Legend of Mana

"One of the few rpgs with great replay value."

When I first started to play this game, I was a little dissappointed. I didn't get to know the main character much, and there wasn't really much of an overall story. But as I kept on playing, I realized that what Sqauresoft meant for this game was an rpg style adventure game where you have to explore everything and collect a whole bunch of different things to finish the game. The first time I played this through, I only did about half of the quests, and I didn't use too many of the other customizable features, like creating your own weapons, etc. Now I'm starting to play through it again, and already I realize how different the game can be if you do one or two different things in the beginning. That's what gives this game great replay value. Besides that, there were just so many things to do. You do one thing, and you open up several more doors. I was a little dissappointed when I played through it at first because I didnt' realize that you could write in your cactus diary until I did about 25 quests. Now, I'm going back and writing every single one down. Also, I remember picking up tons of obscure items whose uses I had no notion of. Of course, now I know generally what all of the items do.

One thing I really enjoyed about this game was the music. I mean, there weren't really any memorable themes, but I can definitely say that all of the music was enjoyable, and none of it annoyed or irritated me. Actually, I was a little wrong. I loved the opening two themes, the one with the introduction, and the one with the vocals after you start the game. They were very nicely done, especially the vocals, even though they were in Japanese.

When I first saw the preview of this game on the cd that came with vagrant story, I had my jaw dropped open and I told my cousin ''Wow, I want to get that!'' I was that impressed with the graphics. And when I first started to play the game and saw my room, I had the exact same impression. The only bad thing I can possibly say about the graphics (and maybe this is because I had just finished FF8 and Xenogears, both 3D rpgs) is that they sort of lose a sense of depth. Of course, you do get used to this eventually, but I remember thinking that when I first played the game. But generally, throughout the entire game, all of the graphics continued to impress me. The portraits were so fully embellished, and the building and dungeon graphics were so full and colorful. I must say that this was nearly the best possible 2D cartoon style graphics.

Even though there wasn't an overall story, there were lots of mini stories. Some of the characters were very cute. My favorite was the cactus in my room. Others were very serious, and dialogue with them is why the game had a suggestive ''teen'' rating and not an ''all'' rating like Yoshi's story (ugh). There were many funny lines. The goofy penguin pirates always had something funny to say, and the denizens of the underworld kept with the mood of the setting very well.

Overall, the game was put together very nicely. At no point was I bored. (well, there were points in the game, few as they were, where I got stuck, and had to look at a guide, but I could count them on one hand) I highly suggest not using a guide except for in parts where you are really stuck. It would just take all of the fun of discovering things out yourself, since there is no general story line to follow(and thus no point in the guide where the writer could say ''at this point there's a cutscene where you'll find out more of the story''). The only reason I gave this a 9 and not a ten was because of the lack of storyline-that's my favorite part of an rpg. I highly reccomend that you buy this game. I only spent 16 hours on it the first time, but I KNOW that I will be playing it at least several more times in the near future, and a few more times after that when I get bored with other things and want to come back to it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/27/00, Updated 06/27/00