Seiken Densetsu: Legend of Mana
Reviewed by Dyson Turner
Legend of Mana in my opinion was an interesting game, a
little weird and not a sequel to the popular SNES game
Secret of Mana. This game held my interest for a long time
for it's somewhat simplicity in it. In a sense its not a
true RPG if you consider games that are turn based true
RPG's since this one has real time battles its more of a
side scroller in that sense. At first I didn't understand
this game so I disliked it. So I decided I wasn't going to
play it, but then once I got my barrens in knew what I was
doing this game become a lot of fun, and I was intrigued as
to what my quirky Heroin would get into next. For the most
part this game was very interesting and I highly enjoyed it.
This is a wonderful game and you really need to give it a
chance, like I did. Many people didn't like this because of
its lack of a meaty story since when you think about it
everything is mostly events thrown together and there aren't
any real plot twist a few here and there. When you get
further into the game, but for the main 3 quarters of the
game everything just seems to happen, and your hero or
heroin is there to help out.
Visuals 8. 5/10
The graphics on this game is pretty good everything is hand
drawn and it looks splendid. At first I thought the
characters looked too babyish for my taste but they grew on
me. The backgrounds are so bright and colorful, everything
is perfectly done, and the best hand drawn graphics I have
seen. It looked like I was playing a colorful Disney
cartoon, my only fault was the character size could of even
a bit larger or the monsters in the game especially the
bosses should have been shorter. I think the backgrounds
show the best look in the entire game, the character
non-playable and normal weren't done that well. The faces of
the characters and when you read a book like an encyclopedia
and there is a nice sketch of the character these things
were done we.. Basically the graphics were up to code, they
weren't really bad at all they could have been better but
I'm not really complaining since this is an RPG. For the
most part this game delivered in the graphic department in
quite frankly I couldn't ask for better here.
Audio 9. 0/10
Well if you aren't a fan of upbeat music then this won't be
for you and you better play with the music off. For those of
us who love upbeat music and a nice atmosphere this is
definitely the game you want to play, for the vast majority
of the game except at the end and in certain quest the music
was dark. I liked the fact that that they decided to do it
for this game this upbeat music really worked with it. I
also loved the adventurous fast music during the fight
stages and dungeons and caverns and things. The sound
effects were also well done and they gave off a certain
something that made the game more enjoyable on my part.
Overall this music and graphics really gave this game a
'jolly' atmosphere.
Game Play 10/10
So much to discuss because quite frankly this game offers a
lot of fun. This game is very innovative its true you make
your own quest basically. You get artifacts which enable you
to open certain places and events and you can do everything
at your place frankly if you don't care for the adventure in
front of you, you can do a different adventure its all
entirely up to you. Some adventures may require just a
little bit of thinking while some are going through caves
and finding some one or defeating a boss. That's the life of
the mercenary, you get two different types Male and Female,
I decided to use the female because the guy didn't look
'right' if you know what I mean. Anyway there are so many
fun things you can do like animal raising which reminds me
of Pok¸mon, and you can make your own weapons and you can
make your own instruments and your own Golems! Wow, that's a
lot of stuff that will help you on your quest one more fun
thing you garden, you can have so much fun at your home
doing things that are suppose to help you. Let me explain
each one:
Monster Raising
It starts off with catching an egg, eggs tend to be
difficult to catch at first but later on they become easier
and easier. You try to catch the egg by dropping meat and if
the egg likes it you can get it. It will be taken back to
the Monster Coral, and soon it will hatch and it will become
a monster. They start off weak but you can feed them certain
foods to improve their strength or change their personality.
Weapon Making
Weapon Making is indeed fun as well, you can craft your own
weapon, which takes a lot of experimenting and no know how.
Basically you first start by getting a primary metal
material. If you have good ones the weapon will be powerful,
you can then infuse your weapon with coins seeds meat fruit
whatever, experiment with it all and whatever raises your
stats on weapon or armor is the one to choose.
Instrument Making
You can also make instruments. Instruments are tools needed
to catch these ghosts like creatures. They drop coins which
can be used to make better instruments or for your weapon.
Instrument making is pretty fun, the more instruments you
make the better making a good one can guarantee you some
coins. Instrument making was in my opinion very mandatory,
because you needed always to have a good instrument to catch
the guys that give you coins. The coins were great for
weapons that went into your golem.
Golem Making
Making Golem's is like a cross between weapons and
instruments. A golem is made out of weapons armor and
instruments and so are its attacks. So this is how all 3 of
these connect if you are a Golem freak and want a real good
one you'll make weapons and instruments for the sole purpose
of creating a better golem. Golem making tends to be tricky
but if you have some decent home made weapons and armor you
can make a wonderful golem. Golem's were much like Pets but
they were more obedient meaning they followed you better
than the pets did, the pets liked to go off on their own too much.
The Garden
Well the garden was different than the others, there was a
beautifully drawn tree in the back of your house, and you
gave him seeds. You go out do a few missions and colorful
named and looking fruit would appear, this was still pretty
fun and I always took care of my garden making sure he gets
a lot of seeds and I get all the fruit whenever possible.
The fruit was used for your Monsters you could feed it to
your monsters assuming you did a lot of gardening and he
gave you the encyclopedia for Gardening you can know what
you are feeding your monsters and make sure you got the
right things for it.
The Battle system was pretty much like a side scroller but
there were many things you had to know to come out of battle
successfully. Things like special attacks, and skills. You
were given I think 10 skills in the beginning of the game,
but when you used two skills at the same time a new skill
would be made. Then sometimes you would get a new special
attack, special attacks were devastating and often-left
enemies help less. Also you got NPC's which stand for Non
Playable Characters they come with their own skills and
weapons so you don't' need to worry about it, a 2nd player
can control your NPC's or they can just follow you. There
were so many different things in this game that made it so
unique and different from other games, on the market.
Fun Factor: High
I found this game fun, but not at the early going where
everything was just go out and do the quest. When you
started to be able to make you're own Golems and instruments
and raise animals the game got much more interesting and I
really enjoyed it at this point. I think that with things
like this it keeps a game like Legend of Mana fresh and
interesting.
Replay Value: Medium
This game definitely has a reason to play through again
sense you won't do every quest on the first play through as
a matter of fact you probably won't even meet every
character on your first play through. So for reasons like
these this game was worth while in my opinion. This keeps
the game always fresh since you have two character types to
choose from even though they are the same its still fun being both.
Good Points
A breath of fresh air from the RPG's on the market.
Animal Raising, Golem, Instrument, Weapon and Armor making
Easy battle system
Easy Leveling Up
Lots of fun NPC to have with you on your quest.
Bad Points
Graphics Too Childish
These graphics could have been more 'adult' like I mean
the characters looked like babies, and everyone looked real
young, even though they weren't suppose. This game really
looked like it was for a younger audience.
Monsters Too Hard to Raise
I for one had a difficult time trying to raise the monsters,
it just seem too difficult and like it was too much work to
raise the monsters properly. It seems as though they would
never gain adequate levels or be strong enough in battle.
Most of the time in battle they barely did anything even
when I gave it a chance I suppose on a higher level the
monsters do more damage but on a lower one they don't.
Overall 7 out of 10
This game was pretty good but it just didn't satisfied me
like I thought it would the game is entirely too short to be
considered really good or get a higher score. You could
probably beat this a few hours if you practiced at it and
knew what was the right missions to take however it is a lot
of fun when you first get it, and its worth 2 play through I
would say. The graphics and music gave it a childish
atmosphere I was surprised that this game was rated for
teens, because it looks so cartoony, and for children. I
think that children would enjoy this game the story line and
raising monsters is fun enough and easy enough for a child
to use. One thing that did bother me was the fact that the
hero never says anything. I don't know about you but I'm
tired of the speechless heroes in current RPG's, its just
well annoying, it was cool when Crono did it but it isn't
any fun any more. I know they do it for the drama but it
isn't needed a talking hero makes the game more fun.
Basically this is a very good game and if you are in dire
need for a great game and you are sick of all the clones on
the market this game is what you need.
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