Dawn of Mana

"Koichi Ishii walks down a different branch on the Mana Tree and loses some friends along the way."

Introduction
I've been a fan of RPGs since I was a kid. My first RPG, if I recall, may have even been Secret of Mana. My brother and I went to a local rental store and rented it for no reason in particular. We probably saw the box and was like, "oh', cool!", being a kid and all, your tastes in games is really what your parents buy, you know what I mean? Anyway, from there, it just snowballed. My parents got us Secret of Evermore, Final Fantasy IV and VI, and Chrono Trigger. Time passed and I grew older. I became aware of what these games were categorized as and I started to look into the genre myself. Obviously, Final Fantasy VII was one of the first RPGs on the PSone that ignited what I would now call an obsession. My brother and I soon thereafter picked up Suikoden, Wild ARMs, Beyond the Beyond, and Breath of Fire III. From that point, it was over. RPGs became probably my favorite genre of games. Till this day, I find myself playing and collecting all kinds of RPGs on the systems I own from the bottom of the barrel (Ephemeral Fantasia) to the mainstream blockbuster titles (Final Fantasy XII).

Many years later, at the very end of a systems life cycle, comes a title to a franchise that pretty much defines the person that I am today. Dawn of Mana, the first fully 3D Mana title, is released. Now, let me explain the kind of gamer that I am. As I have already stated, I am fine playing so called, "bad games". I am not what one would call a quality whore. I am aware of the technicalities behind games and I can pick a part a game, but it is not in my nature to. In the end, I just enjoy playing and talking about video games. The more I play and the more open minded I am, I feel like a better gamer and person overall. That being said, I went into Dawn of Mana with really no expectations. I heard so much negative rap on the game that it almost made me want to play the game more. I will also mention that while this is an important franchise from my childhood, my tastes evolved and and changed overtime and other RPG series are far my important to me than the Mana franchise. With that said, here is my review for Dawn of Mana.

Story
On the Island of Fa' Diel stood an enormous tree, protected by a guardian beast. This tree was believed to be the mother of every living thing in the world. Long, long ago, Fa' Diel was made up of five great countries, Jadd, land of sand; Toople, land of water; Wendell, land of green; Ishe, land of fire; and Lorimar, land of Ice. Keldric, the hero of the game, floated to this isle of Illusia as a baby and was raised by the village elder. Ritzia, Keldric's childhood friend, is a maiden of the Great Tree. Stroud, the antagonist of the game, is a young King of Lorimar who has reigned since the age of seven. He invades the Isle of Illusia to gain access to the unholy power that lies beyond the ominous portal to Mavolia, hidden beneath the Great Tree.

While it may be important to other long time fans, the storyline was never what I was hyped up about when playing a new Mana game. The presentation for this game was top notch, but the story just felt very typical. Unlikely hero with childhood friend up against some evil king who wants some forbidden power. Stroud, with his long silver hair and big sword, is very Squaresoft and expected to say the least. Not really my style anymore. If I was maybe six years younger I would think he was totally bad ass. However, while the game does throw some nice plot twists at you regarding Ritzia near the end, the overall store does not impress.

Gameplay:
Here is where everyone thinks the game goes down the drain. Dawn of Mana uses the Havoc engine in a fairly unique way. Keldric is equipped with one sword that has many different functions. Besides the very basic combo string that you use to destroy your enemies, the blade can turn into a whip and be used as a slingshot to down your foes. With the whip function, Keldric can grab onto any object or environmental piece in the game and smash t into enemies to cause what is called a state of panic. During this phase, enemies are inactive and run around helplessly as their panic timer reduces. This is your chance to score free hits on the enemies which yield temporary stat increase to your character. The more objects you throw at enemies the longer they stay in this panic state and can eventually be crowned. Crowing enemies is the most ideal course of action as it yields the most rewarding stat increases. Keldric can also swing enemies into other enemies to ignite this state of panic if there are no nearby environmental objects.

Keldric also has access to some spells that become available with more MP Max Ups your acquire from your enemies that also help out a lot. These spells are also not an afterthought as the healing spell and a few elemental sword spells really turn the tide of battle.

All right, so all sounds good so far, correct? Here is where most people get turned off. The stats you receive from putting enemies into a state of panic are temporary. This means at the start of the next chapter, your Keldric is reduced to level one and is stripped of everything. This was an intentional decision that Koichi Ishii, the guy who spearheaded the project, planned for Dawn of Mana. This decision was supposed to make the game feel fresh and different each time you replay or reach a new chapter. While this is an understandable idea, it just doesn't really work with the rest of the game.

My major issues with the game are pretty minor, however. Jumping feels abysmal and archaic. Some of the chapters near the end of the game are overly long and contain way too many "grab the key and move on" sections. It gets old fast, if I must say so. The first half of the game, however, is littered with these sections and is much more enjoyable. On a lighter note, however, the havoc engine usually does its job. It is extremely fun to grab a piece of a pillar, fly it into enemies, and see them go crazy. Afterwards, run into that mess and cast a spell that ups your attack speed and see the stats, Lucre, and item drops fly into your character. It can feel very rewarding sometimes and it almost makes you forget about the other issues in the game.

Hey, you still there? Good, because after reading the above paragraphs I probably lost a few people. All hope is not lost, however! The games saving grace, in my opinion, are what are called Ribbons. These Ribbons are permanent stat or character effects that you can equip on Keldric before each chapter. Most can be bought from the Shop which become unlocked the more you play or they can be won by reaching certain conditions such as S Ranking every chapter, S Ranking Arena Bouts, and doing other things like clearing certain difficulties while racking up so many elemental kills, slingshot deaths, etc.

While a lot of the conditions for these Ribbons seem pretty hard, they are rewarded quite fairly and are nicely paced. I played the game on Normal Difficulty my first time through and by just naturally playing I was rewarded with 3 Ribbons that increased my HP, MP, and Attack Power at the start of the Chapter. This definitely helped me out for my first run of the game. After I cleared Normal I unlocked the next versions of the same Ribbons! In my opinion, that felt very perfect and if that was intentional, this game is very well designed in this area. In the end, I think the Ribbon feature is a nice way to counteract the temporary chapter stats.

Graphics:
Here is where the game really starts to shine. Dawn of Mana is a beautiful game. From the beautiful Legend of Mana style artwork, to the presentation of the story, and the actual games environments, it looks great. The production, character animations, and cut scenes are top notch. One of the best parts of the game is actually the title screen. A beautiful piano piece plays as the screen slowly scrolls down showing the Mana Tree in the background with a girl standing in front of it. The art style is very, very reminiscent of Secret of Mana and it feels like you are about to boot up an SNES game. It is very nostalgic and is great way to welcome the vets. Dawn of Mana, to say the least, looks like a Mana game. It is very vibrant, detailed, and colorful and graphics is one of the two areas the game excels at.

Music:
The second area Dawn of Mana excels at, music. Music, to me at least, is a very, very important factor to an RPG. My favorite RPG of all time is Vagrant Story and I believe that is due to the fact that it had Hitoshi Sakimoto under its helm as the composer. His music is just masterful and his style completely meshed well with the setting and atmosphere of Vagrant Story. In Dawn of Mana, the same can be said as the game has an excellent score. Beautiful piano pieces, nice melodies, and hard rock tracks really flesh the game out and bring it to life. The game also has remixed classic tracks from previous Mana games that are also well done played during some Arena bouts.

In my opinion, if a game doesn't have great music that works with it, no matter how good the actual game is, I will have a hard time focusing on it and feeling it. For example, I recently finished Enchanted Arms on XBOX 360, an RPG developed from one of my favorite developers, From Software. While the game was fairly decent itself, it had an absolute ear aching battle track and some mundane exploring music in a few areas. This was a big let down as their previous games, such as King's Field: the Ancient City, Evergrace, Eternal Ring, and Forever Kingdom all had really appropriate and well done scores. Bottom line, if the music isn't appropriate or doesn't get me in the mood, chances are I will like the game less.

Replay Value:
Dawn of Mana is loaded for the ones that actually enjoy the game and want to get the most out of it. It is meant to be replayed many, many times. With 4 difficulties, 60 Ribbons to collect, 32 Battle Arenas, 100s of Pets to collect and use in the Arena, Music tracks and Movies films to buy at a shop, Chapters to be perfected and S Ranks to be gained, the game will have PLENTY there to keep you occupied. However, seeing and doing all of this is only apparent if you actually enjoy the game. All of this could be worthless to you if you can't stand playing this game for a second. I, myself, am a perfectionist and I like the game enough to drop some more hours into it to unlock and do all of the extra content.

Conclusion:
Dawn of Mana is very experimental to say the least. However, so were Legend of Mana and Children of Mana. This game doesn't really feel or play like any other Mana game besides having a similar art style and great music. It definitely isn't the worst RPG out there nor is it the best. I hate giving numeric scores to games, but if I had to, I would give it a 7. It's a good game. It is not phenomenal, it is not great, but neither is it terrible. If you are not some quality whore you bites at every technical issue and you can get over some odd design decisions, you will find some enjoyment out of this game. The series is definitely not dead. Koichi Ishii just walked down a different branch on the Mana Tree. Hopefully, he will climb back up the right path and deliver the Sword of Mana to his devoted fans before all of the leaves fall off.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/31/07