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Nothing special

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Children of Mana marks the sequel to Sword of Mana for the GBA; both games of which are from Square's long running Mana series, which has always seemed to provide more than solid RPG gameplay that was usually overshadowed by their mega popular Final Fantasy series. Children of Mana however, while providing a good deal of nostalgiac gameplay, just doesn't hold up in the long run. Featuring an unoriginal but fun story, colorful graphics, and a wonderful soundtrack, Children of Mana gets trounced by the game's overall design. Taking place in dungeon after dungeon (this is a dungeon crawler at heart after all now), Children of Mana allows you to take on all kinds of creatures in your quest, which is pretty much the entire gyst of the whole thing. The combat itself is repetitive, but what really kills Children of Mana is the repetitive backtracking and dungeon crawling elements. The overall quest is relatively short as well, but that may be a good thing for those who quickly grow tired of the game. Despite all it's flaws, there are some pluses to be found here. The game offers a great art design, and the multiplayer options are a nice plus as well and can be quite fun. All in all, Children of Mana isn't a completely bad game one bit, but if you're craving some good RPG or dungeon crawler action, you are better off checking out something other than Children of Mana.

Good Dungeon Fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: December 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

There is much fun to be had in this game. Unlike Sword of Mana, you have a choice of what character you play as. They have gem fields to customize with certain abilities - some give stat bonus and immunities to ailments. They get 2 different weapon types depending on your character and are able to switch weapons on the fly and as with all Mana games, your weapons, armor and accessories are all upgradeable. You can find some nice equipment by killing enemies.

There are side quests with random dungeons, plenty of enemies to slay, and a multi-player option! The learning curve is small - you can easily just pop in the game and start slashing away at everything in your path. The dungeons are also pretty straightforward, but that's a good thing as it prevents getting lost and frusterated.

I recommend this game for gamers who enjoy exploring dungeons and finding treasure and other younger gamers getting into action RPGs, as it skews on the easy side. Hope this helps your buying decision.

Better than I expected

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: January 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The reviews for this game seemed low in the publications I had read. I would liken this game to Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, in that you play the same stages with different goals. Leveling up is a bit tedious. The story is cute, and light. I enjoyed playing the game very much for the first 10 hours, and couldn't put it down. After that it got a little stale.

Repition is not fun

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: August 02, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Children of Mana is an action RPG, meaning you have a character which you develop by whacking monsters arcade style. The arcade style is simple and seductive. With some weapons, e.g. the hammer, the monsters satisfying fly in all directions bouncing off the walls and into each other. It is so fun, you can do it for hours.

However, after 15 hours, you want depth of gameplay. In RPGs I like to look for deadly combinations of skills and items or tactics I can use to my advantage, sadly, none exist here. You simply grind through the same dungeons time after time. That's right. After you go through a dungeon you can revisit it to retrieve items for your acquaintances in your home village. You get to play FedEx Boy for the village.

The art is amazing, the sound effects and music are so-so and the game play is fun, but after time, you realize Children of Mana is a shallow experience. This is a good game for younger gamers who don't need as much novelty for entertainment. However, oldsters can expect to tire of this title after 12 hours of monster whacking.

Great Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Children of Mana is one of the best DS games out there. Only problem I find with it is that the way the levels are set up. You go through several levels at a time defeat monsters and about every four you stop to take a break and equip new weapons and armors. This game does not resemle anything like Secret of Mana other than the magic characters. Still the game is really fun. Something to play for a while at a time. Somewhat decent story to it.

Good but repetetive

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 31, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Graphics: 3 the graphics were GBA quality at best but that didn't bother me too much

Control: 4 despite a few problems here and there, the controls are pretty tight

Sound: 2 the sounds as well as the dungeon-crawler stuff gets repetive so i just turned the sound off lol

Length: 5 the length of the game really depends on how easily you can figure out boss weaknesses, the harder time u have finding their weaknesses, the higher level you'll have to beat them.

Difficulty: 4 with a few trips through a dungeon or two you can beat most anything in game easily, plus later on in the game i recommend making 2 +50% gems and wearing them. i got bored after i beat the game and decided what the ****, i'll make a L99 character

Overall: 4 although the game gets repetetive and the story is hardly important, this game will keep most any action-RPGers attention throughout the 10-15 hours it takes them to beat it.

children on mana

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: June 02, 2007
Author: Amazon User

granted im no mana coneseur but im having a ton of fun with this game. me and my 6 year old son play this often and spend a great deal of time 'dungeon crawling'. i suppose a good deal of my personal enjoyment is the fact that my son loves it. im always looking for great games the 2 of us can play together and this one fits the bill. i must mention that in the spirit of multiplayer ds games we also love bomberman!

Repetitive & Dull

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: February 21, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I originally started playing games in the Mana series with the classic SNES game "Secret of Mana", and picked up this game hoping it would be a similar experience.

Unfortunately this game is insanely repetitive, forcing you to return to the same handful of levels over and over again with slightly different enemies and slightly different goals. In addition there is almost no DS functionality at all in this game, and it feels like it was originally meant to be a Game Boy Advance game that was clumsily ported over to the DS.

If you can find it used or at a discount it's worth a few dollars, but for anyone other than the most hardcore RPG fanatic this game will be boring and frustrating.

MEH....

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: December 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

medicore game. Theres nothing special, really repetitive, no replay value AT ALL, very tedious.

good note it does take up 17 hours of your time...

the artwork is the only thing that you can recognize and relate to from the other games in this series. other than that it really isnt that great. i was hoping something more like legend of mana or secret of mana, but

meh...

hack-n-slash

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: January 03, 2007
Author: Amazon User

i bought this game at my local gamestop and the cashier reassured me with a "good choice!"

after playing for a few stages and quests, i discovered that the game is rather repetitive and all you do is hack-n-slash monsters to no end.

booooring

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