A wonderful sequel to the original, that unfortunately has a lot of problems. This game was actually made back in the 90s, but legal troubles kept it from releasing until 2015, and by then, the level design was pretty antiquated and, in some cases, just bad. The general mechanics compared to the original game on Windows is worse as well, but it's not too bad. This game has a ton of new mechanics that are really creative. And the best part about this game is that there's an editor plus community levels, of which there are some really great ones. So while the original game isn't amazing, the fan content really makes this game a lot better.

The presentation finally caught up to the gameplay with Seiken Densetsu 3, a more polished affair that reiterates the format with a greater dose of narrative ambition. What propels the story is not the premise or themes but its execution, offering a sort of linear, synchronous version of Romancing SaGa's character routes: Six main scenarios that occasionally weave and interact as they run parallel to each other. Creative story beats and a memorable cast adorn an overlapping structure that encourages many playthroughs under many team comps.

Without SD2's weapon-swapping or hard knockdowns, combat turned to a less mobile variant that favors dogpiling over stun-locking, shifting its center of mass while smoothing out the general pace. A fluid battle system which loses a bit of its luster in cramped spaces or with heavy repetition (i.e. grinding), while mini class paths and the return of stat-allocation provide it with some much-needed RPG depth. Sadly, its second half reveals the same set of problems that burden Secret of Mana: Tedious boss fights, gauntlet-style JRPG padding, unavoidable damage, etc. But this time, its world and dungeons are a step-up.

Having fully shed the Zelda influences of its early years, this release marked the complete maturation of Mana as both a stadium brawler and a charming storyteller.

Man was I not expecting to like a Mana game this much. Almost every problem I have with the first two is either fixed or else I don’t care that much about it anymore, story is better-ish than Secret of Mana and it still looks and sounds great.

I have to be honest, most of the stars in my rating come from having picked kevin for my first playthrough. I loved the hell out of playing as Kevin. This is a pro-Kevin account and if you disagree you can GTFO with your Kevin-hating ass. He’s a great starting character, strong as hell and can also kind of heal, and he’s just wholesome and good. He talks in this like Tarzan kind of broken English and walks around in this ridiculous gait like a dad chasing around their young kids being like AAAAAGH IM THE BIG MONSTER IM GONNA GET YA. Another neat touch is the way he lands on both feet and shakes whenever he falls from the sky in cannon travel, in much the same way Conan does, another anime wild boy character (Future Boy Conan is great and you should watch it, by the way). Not to mention his whole motivation is the goodest of them all: he’s avenging the wrongful death of his beloved dog. He’s a dog lover, folks. It turns out all I really needed to get into the mana series is a John Wick

At a time when the classic 2D-sidescroller style of Mario games was thought to be dead and gone, New Super Mario Bros was a refreshing change of pace and showed Nintendo that the original style was still viable and could be massively successful -- and it was, for better or for worse. But I will talk about that in the reviews for the later games of this style. The game was a lot of fun and changed up the classic style in an interesting way. The difficulty progressed reasonably and by World 8 was reasonably difficult without feeling unfair. I still go back to it on occasion and 100% it. Here's an interesting thing, there is a hidden challenge mode that you input a code for. What it does is it makes the game like the classic sidescrolling Mario games and prevents the player from backtracking through the level.

I think the greatest sin of the NSMB games is that they've "flattened" people's perception of what the 2D Mario games were/can be. Believe it or not, games like SMB3 and SMW didn't limit themselves to just "grass world, desert world, ice world, water world", and even when they did use those tropes, they didn't depict them exactly the same way. Those games didn't just have an overworld map, SMB3 had essentially a board game with moving pieces that was catered perfectly to competitive playthroughs, and provided variety between levels. SMW's map was less varied, but told a story through the way you progressed through a detailed map with detours and distinct sections that all made sense in how they were all a part of one specific location. Even SMW has more than just one 1-up minigame. These games had distinct personalities, different aesthetics and inspirations, and the NSMB series serves to get everything in one perfect line. This is what Nintendo would have you believe Mario has Always Been and Always Will Be, which is why it seems projects like Super Nintendo World and the Illumination Mario Movie seem to borrow a lot from these games.

There are some actually good ideas for Mario levels here, some joy is to be had in terms of providing good, reliable 2D Mario platforming. Honestly, I wouldn't go all the way to say this is a bad game. But it seems to actively try to be unremarkable the whole time. The game's marketing revolves around "look at AAALLLL the COOOIIIIINS" but I'll be honest, there's a lot of them but not THAT many. Not enough to hang your entire game on. Also the raccoon leaf is here, P-meter and all, no real reason, it's just here because they need something here, god forbid they come up with an actual new power-up. Like I said, there's genuinely good levels and moments in this game, but it's not worth it.

One last thing: this game tries not to be too hard in terms of level design, which is fine, but it tries to make up for that by making some of the collectibles absurdly difficult to find, usually involving assumptions I would never make on my own. I guess that's also not a bad thing, just slightly exhausting. Glad I never got tricked into actually buying this game at any point. Did you know it's very easy to hack your 3DS?