Hey, you, Seiken Densetsu! UH!

[KentaRawr!]

Well, I've been playing games from the Mana series lately. First, I started a play-through of Seiken Densetsu 3 with my good friend Caleb. Then, when I got to my house, I wanted to play the first game in the series, and ended up playing Final Fantasy Adventure. Lurved it. Now I'm playing through Secret of Mana. Lurving it, too! I also played through Legend of Mana a while back, but only did one of the main plot-lines, and half-did some of the others. I've played through a good chunk of Sword of Mana as well, and I must say, Sword of Mana is very different in the gameplay department from Final Fantasy Adventure! I've played a tiny bit of Children of Mana, as well, but it's been stolen by my house. Heroes of Mana interests me, and I just want to get Dawn of Mana for its soundtrack, really.

As for my thoughts on the series, I must say that it changes quite a bit from game to game. Final Fantasy Adventure was a combination of new ideas for the area design, Final Fantasy influences, and Legend of Zelda gameplay mechanics. Secret of Mana, while expanding upon various parts of Final Fantasy Adventure, really doesn't seem to be a very similar gameplay experience due to its lack of keys, breakable walls, and a big, grid-based world map, and so far doesn't have much area interactivity like Final Fantasy Adventure. Then, Seiken Densetsu 3 distances itself even more by removing all area interactivity, save for being able to choose which element to use at specific times and pressing a button. Legend of Mana was still a real-time RPG, but almost everything about it seems like it was totally new, which is probably why it was considered a side-story to the main series. Thankfully, Sword of Mana kind of jogged the series' memory. "What? Final Fantasy Adventure? OHYAH!", but that's to be expected, as it was a remake of that game. The artwork for the game seemed to imitate Legend of Mana, that being Legend of Mana's most complimented points. The spriting, however, seemed to mimic Seiken Densetsu 3. Then, the gameplay itself was very Secret of Mana-ish. Children of Mana, however, seemed to base its gameplay elements off of the most popular games of the Mana series, but then formed the entire game totally differently by making it level-by-level. I haven't touched Dawn of Mana and Heroes of Mana yet, so I really can't talk about those much. Plus, I haven't beaten Sword of Mana, Secret of Mana, or ... (pout) ... Seiken Densetsu 3. :cry:

Anywho, what do you think of the Mana series?

[Bastian]

Truth be told: I'm more of a Mana fanatic than an FF fanatic. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE FFIV and FFIII and FFVI and FFIX and FFII and FFV and FFI . . .

But I LOOOOOVE Secret of Mana. That's what started me on Mana. Playing Secret of Mana with my friend Dylan one summer. Then playing it with my friend Ryan directly after. Then playing it three player with Dylan and out friend Casey. The game perfectly captures ARPG and then improves it exponentially by making it not just two player but THREE player. The story and the characters were fascinating and the music was beyond amazing.

Then Legend of Mana came out on the PS1. I preordered and played it . . . and hated it. There was ZERO discernible plot. Yes, the graphics were pretty, but they were WAY too cartoony. Walking/talking teapots? Since when did we enter Oz or Wonderland? I didn't finish it.

Then the translation patch for SD3 was completed and I downloaded it and played it and LOOOOVED it! Here was the mana I loved. Yes, it pretty much just used the graphics and engine of Secret of Mana, but why mess with perfection anyway? I was glad for that. The gameplay was exactly the same, but now we had the option to choose our own main character giving six very different games in one.

An eternity later Sword of Mana was scheduled for release and I realized I STILL hadn't played Final Fantasy Adventure.

So I borrowed my friend Casey's copy. I was fascinated by how The Legend of Zelda the game was. It cemented the idea that Square had intended to take what they liked about Zelda but create a Final Fantasy game with those aspects. It was interesting to see the origin of the series I loved so much, even if it felt rather primitive.

Finally I let myself buy Sword of Mana. I was so excited because Flammie was in the early concept art for the game, and the press releases AND the early box art said it was game-linkable and muliplayer. It was NOT. And Flammie was nowhere to be found. Still, I loved that they took the first Mana game and then brought it up to speed with the way the Mana series was progressing away from early-Zelda. It was a little too cutesy, but not NEARLY as annoying as Legend of Mana. Oh, but the magic system sucked complete balls.

Legend of Mana? Oh yeah, I never finished it. And I didn't have a PS1 anymore. And I didn't have my copy of the game anymore. And Dawn of Mana was just about to come out. So I preordered Dawn of Mana and bought a PS2 and a copy of Legend of Mana and my friend Dylan (who I'd played Secret of Mana with many times) and I played it. I should say we FORCED OURSELVES THROUGH IT. We wanted a plot that never presented itself. We wanted it to be less annoyingly cutesy. We wanted a game like Secret of Mana and SD3. We wanted a magic system like Secret/SD3.

Dawn of Mana: I picked my copy up the day it was released. I was so excited! I started playing it immediately . . . I loved the music and the voice acting but . . . I was NOT a fan of the weird Havoc engine-based yoyo gameplay. I got used to it eventually. I also was annoyed that it wasn't structured like a normal Mana game where you feel like you're actually journeying from place to place. Instead it felt like: play a level and beat a boss, then watch a cut scene, then watch another cut scene, then play another level and beat a boss, then watch a cut scene . . . ad infinitum. The magic system was stupid. There was also no playable Flammie. Obviosuly, they didn't want us going back to previous levels because there was no reason: there were NO TOWNS to visit. What I loved so much about Mana games is that they felt like huge worlds to explore with a multitude of towns to visit and people to meet. Dawn of Mana completely squashed that. But the music was beyond amazing and the gameplay was addictive enough and the story interesting enough to warrent THREE successive playthroughs from me.

Children of Mana came out and I was sooooo excitied! A new multiplayer Mana game! The pre-release screen shots looks sooooo Secret of Mana styled! I bought a copy each for me and my friend Dylan. And . . . it was just a dungeon crawler. Only the main town to visit. No playable Flammie. Disappointing. And repetitive. Each level was a randomly generated dungeon each time you entered it with the same four or so repeating "rooms" . . . very boring. The magic system was as terrible as Sword. We finished it. The story was just barely interesting enough to drive us.

Heroes of Mana . . . I HATE RTSs. But it was Mana, so I had to play and finish it. I got into it because I was facinated with the direct link to SD3 (it takes place a matter of years before SD3) . . . but I loath RTSs and had to force myself through it.

Now that we have MORE "new" Mana games (Legend, Sword, Dawn, Children, Heroes) than "old" (FFA, Secret, SD3) . . . I can't help but wonder what the hell happened? How can they have completely lost what made these games so amazing? Where did Flammie go? Where did the intigrated multiplayer go? Where did all the towns go? Where did the perfect magic system go?

I'm glad Squeenix is taking a break from Mana right now. Hopefully it's so that they can get it right next time.

[scrumpleberry]

Seiken Densetsu 3 is my fave in the whole series. But I'm stuck on Genesis at the minute >: ( even when I do kill him those ninja guys pwn me 5 seonds later. I completely love Angela, she's fabulous. Duran and Hawk are pretty cool too. Lise is kind of emo. Kevin's okay. Carlie's just annoying.

I've also played the original Seiken Densetsu (I didn't like it at all. It was marginally better than the first game in the SaGa series.) and I'm playing Seiken Densetsu II and Sword of Mana from time to time. I really like this series.

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

Secret of Mana's companion AI is all but nonexistent, and the combat in general is buggy as hell. But the charm that comes through in its presentation still makes it enjoyable.

Seiken Densetsu 3 has even better presentation than Secret (among the best in any 2D game, really), and more refined, more enjoyable gameplay. It's the pinnacle of the series.

And everything that came after that isn't worth talking about. It's a shame.

[The Man]

Secret of Mana was charming, if flawed; the game design was quite fantastic but there were a lot of programming issues. Seiken Densetsu 3, as Kishi says, is the pinnacle of the series. I still haven't played any other entries in the series, and judging from the reviews they've gotten, I probably won't play any of them except for Sword of Mana or FFA (still haven't made up my mind which to play.

Seiken Densetsu 3 is worth playing through at least three times, by the way, since the beginning and ending segments of the game vary depending on whom you select as your main character.

[Bastian]

People complain about all of the programing issues and "bugs" in Secret of Mana, but what a lot of people don't know is that the game was originally designed for the CD-Rom add-on that never happened for the SNES. So rather than scrapping the whole game, Square had to scrap a good chunck to get it to fit on a cartridge. I wish they'd do some sort of remake or somesuch and show us their original intent.

Kawaii is right (and is also my second favorite Hawai'ian island) that anything after SD3 hardly deserves a mention. However, Sword of Mana is enjoyable. And I must say that contrary to every single other person in the world, I really do like Dawn. It has massive flaws . . . but it's still really enjoyable.

[Takara]

Kawaii is right (and is also my second favorite Hawai'ian island)

That would be "Kauai". :shifty:

I guess I must be the only one who enjoyed Legend of Mana.

[The Man]

not to mention "Kawaii" doesn't make any sense as a name. If you have to shorten his SN, use "Kishi"

[Bastian]

Legend of Mana? Actually everyone jizzes over LoM except me. I really don't like it much, but I'm in the minority. Over at the Seiken Densetsu forum (seikens.com) everyone lurves it. I don't get it. It has NO plot.