Sword of Mana

"They've gone and remade one of my all time favorite Game Boy games. Is the finished product any good?"

Intro
In about 1998 or so, maybe it was '97 (I forget when), I went to my local game exchange and bought a little gem called Final Fantasy Adventure. I'd been on a sacred and noble quest to own all the Game Boy FF games at any cost, and so far, I had not been disappointed. Final Fantasy Adventure is not in fact part of the Final Fantasy series. It's part of the Secret of Mana series (I don't write good Japanese so please don't ask me to spell that Japanese name). Anyway, FFA was an excellent game with but a few flaws. Then in 2003, we got Sword of Mana, which is a remake of FFA and has a more fitting title. I was able to find a copy of Sword of Mana just before Valentine's Day and, having a little extra dough, I bought it. After playing for a time I can definitely say that the money was well spent.
Gameplay 10-10. SOM brings back the ring menu system from Secret of Mana. Like Secret of Mana, you also get to assume physical control of your allies, which you couldn't do in FFA. You also have the same level system as in Secret of Mana, complete with Weapon Tempering and Forging and the eight or so elemental spirits. Very cool.
Control 10-10. It's actually quite simple. A attacks (that hasn't changed since FFA), B runs and the little arrows move. Select switches between your two characters. L uses special abilities and R uses magic. The msenu is accessed by pressing Start.
Audio 9-10. I was extremely pleased to note that much of the music in Sword of Mana was taken directly from FFA. True, it had been added to and slightly altered, but it remains largely true to the original. Even the new themes smack strongly of FFA.
In fact I had only one problem with the sound in this game. They did a mix of almost SNESish GBA quality sound and old school Game Boy sound. There was a little bit too much of the latter, particularly when I know the GBA is capable of doing quite a bit better. Still, the tunes themselves are great and get pleasantly stuck in my head for long periods of time.
The sound effects are a little disappointing, at least the ones I've heard thus far are. This isn't to say that they're not cool, for most of them are. The sword and enemy effects are what I find most disappointing, yet it still somehow stays true to the original. The boss explosion sound is probably my most favorite. I can't wait till I reach the last battle. I want to see if the final battle theme is anything like the original.
Story 10-10. The evil Empire Glave is persecuting the Mana tribe and those who follow their beliefs. At their head stands Dark Lord and his mysterious aid Julius, who seek to harness the power of the Mana Tree and use it to rule the world. However, the story goes into much more detail in this new version than it did in the original. There you were sorta thrust into the middle of things with only a brief explanation. Now there's quite a lot of backstory to explain much. For example, I didn't know that the Hero and Heroine knew each other before the story began. Oh yeah, and you can choose to have either the boy or girl be the main character, in which case the story will be different. That is to to say that what you don't learn about in the boy's path, you probably will on your second time through, when you decide to be the girl.
Overall 9-10. Sword of Mana may have its share of flaws, but in my book it's well worth getting. I find that you can appreciate the sound a lot more if you play the game on the Game Cube Game Boy Player. Anyway, give Sword of Mana a try. You just might like it. The deep storyline, fascinating gameplay and excellent music combine to make a worthy addition to any RPGamer's collection. If any game was to have a soundtrack released separately from it, I'd want it to be Sword of Mana, although I did hear somewhere that they released FFA's soundtrack. As good as the music sounded on the Game Boy however, I would hope they at least used real instruments when they ported the music to any kind of soundtrack form. Game Boy sound does not for the most part belong anywhere but on Game Boy, unless you really wanna hear a game's music in original sound format but don't want to play the game. Anyway, I digress. Do yourself a favor and at least try Sword of Mana. As I said above, you might just find you like it as much or more than I did and do.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/06/04