Sword of Mana

"Plotless, but fun fun FUN"

Intro
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Sword of Mana is the a remake of the first Seiken Desetsu. This remake is a lot like Metroid Zero Mission, because it felt like a new game with the same plot. I've played both ''Final Fantasy Adventure'', which is Seiken Destsu 1, and Sword of Mana, and the programmers did a very good job in making seem like it was a new game.

Gameplay 6/10
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Above all the gameplay is fun. It is fairly linear though and the zones are extremely small. Sometimes it's possible to get stuck if you haven't performed exactly the right action (such as speak to the same person twice). There is also a fair bit of tedious menu navigation when you get in a situation that requires you to swap your attacks, but otherwise combat is fairly enjoyable.

Control 8/10
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The control was nothing spectacular, but was still east to learn and didn't change suddenly. I like that. Being able to use an assortment of weapons if fun and it makes you feel more like you are the character.

Graphics 9/10
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The excellent and often cute artwork does a good job at representing the diverse environments and imaginative creatures, but the sprites have a tendency to lose sync when there is a lot of movement going on.

Sound 8/10
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Nothing too special here. The music is certainly catchy, but since it's quite loud in relation to the sound effects and can't be turned down or muted, you may begin to tire of it. When the game was trying to be serious, it always played the same dreary and dry music.

Story 5/10
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When I play a game with a good story, I'm addicted. I can't say I found this game too addictive at all. The story is not particularly engaging and the small areas can dull the sense of exploration. The story was hard to follow during the game, and didn't really give me any satisfaction when I finished it. Combat is almost optional in many cases. Although there are things to collect, the seemingly random nature of what you get does not help make it a rewarding experience.

I noticed that the story was trying to be a very deep, make-you-think kind of plot, but it did not succeed, instead, it made me think of a bad movie. It was obvious that they were trying far to hard to get people to think.

Difficulty: Medium
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I didn't find this game to challenging. I felt like the bosses didn't have enough health. When the regular enemy dies in two hits, the boss dies in 4. As I've mentioned before, most battles were optional, and could easily be bypassed. I found this difficulty fun and a change in pace. In most Seiken Desetsu games, the bosses are to hard and take for ever to kill, but this game was different. I still thought that this game was a very good level of difficulty.

What is also good is that if you've played the game enough, and beaten a creature 1,000 times he turns to a very difficult monster. This is added insentive to want to play.

Characters 8/10
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The characters in Sword of Mana were in depth and real. They all stuck to their personality and made me believe that they we designed after real people (Not really :P).

Replay Value 10/10
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With two characters that have different abilities and paths through the game, it's certainly worth playing more than once. The fact that you can do a fair bit of customization with your character and equipment is also of some help. There is no cooperative link-up play, however, with the exception of linking Amigos.

Rent or Buy or Not At All?
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This game would not be fun if you rented it because you would get into the gameplay and the cute characters, then you'd have to take it back. But if you're having doubts, then by all means, rent it and find out what the games about. I suggest you buy this game.

Misc. Stuff
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This game could have been better had it have some sort of other multi player feature besides the amigo thingy, whether it's a battle arena or co-op battle or both. My play time was 17 hours, for my first game and 23 hours for my second, so in total, I've spent 40 hours on this game.

Recap
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Sword of Mana was fun to play and play again. It had many interesting characters and a nice and east plot. The music was catchy, the graphics were nice, the characters were deep, the controls were simple. This game is al around fun, and it would be a shame if you passed it up.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/12/04