Another awesome addition to the action RPG genre!!!
I am one of the ones who miss the SNES one. Just some good ol 2d action rpg fun. After hearing stories from other people who had already played Dawn of Mana it looked like it woas going to suck but i know how much stock to put into other peoples words so i got it anyways. Dawn of Mana is freaking amazing. What Secret of Mana did for 2d and the SNES Dawn of Mana did for 3d and the PS2. Its beautiful graphics combined with the awesome combat and superb storyline just make for one truly entertaining adventure. Usually I get bored with RPG's because you just have to plow through hordes of random battles and by the time you reach the next chunk of storyline you no longer remember or care about what the previous chunk was about. Dawn of Mana actually had a storyline worth playing the game for to see how it unfolds. Combat was great. You get a sword, a slingshot, and a whip. You will spend most of your time just grabbing onto stuff with you whip and smashing whatever you grabbed against other things before slicing them up with your sword. It may be repetetive but i never got sick of it, in fact it sucked when i started each chapter and I lost some of my abilities.
Bashing monsters when they are panicking makes them drop power ups. Power ups increase your health, your attack strength, and your magic. Magic and strength go up to lv4. Each level lets you do something extra like swing your sword more times or cast new spells. They only last for that chapter though. And when you start a new chapter you have to start collecting power ups again. I can see how some might hate that but i didnt mind. There are all these challenges you can try to do that can earn you awards or emblems or whatever they were called. As you collect power ups the game lets you equip more and more emlems up to like 4-5 i think. As long as you equip the emblems you get cool power ups like starting out with higher level attack or magic power or extra health. I dont know what the really good ones do because i was playing on wussy difficulty level but they must rock because they look really hard to obtain. I dont know if I would buy the game. After I beat the game it didnt look like there would be that much to do besides unlock those emblems.. but i definately think the game is a MUST PLAY. The cinema scenes were freaking sweet.