For the past few years, the Mana series from SquareEnix seem to have hit a dead end for fans of the series. While there have been some Mana games released from SquareEnix for various systems, mostly the handheld systems, the really big and most popular game to this date is still Legend of Mana from the Playstation console system. Dawn of Mana marks the next big Mana game for a next generation console after Legend of Mana. Of course with the popularity that Legend of Mana has managed to established, Dawn of Mana has a long climb in filling in the shoes that Legend of Mana had left behind. Let's look at the hits and misses of Dawn of Mana.
STORY
A tale of spirits and humans.
A hero with a sacred sword.
One thousand year ago in the center of the ocean floated an island known as Illusia. Many believe Illusia was a holy island that was protected by a sacred beast known as Flammie. On this island was an enormous tree that is said to be the mother of every living thing in the world long ago. But since then the tree had turned to stone over the years. On the nearby continent of Fa'Diel were five great countries known as Jadd, Topple, Wendell, Ishe, and Lorimar. The people of Fa'Diel thought Illusia was a holy island to never be set foot upon until one day the King of Lorimar, Stroud, decided to send his army to invade Illusia and the village within Illusia that was inhabited by the Tree Folks. Stroud was looking to gain the power of this once Great Tree so he can rule over Fa'Diel. To unlock the power of the tree, Stroud kidnapped the tree maiden, Ritzia who just happens to be Keldy childhood friend. Not one to standby and watch harm comes to Ritzia, Keldy sets off to rescue Ritzia from Stroud. As Keldy made his way toward the Great Tree, he befriended a spirit by the name of Faye who decided to join him on his journey. When Keldy picked up a seed near a stone monument dedicated to the Great Tree, his arm was transformed into a sacred vine sword empowered with the power of the Great Tree. Thus this is the story of a how a certain boy became in possession of a sacred sword and how a young tree maiden become a goddess of Mana giving life to the world began, the Dawn of Mana. A story told through the ages between spirits and humans.
Well the good point about this story is that the storytelling such as the story cut scenes is excellently done. That's probably the only good thing you can say about the story. The story itself is on the dull side of things if you will. This is being politically correct here. You just don't really care about the story to find it interesting. The problem with the story is that there aren't any sort of historic development to the story in terms of the characters and the world that the story takes place in. Dawn of Mana is like with most other rpg storyline which has you playing the hero to save the world. The fault with this logic is that if you are the one who is out to save the world, you need to first care about the world that you are trying to save. In this storyline you really don't actually see the world or the people that inhabit the world at all. 90% of the time or more you are running through forests, underground caverns, and old ruins. You don't even interact or really see other people in this game. It's mostly just Keldy and Faye in the entire storyline. You're going to have a hard time grasping for an emotional attachment to this story when you don't really see much of the so called world that the story is about. Having poor character presentation doesn't actually help too. I guess the bottom-line is that the story isn't really bad. It really is good storytelling. It's just that you just don't care about the story and the character and people in the story at all. I guess that makes it an average story than.
Score 5/10
CHARACTERS
Looks like it's just the three of us.
The cast of characters in Dawn of Mana is very weak to none existence. There's a lack of quality and quantity here. Let's talk about the quantity first. What can I say except that you can count the number of characters in this game by just looking at your fingers on one hand. You only need to look at your first three fingers to see the entire cast of characters in this game. The main characters consist only of Keldy, Ritzia, and the spirit, Faye. For a supporting cast, I guess you can call Lekius a supporting character even though he only appears in about 2-3 cut scene. But for about 90% of the game, the entire story mainly focuses on Keldy and Faye. This is if you don't count the story scenes that involved the main villain, Stroud. The flaw here is that having an entire main cast of characters consisting of only 2-3 characters is just too weak to carry a storyline overall long term. You need to have a bit more variety of characters in there to keep things from getting dull. Now for the quality of what little characters are in this game, there's not much of any sort of background development to them at all. You would think that since this is such a small cast of characters that the game actually take its time developing them but they don't at all. You don't know much about Keldy at all other than the mere mention that he was an orphan that grew up with the Tree Folks. Ritzia is the same thing. The game happens to mention that she is the Tree Maiden but again you don't know much about Ritzia past or how she and Keldy grew up to be such good friends or if they are more than just friends. The game just introduces these characters and then it's off to saving the world. Gamers can't connect to these characters at all for the entire storyline. You just end up not feeling anything for Keldy and his friends at all. And if you don't care about the characters than in the end than you aren't going to care about the story since characters are the heart and soul of a story. A major disappointment here. The only plus I can say is that at least the voices of these characters are acted out excellently by the voice actors and actresses.
Score: 4/10
GRAPHICS
The Great Tree of Mana
At least the game look nice is probably the best thing you can say about Dawn of Mana. Without a doubt the biggest improvement and feature of the game is the graphical presentation. For the first time ever, a Mana game has been done in a full 3-D design environment, a big leap from the usual 2-D side to side environment that were seen in previous Mana games. The characters are fully detailed and rendered in 3-D models with the Japanese anime style look. The background environment are colorful with rich details that includes forests, caves, ruins, waterfalls, and many more special areas that just seem to burst into life as you take a look around. The story cut scene graphics seem to change between regular gameplay graphics to CG movies depending on the importance of the story scene. The only flaw is that outside of the main character models, the monster or enemy models seem a bit dull in design and too simple in designs most of the time. But the bottom line is that this game does look good.
Score: 8/10
MUSIC
48 musical tracks.
The music and sound in this game is probably one of the more steady and solid feature in the entire game. If you finish this game and use your lucres to unlock all 48 Musical Clips than you'll be able to listen to the entire soundtrack of the game. Most of the music are more of the easy soft melodies although not one of them really stands out and grab you. I guess that is where the disappointment lies in the music. A good soundtrack but nothing really special in the end that will captivate you for the long haul. The sound effects around the environments are excellently captured in the game. If you actually stop in your track and turn up the volume and just listen to the game, you can actually here the background environment come to life with the sound that it brings out whether you're in a deep forest or in a cavern. And to top things off, the voice acting in this game is excellent. Although the game provides a very small cast of characters, I don't think anyone can complain about any of the voices in the game at all. In the end, a nice musical soundtrack but one that can be forgettable in a few days once you finish the game.
Score: 8/10
GAMEPLAY
You just been crowned.
Grim Stroud is no match for me.
Game Information
Genre: Action RPG
Publisher: Square Enix
Disc: 1 DVD Disc
Memory: 125 KB
Players: 1 Player Mode
Digital Control: Yes
Analog Control: Yes
Vibration Function: Yes
Rating: Teen
Release: May 2007
Dawn of Mana is an action game with elements of rpg hence the term action rpg game. The gameplay does provide some interesting unique features that are done base on completing each chapter. There are a total of 8 chapters in the game. Each chapter is broken down into map stages within the chapters. Your objective is to make your way through the various different map stages to get to the end of the chapter. Usually you will be facing a boss fight at the end of the chapter. At the beginning and ending of each map stage, you'll get a story cut scene. Like with most action rpg game, you'll be hacking & slashing at the monsters while you make your way through each map stage. You'll also have other features such as magic to help you with your fights. For most of the time there's an arrow that pops up telling you in which direction you need to go in order to reach the end point of the map stage but sometimes the arrow can be hard to figure out since it disappear at times or when its pointing up or down you'll have a hard time sorting out where exactly is it that you need to go. The interesting thing to note here is that the main hero, Keldy, doesn't get any experience points like with most action rpg game. He doesn't go up in level at all. What does go up in level is Keldy weapon and magic level. Even Keldy max HP and MP can go up in level. This is base on Keldy collecting medals that monsters and objects sometimes drops or gives off as they are being attacked. Consider medals like getting experience points. The more medals you collect, the more experience you are getting. The thing to note here is that at the beginning of each chapter, Keldy weapon and magic level always start at level 1. So whatever items or levels you've manage to achieve at the end of a chapter will be erase when you start the next chapter. At the end of each chapter you will be graded with a rank by your performance base on certain criteria. Achieving a high rank would normally net you some extra lucres or money as well as possibly unlocking emblems. You can find out about emblems in the key feature down below. The game is pretty straight forward most of the time and there aren't any major puzzle solving in this game. You do need to do a few platforms jumping from time to time for certain map stages. If you don't really care about achieving any major rank at the end of each chapter than you can breeze through each map stage pretty quickly assuming you don't want to try and explore each map stage. The game itself is pretty short since most chapters only consist on average about 5 map stages. You can also repeat any map stage you want if you are unhappy with your performance on them but this is only assuming if you are trying to get a good high rank at the end of each chapter or if you miss out on getting something. Okay let's go over some of the key features in this game.
Movements: Outside of the regular run and jump movements, Keldy can perform other unique movements. You are looking at block, sidesteps, bash, dodge, front roll, sliding attack, and spin dodge & backstep. In all honesty however it's unlikely that gamers will remember the control movements of all these movements and they will just stick to the basic run and jump movements. Sword Actions: Keldy main weapon of course is his sacred vine sword. He can perform regular sword attack or do some combo attacks with it. This includes jump strike and downward strike. You can raise the level of the sword and all of Keldy weapons by collecting ATK medals. Whip Actions: The main purpose of the Whip is to allow Keldy to drag and toss an object or a monster. Tossing objects is a great way to panic nearby monsters. However the downside is that mastering the use of the Whip is actually quite hard and annoying. Slingshot Actions: The slingshot is the third weapon that Keldy has. Its default ammo is pebbles but the Slingshot main strength is being able to shoot of Elemental Spirit pebbles. The default ordinary pebbles don't do much damage but its main purpose is to do long chain combos. And of course shooting off different Elemental Spirits pebbles will allow Keldy to panic monsters so he can go in for a close attack. Elemental Spirits: Elemental Spirits are scattered through out each stage map. Once Keldy collect one they become Spirit pebbles that he can shoot off. These Elemental Spirits pebbles don't do much damage overall but their great strength is to allow Keldy to panic bosses and nearby monsters so Keldy can go in and attack without being feared of being attacked back. There is a limit on how many Elemental Spirit pebbles that Keldy can hold at once though. Faye's Magic: Keldy spirit friend Faye will help provide the magic for this game. Faye Magic comes in both recovery and stats boosting magic such as power boost and healing magic. The higher Keldy magic level is, the more magic selection Keldy can choose from. Medals: Medals can be obtain from monsters, objects, and chests in this game. There are three types of medals which include HP+ medals, MP+ medals, and ATK medals. The more medals you collect, the higher Keldy stats will start to increase that eventually he will achieve a level up on a particular statistic. The highest level that Keldy weapon, HP, and MP can achieve is level 4. Keys: During the gameplay or in certain stage maps you may need to obtain certain keys in order to unlock a door that is blocking your path. There are two types of keys and they are Ordinary Keys and Special Keys. You just pretty much need to kill certain monsters to get them to drop the keys. Panic Mode: When you throw an object at a monster you can send them into panic mode. Once in panic mode the monsters will be vulnerable for attack and will not attack back. There's actually a small timer countdown that appear over the monster head if it is in panic mode. During this limited amount of time, you can attack the monster as hard and quickly as you can to kill it fast and to gain medals and items from the monsters. Monsters that are in panic mode will give off more medals and items than normal. A high level of panic mode is called Crowning a monster. You'll see a little crown on the monster if it is crowned. During this mode the monster will drop off lots of medals. Ranks: At the end of each chapter you will be graded by an overall rank performance in the chapter due to meeting certain requirements. C rank is the lowest while S rank is the highest. Achieving a good rank will allow you to earn extra lucre as well as possibly unlocking more emblems for Keldy to equip at the beginning of a chapter. Emblems: Emblems are items that Keldy can equip at the beginning of each chapter that help boost or enhance Keldy stats or weapons to make the gameplay a bit more easier and fun. Keldy can equip up to 5 Emblems in total later on in the game. There are a lot of Emblems to choose from but there are only two ways to unlock certain Emblems. Some Emblems can easily be purchase from the General Store if you have the lucre for them while other Emblems require certain conditions to be met in order for those Emblems to be unlocked. You may even be required to replay the game a few times for you to unlock certain Emblems.
The only thing to say about the gameplay overall is that it was a good idea gone bad. The problem that lies within this game is the execution of these features that the game has. Sure being able to have lots of free style movement, lots of magic, able to toss your opponents or objects, and switching from third to first person view camera mode seem cool at first but making sure these features are done in a smooth way that is pleasant for gamers to use is the trick here. Simplifying things would have helped the gameplay out a lot. This is a basic hack & slash game and that should have stayed basic. You don't really need all these other movements such as front roll, sliding attack, sidesteps, ect. In fact most gamers would end up just using the basic hack and slash attack with a few jump movements now and than. Magic usage also should have been simplified. Since magic in this game doesn't seem to be a major factor other than to help heal and panic monsters, you don't really need so many magic selections that it becomes annoying having to scroll back and forth trying to pick the right magic during fights. Especially when the fights are done in real time that you don't want to get bogged down cursing at the controller for having to take away annoying seconds scrolling through useless magic to find the right magic that you need. Your heal magic is the only magic that you really need outside a couple of spirit magic that you need to help panic monsters. Another feature gone wrong is the ability to toss objects and monsters. This seems like a good idea but they made tossing objects and monsters very difficult. Most of the time you end up tossing the object or monster at yourself instead of where you want things to be tossed. The targeting system of this game is also horrifyingly bad. Whether you are trying to auto target something through first person view mode or third person view mode, 90% of the time you end up auto targeting some weird crap that you end up locking onto it and trying to unlock it to fix your camera view. Even if by mere chance you manage to lock onto the right target, trying to switch between different targets during lock on is very hard and annoying to do. The auto targeting is probably the most annoying feature in this game because it's probably the most useful feature that you need. Then you have the idiotic camera angle. Sure you can rotate the camera angle in 360 degree but when you are moving around in this game or jumping around to different places, the camera angle always pretty much ends up in a view that you don't like and you have to constantly try and steady the camera view to a view that you can use. Heck there are times when you character get knock down that the camera angle totally spin out of focus or zoom into a view that totally takes away the surrounding area that you have to try and figure out desperately on how to reset the camera view to a steady view where you can see properly again. You don't want this to happen during fights and this does happen a lot that it becomes annoying. It's like playing the game and having someone turn the TV screen off and you having to constantly turn the TV screen back on and then try to figure out your surrounding area again. Its just plain annoying that it takes away all the fun of playing this game. In terms of progressing and completing each map stage, these too end up more annoying than fun. Each map area has an unlimited amount of monsters re-popping constantly. Fighting isn't the problem but when you have to constantly keep fighting over and over again it becomes down right annoying, especially when you need a break from the fighting to figure out where to go and how to get there or trying to jump from one platform to the next. You don't want to be bother by a constant annoying attack from monsters that keep popping nearby. It would have been okay if the game would allow us to clear an area of monster first instead of placing an unlimited amount of monsters that keep popping up. It's this constant raid of monsters coming at you that you just end up rushing through each chapter map just so you can be done with it instead of taking the time to appreciate the gameplay and have fun. Having to rebuild your weapon and magic level again at the start of each brand new chapter is annoying too. I'm not sure why they thought it was a good idea to reset Keldy weapon and magic level at each chapter. Achieving a rank at the end of each chapter is a nice idea to get extra lucres or emblems but again the criteria to get any decent good rank is just too hard overall for the average gamer to do that it's pointless to try and achieve an S rank. You have to really love this game to try and want to achieve an S rank. Lots of good ideas this game has but in the end, poor execution on how these ideas are implemented takes away all the fun of playing this game. This was one of the most painful games that I had to try and finish up in a long time. I dare say I finish playing this game just for the sake of doing this review.
Score: 4/10
EXTRAS/REPLAY
Battle Arena Challenges
Most of the extras and replays features are base solely on the Battle Arenas and the various different difficulty level settings that you can replay the game again once you finish the game in Normal mode.
We'll talk about the Battle Arenas first. There are a total of 32 Battle Arenas. You won't be able to unlock all 32 Battle Arenas right away. Some Battle Arenas are unlock as you play the game in the various different difficulty stages while others can be unlock by finding the Glow Spot in certain areas of a map stage. You'll need to complete at least the Hard mode to unlock all the Battle Arenas. The Battle Arenas themselves don't have any actual effect on the storyline gameplay but they do provide a good source to make lucre (money) and for you to unlock more Emblems for your character to use. You basically have a time limit to clear out all the enemies of each Arena and achieve a certain rank to get as much lucre as possible. The good thing about Battle Arenas is that you can hatch your Pet Eggs that you find in the storyline gameplay and have monster pets to help you fight in the Battle Arenas.
When you first begin the game, you can choose between Easy or Normal Mode to play in. Once you finish the game in Normal Mode however, you than have the option to replay the game in Hard Mode. Ultimate Mode gets unlock after you finish Hard Mode. The game does entice you or provides you with at least some incentive for wanting to replay the game again in a more difficult mode by making sure that only some Battle Arenas can be unlock in the Hard Mode and giving you some extra Emblems for you to work with so that's a plus for you.
The other extra feature is the general store that you can purchase Emblems, Movie Clips, Music Clips, Pet Eggs, and Arena Objects with your obtain lucre. Being able to listen to the entire game soundtrack through Music Clips or watching all the game movie cut scenes through the Movie Clips is an excellent extra. Even purchasing the many different Emblems can even help make the replay game more enjoyable too. The general store is probably a better extra feature than the 32 Battle Arenas.
So in the end, if you are one of those rare players that actually enjoyed playing this game a lot than this game does provide quite a good deal of replay ability and extra features.
Score: 8/10
Let's get straight to the point here. Dawn of Mana is probably a one time play through game. Even though the game offers some replay capabilities, one would doubt that many gamers would like to replay this game again after their first time run with it. The average story and gameplay just isn't worth the time and effort to try this game again. Truth be told, I was just glad to have finished playing this game when it was all over and never really want to touch it again. Legend of Mana quality is something Dawn of Mana doesn't come close to. I wouldn't say this game was totally bad but it seem more annoying than fun to play this game. Best to leave this game as a rental game than a purchase game unless you can get it really cheap.
