Outstanding Mana action marred by a somewhat mediocre quest
Following an awesome animated intro, the game begins, and you are given a choice between four characters, each with four different palette swaps: Flick, the fairly well-rounded boy character, Pop, a child with strong magic skills but a weak defense, Tumble (whom I chose), a girl who's the fastest of the four, and Wanderer, a rather slow cat with a lot of attack power. Additionally, you're given an opportunity to change your character's name if you'd prefer Snap, Crackle, Squirt, or Todd.
The game starts with a rather simple premise - you live in Mana Village, alongside the familiar elementals from earlier games. A strange light has appeared at the Tower of Mana, and it's up to you to check on your friend, who's there praying to the Mana Goddess. Naturally there's trouble, and in the course of things, your character winds up with the Mana Sword, which means it's up to him or her to save the day.
As you progress through the game, you'll receive four weapons: a sword (which is interestingly a separate item from the Mana Sword), a flail, a bow, and a hammer. Each character has one weapon he or she is supposed to be particularly adept with, but in practice, this mainly just means that that character gets only that type of weapon from certain sidequests. Two weapons may be used at a time, with one weapon each assigned to both the A button and the X button. An interesting aspect of the weapons in this installment of Seiken Densetsu is that each has both a regular attack (performed by simply pressing that weapon's button) and a secondary effect (used by holding down then releasing that weapon's button). For example, the sword's secondary effect reflects physical projectiles, and the flail can be used either to grab out-of-the-way items, or to cross over spikes and ravines by attaching to fixed objects.
Magic is available to all characters from the beginning of the game, but unlike previous installments, a character may only carry one elemental per quest. This means that you'll have to select carefully. Magic is employed in battle by holding down the B button, which calls an elemental. By walking into it, you receive a status effect, such as a temporary elemental attack, rejuvenation of HP, or healing of status ailments. If you stay away from the elemental for a few seconds, it will use offensive magic on the monsters in the surrounding area (which is a very limited area at level one).
In addition, you can collect gems, which, by equipping them on a little gem caddy called the Mana Frame, endow your character with special abilities or augment existing abilities. Along with the usual powerups that improve your character's stats, there are more exotic items that allow you to steal HP or MP from enemies, walk on spikes unscathed, and automatically use a Cup of Wishes when your character is down. Other gems affect weapons, enabling your character, for example, to fire off three arrows in a spread shot, or fire an energy wave using the sword. Gems are also the only means of levelling up magic (which seems to be limited to level three), and it's a temporary effect. Unequip the gem for levelling magic, and your magic returns to its former lackluster state. The Mana Frame is limited to four slots at the beginning of the game, but is gradually updated to 16 as you advance. However, many gems, especially the more powerful ones, use two, four, or even six slots geometrically arranged into a square or rectangle, so you'll have to be fairly selective about which gems you equip.
This game is a dungeon crawler, so basically everything in it revolves around lengthy dungeon battles. There is an overworld map, but it is traversed entirely by means of Flammie the dragon, who was also found in Secret of Mana. Also, there are no towns in the game aside from the one you start off in, so all of Flammie's destinations (and others later in the game that are reachable by other means) are dungeons. Aside from hacking and slashing your way through huge waves of enemies, as most people expect from a Seiken Densetsu game, you'll also have to find an egg-like object (the Light Drop) and a pool (the Fountain of Light) in order to advance to the next floor of the dungeon. This adds a certain challenge to the game, but also can be an annoyance later on when both the Light Drop and the Spring of Light are well hidden. You may have to smash through innumerable ice blocks or giant cacti with your hammer in order to find them. If they're not hidden, you can find them, along with the location of enemies and chests, in a map on the touch screen along with various other data. Something new to the battles in this installment is the fact that enemies may be launched into other enemies using your weapons or occasionally using features of the landscape. The hammer in particular can knock enemies a rather respectable distance and generate a domino effect of damage both to other enemies and to the surrounding terrain.
Unlike most RPGs and adventure games, killing enemies does not automatically give you money. Money must be obtained from random drops, from treasure chests, or by selling off unnecessary gems and items (which you will receive ridiculous quantities of). So while getting money isn't exactly difficult, you do have to remember to sell off everything you don't need between dungeons, which can be a mild annoyance.
The bosses in the game, while easy compared to those in many other games, are very cleverly implemented, and many require you to make use of a certain weapon. A few of them are gigantic, taking up most of the screen, but they still manage to be quite beautifully designed and reasonably well-animated.
Even after you defeat a boss, you can fight through the same area again, including the boss fight and cinema scenes. This can produce unintentionally hilarious results. If you go to the first dungeon at the right time, not only can you kill a boss you've already defeated, but you can meet a character who's been kidnapped and acquire a key item that's been stolen (both of which mysteriously disappear again after you return to town). This adds to the general impression that the developers either ran out of time, or just didn't care enough to have a polished final product.
Aside from the mandatory quests, this game also features a literally unlimited number of optional sidequests. Sidequests may be purchased as jobs (providing rewards of money, gems, and items), and some of the characters in the town will also ask for favors or provide you with information that will lead you on a sidequest. However, whatever the stated goal of a quest is, it can always be successfully completed simply by exiting the last floor of its dungeon, which generally means killing a heck of a lot of enemies. You can expect to become pretty familiar with a lot of floor layouts in the dungeons, as you'll likely repeat each one dozens of times (especially if you want the best stuff as early as possible).
The game's multiplayer mode also centers around plowing through dungeons, but it requires two or more copies of the game, and this player hasn't yet gotten a chance to check it out.
And what is there aside from the dungeons? Not much. The game's plot is very sparse for an RPG, and you won't find yourself getting too engrossed in the story until the last third, if then. This is no Final Fantasy or Crono Trigger. It isn't even a Lufia. There's really very little here aside from a stereotypical save-the-world RPG scenario told as economically as possible. Had the developers put more work into the storyline, added more towns and characters, and taken steps to make the game less repetitive, this could truly have been an epic quest, and one of the best adventure games on the platform. As it stands, it's merely an average game.
Still, if you're a huge Mana fan or someone who can't get enough of dungeon crawlers, you'll want to check this game out. The graphics are amazing, and they even went so far as to include huge hand-drawn avatars of all of the characters in the game (who are generally quite likable), as well as cel-animated cutscenes you'll just have to see to fully appreciate. The music is faithful to previous games in the series, and the battle mechanics are among the most well-realized of any Seiken Densetsu game, even including Secret of Mana. Just don't go into this one expecting it to be anywhere near perfect.