[DS] Seiken Densetsu DS: Heroes of Mana

Name: (Seiken Densetsu:) Heroes of Mana
Console: Nintendo DS
Genre: RPG
Japanese release: March 8th, 2007 (out now).
American release: Summer 2007

Cover scans:




Heroes of Mana (known in Japan as Seiken Densetsu: Heroes of Mana) is a real-time strategy role-playing game developed by Square Enix for the Nintendo DS video game console. It was revealed in the September 2006 issue of Famitsu magazine. The game was released on March 8, 2007 in Japan and will be released in the U.S. later in the summer of 2007.

The game takes place 19 years before Seiken Densetsu 3, and features an all new cast of characters, as well as a few returning heroes from Seiken Densetsu 3. There is multiplayer wireless support, however the Nintendo Wifi Connection service is restricted to downloading new maps and missions. - source

I'm skeptical of this game myself. Children of Mana was pretty mediocre (and I'm a huge fan of the dungeon crawling genre) but we'll see.

Discuss~

How ya doing, buddy?

Gonna suck? Probably. Awesome soundtrack? You betcha!

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Eh? I thought it was good no? I mean it isn't the next Seiken Densetsu, but as a S-RPG it's good enough. Definitely looking better than CoM.

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

I'd give anything to have a good Mana game again. Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3 are two of my favorite games ever, but since then, the games have gotten progressively worse.

Considering that they are completely abandoning the game play that made those two games good...let's just say I'm not getting my hopes up.

(So baffled as to why they have been completely unable to make a good followup to SoM and SD3.)

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

Seiken Densetsu fans are becoming the new Sonic followers. Game after game I pray maybe this next one will revive some of the glorious heights of 2 and 3, and game after game it's either just really bad or completely unrelated entirely (and bad).

As a concept the game doesn't sound as offputting as one might think, but I'm afraid it'll turn out as one-note and monotonous as Children of Mana. So much wasted opportunities

I was speaking idiomatically.

Well, it's nothing spectacular (it's no AWDS that's for sure), but it's not a pile of crap either. Great soundtrack though.

I'm not really fond of using the heroes in battle, since they have pretty subpar stats for being heroes and if they die then it's game over for you.

At least it's better than Ys Strategy -_-

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Tactics of Mana would have been a more apt title than Heroes of Mana.

The art looks pretty badass, can't say the same for the game though.

FELIPE NO

Oh hello old thread I created awhile ago.

Apparently, this game has been released. Neat. Do tell me if it's any good, yeah? I'll check it out sometime shortly anyway.

Here's the US box art:



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

I'll try it out in a few minutes, maybe I can drop a line about it later.

EDIT: 30 minutes in, I could explain a little about it. I suspected the game would work like Luminous Arc or Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, with Turn-based combat on a 2D grid. That's not the case, as Heroes of Mana feels more like an RTS. For each Stage/Chapter you have a stage, in 3D on which you can move around. You select units and move them with the stylus, and there's no grid neither a restriction on how long you can walk, since it isn't turn-based. On every stage you have the "Nightswan", which is your airship, and inside it you create different buildings to summon different units. For example, you build a certain building to summon Rabites, which harvests two types of resources in the game. Building units costs resources.

However, during the stages certain events takes place and you always get a "winning condition" which you must fulfill to complete that specific chapter. After each chapter, you find yourself inside your ship (Nightswan) on the world map. Unfortunately you can't move around freely (yet?), but you can watch some battle results, save, or proceed with the story.

The graphics are as expected, neat sprites which we have come to love from the Mana world and character artwork looking as it usually does in Mana games. The 3D-maps look great, with different altitutes, roads, trees and such in the terrain. I think it's a bit too early to throw a comment on the music, but the first few songs I heard sounded very Mana-ish. Reminded me of Secret of Mana.

Controls works wonders. One of the major disappointments in the game Luminous Arc was, if you ask me, the stylus controls. In Heroes of Mana, it just works great. You quickly get a hang of menu's and such, and moving units around couldn't have been easier.

I look forward to progressing in this game. Hopefully, it will last longer in my DS than Children of Mana~

(I haven't tried the Multiplayer functions yet)

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Anyone planning to pick up this game today might want to wait until Sunday. MSRP is $40, but Best Buy will have it on sale next week for $30.

Thanks to Cheapassgamer, even if Circuit City is suing them.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I'm pretty sure all Circuit City did was subpoena them for personal information on a member of the site. Maybe it's progressed in the week or so since I heard that, though.

But shit, 40? I'll wait.

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

Yeah, you're right, I misspoke. Still, subpoena or lawsuit, there's still plenty of lawyers' fees involved.

I agree, $40 is steep for a game. I've got a $15 gift card for Best Buy, though, so it's no big deal to me. I was going to use the 20% coupon that Toys R Us has this week, but I think I'll pick up Luminous Arc instead, since I'm in serious need of a new DS game, and I don't want to wait until Sunday.

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Shit, I was on the fence about getting this game at $30, but I'm sure not getting it at $40. I'm not even a big RTS fan anyway, so I'll most likely just wait for a more permanent price drop.

Also, no real online multiplayer blows. Who really cares about an online leaderboard? If a crappy semi-RTS like LostMagic can have online multiplayer, I don't see why this game couldn't.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Children of Mana upset me. As much as I liked it, it ruined my expectations of how good this one would be.

Unfortunately, the same problems that plagued the previous version dragged on here, and made it even more confusing... I'm not too sure that I'll be getting this one.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

The leaderboard on here serves two purposes:

1) Randomly you can download items for something... not sure what exactly but randomly items can be downloaded.

2) Download a challenge map every week and try to be the "best". If you win in the week you are given points. These points allow you to buy items that are not in the main game.

It's not a very good game*, but it certainly has great music. It's more of a Warcraft 3 type of thing with the Leader (hero) system than other RTS games I am used to. If any leader dies it is pretty much game over, so a majority of your time is spend raising goons to zergrush the enemies. Equipping the heroes with items that you get from the leaderboards and finding or beating chapters makes them able to stand longer in battle, but they still aren't good enough.


*By that, I mean for a Mana game it's not very good. However as an RTS on the DS it is decent. It proves it can be done anyway. Holding B to fastfoward (which isn't too fast but is faster than the default anyway) is what I do almost all the time.

FELIPE NO