Mana thread

[Anonymous No.3930574]

Was thinking about getting into this series, which order should I play them in? What are the best ones?

[Anonymous No.3930593]

>>3930574
>which order should I play them in?
Any order you please, really. They're all loosely connected.

>What are the best ones?
SD3 and Secret of Mana if you ask me.

[Anonymous No.3930624]

>>3930574
Legend of Mana is kino. Play every single one up to Dawn tho.

[Anonymous No.3930629]

>>3930574
Play order is not really important as the story connection is vague if present at all. The series are tied by themes and aesthetics.

The first four games (the /vr/ ones) are widely considered the best ones.

Final Fantasy Adventure has two remakes, Sword of Mana on the GBA and Adventures of Mana on Android and ios. Sword is too convoluted (Adventure was a extremely simple game, part of its charm really) so if you have issues getting the GB game or don't like the black and white screen I'd suggest Adventures of Mana as it's the exact same original game, only with revamped graphics.

Secret of Mana has a very underdeveloped story and the gameplay is severely broken not only in difficulty but also in things like just getting around (your companions' AI gets stuck everywhere). It's a really fun game if you're playing with friends, which you can do on the SNES, and the graphics and music are really nice. If you're going to play single player only I STRONGLY suggest you get the Android/ios port unless you really hate playing on mobile or something, because it fixes all the AI issues and it controls a lot better, the menu is better, your "ship" controls better, it actually got the fix it needed. If you speak a language other than English, you will extremely benefit from this port too because every single other language has a much more robust, detailed translation.

Seiken Densetsu 3 for the SFC/SNES has an English patch, one of the oldest and most popular patches actually, and it's a blast because the story heavily changes depending on who you choose to have in your party. Gameplay wise you can tell it tried to fix Secret of Mana's most noticeable issues, but it added a few of its own too. Great game anyway.

Legend of Mana is very loose and the story and is more quest/scenario based. You build your own world map and take whatever quests you find. A very different experience, but also my favorite.

The rest of the games range from mediocre to lame.

[Anonymous No.3930732]

>>3930629
SD3 gameplay is horrendous though. This attempt at action in RPG is a failure for me.

[Anonymous No.3930747]

>>3930629
>Sword is too convoluted

Care to elaborate?

[Anonymous No.3930759]

>>3930747
Not him, but I found Sword got bogged down by too much item farming which made the whole thing feel kind of grindy. Maybe not a problem for everyone but I wasn't a huge fan of it.

There's a ton of that in Legend as well though which was his favorite, so maybe that's not what he was talking about.

Also weird nitpick but time cycles by changing screens so there were often times trying to get certain items you're walking back and forth and every couple of minutes it shifts between night and day. Made the whole thing feel strange.

[Anonymous No.3930981]

>>3930759
Not him, but I feel like they tried to cram too much of Legend into FFA, when it didn't really fit too well. Legend has a much bigger scale, and more freedom, so you have more room to experiment and grow. FFA is a linear game, so you're constantly trying to move the story along and get better things simultaneously, which means something like the trees, equipment upgrade system, and spirit obtaining doesn't work that well, especially when sub-quests can easily get permanently lost or become unable to be fulfilled because you moved the plot and can't go back to that area.
Also, I hated the way spirits worked. I couldn't find any of the ones past the initial of each you get. I didn't try too hard either, I'll admit, but they should have had a different system set up regardless, because having a level 1 heal at the end-game was total bullshit. Even the magic stat didn't make it much better. Also, the "job" system was interesting, but because of how it worked, you would have no idea what the fuck you should be doing, and could very easily miss out on it entirely. In addition, actually using it forces you to stick with only a handful of weapon types.
Looking back, I appreciate Sword's ambitions, but I think they should have applied those to a new and different game, and just kept the simplicity of FFA, while refining the action, music, graphics, and difficulty.
UNLIKE ADVENTURES OF MANA WHICH IS A FUCKING SICK JOKE. JESUS CHRIST EVERYTHING LOOKS AND SOUNDS LIKE SHIT IN IT. THEY EVEN MADE THE BOSSES EVEN MORE OF A FUCKING CAKE WALK.

[Anonymous No.3930985]

>>3930981
>Not him, but I feel like they tried to cram too much of Legend into FFA, when it didn't really fit too well.

Yeah that's a good way to put it. I even think Legend gets bogged down a little with all it's scope, shoehorned into a game as small as remake of Seiken1 was way too much.

[Anonymous No.3931007]

>>3930985
Yeah.
The thing with Legend though, is that there's much more ways to go about it. In addition, it's even easy to get lost in it, but by doing so, you still have plenty of time to experiment and play around with the systems.
FFA1/SD1 is much more fast-paced (at least in comparison), plus, while the bosses pose at least some threat, the enemies are all pretty pathetic, so you never really have that much of a need to do so many upgrades, job systems, etc. Also, I feel like some of the story changes in Sword feel a little odd, all things considered, but mostly because of how they're juxtaposed by the story that DIDN'T change.
As I said earlier, I now think it probably would have been more successful as its own game. If anything, it could still have homages to SD1, and maybe even other Mana games as well (beyond the few it already had). Maybe something like how Final Fantasy Dimensions was. Basically a side-entry/love-letter game that plays like a main entry.

[Anonymous No.3931017]

>>3931007
>In addition, it's even easy to get lost in it, but by doing so, you still have plenty of time to experiment and play around with the systems.

Ohh definitely. I'm just saying that even with that game it was almost a little much, so with Sword it just plain didn't work. Aside from the combat, I love Legend a whole lot. But I played through Sword once and it left me with no desire to ever do so again.

Still way better than Children of Mana. That this was a fucking abortion of a game. I think I only beat it out of pure masochism. It got worse and worse but I kept pushing hoping something would click or suddenly get interesting. No dice.

[Anonymous No.3931030]

>>3931017
>Still way better than Children of Mana. That this was a fucking abortion of a game. I think I only beat it out of pure masochism. It got worse and worse but I kept pushing hoping something would click or suddenly get interesting. No dice.
Holy shit, same.
I honestly thought "Hey, cool. A new mana game where I don't have to wait 50 years to hit something after I hit something!"
Too bad they just made everything an HP sponge instead, and also make extremely boring dungeons and bosses to top that off.
Plus a narrative that feels like it goes nowhere, an awkward ass version of the Navi Customizer system from Megaman Battle Network, and characters I couldn't give a rat's ass about. Even the music was shoddy. Shoddy music. IN A MANA GAME! What in the fuck.
I never played Heroes of Mana, but I heard that wasn't much better.

[Anonymous No.3931045]

>>3931030
>I honestly thought "Hey, cool. A new mana game where I don't have to wait 50 years to hit something after I hit something!"

I swear I'm the only person on earth who likes SoM's charging system. But yeah, that was my take on it as well. Also never played Heroes. I don't really trust the series at this point. If another comes out that gets crazy praise I'll look into it, otherwise there's too much other stuff to play out there.

[Anonymous No.3931063]

>>3931045
I don't mind the charging system on lower levels, but having an 8 level charge is ridiculous.
I prefer Evermore's 3 level max charge, though I felt that having the max charge reset for each new weapon was dumb.
I feel like SoM's basic attack system shouldn't have been so cruddy either. I just want to hit something, I shouldn't have to wait to do that after each swing. Just make the basic attack weak, without making the player have to wait on it. Hell, I figured that's what the charging system was for to begin with. That's why I don't even use the charging most of the time, because basic attacks were sufficient most of the time (when not spamming magic), and you had to wait on those to begin with.
On top of that, you're getting spell locked or knocked out of your charge by enemies anyways, which makes charging feel counter-productive.
Don't get me wrong though, I like the Will Attack system from FFA, but I don't have to manually charge that, since it does so automatically, and regardless of whether I'm being hit or not. In addition, enemies aren't constantly dodging or blocking physical attacks like in SoM to where it feels like a dice roll whether something will even hit.
I think this is why SD3 did what it did. Sort of an inbetween of the two. You still had to wait for normal attacks, but there was a good payoff for attacking, in the power attack and charging the meter. Plus, with characters like Kevin and Hawk(eye), you can get two hits instead of one, so even impatient chucklefucks like me get some payoff. That being said, someone like Duran (and I think Lise/Rise to a lesser extent, I never used her) still has a good single swing for a heavy hit, meaning you don't even have to hit as often. Angela and Charlotte are mages, so I guess it's understandable that they're not good at physical combat.

[Anonymous No.3931084]

>>3931063
>Just make the basic attack weak, without making the player have to wait on it.

I think the idea was to get the player away from just spamming it, instead forcing them to think about each swing. I like it, but I get why it's put down a lot.

[Anonymous No.3931312]

>>3931084
I understood that when I first played (years after the release) as well, but at the same time, like I said, the system is counter-intuitive especially given how magic works against the player.
In addition, I feel like making the player deal 0 damage with spamming is a bit cheap. At least let it do 1, especially with all the dodging and blocking. Granted, not every enemy did those actions, but I remember it happening often enough to be notable. It also happened regardless of whether I used a low-power normal attack, full-power normal attack, or even a charged attack. The only way I could 100% guarantee damage was attack magic (as in not element-weapon buffs, but direct magical assaults), and that was if the element used was effective.

[Anonymous No.3931538]

The series has some top-shelf waifus. Enjoy.

[Anonymous No.3931698]

I don't know why they have stopped to make SoM as like they were in the begining. After SoM1 and Seiken densetsu 3 they have ruined the serie by every time changing what made those game good. You know even Legend of Mana sucked in my opinion, the game wasn't fun they have preferred to make a shitty sandbox instead of a real rpg.
I can't judge the 3D one on ps2 because I've never played it, but i got Children of Mana and it's by far the worst one.

[Anonymous No.3931729]

>>3930574
"""J"""RPGs are shit don't play them

[Anonymous No.3931754]

I started with Final Fantasy Adventure and would recommend it. It's a really fun game and makes the jump to Secret of Mana even better as it feels like the same gameplay except way better.

[Anonymous No.3931823]

>>3930629
>>3930981
>Adventures of Mana
yeah

[Anonymous No.3931836]

Can we talk about Sword of Mana or nah?

[Anonymous No.3931854]

>>3931823

[Anonymous No.3931865]

>>3931836
It's an "honorary" retro game.

[Anonymous No.3932061]

>>3931836
>Sword of Mana
That game has the most fucking depressing story ever of all SoM franchise ever.