To much hack and slash gameplay and little else damage this game beyond repair.
The story basically starts off in a very predictable way. Everyone is living peacefully with the Tree of Mana, until one day something goes horribly wrong. A villian appears, etc. etc. We've heard this all before. All this stereotyped RPG crap would be bearable if the rest of the game wasn't so boring.
The gameplay was fun the first time I went into battle, and maybe an hour afterwards. Even though it was only pressing one button and hitting about 10-15 monsters at a time, there was still some satisfaction there. But after hours of this in every dungeon it started to get boring very quickly. And the worst thing is the game doesn't hardly try to switch things up to make it more interesting. It's very simple stuff, although I will admit that some of the boss battles were a little interesting and were a nice change of pace from the regular battle system.
Another problem I have with the gameplay (it's a minor problem but it still irks me) is that the game makes little to no use of the stylus. They really could have helped the gameplay and made it much more innovative if they would have made use of the DS and it's stylus.
As for graphics and sound, the Children of Mana world is beautiful but sadly it doesn't fit on the DS screens the right way. Everything is far too small to see well and for someone who is far sighted, it was a nightmare. It most likely would have been more suited to the PSP to tell the truth.
And now the sound. The music is nice to listen to I'll admit, but like many things in the game, it could have been better.
The bottom line is, this game (like so many other games out there) is not bad, but also isn't good. And what really get's on my nerves about this game in particular is that with minor changes to gameplay and the graphics this really could have been a good game. Which is sad because this series really needs a game to make it good again.
So if you don't mind hack and slash your way mindlessly through a game, feel free to check this title out. But if you don't want to waste your gaming time, it's best to just skip this title.