Sword of Mana

[oblivion_6]

Dunno if it counts as retro but I certainly havent played this wee thing in a long long time on the SNES.

Recently I bought in on the forum for the GBA and im hooked again, such a classic Square game thats got a cracking plot and decent gfx as well as a simple to use control system

Gives me a warm glow that few rpgs have managed to meet since the days of the snes

Makes me moist with anticipation about the Final Fantasy ports on the DS due soon

[Duddyroar]

Sword of Mana isn't the same game as the SNES Secret of Mana - is it?

[Bleeders]

I dunno, not a Square classic IMO, it's far, far, too easy and not even a blemish on the SNES version.

I'm hoping the DS version of Children of Mana will be on par with the SNES classic.

@Duddyroar - Nope, not the SNES version.

[oblivion_6]

Its kinda like the sequel to the SNES one with some new stuff in it

Yeah its a quick game but its still a good bit of fun

[Sketcz]

The GBA version is a remake of the original BW GB game, which I rather enjoyed. It's quite a long running series I discovered.

[vertigo]

OK, in an attempt to clear this up, coz there seems to be a bit of confusion.

Sword of Mana is not a sequel to Secret of Mana, it's a version of the prequel. Seiken Densetsu is a GB mono game. Sword of Mana is a remake (with a few things added) of Seiken Densetsu, which was released in the west as The Final Fantasy Adventure or in some cases Mystic Quest.

Final Fantasy Adventure is not to be confused with Final Fantasy Legend, also released on GB mono which was a western release of the first of the SaGa games and has next to sod all to do with the Final Fantasy series.

Also, Sword of Mana has probably the worst CPU character AI seen since Secret of Mana, awful music, suffers from graphics break-up and isn't very much fun to play.

[Tychom]

Additionally the new DS Mana game ("Children of Mana") appears to be a sequel to "Sword of Mana", rather than "Secret of " 1 & 2 (Sadly).

[oblivion_6]

Also, Sword of Mana has probably the worst CPU character AI seen since Secret of Mana, awful music, suffers from graphics break-up and isn't very much fun to play.

im gonna go cry in the corner now

[vertigo]

Don't cry, that's a comment from someone who has zero respect for post-1996 Squaresoft, so 99.9% of the population will probably like the game.

Also, apparently, in Children of Mana, "Players will take control of three children--a young swordsman named Frick, a boy named Pop, and a female dancer named Tumble".
What. The. ****.
Frick? As in "What the Frick is going on at Squaresoft?" Pop? Tumble? Games are for adults too, apparently.
This is a worse joke than the fictional film names in Secret of Evermore.

My new respect level for Squaresoft: -infinity.

[S3M]

Sorry oblivion_6, but I'm with vertigo on this one. Being a die hard fan of the series I was really disappointed with Sword of Mana in fact I think the original GB version is better than the remake!

Mind you the downfall of the series started with Legend of Mana on the Playstation.

I recommend you get yourself a copy of Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2) & Seiken Densetsu 3 on the SNES. Watch as they wipe the floor with Sword of Mana, it's by no means a bad game, just one of the worst in the series.

It's very badly designed in places and they didn't even use all the improvements used in Seiken Densetsu 3. Some of the feature in Sword of Mana are worst than the one used in Seiken Densetsu 3 take for example day & night. In Seiken Densetsu 3 day would turn to night after about 15 minutes of real time play and turn back again the same way.

In Sword of Mana it turns from day to night after you have moved through three areas of gameplay. Not only is this totally unrealistic, but it can cause you to trap locations in either night or day if they are only three areas apart. Which is a somewhat bizarre system and you can wait for hours on end at one area and it will not change the time of day.

This can be a real pain, also trying to get sunrise and sunset is a total nightmare as both these settings only occur for one area between night and day. Sometimes it like a puzzle to get a location at a certain time of day! The rare monster system is both annoying and pointless. ft:

[vertigo]

I recommend you get yourself a copy of Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2) & Seiken Densetsu 3 on the SNES. Watch as they wipe the floor with Sword of Mana, it's by no means a bad game, just one of the worst in the series.

To be a bit fair though, it is the first one. In a way it's like comparing arcade SF2 Hyper Fighting to the Atari ST version of Street Fighter and then complaining that it's so slow and the moves don't work.

But still, as a remake where they could have pretty much done a high-end SNES-quality version, with the attempt at stealing the ring system (badly), the needless and crappy weapon forging/upgrading/whatever both of those things were, the theft of characters from later on in the series, the hot house with the stuff growing, those stupid orb things that require you to change weapons all the time (almost as irritating as Vagrant Story, but not quite) and that AI which renders your confederate either utterly useless and dead or means that they spunk their magic points all in one go so you're essentially playing on your own, Sword has that "why did they do this certain thing like that?" factor running all the way through it and goes against the grain of what I consider to be good game and interface design. The rare monster system was stupid. You just have to kill 1000 of each one in order to get the harder version. Pointless, unless you're still at school and frequent the GameFAQs/spot boards.

I found Secret of Evermore miles more enjoyable than Sword of Mana. Finished SoE when it came out (and paid CEX ?40 for the privilege, which was fine by me back then) and tempted to play it again seeing as it's sitting on my shelf. I also have the GB versions of FF Legend and Adventure, so if I want to play the proper version of Sword I can

That reminds me, I still have never played Seiken Densetsu 3. Far too many other games on the go right now though, must finish those first. S3M is SD3 as buggy as people say or is it just the normal sort of small stuff that you expect from a Japanese version?

'Confederate'. Yeh, someone's been watching too much Sherlock Holmes on a Sunday afternoon lately

[oblivion_6]

Aye seiken densetsu 3 is the business, when someone ports that direct to the DS then ill be a happy man

But for just now this is still feeding my RPG needs until santa gives me mario and lugi 2

[S3M]

That reminds me, I still have never played Seiken Densetsu 3. Far too many other games on the go right now though, must finish those first. S3M is SD3 as buggy as people say or is it just the normal sort of small stuff that you expect from a Japanese version?

SD3 buggy! Can't say I've heard of it being buggy before, but no, I have never had any problem with the Real Japanese version, no bugs at all.

I have however had problems with bad ROMs, poor translations patches and bad emulation of SD3 on the PC.

The real thing is bug free from what I've played so far. I know Secret of Mana had a few bugs, but quite a few were fixed for the PAL release. SD3 is a great game and I'm loving every minute of it.

I do own Evermore and find it's a bit hit and miss in places, enjoyable not great I'm about halfway through it, but just haven't got around to finishing it. I didn't like the fact it wasn't 2 player.

[vertigo]

SD3 buggy! Can't say I've heard of it being buggy before, but no, I have never had any problem with the Real Japanese version, no bugs at all.

I have however had problems with bad ROMs, poor translations patches and bad emulation of SD3 on the PC.

The real thing is bug free from what I've played so far. I know Secret of Mana had a few bugs, but quite a few were fixed for the PAL release. SD3 is a great game and I'm loving every minute of it.

I do own Evermore and find it's a bit hit and miss in places, enjoyable not great I'm about halfway through it, but just haven't got around to finishing it. I didn't like the fact it wasn't 2 player.

Righto, that's good news then. And it would appear that Square's main reason for not bringing it out in Western markets (too much bugfixing to do before it's satisfactory for a non-Japanese audience) was a big lie. I wouldn't be playing it under emulation anyway, so it should be ok.

I think Evermore is actually better than average, certainly a lot more fun and fulfilling for me than stuff like Breath of Fire and almost up to the level of Enix's less-brilliant SNES stuff, though obviously not anything like as good as anything in the Soulblazer series or Illusion of Gaia. I think the reason Evermore got such a slagging off was for the simple reason that it wasn't a sequel to Secret of Mana, even though that's what magazines were calling it. I believe Super Play ran with the cover line "Square USA's Mana Beater" and it was nothing like it. As a game taken on it's own merits it is a little hit and miss, the script especially leaves a fair amount to be desired and a lot of the humour isn't funny at all, but on the whole it's not a terrible or even merely average game. Searching for ingredients is a bit of a pain if you're an obsessive teenager who wants to collect the whole lot (like I was when I played it first time around ) but you don't absolutely have to do that if you don't want to. It definitely doesn't have that-era Square quality written all over it though. It's more something I'd expect to see from Enix if they had an off day.

[S3M]

Righto, that's good news then. And it would appear that Square's main reason for not bringing it out in Western markets (too much bugfixing to do before it's satisfactory for a non-Japanese audience) was a big lie.

Bizarre reason for not releasing it, I was more under the impression that Square just couldn't be arsed to translate any game after Super Mario RPG. Us guys in the UK got the roarest deal of them all however.

I never went into Evermore as a Mana beater mainly because I got my copy in 2004.

The film jokes are just awful, I did think the market, in the Rome area was well done. Overal I just think the design of the game lets it done slightly also the earth type era locations, tend to be more Enix's domain.