Heroes of Mana
Apr. 1st, 2012 09:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroWhat seems to be a simple scouting mission by a group of quirky Peddan soldiers quickly spirals into a world-spanning war and plot to use the legendary Mirror of Enisa to drain the power of Mana. Can this group of unlikely heroes and their monster-spawning ship stop it?
It’s a real-time strategy game, even more traditionally so than Final Fantasy 12: Revenant Wings was. You need to create worker units and send them to gather resources, which you use to create fighter units to help out your heroes. You can still set equipment on those heroes, mind you. Unlike RW, where your characters gained levels and winning could be dependent on grinding, here the strategy is really key.
Like the monsters in RW were all Final Fantasy mainstays, this game features common Mana series monsters, such as rabites, sahagins and GI ducks. There’s also a more complicated four-way rock-paper-scissors between various types of units (which heroes and special units are exempt from, unless you equip them with items that give them the strength and weakness of another unit type). You gain summon monsters (that you can use your resources for instead of summoning units) and magic spells (that you equip like items), based on the Mana series spirits and god-beasts.
The tutorials are useful at the beginning, though they get irritating as the game goes on and you see the “which units beat which” diagram for the fourth time.
This is a game that actually makes good use of stylus controls, because it’s the sort of thing you’d otherwise be using a mouse for. The interface is still a little clunky, which more button-tapping for any given action that is typically necessary. (This seems to be a common problem in games by this developer that use the stylus.) Oh, that’s right, this was made by my old favorites (though not everybody else’s) Brownie Brown!
It seems fairly clear that you’re supposed to lengthen the game by losing battles and replaying them to find hidden items / get a higher rank, because the game goes really quickly, otherwise. The main plot is about 8 hours long, supplemented by 40+ bonus maps and a Hard Mode you can replay the game in.
The game starts you off with contradictory legends about the Mana Goddess and an evil witch who was driven off by guardians of the Mana Tree. Then you’re in control of a bunch of humans sent to spy on Beastman territory. The story very quickly spirals into a world-wide war that your ever-expanding group of PCs must do their best to stop. A lot happens in a relatively short time, with 27 chapters and one battle per. There’s an out-of-nowhere 11th hour revelation about your main character that sets up one of the last villains, who turns out to be totally unnecessary for the plot, but otherwise there isn’t much in the way of obvious filler.
It’s specifically a prequel to Seiken Densetsu 3, which is only available in the US via fan translation, and which I last played somewhere around 2004. So there were a number of plot points that were very obviously nods or setups and made remarkably little sense to me. It also has a bunch more generalized references to the Mana series and elements from Sword of Mana, like references to Mavolia.
And it explicitly says that there are multiple dimensions where the Mana Goddess and spirits exists and the legendary witch—as the evil in the hearts of men—fights against her. Basically giving an excuse for why some parts of the Mana timeline fit together and some don’t.
Random thing that is nice: This game has a lot of female characters, both playable and NPCs. It’s not a big deal, gender doesn’t really play a role in the proceedings, so it’s nice they didn’t just make everybody (who are pretty much all soldiers and heads of state) default male.
Overall: Cute, playable, not really my thing. If you like real-time strategy games in the Starcraft vein, you might enjoy it. Play Seikan Densetsu 3 first, if you can, to get the references.
It’s a real-time strategy game, even more traditionally so than Final Fantasy 12: Revenant Wings was. You need to create worker units and send them to gather resources, which you use to create fighter units to help out your heroes. You can still set equipment on those heroes, mind you. Unlike RW, where your characters gained levels and winning could be dependent on grinding, here the strategy is really key.
Like the monsters in RW were all Final Fantasy mainstays, this game features common Mana series monsters, such as rabites, sahagins and GI ducks. There’s also a more complicated four-way rock-paper-scissors between various types of units (which heroes and special units are exempt from, unless you equip them with items that give them the strength and weakness of another unit type). You gain summon monsters (that you can use your resources for instead of summoning units) and magic spells (that you equip like items), based on the Mana series spirits and god-beasts.
The tutorials are useful at the beginning, though they get irritating as the game goes on and you see the “which units beat which” diagram for the fourth time.
This is a game that actually makes good use of stylus controls, because it’s the sort of thing you’d otherwise be using a mouse for. The interface is still a little clunky, which more button-tapping for any given action that is typically necessary. (This seems to be a common problem in games by this developer that use the stylus.) Oh, that’s right, this was made by my old favorites (though not everybody else’s) Brownie Brown!
It seems fairly clear that you’re supposed to lengthen the game by losing battles and replaying them to find hidden items / get a higher rank, because the game goes really quickly, otherwise. The main plot is about 8 hours long, supplemented by 40+ bonus maps and a Hard Mode you can replay the game in.
The game starts you off with contradictory legends about the Mana Goddess and an evil witch who was driven off by guardians of the Mana Tree. Then you’re in control of a bunch of humans sent to spy on Beastman territory. The story very quickly spirals into a world-wide war that your ever-expanding group of PCs must do their best to stop. A lot happens in a relatively short time, with 27 chapters and one battle per. There’s an out-of-nowhere 11th hour revelation about your main character that sets up one of the last villains, who turns out to be totally unnecessary for the plot, but otherwise there isn’t much in the way of obvious filler.
It’s specifically a prequel to Seiken Densetsu 3, which is only available in the US via fan translation, and which I last played somewhere around 2004. So there were a number of plot points that were very obviously nods or setups and made remarkably little sense to me. It also has a bunch more generalized references to the Mana series and elements from Sword of Mana, like references to Mavolia.
And it explicitly says that there are multiple dimensions where the Mana Goddess and spirits exists and the legendary witch—as the evil in the hearts of men—fights against her. Basically giving an excuse for why some parts of the Mana timeline fit together and some don’t.
Random thing that is nice: This game has a lot of female characters, both playable and NPCs. It’s not a big deal, gender doesn’t really play a role in the proceedings, so it’s nice they didn’t just make everybody (who are pretty much all soldiers and heads of state) default male.
Overall: Cute, playable, not really my thing. If you like real-time strategy games in the Starcraft vein, you might enjoy it. Play Seikan Densetsu 3 first, if you can, to get the references.
