Sword of Mana falls short in many areas, but occasionally shines due to its enjoyable combat system and good graphics.
The story in Sword of Mana is the same one from Final Fantasy Adventure, so I don't hold any grudges against it for that. But it does little to improve the smaller details -- specifically, dialogue.
The battle system is entertaining and even has quite a bit of variety in it thanks to the spirits and multiple weapons. Even so, the enemies in the game are so easy and give so much experience that you can breeze through each location with just your preferred weapon and still remain over-leveled. And then there are the bosses which are all depressingly easy to defeat. I didn't fight a single boss in the game that required more than a couple minutes and twenty swings of my sword to defeat. The magic you have at your disposal from using the spirits provides a mostly useless arsenal of magical attacks. There are a few spells which are useful. The healing light ability is useful early on in the game, but quickly becomes worthless when healing 30HP at a time turns into a waste of MP. The bubble boat ability is useful for avoiding enemies and their attacks -- particularly the ones that tend to be invincible to everything in your arsenal (both weapon and magic) except one thing. Whenever this happened, I just skipped along by them instead of cycling through everything I owned just to find that one weapon or spell that could hurt the enemy.
The sound in Sword of Mana is pretty typical for a GBA game. Most of the tracks are generic and forgettable. But there are a couple which are slightly more memorable/bearable. The sound effects are top-notch, however.
The graphics are Sword of Mana's best quality. Each of the environments are designed with their own unique graphical themes that are impressively detailed. There's even a day-to-night system which not only looks fantastic, but also causes enemies to sleep during the night. All of the sprites are animated smoothly and run around logically. Your AI-controlled partner will sometimes get stuck and take a beating from nearby enemies, but only if you're running through areas instead of pacing yourself.
Sword of Mana was a letdown, but not a large one. I enjoyed playing the game, but there were times that I got bored and turned it off. The battle system is fun if you have the patience to use multiple weapons and spells, but there are some enemies that are way too cheap and capable of killing you in mere seconds if you're too careless. The bosses were also too easy to defeat; and the dialogue didn't help to motivate me further along the chain of progress between these story-affecting battles. With its basic story, semi-engaging battle system, and average audio, Sword of Mana ends up being just another completed RPG to check off and put back with the rest of your games.