Seiken Densetsu DS: Children of Mana

Originally Posted by Review

Way back in 1993, the Super NES action RPG Secret of Mana became one of then-Squaresoft's most beloved 16-bit titles. But then the series fell into inexplicable decline. The next Mana game never made it to the States, and subsequent entries released by the current incarnation of Square-Enix have never quite captured the same lighthearted hack-and-slash magic of the original on the SNES. Luckily, the Mana series (known chiefly as Seiken Densetsu in Japan) has yet another chance to shine with Children of Mana, a new DS game with the same aesthetic sensibilities and, hopefully, the same sort of action that made Secret of Mana such a winner back in the day.

The story here seems to be classic Mana and it is, of course, fully in Japanese. You start out by selecting from four characters, whose attributes in categories like strength and magic are fully displayed. We opted for Flick, the token well-rounded guy who's got reasonable skill in all categories. The other available characters naturally tend toward one extreme or the other. Once we selected our character, we were tossed into a whimsical forest village where not only the human residents dwelled, but also the eight classic spirits--such as Luna, Dryad, Salamander, and Gnome--who have defined the Mana series' magic system (and who will be quite familiar to series fans).

After speaking with the village authorities and experiencing a minor earthquake, we learned that something was amiss at a tower near the village, and of course it was up to our character to investigate the problem and bring back the village girl who was trapped there. At this point, you'll hit the game's world map, which really is just a map. It doesn't look like you'll be exploring any overworld-style areas in between towns and dungeons, since the starting town and our target tower were represented by icons on this map, and we could visit either one just by moving our character to the appropriate icon.

Once we got inside the tower, we found our long-dormant Mana skills being called immediately back into action. In other words, the core combat here feels a lot like the traditional overhead Mana games, like the original Secret of Mana or the more-recent Sword of Mana on the Game Boy Advance. You start out with just a basic sword, which you can use to pull off a rudimentary combo system, and you'll hack your way through floor after floor of familiar-looking enemies as you try to reach the top. Interestingly, you'll knock enemies around as you attack them, and they can bounce off of each other, so hitting one enemy into a group behind them can have some chaotic results.

The format of this first dungeon was quite straightforward, as you won't have to explore any mazes to find your way from floor to floor. Rather, you'll have to find a small brown egg of sorts on each floor and deliver it to a glowing portal, which will then teleport you to the next floor instantly. After we made it to the top and fought a giant phoenix, we were introduced to some of the combat abilities we'll have access to throughout the game, such as the ability to use not only the sword, but also a chain weapon, which can be swung around in a circle or charged up and shot in a straight line.

There seems to be a decent amount of RPG-like depth aside from the basic combat, too. You'll gain experience and level up as you kill enemies, of course, and we managed to pick up some new equipment, like a sword and new piece of armor, with specific level requirements for use. The game also has a gem-equipping system, whereby you'll collect gems of power during battle. You can then equip multiple gems onto your character to receive various stat boosts. Lastly, there's the magic. Before we headed off to the tower, we were able to pick one of the spirits to accompany us, and after we returned, we were able to swap to another spirit at will. Hopefully, later in the game you'll be allowed to carry multiple spirits at once, since commanding all of them is part of what made Secret of Mana a lot of fun.

Children of Mana is instantly recognizable as a Mana game, what with its cheerfully colored, hand-rendered backgrounds and traditional sprite-based characters. The art style is also consistent with past games in the series. From the friendly magical spirits to the classic enemies we encountered, it seems there will be plenty of elements that smack of the Mana franchise. There's also a surprising amount of full-motion anime-style video (not just during the lengthy intro movie, but also scattered throughout the storyline), which was created by legendary animation house Production IG.

So far, Children of Mana looks like a simplistic but faithful new entry in the Mana series that's heavy on traditional combat and storyline. It's also rather heavy on the Japanese text, so unless you just can't wait to check out the next installment in the series, you'd probably be better off waiting for the (presumably) eventual North American release. When that will happen is anybody's guess, but we'll bring you the first word when we get it. In the meantime, check out some new gameplay videos of Children of Mana in action.

Footage: 1 2 3 4 / Commercial

This game looks amazing. The box art is the one of the best I've ever seen, it's small on japanese, and it's big on adventure. Seiken Densetsu DS is a dungeon crawler, much like Azure Dreams or Chocobo's Dungeon. Battles are live, not turn or grid based. The interaction with the touchscreen is for potions and attacks, but I'm pretty sure that you're going to be using your finger instead of the stylus.

I have this on import, and play-asia's price is low at the moment. Even though there's some japanese in there, and japanese RPGs are difficult, this sounds quite promising. GameFAQs is slowly getting guides, and translations feel as if they're on their way. There's no official release date for an english release of this game, but it's one of those games which just appears as if it'll be internationalized.

Discuss.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Yep. Play-asia has it for $25, and last week it was only $20.

$20 for a japanese RPG Mana DS title? Yes please. Though it'll probably pay if I waited for an english release so I wouldn't need to use guides, I'm very impatient. The game looks fantastic from the footage I've seen, I could definitely see myself playing this title in japanese.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

(taken from my journal)

This is extremely import friendly. I haven't spent much time with this game either, only 42 minutes of gameplay, but I haven't come to a bump to the point where I'm stuck.

The basis of this game is, you start by choosing a character. There's the boy with long, red hair, the girl with the bow, the fat cat "wanderer" which I chose, and another which I can't remember at the moment.

After you talk around town, and when you're talking with someone in the far northern east building, someone comes in with a gem. He puts it on the table and everybody inspects it. Then there's a noise, someone else comes in, and alerts you of what's going on.

It's difficult to explain it since it's all in japanese, but yeah. You go outside, and at the top of the town is the Mana tree. There's a sign on the tree, which breaks into pieces. From then you're set to find out what's going on. You take the gem and leave.

Just before you exit the town, a bunch of summons (I really don't know what to call them, but they're in my signature) appear. You get to choose one to take with you. I chose the leprechaun which is in my avatar at the moment, and then the world map popped up. Moved, entered a dungeon, then the guardian gives you a slight tutorial of the buttons.

The buttons are really simple. Y uses any candy/healing potions, A is your main attack. X is another attack slot, but at the moment it's empty. There's gems at the bottom right of the screen, and after you've killed enough enemies, it'll be full. Pressing select unleashes this "Fever" mode that makes your attacks faster, stronger, etc. The L trigger allows you to designate what the Y button does, for HP or MP rejuvination.

The B button uses magic, and summons your guardian. I haven't figured out how to use it, but it basically appears, and vanishes, depending on when you release the button.

In each dungeon there's this orb/egg thing, which you pick up, and then there's this glowing panel which transports you to another level. All of this reminds me a lot of Azure Dreams. Pressing start brings up a menu with an option to escape from the dungeon. If you do, a rope appears, and your character climbs up it.

The start menu brings up six different options while you're in town. Off the top of my head, I can remember that the top right one is the status menu. The one below that is the inventory screen, where you can equip swords and items. I've already found a couple of swords, but they have a little "Lv. 5" to the right of them, and I'm only level 3, so that makes sense. The middle left option is the gem creation menu, which I know nothing of yet. The top right one is where you're able to save your game, and I can't remember what the button ones were at the moment.

Overall, Seiken Densetsu is very import friendly. I wouldn't say I'm playing it for the story, but the graphics are beautiful. Imagine a combination of Saga Frontier 2's artistic 2D graphics, in a Mana world. It's much like that, and the videos (I've seen all of them, trust me) don't really give this game justice. The graphics are really something. Speaking of justice, that's something that this small impression doesn't give Seiken Densetsu either.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Lacerta, you basically repeated everything I just said.

The music in this game is very relaxing and peaceful, I'd definitely like somebody to rip this if it were possible. I don't think there's an OST available yet (I haven't seen one on play-asia so far) so it would have to be a gamerip.

The battle system is great. Blocking attacks and having enemies ricochet around the dungeons is nice. The Gnome summon which I'm using at the moment is, apparently, an earth creature. It can sometimes give enemies the "no weapon" status, and it's main attack is an earthquake.

I'm playing as Wanderer (the fat cat) who is high on HP, yet low in everything else. I've worked out the gem system as well. On the left there's these slots where you can place gems into, and doing so gives attributes to your character. As you go through all of the dungeons, you'll find more gems which you can use to your advantage. It starts out as four slots, and it grows (it hasn't grown for me yet, but the back of the box shows a large amount of sockets with gems inside.)

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Neogin

It's a shame that the game won't release in the states for a while..

And who told you this?

I've heard nothing of Square Enix even thinking of taking this game outside of japan.

Most amazing jew boots

Originally Posted by Denicalis

It's a shame they decided to take this game the route of Legend of Mana instead of sticking to the genius of Secret. Legend was mindless combat with little interest. This game seems to play out the same way. Walk into a dungeon, slay some creatures then slay a tougher creature. Wash, rinse, repeat. Little in the way of story. God I miss Secret of Mana.

And how far have you played through Seiken Densetsu: Children of Mana yourself to come to this conclusion? That's right, don't judge.

Dungeon crawler. D-u-n-g-e-o-n c-r-a-w-l-e-r, spanky, can you say it? Chocobo's Dungeon and Azure Dreams are much alike this game, but I don't think that's at all a bad thing. Chocobo's Dungeon was awesome, and while I never did get to play Azure Dreams (lack of incentive at the time, or something) it still wasn't a bad game. The only negative thing about Azure Dreams I heard was that there wasn't actually over 100 levels, but something like 68, or 78.

I've recently beaten the eyeball boss, which is the second boss in the game. I've worked out the gem system, too. There's a gem translation at GameFAQs, which actually helped me in buying a red gem which allows me to attack with a "wave" of energy after the third strike.

Wanderer is pretty much the powerhouse character. High in hp, not very good for int/bow. I'm going to focus on strength, and defense. The menu where you can add gems to your little backpack scroll thingy (middle left selection on the start menu) also tells you the gem name and what it does, which can be matched with the gem translation guide so you know what the gems you've picked up actually do.

The status menu I've also figured out. On the right, it follows downwards like this: Intelligence, Magic Defense, Defense, Skill. That's under the "MP" in blue. I still like Wanderer, and I think my strategy of sticking with non-elemental and a bruteforce attack character will pan out pretty well. All I need now is levels.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

http://www.gamekult.com/tout/actus/a...000047990.html

Looks like this game, along with Final Fantasy III's remake and a few other games are going to come outside of japan. This only means I'll be buying Seiken Densetsu: Children of Mana over again, but it's worth it. I'm really enjoying this game and I'd definitely play it again. So far I'm little over five hours in.

Although the english version isn't going to be much different, when you think about it. The box art will probably be different, and the only real benefit will be that you'll be able to understand what the gems do without a translation. If there's little story, which there appears to be, then an english version doesn't really matter.

By the way, anyone know what the people located top right in the middle left house do? I've recently figured out that the third option in the middle left house, top, is to increase your amount of items you've carried/personal upgrades. I still don't know what the boxes in the equip menu do (the last items, in the bottom, below the rings).

FELIPE NO

Before:



After:



Way to butcher the box art. It could be worse, but the original is obviously better.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?