45. Legend of Mana (PlayStation)
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The Legend of Mana has a vague overarching plot, focusing more on several character plots with three major storylines and a bunch of side stories. The first major story arc is about the Jumi who have nearly been hunted to extinction for their jewel hearts. The second follows a brother and sister dragoons who fight on opposite ends of a war by different dragon masters. And the third is a complicated love story about four childhood friends and their different paths in life. There are many smaller story arc. There is one main playable characters, but you recruit several along the way depending on decisions you make. Some are guests. You can also have monsters accompany you and golems you've created as well.

This game is extremely non-linear. The world is built by obtaining artifacts, which when placed on the map will make new locations. Battles are on set points in the map where you press different buttons to perform different skills, most of which can be customized on the menu. You can also catch and raise monster eggs and monsters, make your own golems to fight with you, and grow your own odd fruit from the fruit trees. In order to finish the game, you need to complete one of the three main story arcs. It's hard to get everything in this game because it's very finicky about when you do what, so a guide might be needed if you want to see everything it has to offer the first playthrough.


General impressions:
This game has a very unique art style, which is one of the first things I noticed. I'm actually not a fan of the character designs, but they are very creative and well-done, it's more just personal preference. The locations are beautifully drawn and it looks like a work of art. The game is extremely non-linear, which is great and adds replay value. However, if you're a completionist it might get pretty frustrating. I played with a guide for this list so I could be sure to see everything. The battles can get pretty repetitive and as pretty as the maps are, some of them are very easy to get lost in. But this game has a very unique way of story telling and it was refreshing in that it was quite different from anything I'd ever played. I also very much enjoy games that spawn theories, and I like that this one can be looked at as starting over “after the end” or even as telling the stories of “before the end”. It brings a different and much more desperate feel if you look at it the second way, and I love how much the tone can change from that.

Story:
The overarching story in this game is incredibly vague and hard to pinpoint. Instead, you mostly follow several mini character stories. I was okay with this because I love character driven plots. With that being said, it was a bit odd as it seemed the main hero was just thrown in to these situations, ranged from silly to incredibly serious, and the hero had little to nothing to do with them. Some of the stories were a bit hard to follow. But overall there were some more fun and silly ones, but also some very deep and serious ones. Of the three main stories, my favourite was the one with the childhood friends, but the Jumi one was excellent too. I liked the love story because it was a very unique and fresh take on love stories and it really got me invested and feeling for them.

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This is pleasant

Gameplay:
The gameplay overall is nothing special and at times could be quite frustrating, but that will be covered more in the world section. I wouldn't say it was boring, but battles could be a bit odd because of the positioning of things. But there was a ton of customization available, the world building was so awesome, and there were a good bit off side things to do like make the golems and grow the fruit. The game was also incredibly easy, which I could appreciate.


World:
The world itself was beautiful and had some amazing locations. It was diverse, it was beautifully drawn, and it was interesting. The downside was that certain maps were horrible and so easy to get lost in. I had a map in front of me and I still got lost all the time. It can turn a 10 minute thing in to a 40 minute thing. But aside from that it was beautiful and fun to explore.


Characters:
This is a very character driven game and one of the best things about it is that the characters are not stereotypical or black and white. Sometimes it was hard to pinpoint who exactly was the good guy or the bad guy. Because it wasn't always clearly a good or bad guy, just different people. Except Niccolo, that guy was a jerk. But the cast was diverse and interesting and we got to watch a lot of them in some great moments.

Favourite character: Pearl/Blackpearl 9PZ8ICW.jpgujPlWhm.png
Honourable mentions: Matilda, Esmeralda 5YFrUus.pngK69tijD.png


I've always enjoyed split personality characters and Pearl was very interesting to me. On the one hand I liked her because Pearl was soft spoken, polite, kind, and caring. She was kind of a drag in battle though. But as Blackpearl she was strong, confident, intelligent, and amazing in battle. Both were awesome characters. I liked Matlida because I found her to be a pretty unique character and I really liked her story, and the same thing with Esmeralda but in a different way. All of these characters had very touching stories.

Overall beautiful game, strong character, very unique and refreshing. Great non-linear gameplay, but a bit dull with the battles and stuff and some very frustrating maps. Still it's a very unique game worth checking out.