Following the successful Seiken Densetsu 3 in Japan, and Square's defection to Sony we saw the release of the highly anticipated Legend of Mana. The US only saw Seiken Densetsu 2 under the name "Secret of Mana". But following Secret of Mana, the US didn't receive the prequel, nor sequel. However, Square USA addressed this matter... sort of. In the apparent mana void they created a US exclusive game called "Secret of Evermore" which used the basic mana engine, but was a far cry from the huge adventure that was Secret of Mana. Legend of Mana is the 4th game in the series that is Seiken Densetsu, set in the fantasy world of "Fa'diel" your male/female character sets out to change the course of history. You create the world with your imagination using Artifacts you find throughout the game (Basically you take the toy blocks, set them on a plot of land on the map and through some fairly impressive animation you see a town/dungeon/house/etc. sprout up).
Why it sucks: This is quite possibly the biggest disappointment in square's batch of games from that year. Legend is in no way like the previous mana games and more like a crappy streets of rage clone than a free roaming RPG >_< That and there's no MAIN plot point to follow, basically your character wanders around this made up world (that you set up by forming an area and placing it somewhere on the plot of land you've chosen) finding events to finish that the goofy "Lil' Cactus" scribbles down on his diary whenever you happen to come by your house to save and talk to him. And on the topic of things that sucked about L of M, how's about the stupidly mute main character? Now L of M is hardly the first to do this, but Square should know better dammit. It wasn't cool that they did that in Zelda, and it sure ain't cool here >_< Mute characters take away a lot of the otherwise awesome flavor RPGs can offer. When your ONLY connection to the world in the game is a silent wide-eyed git, that takes away tons of depth and love your character would otherwise have. L of M also has no real goals to attain, in fact after awhile one could easily get the impression that they're running errands for a game! ERRANDS!!! >_< I mentioned how the game somehow resembled that of Sega's classic "beat-'em up" game Streets of Rage, I make this vague reference towards the weird fighting system. In a strange and badly designed RPG styled system, encounters aren't necessarily random as they happen quite often and are easy to predict because they're practically EVERYWHERE!!! Running through the Ulkan mines, Mekiv Caverns or Gato Grottoes for instance will get you tons of encounters with relatively few safe spots where no enemies reside. An encounter works like this: Your character, friendly NPC and pet (if you have either...) stop in their tracks as they face however many enemies pop out in front of them and everyone poses and quickly flashes indicating they cannot be hurt for a brief moment. THen the violence ensues! The battles tend to be brief and more often than not, I found myself looking around my room as opposed to the screen because the battles are BORING. Typically you find yourself clubbing your opponents to death with short range weapons (swords, hammer, glove, etc.) or attack from a distance with long range weapons and/or spells. The funny thing about physical attacks is that when you press the attack button 3 times in rapid sucession, your character performs a fast combo with a blue trail following their movements, the downside to this combo is that it doesn't accomplish much more than simply pressing once at a time and right after the combo is finished, your character is momentarily paralyzed and vulnerable to attack.
To avoid this, I found that if you train yourself to pause briefly between each press of the button you can keep on attacking crippling any chance your opponent has of moving, much less counter-attacking.
Then there's this other trick I found... As you progress with your weapon skills, your character will eventually learn some special techniques. When equipped, you character can use one these "STs" after you've filled up what I like to call the "Violence Bar". Under your life meter, there's a bar that fills as you wage carnage on your enemies, each attack fills it so much and once full you can use unleash one of the STs. But your enemies can use them too... particularly bosses. Your average enemy doesn't have any ST worth worrying about really, but the bosses have some attacks that can kill or cripple you in one hit if your level isn't high enough. The trick is to predict when they're about to USE their ST, when someone prepares to let one go they freeze and turn invulnerable before they use the ST. It's really hard NOT to notice when someone is preparing to let loose a Special Technique seeing as the user is surrounded by light and then there's the all encompassing sounds... Anyway, THE TRICK is to beat the boss silly and when they're about to let fly and ST you keep your distance and get ready to use one of yours (hit or miss, it'll save your life) in return. The second they finish charging, let yours loose and you should come out of the boss' attack completely unharmed IF you've timed it right, you can also do this with spells, but to get that to work you REALLY need to get your timing down. Using spells it's basically the same thing except instead of waiting with your finger over the ST button, you charge a spell before they use their ST and let go after the boss is done charging.
The two tricks I just outlined work on EVERYTHING in the game including the final boss. And while I'd say this somehow makes the game better... I feel it kind of takes something away. In the game there are all sorts of varying elements that can and will affect your game and will decide whether or not some events will even be available to you. Mostly they have to do with elemental placement of locations, but depending on some of your answers you can actually lose a big opportunity for an important event and to be honest there's so many variables that it almost makes the game boring by virtue of those alone! Basically, ALLLLLLL this game leads up to is you do so many missions until you receive the SWORD OF MANA which gives you the Mana Tree location and your final event: "Legend of Mana". From there you "free" the Mana Tree and... that's it! ^_^; This game took me about 2-3 days to go through before I finally became impatient and did the final event. Got Niccolo's ending (I understand there are variant endings as well...) and it was pretty lame.
Speaking of that moron Niccolo, another let down was the NPCs (Non-Playable Characters) and Pet partners. Secret of Mana featured 3 playable characters for up to 3 people. L of M has the one playable character and then an open slot for a playable character whenever an NPC takes the middle position in your party... Why they're called NPCs when you can play as them I'll never know, but if you ever thought it was a chore moving around with simply ONE player, 2 add up to gaming hell! Much like the problem in S of M (Secret of Mana), if one character trails off it can lead to your part being stuck until EVERYONE the party proceeds in the same direction... When controlled by the computer, the NPCs will follow you mindlessly and fight like they have no concern for their own well being (very primitive AI), not to mention that they try and swipe the EXP gems that occasionally fall from bosses and certain enemies. Argh... None of the NPCs will permanently stay with you and the only ones you can really count on for damn near anything are your students, Black Pearl, Larc and Sierra. A sad assortment of losers and flake outs preceed them particularlly the irritating Elazul.
Why it rules: The music stands out almost as much as the beautiful water color backgrounds. The visuals and in-game character animations are exceptional! But other than simply great visuals and sounds, there's the fun in making things from various items with the workshops you gain through specific missions. You can make golems, weapons/armor and magical instruments. You also can raise monsters as you catch monster eggs and feed them the various meats you gain from enemies and the produce you grow from Trent the tree in your backyard which will control their evolution. There's a lot of neat ways which the various stories go, but the best ones would have to be the Jumi Saga, Dragon Saga and the Matilda Saga. Unfortunately, these various stories don't have enough "meat" to them, nor do they flow easily in time. The world of Fa'diel is colorful and interesting one, that should have had much more to it, but as it is Fa'diel isn't too bad a place... it's just a little flat is all.
Overall: After I'd first gotten it (about the same time as I'd gotten Vagrant story and Saga Frontier 1 & 2) I was deeply disappointed with what I saw. The previews showed some great eye candy and some vaguely familar combat to some enchanting music... What I ended up playing was fairly narrow minded combat, environments that were like cardboard cutouts set up as a stage set, a male or female character that had no life to them at all (quite literally, a flat, cardboard character), lame NPCs and the feeling that one is running errands for a GAME. The biggest chore is not staying alive, it's staying AWAKE. It took a lot of determination not to wander off and play another game, but I went all the way up the end. And strangely enough, in the time it took me to go through this... I ended up liking the game >_< Since the day I bought it I ragged and ragged on it, but after I finally beat it I realized that I had ENJOYED it... ^_^; REALLY pissed me off when I realized it. The game is addicting, while the gameplay gets real repetitive there's just enough charm and fun to keep you playing. If you plan to be recovering from sugery anytime soon, this would be a great title to play. Other than that, Legend of Mana is just OKAY. Not good enough to crack someone over the head with a pipe, nor bad enough to urinate on and set aflame. Just. Okay.