While not exceptional, it's a good solid adventure game.
User Rating: 8.1 | Shinyaku Seiken Densetsu GBA
Sword of Mana has gotten a bit of a bad rap due to some high expectations that it unfortunately failed to live up to. This might be true, but for gamers who can come into the game with no preconceptions, you'll be rewarded with very good adventure RPG. The game is a remake of the original Seiken Densetsu/Mana game that was originally on the Gameboy as Final Fantasy Adventure. The story is a bit generic, but has a few interesting twists to it. An evil empire is trying to wipe out the Mana Clan, a group of magic users and anyone who will protect them. The imprisoned son of a noble and a girl from the Mana Clan team up to try and destroy the empire. The game allows you to play as either character. While much of the time they are teamed up together, they will split up several times and depending on which character you play as you will experience different parts of the story. The fighting is done very well, with 8 different weapons and 8 different types of magic to learn. You must learn to master several of them to make it to the end of the game. You will also receive help in the form of several NPCs who will join you on your journey to defeat the empire. The graphics are bright and colorful and the monsters and characters are animated well for a GBA game. Many of the bosses are also expecially impressive filling up much of the screen and look very detailed. The music is passible. There's nothing great about it, but there are a few tunes that you might catch yourself humming from time to time. The game has two shortcomings that are worth noting. The NPCs who assist you on your journey are for the most part, worthless. The AI is terrible and more often then not your partners will be killed quickly if you do not watch over them carefully. Additionally the magic spells are extremely generic and fans of the series will be disappointed that there really isn't much variety when it comes to magic. The spells disperse in various ways, depending on which weapon your character wields, but the effect is essentially the same every time. Sword of Mana will probably take around 20 hours to complete. There are a few side quests to check out, that involve helping out villagers who need something, but they're not terribly interesting and don't make a difference one way or another. The separate storylines are worth checking out so it's worth playing through a second time just to see what you missed out on the first time. Overall though, the game is quite enjoyable. Not the greatest adventure game on the GBA, but nobody is going to feel like they wasted their time after playing it. Definitely check it out.
