I really wanted to like it.
Mystic Quest has been one of my favourite GameBoy titles ever since its release. It's charming graphics, simple storyline and addictive gameplay have given it excellent replay value, even up to this day. Needless to say, I was very exited when Sword of Mana was announced as a remake of that game. Mystic Quest with updated graphics? Count me in!
Unfortunately, the graphics are just about the only thing where this game is more pleasing than its predecessor.
Story: once again your are Generic Hero, a young gladiator who spends his days defeating huge kitty-cats in the Dark Lord's arena. Your best friend Will prompts you to escape because "Mana is in danger now", and you spend the rest of the game trying to save Mana from being in danger, in which you'll eventually succeed (at a cost - I was shocked at the ending when I first finished Mystic Quest).
Sword of Mana tries to make this storyline seem like a thick novel by adding hours and hours of silly dialogue into it, with various reasons for characters (and even bosses) to explain their actions and motives. The result is most often rather silly (eg Count Lee in the original game was just a vampire you had to kill to rescue Generic Heroin; in the remake he's some tragic, broken, misguided but kind-hearted demon who is actually best friends with your deceased foster parent and spends his days locking up girls in coffins in an effort to keep them safe from harm - and he gets quite a lot of boring dialogue to explain all that).
For some reason, the people at Square (or Brownie Brown?) also felt the desire to remove poor old Chocobo from the game (instead of getting to save the hero on several occassions, he gets one weedy cameo at the very end) and replace him with a little cactus who lives in a giant cactus and writes unfunny poetry. I've only played Mystic Quest and Secret of Mana when it comes to Mana games, so maybe this cactus is a recurring character in the later series. I found him just annoying, even more so because visiting the giant cactus is something you'll have to do fairly often.
Graphics: these are certainly good when compared to the original, which were functional rather than eye-pleasing. Drawn in a style not unlike Secret of Mana, everything looks colourful and detailed, and seeing old familiar landmarks such as Kett's Castle or Davias' Mansion redrawn as gothic haunted houses or arabian desert palaces sure is impressive.
Gameplay: the basics are still there. Generic Hero/Heroin/NPC swing their swords, morning stars and sickles in realtime combat against enemies that luckily appear on the map rather than as random encounters. Whack eneough Buzz Bees and Slimes and you'll go up a level and be able to improve some stats. The old item screen has been replaced by an item ring like in Secret of Mana, where you can also tinker with your partner's AI/behaviour. That part is all fine.
Upgrading weapons and armour has become a pain in the behind though. Instead of simply whacking Rabites and Snowmen to find randomly dropped cool new swords and shields, you now collect fruits and vegetables from treasure chests. These are taken to the aforementioned giant cactus, inside which you'll find an orchard in a backroom, where you can grow new seeds from your collected seeds and these are taken to Watts the Dwarf who will use them to upgrade your armoury. The whole process is annoying and random.
Also, instead of being able to save at any time, you now must find Mana Godess statues. For a handheld game this is a tad annoying. The good thing of the statues is that saving at a non-defiled statue will heal your MP and HP, but it's rather silly that all the Mana-hating bad guys have non-defiled statuess of the Mana Godess in their homes. Probably the only really good thing about the new save system is that it doesn't create game-breaking glitches - in Mystic Quest, if you saved and quit whilst travelling across water with Chocobot, you could no longer move your character when you restarted and had to start a new game.
A handy new gameplay feature is being able to restore MP by crouching down. In Mystic Quest this wan't necessary as you hardly ever ran out of MP before you leveled up again, but in Sword of Mana I had to crouch down a lot, not in the least because you'll meet a lot of enemies who can only be killed by certain spells.
Invulnerabilty is an annoying thing in this game. You're constantly switching weapons and spells because just about every monster seems to be only vulnerable to one or two specific attacks. It gets really tedious after a while.
There's also loads and loads of weird sidequests in this game. You'll be asked to deliver roast salamanders, find items for some lazy adventurer, collect "dudbear's gold", and do all other kinds of stuff that isn't interesting or useful and just seems to be tacked on to extend the gameplay.
Music: it's mostly the soundtrack from the original game, played through better speakers. Nothing wrong here, though the improved sound doesn't feel as catchy as the original bleepy tunes. Maybe that's just due to nostalgia.
Replay value: not much. I've finished the game once with the Hero as my main character, then did a second playthrough with the Heroin to see how it affected the storyline, but never finished that playthrough (got bored in Jadd). Then I left the game gathering dust for a few years and tried another Hero playthrough, but quit shortly after defeating Count Lee. I might try again in a few years time.
On the other hand, over the past fifteen years I may have completed Mystic Quest about twenty-five times, if not more. I still play that game regularly. Being so much less cluttered with sidequests, dialogue and armour seeds means that you'll actually get to play the game.
Final verdict: if you're a fan of the original and manage to find this game in a bargain bin, buy it just so you can appreciate the original even better. Otherwise, try before you buy. Despite my personal review it's certainly not a bad game, and for people who don't mind collectathons it might actually be fun. It just fails to recreate the game that it was supposed to be a remake of.