Another hack and slash
User Rating: 6.8 | Seiken Densetsu DS: Children of Mana DS
Children of Mana IS a repetitive game, then again a lot of hack and slashes are. While the story holds true to its predecessors in where one wakes up finding themselves in a town and land being over run by monsters and it is up to you to save the day, the game play just isn’t the same. Hacking your way though dungeon after dungeon, leveling up, buying gear, ect… is similar, but only having one character with you is quite disappointing (talking about Secret of Mana from the SNES). Magic in Children of Mana is pretty much a joke. Using any player you can pretty much go though the game with out the usage of magic. It may come in handy if you take on a tougher castle with very little leveling, but it is still hard to hit the enemy unless they are bundled together. Where is the magic users targeting and knight protecting them taking the blunt of the attacks? The multi player addition is a nice touch, but really doesn’t add much to the game. Sure its fun getting in a group and beating up some guys, but there is still very little difference in character usage. Most players pick the same character, and even those that pick the “Magic” user do not use magic much. Even the items that can only be found in multi player are useless, unless someone just starting out is there to pick them up and get help leveling up. The most annoying thing is going though dungeons. Each stage you have to go though 6+ floors and there are only two different floors for each. You continually see the same floor plan over and over and over again till you wonder why you are even here. It isn’t until the last few levels that the floor plan actually changes for each floor even though it is only small changes. At least in those you can’t just walk though it blind folded.
