GuestLog in

Legend of Mana

Platform : PlayStation

Publisher : Square

Release date : 15 July 1999

Category : Role Playing

Game description

Legend of Mana is usually known as a love-or-hate title among the other Mana games, mostly for it's beat-em-up style battle system as opposed to the overworld style in previous games. However even if this idea turns you off it's still worth a look.

Legend of Mana is generally extremely open in that you can do anything in any order, and do any sort of varied quests you wish in most cases. However, completing this game 100% requires a lot of meticulous planning and order. You can also raise pets, manage a robot buddy, and forge equipment (which is an unexpectedly involved process).

The game takes place in a world that expands to include areas from mountain paths to toy graveyards as you obtain artifacts, and placement of these artifacts is one of the factors that adds into you 100% completing this game. The backgrounds and graphics in general are nothing short of beautiful, bringing the hand-drawn style in full force that we've come to know and love from Square during this period.

Battling is, as said before, akin to a beat-em-up where everything takes place on a 2D horizontal plane with 8 direction movement. You can fight by using magic and a variety of weapons with different abilities and speeds (Note that your initial equipment doesn't end up being too important of a choice and you can change anytime with very little detriment. Many do this for stat building reasons or pure preference) each with their own abilities, though a few are shared between them. Learning these abilities normally comes from using what abilities you have enough times until they're mastered, and combinations of mastered abilities will unlock others. You start with simple things like jumping and spinning to learning things like counterattacking, spear jumping, hammer spinning, dash attacks, all the hallmarks one would expect from their weapons.

LoM is a neat title, many will say it's the last "good" one in the series. It's also quite an interesting hidden gem of the PS1 library in some respects, as it's openness and replayability are qualities that only a few other games of it's type share.