The Mana series is a game series I hold near and dear to my heart. I had once bought this game years ago and remembered playing through it a bit, I believe I was supposed to play with a friend, but they didn't get it for whatever reason and I know that seems unimportant, but playing through it again and actually beating it this time, it made me realize something...this game truly was made for multiplayer not really with it.

For a DS game it actually looks pretty good, the art style stayed pretty close to the Legend of Mana series but just turned the view kinda overhead. There's plenty of dungeons to go through, in fact that's most of all you're going to do, get missions or continue the storyline and crawl through dungeons. I really wish there was more variety at least to the different places you go, but it's pretty much the same backdrops with everything in the rooms rearranging.

The music is actually pretty solid for what is there, like it sounds great, but sadly there's not really a lot of it. Tracks tend to repeat for the scenario or dungeon or town.

The controls...I really wish they were better at times, the Ring System the Mana series i known for is still there, but it takes a little too much time to load for how often you have to switch weapons to progress, and it's not just weapons for style or anything, you have weapons for smash rocks, cutting bushes and so on, so you often have to switch back and forth. The magic system isn't great either, you can only carry one spirit and that spirit has one attack spell and one support spell and that's it. There's not really any variety in this game.

I know most of this sounds negative, but there's a really good game here, but it HAS to be experienced with someone else to play, or it will get dull, your best bet is to play in small bursts and small sessions. Otherwise as a solo game, it's just okay.

If you've ever played Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles solo, this game carries a lot of those same ups and downs almost exactly.

Children of Mana pursued a different kind of reimagination; a sort of 'retrospective' that compiles over a decade of material (Secret of Mana's ring menu & auxiliary weapon functions, selectable protagonists a la Trials of Mana, Legend of Mana's combo strings & super meter, etc.) and applies them to a straightforward dungeon crawler. Its key component is actually found in the non-Mana citations, leveraging the environmental objects and collisions of beat-em-ups to add an explosive albeit unpredictable touch to combat. Intriguing as that may be, the appeal wears off after the halfway point, and its commendable build variety isn't enough to justify the more repetitive second half.