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Dawn of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 4) - PS2

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    Dawn of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 4) - PS2

    Probably going to regret this, but I still read this forum pretty frequently even if I don't post here, and it seems a bit surprising - collectively you lot seem to cover everything on every system a matter of days after it's released, yet apparently no-one's bought this on import or felt strongly enough to comment on it. And I felt very curious about that, since, well...

    I picked up CoM on import and while I ultimately got tired of that very quickly I had no problems with not being able to understand a word (it was the lacklustre gameplay and tiresome, generic game design that did for me), so I thought I'd take the plunge with Dawn... According to Gamebrink I enjoy pain and suffering, since, well... I pretty much liked it. <_<

    First things first; yes, it is a 3D Children of Mana with added emphasis on the bouncy physics and less customisation; yes, the camera's nasty, nasty, nasty; yes, the controls are a sometime thing, failing to respond anything like as fast as they ought to; and yes, it's really not much of a challenge until the final levels. And fanboy whining aside, it does seem somewhat... wrong? that there's no multiplay in the latest iteration of one of the franchises that arguably did the most to popularise the idea of co-operative gaming.

    But Jesus, when it gets going - when you're used to the grappling hook and you're in the thick of combat, five, ten, fifteen, twenty enemies swarming you and you're flicking objects left and right, bashing enemies around, down to your last sliver of health, desperately milking the panic system as you smack their heads against each other, praying one's going to drop a health pickup - when you're messing around with the physics, setting logs alight, throwing them skywards and giggling as they set flying enemies on fire and drop them out of the sky - when you're just chilling, having a laugh, admiring the scenery, seeing how far you can roll a boulder up the level or ride one of the boats downstream - when you're level grinding for the pleasure of it - I find it really ****ing fun.

    The graphics engine is nice; nothing spectacular, though the design work is (if you like the World of Mana stuff) predictably gorgeous and the cutscenes up to Square's usual standards. The sound is magnificent; the score's tremendous, plus the voice work is pretty good (though bear in mind I know very, very little Japanese) - the US dub's probably going to crucify much of the atmosphere, but eh, what can you do?

    The camera is pretty bad, though it is controllable, and you do get used to its (admittedly fairly big) flaws. The controls are sloppy, but only really when you're in the heat of combat; the auto-lockon is annoying and seems to lag a second behind what you expect, and the system of hurling things with the grappling hook doesn't seem to make much sense, but it is workable. Flooring one of the huge enemies and beating ten of them to death with him on the end of the grapple is some of the most fun I've had with a videogame in ages.

    The main thing is it presents very little challenge once you've got the hang of the mechanics. It's certainly not going to give hardcore players pause until the last few levels, if that; there were only a couple of times where a boss or enemy grouping had me screaming at the screen, and no boss took me any more than two tries - all you in the Lost Planet thread are out of luck here, I think. But it's... fun, as far as I'm concerned. It's not a great game, and it's fairly flawed, but I found myself playing it for the pleasure of playing it as much as to see the next cutscene/level tileset/whatever, which given the lack of any response on the intertubes other than boredom or outright screaming in wounded pride means either Secret of Mana fanboys are a load of whining brats who flat out refuse to recognise anything as any good if it's not a carbon copy of their beloved SNES title, or I'm out of my mind.

    Okay, perhaps there's something in between, but damn if I know what it is. Anyone else played this care to offer me any opinions?

    #2
    Ah, fantastic write-up.
    Thanks!

    I'm a die-hard SoM fanboy, so I'll definitely consider this now that I've actually heard something good about it.

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      #3
      Thanks. I really did like it, though it took me a while to be sure; I'm normally fairly certain of my own opinions but the sheer volume of "OMG aaaargh it's not an exact replica of Secret of Mana 3 why won't they give us what we want why why whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy" and similar responses just wore me down a little. There's lots to be justifiably annoyed with about it, but ultimately I think it's a pretty good game that's just been hard done by because the people who were waiting for it wanted one thing and one thing only.

      Me, I just remember you can pull bits of the level to pieces and beat people over the head with them, and no amount of complaining (justified or otherwise) can stop that putting something of a smile on my face.

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        #4
        Horrible horrible game. I just doesn't feel like a Mana game IMO and I could only bear to play an hour or so before I turned it off feeling somewhat gutted.

        As a stand alone title then maybe it would score better, but with having so much to live up to, it just fails miserably.

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          #5
          This is my problem, see - I really don't see enough wrong with it past "oh, no, it's not the exact same game I was playing ten years ago, I feel violated" to get seriously angry over. The camera is horribly flawed? So was Kingdom Hearts', for both games, and that doesn't seem to have stopped a lot of people enjoying them. It's more than workable, even in the boss battles. The physics are weird/there's too much emphasis on the physics? Well, they take some getting used to, and generally you do either have to use them or die horribly - but they work. The way in which you manipulate objects is flatly nothing like the hideous, broken mess people make it out to be; you just need to keep some basic spatial awareness in mind and how pushing this direction on the stick makes the grappling hook fling objects this way. You're never left unable to run away and regroup, to lure enemies one by one if you feel you need to, and rarely are you totally swamped and left without enough space to maneuver. It looks generic/boring/ugly? Well, if you hate the design work of the latest instalments in the franchise and/or you're particularly hung up on technical limitations I'm sure you could spend hours pulling the game to pieces, but I find the artwork absolutely beautiful and the game does an excellent job of bringing it to life - far, far better than the dull, tedious level design of Kingdom Hearts, for starters.

          I'm just not seeing any great, all-encompassing reason to hate it other than "it's not exactly the Secret of Mana 4 I wanted", and I'm sorry, that's not a good enough reason to hate a game outright as far as I'm concerned. Yes, it's a shame there's no multiplayer. Yes, it's a shame they let the franchise languish so long and then started taking it in some rather surprising directions. Other than that, move on, for the love of God - Children of Mana was a disappointment but this, while certainly flawed, is a great deal of what that game should have been.

          EDIT: I've got myself wondering, now - how little use of the physics could you get away with? You can still damage a lot of the bosses just by hitting them... could be an interesting challenge.

          And just to mention, I have finished the whole game, if that puts any of my ranting in perspective.

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by Eight Rooks View Post
            And just to mention, I have finished the whole game, if that puts any of my ranting in perspective.
            How long did it take?

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              #7
              Hmmm. Not sure exactly; my clear game doesn't seem to have a clock on it, if it even did before. I'd make a rough guess it was about middling length, maybe 15 hours, tops? There are eight levels, each of those broken up into 5 stages, apart from the last one which has 6. I played on Normal... maybe I should have tried it on Hard. <_<

              EDIT: That one playthrough unlocked 8 out of 60 emblems, by the way. Obviously that's the one thing I can't understand - I can tell some of them boost your HP or MP by trial and error, but most of them I've no clue how to get them or what they do when you do.
              Last edited by Eight Rooks; 01-02-2007, 22:38.

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