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I really enjoyed this game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: September 05, 2008
Author: Amazon User

FYI, I'm female and 51. I really enjoyed this game. I just finished and am thinking I will play again as one of the 4 possible characters with different skills. It reminds me of the gameboy 2d zeldas. I've not played any other mana game so I can't compare them but if you are hungry for the old type rpg, this one may fill the need. You can keep playing after you beat the last boss but it lost something for me then so take your time, do sidequests, dudbear jobs, collect gems, enjoy killing monsters. Oh, and stylus use is kept to a minimum which is always a plus for me.

Fall of Mana

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The Mana Series has always intrigued me, Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2) was excellent, Seiken Densetsu 3 (Japan 'sequel') was even better. After that the series began it's slow and never ending slump.

Children of Mana was the first non-remake in the Mana series in nearly 6 years. The last Mana title, Legend of Mana was a decent game, but it didn't compete against Seiken Densetsu 2 or 3. Eventually, SquareSoft decided to revive the series, but this was the start of their mistakes.

The newly titled "World of Mana" would release 3 of Square-Enix's trashiest games ever.

Children of Mana was the first, released for Nintendo DS. I picked up this game when I first got my DS, incredibly excited to play it. Pop it in, confused by the plot, random sidequests etc., I start playing. Hey, this is kind of cool... Finish the first tower, next world. Hmm, maybe a bit better lets hope! Exact same gameplay, different level setup.

It's basically Legend of Zelda with random gems that give you insanely good powers, and a flail that kills anything touching you within a 3 square radius.

The games a typical dungeon crawler, you have multiple weapon classes, albeit with a different power/ability/special attack. The games incredibly easy. Each level you get percentage completions based on time it took to complete, treasure chests obtained, etc., The only way to get gold ranking is going through each level way later in the game. Even then, miss 1 treasure chest (some require 'puzzles' to obtain), and you lose.

Magic is supposed to play a role in the game, but it's the worst excuse for magic ever. It's horrible, not even worth using. Items are trashy too, theres not really much control of obtaining items, just buy them when you see them.

The only thing I loved about the game was gem fusion. Each gem has powers, and you can bind with other gems to make better gems. Some give double experience, some improve weapons, some improve 'special attacks', some are so useful that it makes the game virtually impossible to not walk through it.

The further you get into the game the more predictable it gets. The dungeons turn into really long mazes that aren't even a bit fun. So here's my final rating.

Gameplay: 7/10 It's not horrible, it's not good. I was kept busy by it, I'll admit I had fun. But, it left a lot to want back. If I had a better RPG at the time (Like Magical Starsign, Etrian Odyssey, or Phantom Hourglass) I'd have played those instead. Nonetheless, I can't say I overly disliked it.

Graphics: 6/10 They aren't horrible, after Legend of Mana I expected really excellent graphics, which they are in the cities. The second you enter the battlefield it's like they went to a small budget.

Interface: 7/10 Nothing special, nothing bad about it.

Length: 8/10 It'll keep you occupied for 20 hours.

Difficulty: 7/10 Not hard, not horribly easy. I never died in the game, which isnt typical :)

35/50, 70/100.

If you're looking for combat similar to Link to the Past, but easier, heres your game. It's okay, I doubt I'd replay it though.

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.

Easy to like but hard to love

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 07, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Truth be told, I've never played a single game from the Mana series. Not that I didn't want to or thought it childish but rather store availability was always sketchy and other titles always seemed to be in heavy supply. Finding Children of Mana at the store and despite mixed-but-mostly-negative reviews, I blind bought the game and after awhile I pretty much shared the feeling a lot of people had: what the game could've been sticks in your mind more than what the game is.

Story: The story in the game is super cliche, simplistic and not as deep as others but then again, they all can't be Xenosaga right? Turns out there's a mana surge with huge columns sprouting up in the world and it's up to you to save the world from doom. Yeah, not the most original story but like Lunar, it's sort of a story that makes sense given the graphic style but you kinda wish there was a bit more deepness than this.

Graphics: I've always loved the art style of the Mana series since at times it's very anime-inspired and other times it's got a very colorful storybook feel to it like those kids books you read to your little ones before sleep. While sprites aren't the most detailed, it's certainly a very bright and colorful game and there's a few anime cutscenes interspersed throughout the game as opposed to just an intro/ending duo.

Sound/Music: Very typical of fantasy soundtracks with flutes, pianos and the like supplying the melodies and while I wouldn't call it a "must buy" soundtrack, it's certainly a charming thing to have when you're playing the game. No voice acting to speak of and sound effects in game are usable though not spectacular which was sort of the point.

Gameplay: Where the game severely gets marked down and it's kind of a shame too because this kind of RPG was kind of refreshing. After so many turn-based RPG's, it was nice to pick up a dungeon crawler where you fight enemies that show up on screen and dish out combos. One fun thing was to smack enemies into other enemies which damages them even further. However, the game is unbelievably repetitive since stages consist of several floors of enemies where you have to find an item which, upon taken to a specific spot, will progress you further. This game is sort of for the younger set where they don't mind repetitively doing stuff over and over but for older people, this can wear thin easily.

Another knock is how you handle your items. While I somewhat like the idea that you can't immediately equip a weapon lest you're at a certain level, it's irritating when a sword goes on sale but it's level 21 required when you're at level 11. But when the sword/clothing can be found in-dungeon, you can just level up to the required level and equip right? Wrong, you're only allowed to do one thing when in a dungeon: fight to the end or quit and lose all progress except for exp/items earned, THEN you can equip it. Granted they do allow a checkpoint where you can do it but not being able to do it during the stages themselves is disappointing.

It's hard to fully recommend the game since there's lots to like but like most games, the ball was dropped quite severely.

not what i expected it to be

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 28, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I like the mana series so I got this to play it, but it wasn't what I expected from a mana game.

A little tedious

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 12, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I enjoyed this game for the first 4-5 hours, though I tended to keep replaying some of the dungeons not knowing where to go next or if they were acceptably complete. The graphics are neat and the cute characters and environments are very appealing.

However the game got pretty tedious as I got to the tougher dungeons. Not only are the dungeons long - many stages of enemies and a boss, but you can't save in the dungeons. Furthermore if you die or complete the dungeon without completing the objective you have to replay from the beginning. Very unforgiving, and like I said, the objectives can be unclear.

Diablo for the DS

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I will agree with other reviewers that this game can get a little repetitive. I played for about 25 hours (beating it in 20) before I finally put it down. You'll probably get similar mileage. By the end of the game, you're really just trying to find the gleam drop ASAP, skipping as many monsters as you can, and then getting to the gleam well.

In a sense, the game play reminds me a lot of Diablo in the sense that you go through randomly generated dungeons, killing monsters and collecting items, gaining levels, and then returning to the same town each time to sell your items.

The added twist of the gems and gem frames increases the gameplay fun a bit, as you try and collect and fuse gems together.

I went through the game without hardly ever using magic, and it even seems that magic is more or less useless in a single-player. Hack and slash is the way to go most of the time.

The music is not memorable -- I kept it muted nearly the whole time.

Overall, I'd say its a decent game to play -- but no Secret of Mana.

Dungeon Crawl with Little Reward, Creativity

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: October 31, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Children of Mana is the latest Squenix addition to a long line of Mana RPG/adventure games that have moved into the Nintendo handheld world - this one being a game for the DS. And out of all the mana games I've played, it is by far the worst, and possibly one of the worst RPG games I've played. From story to game mechanics, this is almost a complete lemon, so if you dislike negative reviews, just skip this. I'll try and summarize the paragraphs so you can get my main points without having to read my entire tirade.

Complete lack of utilization for the DS hardware.
The first thing I noticed about the game is the complete lack of stylus play, and the poor utilization of the dual-screen system. There's all this fantastic hardware for DS, and most of the games I've played have used it to some good effect, but CoM almost completely ignores it, opting to use one screen for maps/status when in most cases, your maps and status aren't really needed. After the opening screen, the stylus is not used at all. In fact, I have to wonder why they even put that one touch-screen in there.

Complete lack of character story.
Even in the last GBA handheld installment of the series, the story had depth. Your characters had a history, and a reason why they met. And the supporting characters had some really touching material. In CoM, the village priestess is kidnapped, and all the village elders and warriors get together to discuss what must be done. Your character, who seems to have no real station in the village, voulenteers him/herself to go, and everyone is just like "bai. the potions shop is to your right on your way out of the village." Not even a "no, it's too dangerous!" or "let me teach you how to fight before you go." And that's only the first of many such oddities. Either the localization team has completely butchered and removed whatever insightful dialog existed, or it just never did.

Complete lack of story
Sort of ties in with my last point. At the end of each zone, you fight a boss monster, and someone comes out to tell you "good job" and give you the tiniest scrap of explanation and some artifact that allows you to access a new area of the game. You go back to the village, speak with the veteran, and he asks you to go scope out another crisis. Of the handful of zones I've been to, that's been the extent of it. Sidequests are available through a shop, but you never meet who you're helping, and the fun of discovering the sidequest is eliminated because they're just handed to you. So far (though I'm assuming this changes later), there are no towns to explore, and no benefits to talking to people.

Weak character development
And by character development, I mean level progression and the like. Most of your development happens through the aquisition of new weapons and armor, and the equipping of various gems you find. You can fuse gems together to create new gems with special powers. But that's pretty much it - no points to spend of any kind. All of your weapons and armor can be purchased from the shop, so questing for special weapons and armor is pointless. Furthermore, all wares have a level requirement, so apart from gems, there's no good way to max out a particular stat.

Shallow and frustrating gameplay elements
Your 8 espers exist, but you can only take one of them into a dungeon with you, as opposed to previous games, where you do work to find the mana, and then its unique powers are available to you through the rest of the game. You cannot access the weapons, armor, or gems you pick up while you're still in the dungeon, or swap out your esper, until you've reached a save point. Each dungeon has multiple levels, and if you leave or die, you have to start the dungeon over again (or simply restart your game from your save point if you reached one while in-dungeon). The new gameplay mechanics are not always explained in the best way, such that I had to actually look up how to use and switch my espers.

The only positives...
There are four weapons that allow you to complete some puzzle-aspects in the dungeon, and you have the ability to dual-wield so you don't have to keep switching weapons, which is nice. The graphics are cute - the whole game definitely looks just like a mana game, and there are even a few anime-style cutscenes. Your performance in each dungeon section is scored off how many monsters you kill, how many chests you find, and how fast you do it in - and from this, you can get special rewards. There's a multiplayer option, which is new and supposed to be pretty fun.

The lowdown
I was surprised to find this used so quickly, considering it only came out a short while ago, but now I see why. By itself, any one of these flaws wouldn't be enough to ruin the game, but this many annoyances and shortage of RP aspects together make it an almost worthless pursuit. It's fine for a dungeon crawl, but with so little rewards, why not just replay a more compelling dungeon crawl game? I recommend D2 for solo play, and Gauntlet, Zelda Four Swords, or FF Crystal Chronicles for really fantastic multi-player dungeoncrawl. And, if you're interested in how the Mana series is done well on a handheld, pick up Sword of Mana.

Can't Put It Down

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I was skeptical at first to buying Children of Mana but i ended up with it anyways on impulse. Since then, I cant put it down. Although the storyline isnt anything spectacular, the gameplay is fun and easy to use. The graphics are good for a DS game (even though its by square enix so i wasnt expecting anything less) and the levels are easy to progress through. All in all, excellent game and very addicting.

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.

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