Dawn of Mana

Mmmm seiken densetsu. Just recently played #2 after bringing my SNES from nebraska to Calgary with me. Heh. Good stuff.
 
I've been waiting for another Mana game for years, I can't wait for this to come out.
 
Sword of Mana was pretty shitty, but Children of Mana was fun, can't wait for Kingdom Hearts of Mana, err Dawn of Mana.
 
My friend has been playing the japanese version of this for the last few days and says it sucks. They've changed some of the staples of the games, and the new gameplay elements don't even work properly.

There is only a sword, a whip for grappling ledges and a bow for ranged attacks; not the multitude of weapons that have been in the other mana games. That was a big disappointment for me, I loved changing between the weapons

There is no experience anymore, when you kill monsters, mp and power stat boosts will drop; collect enough and you "level up" and increase your overall stats. The game environment is designed to be very interactive, with the idea that you'd throw some objects into enemies to stun them and cause them to drop more stat boots. To accomplish this, there are two lock-ons, one for enemies and one for objects you can interact with. The problem is, that the lock-ons seem to be random what they will target and when you try to change the target, it seems to be random what it will change to. He says he's been standing right in front of something he can lock onto and it targeted an object in the next room before.

The game is broken into stages, complete with a ranking, rather than an actual RPG. When you start another stage, all your progress gets set back to zero.

Overall he says it's a barely passable game in itself and a complete failure as a part of the mana series. It's such a shame too, I was looking forward to this game(secret of mana is one of my favorite games) and it's falling far short of all expectations.
 
The series has been a steep decline in quality since Legend of Mana, sadly =/
 
Yeah, it's also not helping that they wait years before releasing another game. So when one does get announced, people are excited, thinking it'll be as good as secret or legend of mana.
 
So it's more like a 3d children of mana, than a classic seiken densetsu?
 
Seems like this series is taking the same horrible decline as the "Saga" series, huh. =\ Shame too, both started out amazingly good...
 
Eh, I enjoyed Children of Mana, which was also a departure of the classic Mana formula, more of a dungeon crawler, so I'll enjoy this still. Although imo it's the next Seiken Densetsu, not a spinoff, so they should have styled if after Secret of Mana 1/2, which was their first mistake imo.

Here's hoping SE translates(in Secret of Mana 2's case)/ports Seiken Densetsu 2/3 (Secret of Mana 1/2) to GBA or DS in the future.
I'd kill for either to be portable, that and Chrono Trigger... ah dreams

Mishaela said:
Seems like this series is taking the same horrible decline as the "Saga" series, huh. =\ Shame too, both started out amazingly good...
Click to expand...

Now, idk about you, but the only SaGa game I hated was Unlimited SaGa, SaGa Frontier 1/2 I loved, as well as Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song(which was a remake of the first Romancing SaGa game that never made it out of Japan, which was the 4th in the series, after the FF Legend SaGa games(which did make it to the US on Gameboy))
 
Last edited:
Quina "Tiael" Quen said:
Now, idk about you, but the only SaGa game I hated was Unlimited SaGa, SaGa Frontier 1/2 I loved, as well as Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song(which was a remake of the first Romancing SaGa game that never made it out of Japan, which was the 4th in the series, after the FF Legend SaGa games(which did make it to the US on Gameboy))
Click to expand...

7th Saga / 7th Saga 2 are supposedly the VERY start of the series, yet for some reason unlinked to Saga Frontier (not sure why.)

I thought Saga Frontier 2 was only OK...considerably worse than the first, but still decent. Unlimited Saga I thought was quite possibly the most poorly made game I'd ever played, and haven't been willing to give Romancing Saga a chance due to that.
 
another mana game eh? I haven't played one in awhile and even then it wasn't long x.x I think Sword of Mana was what I played.

I want more shining force games :P
 
Mishaela said:
7th Saga / 7th Saga 2 are supposedly the VERY start of the series, yet for some reason unlinked to Saga Frontier (not sure why.)

I thought Saga Frontier 2 was only OK...considerably worse than the first, but still decent. Unlimited Saga I thought was quite possibly the most poorly made game I'd ever played, and haven't been willing to give Romancing Saga a chance due to that.
Click to expand...

7th Saga/sequel has nothing to do with SaGa series, while they may share similiarities, one title was by Enix, the other was by Squaresoft(and this was way before they merged, it's like Square mimicking the DQ titles when they created FF)

The Final Fantasy Legend titles for Gameboy are the start of the series, the JP title for the first one was SaGa of the Demon Tower, and the other 2 followed a similiar fashion, Square just capitalized on the FF name(like they do most things) when they had Sunsoft release them on the Gameboy in NA.
And yes, I'm aware the games are quite different from the Romancing SaGa games, which were JP only, so for NA it went FF Legend I-II-III, then SaGa Frontier, the series just changed, like FF has.

The early games in the series also feature some common gameplay elements and themes first established in Final Fantasy, such as random enemy encounters, but most of these disappear with the Romancing SaGa games, providing a unique gameplay experience. It also features a similar turn-based battle system, where a character's prowess is driven by numerical values called "statistics;" statistics, in turn, increase with combat experience.
Click to expand...

And you should try Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song, since it's the remake of the first SaGa game that had multiple character scenarios, etc, basically the start of the SaGa formula we all know, it is good, albeit outdated, plus the fact the character models look like evil Precious Moments dolls.
Speaking of SaGa games, I'm off to play SaGa Frontier, gogo Red!
 
Last edited:
Children of Mana was okay but I wish they would make another mana game with the class change system.
 
Yea, I wish more Seiken Densetsu titles had the class change system to, having it only in Seiken Densetsu 3 sucked, plus the fact it's JP only, although there is a translated rom of it out there. Definitely my favorite Mana title thus far, and probably ever if SE makes more Mana titles and puts out another Dawn quality title.
Really wish it would come over here on VC or a portable or something >_<, along with Seiken Densetsu 2.
 
Last edited:
What kills me is that my friend has a japanese wii where you can get seiken densetsu 3 on vc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top