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Decent but not Fantastic

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: November 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The art is quite simply the most amazing part of this game. However, the story is thin and the gameplay can be repetitive.

I beat it in less than 12 hours and I did every sidequest.

pretty much a complete and total disappointment

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: November 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I bought it mostly feeling nostalgic for Secret of Mana and its sequel, which were both fantastic games, as well as Legend of Mana, which was a very good game.

This is neither fantastic nor very good. It's pretty repetitive, not especially fun, and not really easy to recommend. It makes me sigh pretty heavily, if that's an indicator of anything.

Mediocre Story, but Fun Gameplay

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 67 / 69
Date: November 13, 2006
Author: Amazon User

In truth, there really hasn't been a great Mana game since Secret of Mana back in 1993. Every Mana game since has been met with astonishing mixed feelings, and Children of Mana is no different. Why did I buy it knowing this? For the same reason many Mana fans continue to invest in Mana games. There's always hope that the next installment will give us the same joy that Secret of Mana did. Unfortunately, Children of Mana does not do this. It doesn't rekindle the magic Secret of Mana gave us, but that shouldn't suggest it falls short of it either.

The world is in peril when a mana imbalance threatens to send the world back into the dark ages. It is up to a hero or heroine to stop this from happening and thus you'll set out to save the Mana Tree and the world itself. Children of Mana by no means has a great storyline going for it. At least where it falls short in story it more than makes up for in gameplay.

No matter how you look at it, Children of Mana is a dungeon crawler. It is an RPG, but it falls into the dungeon crawling category. When you enter dungeons they're just swarming with monsters, and you'll be surrounded before you know it. So you'll have to make your way through a dungeon battling everything in sight until you reach the boss, take him on, and then you're done. Rinse and repeat. The process does, at times become annoying, but Children of Mana offers some variety and interesting aspects to the gameplay to make up for it.

The first tidbit of interest is how combat works. It's actually pretty fun to go through dungeons killing things. It's surprisingly addictive for the first couple of hours. You've got three hit combos you can perform on enemies. You can knock enemies into other enemies. There's quite a bit of intersting things you can do. However, what also sets it apart from a lot of dungeon crawlers is that you can't ahead of yourself too fast. First and foremost, you can't equip and use everything you find right off the bat. The game will actually restrict you from using overly powerful weapons until you have access to certain dungeons or until you meet certain expectations. This keeps the game from being too simple too fast.

You'll also have access to magic, of course. Each time you go into a dungeon you can take a spirit with you and use the magic that spirit provides for you. It's interesting to play around with as well. In dungeons you can also dual wield weapons, although not in the way you'd think. When I say duel wield I specifically mean you can equip two weapons but only use one each time. So you can't go about swinging both of them at the same time, which probably would've added more variety to the gameplay otherwise.

Along the lines of giving your character a different assortment of weapons, you can also give them gems that can improve their stats or combat abilities. It's interesting, but not really all that deep. You'll mostly find or purchase these gems.

Another interesting aspect is that the game is completely linear should you decide to not to dwell into the many sidequests the game has to offer. Children of Mana is not shy about offering you side missions to go on, and they're actually pretty well worth it. However, should you decide not to do any sidequests, the game becomes extremely linear.

The problem with the gameplay, however is that this rinse and repeat formula becomes very tiring very fast. The objective in just about every dungeon is to find what's called a "Gleam Drop" and then bring it back to the "Gleam Well." It's annoying mostly because each dungeon plays out in the same way. Fight through a horde of enemies, retrieve the Gleam Drop, fight a boss and leave. Over time it becomes increasingly repetitive. Thankfully, Children of Mana has a great remedy for that too. It's multiplayer. Up to four players can play at a time, and the game is so much more fun that way. You and your friends can make your way through dungeons together, and sometimes it's just a blast to do. There are moments of slowdown when playing in multiplayer mode, but it's nothing to get too frustrated with, because it doesn't happen too often. The multiplayer alone adds a lot of variety and complexity to the gameplay.

As far as graphics go the game doesn't look too bad. The sprites look like they're ripped straight ouf of Sword of Mana... and the game is completely 2D. However, the Mana games have not been about taking graphics to the limit, they've been about its unique art style, which in Children of Mana is absolutely gorgeous. Its artwork is just beautiful to look at. Each environment is given extremely good detail. The only problem, as I mentioned, are that the sprites are not nearly as detailed. Musically, Children of Mana sounds fantastic. It's one of the best sounding DS games out to date. Very few of the current games hold a candle up to its fantastic soundtrack.

The bottom line is simple: Children of Mana is a very fun game to play with a very mediocre storyline. There's just enough variety and interest in the gameplay to keep one going for the adventure, even if the storyline is just not all that great to begin with. However, keep in mind that Children of Mana really is just a dungeon crawl, and it's uncrealistic to expect an RPG that's all about dungeon crawling to have a fantastic storyline that will blow you away. Also, even with its vast amount of variety in the gameplay, the whole rinse and repeat is so repetitive that some gamers may not even find the game worth going through at all.

On the whole, if you're looking for a game that's fun, you'll find it with Children of Mana. However, if you're looking for a game with a deep storyline and endearing characters, you won't find it in Children of Mana.

The Good

+Beatiful Artwork
+Fantastic Soundtrack
+There's a lot of variety to the gameplay
+Multiplayer is a blasts
+Tons of sidequests to do

The Bad

-The storyline isn't good
-The gameplay has a lot of vareity, but it's hard to get past the fact that it's repetitive

EW - Don't Buy

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 11
Date: December 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I was looking forward to this game, but I was bored within a couple of hours. It is VERY repetitive - all you do is hack and slash your way through dungeons. The story is very vague, and the characters have no depth. I'm selling it. Save your money.

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.

Horrible for RPG vets. Good for younger, less experienced RPGers

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: December 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I warily bought this game after having had a bad experience with the last "Mana" series game that I played, and, unfortunately, I was rightfully wary. This game is incredibly boring. I tried to give it a chance, but the repetative nature of the dungeons, terribly underdeveloped characters, paper-thin storyline and just all around lack of variety turned me off really quickly. The use of two weapons at once is nice, but not enough to make the game more fun, and the magic system is disappointing and awkward. I think that the game would work well for younger players who are just breaking the ice with RPGs, but anyone who's played and enjoyed an in-depth RPG will be very dissatisfied with this title.

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...

Really not that good

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 12
Date: December 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I got this because I loved Sword of Mana on the old gameboy. There are many problems with this game but the main problem is that it really is a repetitive dungeon crawl. For example you can get jobs/quests but it sends you back to the same dungeon over and over, to kill all of monster X this time and monster Y this time...in reality you kill all of both each time to get more money anyway, so this is pointless. I was very disappointed with this game, and got rid of it after less than a week.

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

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.

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