I recently began to replay this title as I'm in a bit of a PS1 nostalgia kick at the moment. The Mana franchise, which is sadly under-served by this list, is probably my second favorite franchise out of Square. Secret of Mana itself holds a special place for me but I'll leave that story for later. Legend of Mana is the fourth installment of the Seiken Desetsu franchise by Square and serves as more of a Gaiden title for the franchise in comparison to the four games that proceed it. Not that anyone could tell since even the first three games have little in common story-wise besides a Mana Tree, Sword, and a theme of the abuse of Mana. For U.S. gamers like myself, Legend of Mana is the third installment in the franchise and the first one seen in almost seven years since SD3 never made it out of Japan. Coming off of Secret of Mana or Final Fantasy Adventure, Legend of Mana feels like a radical departure from the franchises usual style, and in fact it serves as a transitional title for the franchise as many of the stylistic choices of this game would follow the rest of the franchise going into Square-Enix's World of Mana franchise attempt in the 2000s.
Legend of Mana is set nine centuries after the Mana Tree was destroyed. With Mana slowly disappearing beyond artifacts that contained fragments of its powers; the humans, faeries, and demons began to wage a massive war over what little remained. The Faeries War devastated the land of Fa'Diel to the point where people lost all hope and the world was torn asunder with the various places trapped in Artifacts in order to save them. Now the Mana Tree awaits for a hero/heroine to come and restore the lands of Fa'Diel and nurture a new Mana Tree to restore the world for good, but the scars of the wars and persecutions from ages past still live on within the Artifacts, and this chosen one will have face down several evils that also survived the worlds destruction.
When the game begins, you hear the woeful story of the Mana Tree who wishes people would once again believe in her, and then you create your character. You choose your characters gender, name, and starting weapon and then must look a upon a map and choose what location you wish to restore Fa'Diel from. The format of the game is significantly different from previous entries. Your character places artifacts on a map to restore lost pieces of the world of Fa'Diel. Visiting these lands will allow them to engage with the former inhabitants of Fa'Diel and undertake missions which will reward the player with potential allies, materials for crafting, or even another Artifact that contains another piece of the world. The overarching plot of the title is very hands off and is really more of an excuse plot to justify exploring the world you rebuild and undertake quests. The plot involving your main-character's self-given quest to restore the world is largely lore based and won't ever reach some thought provoking conclusion since they are a silent protagonist, so people expecting the more conventional storytelling of the early games will likely be disappointed. Instead, the game is filled with 68 quests that help to expand the world and several of which involve large story arcs involving the games ten ally characters. These stories tend to be well written and offer a huge variety to the game's overall narrative.
Elazul is a member of the Jumi tribe who is partnered with a fellow Jumi named Pearl. The Jumi are a humanoid race of beings who have cut off their emotions and their lifeforce is connected to a gem on their body. If the gem is forcibly removed, they perish, but many seek the gems so the tribe has dispersed and hidden away within society. Elazul soon uncovers that a world renowned thief is hunting the Jumi down for their precious life gems, and now he wishes to hunt her down while protecting his ward Pearl.
Larc and Sierra are powerful warriors who each serve one of the Dragon Masters within Fa'Diel who are embraced in an eternal war for power. Larc's master Drakonis was defeated by the other three Dragon Masters and now serves as the Lord of the Underworld, his dragoon Larc was also once a great warrior but after his death, he serves his new master. Sierra wishes to save her brothers soul while also thwarting Drakonis' ambitions to return to the land of the living, but Larc has his own reasons to help his master return.
The third major arc involves a four way love story involving a Holy Maiden of Gato named Daena, a half demon named Irwin, a deceased Holy Knight named Escad, and the Guardian Monk of Gato Matilda. The four were all once childhood friends despite Daena's position making her unable to befriend demons like Irwin. The two grew close, but one day, Irwin stole Daena's powers and soul, causing her to age well beyond her time, and killed Escad who was secretly in love with her before disappearing. Now Matilda wishes to save her friend but Daena seems to be okay with her fate. Things get complicated when Irwin returns from the dead in hopes of killing Irwin and saving Daena, while Matilda simply wants to save everyone. Of all the scenarios, this one is the most tragic and easiest to screw up. Took me like three playthroughs to finally figure out how to get this one to completion.
Other characters have more mundane or comical stories like the two mischievous wizards in training you can adopt and help them meet the Seven Wisdoms of the Fa'Diel, or Niccolo the merchant, who you watch swindle people or uses you to help himself before it always comes biting him in the ass later. A cult made up of simple but innocent creatures called Dudbear who helps a bandit and their prophet, the bandit's dog. There are also Pirate Penguins! The game is actually filled with countless NPCs with their own backstories and quests you can undertake and helps make Legend of Mana one of the richest games narratively speaking. Once you fulfill a minimum amount of quests, the player character receives the Artifact containing the Mana Tree and the means to face the final boss of the game and see the ending, but the minimum can be unlocked way before you come close to completing all of the game's quests.
The combat still follows some of the usual trappings of the franchise. While you choose your characters starting weapon, you can actually use any weapon you desire once you obtain it. Each weapon has a variety of Special Techniques you can equip to the controllers four shoulder buttons. As you battle enemies, a special meter slowly fills up and once it's full, you can use one of the four weapon techniques you've equipped. Acquiring these techniques involves using the weapon in battle and finding the right Skills to use in conjunction with them. Skills are special moves you have access to combat to help you and can range from mobility to defensive moves which can be used along with weapon combos to create either new combo possibilities or unlock new Skills and Special Techniques. You begin with simple skills like Jump and Defend, but these moves can branch off to more advanced moves like Double Jump, Counterattack, and even a freaking teleport move. They end up giving a lot more nuance and variety to a combat system that is often accused of being a bit too basic for Action-RPGs.
Like all of the previous installments, you can have a party of up to three to ehlp you traverse the world of Fa'Diel. This is handled a bit differently from previous entries. Your two companions are limited to one Ally character and either a Pet or Golem as your third member. There are ten playable ally members, most of whom will join you once you start working on their quests, and will be available for use after your initial meeting. Their weapons, skills, techniques, and gear are largely set in stone, though they do tend to have better stuff than you will likely be carrying when you first meet them. They can level in battle as well but it's difficult since XP is a resource that enemies drop and you have to pick up in battle. NPCs tend to be defensive and will rarely dive for the XP like you can, so sometimes you'll have to make sure you kill an enemy while the NPC is attacking it as well so the NPC will grab some of the dropped XP. Your third slot involves stuff you can do at your house once you unlock them. After doing some specific quests, you gain the ability to raise Monsters Eggs you capture into pets, and the ability to build robotic Golems with any extra gear you have lying around. Both have their strengths and weaknesses and neither actually gains levels like conventional party members. Of anything there is a bit of a feel from SaGa 2 with their development as monsters have their stats go up based on what you feed them while Golems are based on what gear you use to build them. Another new and understated mechanic is the Synchro-Effect. Every party member including pets and Golems have a Synchro-Effect where fighting in close proximity to each other garners a passiove effect to help in combat. These can range from HP Regen, to bonus damage, to a faster charging of the Special Meter. While it's possible to never really bother with the mechanic, it can sometimes help out with certain bosses and missions.
As mentioned before, Legend of Mana introduces new crafting mechanics to the series. You can use a blacksmith shop to build all types of weapons and Golems, there is a special Treant character you can feed seeds to in order to grow special fruits and vegetables for weapon enhancements or feeding your pets. These mechanics are also incredibly deep and highly recommend using a guide or two to figure this stuff out cause Legend of Mana has a lot of depth but only gives the bare minimum explanantion. All of the above factors give this game a different feel from it's predecessors and for some more Square knowledgeable fans, the game kind of plays and feels more like a SaGa game. Well that's largely because Akitoshio Kawazu was producer and a few other key SaGa contributers were on staff. Granted, Koichi Ishii ended up loving this avant garde style of game design as all of the Mana titles that came after LoM are highly experimental projects. This isn't a deal breaker or anything, but a less patient player looking for a more direct experience will be highly turned off by the game's non-linear approach to narrative and the game's obtuse mechanics. If I had to give one major complaint about the title, it's that you really need a guide to see everything the title has to offer. I started a perfect run of the game and can tell you that some of these restrictions for quests and how easy it is to screw some of them up is mind boggling. Thankfully, if you're only here for the plot, the major story driven quests are usually pretty straightforward and difficult to miss.
The game also got flak for it's overly cutesy art design, especially while many RPG fans were expecting more of the sci-fi or realism found in Square's more high profile FF series at the time. Frankly, the art direction is fantastic and incredibly detailed, making this one of the most visually stunning titles from Square during this era, on par with Chrono Cross at least. Helping matters is one of my top favorite soundtracks by Yoko Shinmomura and easily the second best OST in the franchises history behind the original Secret of Mana. Overall, this is a wonderful hidden gem of a title made in the final years of what I consider to be Square's Golden Age. I feel you should check it out.
old version Released in the final years of Square's Golden Age. Legend of Mana has the distinction of being the second Mana game I ever played, seeing how I missed out on Final Fantasy Adventure due to getting a GameBoy late in the systems life and I only vaguely knew about Seiken Densetsu 3. To say it was a jarring experience coming into it from Secret of Mana is an understatement.
Still I ended up really liking this hidden gem of a title and I'm always a bit sad that it seems to be passed over by Square-Enix and the fanbase when discussing the franchise. It was a really trippy title that surprisingly influenced several later titles SE made so I feel its a real important part of the Square's history.
Legend of Mana is the very definition of Crapssachirine World in that behind the games absolutely gorgeous background art and sprite work that makes you feel like you stepped into a children's cartoon, you'll quickly discover this world is kind of a crappy place an even scarier, it used to be worse. The game doesn't make it obvious but you're basically a silent protagonist charged with restoring the world of Fa'Diel which lost the Mana Tree nine hundred years prior to the story and resulted in a terrible war over the power of Mana that ended up destroying the world and reducing former civilizations and peoples to be trapped in magic artifacts in order to survive.
You find these artifacts and plant them on the map to restore the world piece by piece, and the "main plot" so to speak is rather three major stories that take place over several lands in addition to dozens of other smaller stories you can participate in. Basically Square made a modern open world game before it was actually a thing as you basically jump from one location you unlock after another ad follow behind the stories of other characters. The three main scenarios involve a colorful cast of people including: two members of the Jumi Tribe, humanoid beings whose life force is attached to a precious gem that grows on their body, trying to track down a Jewel Thief/Serial Killer who is murdering members of the tribe for their gems; an incredibly complicated love story involving a half demon, a holy woman, a smug knight, and the mutual friend trying to stop everyone from killing each other; and finally two sibling Dragoons serving their dragon masters and their various plots to rule the world.
Yeah, as I said, the game's looks don't match the rather dark stories, but its not all doom and gloom and there are some really fun and colorful vistas to explore and people to meet that make this game feel really distinct from the rest of the franchise. Even better is the game's various shout outs to the rest of the franchise like the save statues being the Sprite from SoM2 and the Dark Dragon being implied to be the Dragon Emperor from SD3. The game is also scored by the always impressive Yoko Shimomura whom as you can tell from the opening I linked, composed a great score with a very world music vibe to it. The game also has co-op, though not as cool as SoM2s, though the game unlocks new difficulty modes once its been beaten
Overall, if you see this game for cheap, I highly recommend checking it out as its really one of many lost gems from one of the most creative eras is Square's history and frankly its considered by many fans to be the last good entry in the series, though it still has a bit of a black sheep stigma to it.
Last edited by Wolf Kanno; 09-17-2018 at 10:10 AM.
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