite, (the little plush toy shown at the top right of the site in general) a little yellow thing which is also an enemy you battle, as are all of your monsters you use, which may make it difficult to find when up against similar enemies.
There are a lot of storylines in the game. 3 fairly large ones and a fair few small ones. Each storyline has it's own set of characters and quests which you must complete to finish the quest. Some quests unlock new game features, new areas and new characters for you to try out. Some quests can only be triggered after doing other events and some can only be triggered by the placement of areas correctly. Completing all 68 quests is not a simple task, but that's why it takes so long to fully finish.
The music in the game was done by Yoko Shimomura and is, in my opinion, brilliantly done. Each song corresponds great with the current part in the storyline or the current area you're in. Each boss battle is enhanced and is more dramatic with the fast paced music that goes with it. In short, the sad parts have sad music and cool parts have cool music.
One of the best features of the game is the encyclopedias you acquire from the game. They include information on every ST, Ability, Area, Character and Quest you've done or seen in the game. Some are also guides on how to do things in the game. It is a great section and provides action pictures for every single Ability and ST which is pretty cool.
All together, one of the best, original Squaresoft games made. The lack of solid storyline is easily made up by the great battle system, awesome music and all round good gameplay worthy of the title RPG. Very much worth a try.
| Game Stats | |
|---|---|
| Genre | RPG |
| Platform | PlayStation |
| Format | CD-ROM |
| # of Players | 2 |
| Released Jap | 07.15.1999 |
| Released US | 06.07.2000 |
| Released EU | N/A |
| Aprox. Length | 20-50 hrs. |
| Reviewer Rankings | |
| Battle System | 9.0 |
| Gameplay | 8.0 |
| Music | 9.0 |
| Originality | 8.0 |
| Plot | 10.0 |
| Replay Value | 7.0 |
| Sound | 8.0 |
| Visuals | 8.0 |
| Difficulty | Easy |
| Overall | |
| 8.4 | |
Legend of Mana
By: SquaresoftReviewed By: Kie
Legend of Mana is the fourth installment of a series of game called Seiken Densetsu and is the official sequel to the Super Nintendo hit Secret of Mana, Seiken Densetsu meaning "The Holy Sword". The game itself is one disc, and a whole lot of storylines. The fact that it has no actual main storyline until right near the end might put off some people, but it's for people who enjoy doing a lot of things at once.The game begins with a luscious cut scene, showing the Mana Tree in excellent shades of green. The game offers little cut scenes, but the ones that are there are amazing. The game offers you to select either a male or female character. The male character looks like a female also but anyway, you name your character whatever you want and then begin the game, with a storyline and history showing. The game then goes to the World Map, which, like Legend of Dragoon, is just a place to get from one area to another, nothing more. You're given artifacts to place anywhere you want on the world map, but some quests require you to place things near each other, which you will find out. Anyway, the game begins there, at your Home (where else for Squaresoft
).The game has an active battle system which requires you to fight numerous enemies in fairly small fighting areas (screen sized) which provides a slight challenge to the fairly easy game. You fight with a variety of weapons including Swords, Axes, Bows, Spear and Daggers. Each type of weapon has it's own set of different named weapons with attack powers etc... and each type also has it's share of Special Techniques (STs) which you use after being hit enough times, like limit breaks, except the bar goes up much faster (191 in total). Your character also has 26 Abilities to learn including Jump, Slide, Back-Flip and Somersault. All of those can help attack or evade enemies. To learn more STs and Abilities, you have to use a combination of 2 or sometimes more abilities in battle and gain the experience the enemies drop. Enemies also drop weapons, items and money. Money is only used to buy items and weapons at the shops, nothing more. In battle, you have 100% health every time (yes, no healing outside of battle necessary) but the 100% is just a percentage of a number in your status screen that shows your actual Hit Points. You can have a maximum of 999 HP and a level of 99 too.
As well as just you wandering the Earth doing stories, you also have an NPC and a pet monster. The NPC is usually a person involved in the particular story you're in. They can either be computer controlled or controlled by a second player, which adds more fun into the game as you get to fight against friends in the Battle Arena. An NPC could also be a character from another Legend of Mana game. The good part about that is that you can bring a low level character from your new game, shove it on the old game and level the character up really quick, so they can easily beat anything on the new game. This also works as more fun as you can battle your character against a friend's character and see who is superior. The pet monster is a monster that hatches out of an egg which you catch around the world. There are tonnes of monsters to find but you can only keep 5. They travel you also giving you a maximum of 3 at a time traveling. You have to feed your monsters with either meat that you gain from defeating enemies or fruit which you grow in a tree at your home. The little things always stick around even when NPCs finish their story and leave, and they can be quite powerful. One of the monsters includes the Rabite, (the little plush toy shown at the top right of the site in general) a little yellow thing which is also an enemy you battle, as are all of your monsters you use, which may make it difficult to find when up against similar enemies.
There are a lot of storylines in the game. 3 fairly large ones and a fair few small ones. Each storyline has it's own set of characters and quests which you must complete to finish the quest. Some quests unlock new game features, new areas and new characters for you to try out. Some quests can only be triggered after doing other events and some can only be triggered by the placement of areas correctly. Completing all 68 quests is not a simple task, but that's why it takes so long to fully finish.
The music in the game was done by Yoko Shimomura and is, in my opinion, brilliantly done. Each song corresponds great with the current part in the storyline or the current area you're in. Each boss battle is enhanced and is more dramatic with the fast paced music that goes with it. In short, the sad parts have sad music and cool parts have cool music.
One of the best features of the game is the encyclopedias you acquire from the game. They include information on every ST, Ability, Area, Character and Quest you've done or seen in the game. Some are also guides on how to do things in the game. It is a great section and provides action pictures for every single Ability and ST which is pretty cool.
All together, one of the best, original Squaresoft games made. The lack of solid storyline is easily made up by the great battle system, awesome music and all round good gameplay worthy of the title RPG. Very much worth a try.
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