Let me preface this review by saying that despite how much I enjoyed the game it is very much held back by being released on gba. The game itself has a very interesting and colorful world and lore much beyond what I expected from many other games released at the same time, that being said the short length of the game makes a lot of the more interesting elements go by very fast without as much care as the deserve. Shorter dungeons are nice and make completion of the game easier but it also causes the game to often jump between plot points without much warning and makes the world feel much smaller than it's meant to. Sidequests in the game barely matter and aren't really tracked but can sometimes provide a brief respite from the main story if they involve anything other than grinding enemies in a specific area for a 10% drop, which is what many of them end up being. I enjoyed the combat system but sometimes-especially later in the game- it felt like there was never any reason to fight anything but the bosses due to how much damage even normal enemies did (not to mention how easy it is to just run past them). If you choose to play the game using a magic build like I did then most of it just boils down to figuring out which spirit does the most damage to the boss (which often ends up being the most recent one) and then hitting them maybe 10ish times at most with it due to the tiny health pools all of them have. The short boss fights help contribute to the fast pacing of the game but I personally would've enjoyed a slightly longer, more fleshed out experience which likely wasn't possible due to how much content this game actually does have for gba.

Beat Hero's route. A pretty solid action RPG for Game Boy Advance. It’s supposed to be a remake of Final Fantasy Adventure/Mystic Quest, but very different to the source material, having more to do with Mana series than Final Fantasy.

The combat in this game is pretty straightforward - unlike Secret of Mana, there's no cooldown for your attacks and you can attack at almost any point (I'm aware that you can technically do that in that game as well, but that'll do little damage), if your hit connects, then a calculation is ran the enemy manages to evade it or not – standard RPG stuff. The game instead changes the original's bar that fills over time with a meter that fills with every successful strike, allowing for a more powerful attack to be unleashed, just like in Trials of Mana. Certain weapons, such as a sword, rod or an axe also have an attack combo - press the attack button in a certain rhythm to unleash slightly more powerful attacks. While simple, I think the combat is pretty satisfying. Nothing beats seeing numbers and landing a successful combo and seeing enemies burst into bones or something else. Each of the game’s 9 weapons have its EXP progression – same as aforementioned Secret of Mana. Same with magic, use the spirit for attacks and level them up. Each spirit of the game grants two spells – one passive, giving some bonus like healing or defense up, and offensive. If you hold the magic button for longer, you’ll unleash a magical attack. The attack’s pattern depends on the weapon equipped, like a magical orb that you can guide if you have knucks, which is a neat detail I like.

Each enemy has a weakness and immunity towards a certain element or weapon. I don’t really mind the experimentation aspect, where you have to change your weapon or magic spirit if it doesn’t work on an enemy – changing them is a fairly quick process, just bring the ring menu, enter weapon/magic tab, boom, there’s your magic/weapons. I can understand it being annoying if the enemy in question is immune to many items and it takes a while to test all of them, but once you defeat an enemy, you’ll be granted an entry in Popoi’s Notebook, where you can check the enemy and its attributes.

The game features a few new things compared to the SNES classics. First, the ability to jump, which can be used to jump up or down ledges. I feel like it’s a bit of a gimmick, sometimes it doesn’t make sense why jumping over small gaps wouldn’t work. Though it can be used to jump over enemies that block your path, so there’s that. Second is sitting. Hold R+A, and you’ll sit still to recover MP. If, for some reason you find yourself short on MP healing supplies and are constantly struggling with MP and HP, there’s a baked-in solution. Just sit still, recover a bit of mana, then cast a healing spell. At first, the MP recovering rate is pretty pathetic, but after a bunch of level ups, it’s not so bad, and a totally valid strategy… although I don’t know how you would be running low on supplies, unless you were reckless with them. I thought most RPG gamers are item hoarders… like me. Lastly, there’s a “Hot House” feature. Apparently, this is something from Legend of Mana - you can combine two of the seed items you can find in the game, and plant produce, which can be used to tamper with a weapon or a piece of equipment for better stats, which is available later in the game. Same with forging a completely new item with better-er stats, again, you can find materials inside chests that are scattered about, or spawn when you defeat all enemies in an area. Pretty neat. Also… Li’l Cactus!

The game isn’t without flaws of course, it’s pretty much a staple of any good Mana game… or any game in general, really. First, I didn’t find the game to be that much of a challenge, especially the bosses. I think common enemies can be more dangerous than these guys. I don’t know if I’m just that good at the game, or I had overleveled somewhere along the way, as I beat the game only at level 50. Even the final boss was kind of a pushover. Although, honestly, I’d rather take these easy bosses over inconsistent/busted ones from Secret of Mana or those that seemingly refuse to die in Trials of Mana, but still. Maybe heroine’s path is more challenging? I’ll have to play that and see. Second issue – the AI controlled companion is generally worthless. I didn’t even bother using an Angel Grail to revive them – I think the game actually works best when you’re alone, as the companion tends to be your liability rather than an asset. One small positive the AI companion has is that Square Enix brought back action grid, which allows you to set their NPC behavior and stay away from enemies, use only the weapon, be more reckless with MP, etc. I still think Secret of Mana has the best action grid, as it felt like it had a more tactical use (in addition to AI companions not being quite as worthless), but hey, it’s better than having NO action grid like in Trials of Mana. Third – the way forward isn’t always clear. I’m currently replaying the game, this time as Heroine, and there’s an early part at Vinquette Vicinity that’s confusing on where to go... this is the second time already. Turns out you need to wait for night and approach the mansion's gate. There's a day and night system, similar to Trials of Mana, but the time only changes during transitions, instead of dynamically. I don’t remember any other confusing areas until much later In the game – Subland River, where you’re supposed to find those little spots that you hit and let the water out. I didn’t know that’s what you’re supposed to do, and I had to look it up. The dungeon right after isn’t much better – Subsea Volcano. It feels like a confusing maze of a dungeon, with no clear path forward. I didn’t really feel that confused in any other dungeon, not that I can recall, thankfully.

While it’s debatable whether this is a good remake or not, overall, I think Sword of Mana is a pretty good game in its own right, and should be considered a classic. It features simple, yet engaging gameplay, capturing what worked in Super Nintendo installments. It features classic “Square” pixel art that looks gorgeous, and a decent chiptuny soundtrack. And it’s quite polished – it may have some gameplay faults, but I never really encountered any technical issues. If you liked Secret of Mana, you may like this game as well, even if it’s a little simpler gameplay-wise. It may not be great, but it’s simply solid fun.

最初からヒロインでプレイしてしまったので、話が分かりにくかった。
悪いゲームではないけれど、バランスが大雑把です。

I played with the heroine from the beginning and it was hard to understand the story.
Not a bad game, but the balance is sketchy.

I dunno man this shit is rough. I am 6 hours in and there is one attack and bosses die in less than 10 hits. I didn't grind for at all, and yet I seem to one shot everything. The story is extremely primitive and yet totally fails to be charming (compared to say, the early DQs). I was prompted to drop this when I genuinely dozed off mid combat. I may be an extremely biased turn based apologist, but this is infinitely more boring than giving commands.

This is the second time I put off a Mana game for simply being boring and seemingly directionless. Maybe it's just not for me. Or maybe I'm objectively right and everyone who disagrees is wrong. Only time will tell.

Unfortunately, I didn't really have as much of a good time with sword of mana as I did with it's predecessors. I should state that this game has a lot of love put into it, but sadly it suffers from some of the worst aspects of previous mana titles. I'll discuss the good first before I delve into why I had to shelf it for now.

Sword of Mana has a lot going for it: the wonderful artwork and unique character designs were my main reason for continuing to play. This game shares the same artist that worked on Legend of Mana, so naturally i enjoyed it a lot. Along with that, I was very intrigued by the story and felt it contained a lot of charm, the characters were very beautiful and interesting even if the plot became somewhat esoteric at points due to the diverging paths in gameplay. Even if it was kind of strange, I think I can appreciate it for what it is....aside from that, the pixel artwork is gorgeous and the music was on par with secret of mana, I'd say. The combat also had a lot of potential; the concept of having multiple weapons that affect the way your magic is cast is a lot of fun. Though sadly, that's where my issues begin.

The fighting in this game is horribly thought out. First off, my main problem: only specific types of magic/weapon attacks can damage certain enemies. What this means in practice is that you will constantly have to be switching out your weapon of choice, killing whatever was blocking your way, then switching back which is very cumbersome due to the menus not being easily accessible. This is disregarding the trial and error to find out what will actually hurt these enemies, as there are no patterns to detect what will injure them. Plus the fact that you have limited mana and limited items, so if you run out I'd imagine you'd just be screwed. I learned quickly that I would never make it through this game without cheats, so I had infinite HP and mana on the whole time and it still was getting on my nerves.
The heroine casts magic very, very slowly and enemies can knock you out of attacks, even if your magic is in midair. So you'll just get stuck in a corner with two enemies wailing on you and physically be unable to get out of it. The partner AI took a leaf out of Secret of Mana's book, being very unreliable. They will often get stuck somewhere and be unable to help you, and they never seem to attack when needed.

And finally.... the map design. The only solace I had in this game was the towns, pretty much everywhere else I had to look up a guide. I was constantly stuck. I can not empathize enough how much i got stuck. The game never explains anything to you, and there are sometimes random puzzles that you have no hope of understanding on your own, because they wont even tell you theres a puzzle you need to solve in order to move on. There's also no questbook or anything such as that to remind you of where to go, so if you don't remember what someone told you, get ready to hopelessly wander for way too long for what's supposed to be a linear game. You can jump to access different elevations, but this only works sometimes, and is not consistent at all in showing you what can be jumped on and what can't, leading to me walking by the correct path at least a hundred times before giving up and looking up a guide.

I'm very sad this game isn't more fun to play as I really enjoy parts of Sword of Mana, it's a strange amalgamation of every Mana game that came before it.... i very much enjoyed the callbacks like seeing Lil Cactus again, but unfortunately it's just not enjoyable to play and very, very frustrating. It feels like it takes all the worst aspects of the other games and amplifies them here. I would say only check this out if you're a huge fan of the series, but even then I might suggest watching a walkthrough video instead.