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This article is about the game Sword of Mana. For the weapon, see Mana Sword. | This article needs additional citations for verification.
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| Sword of Mana |
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| | Developer(s) | Brownie Brown | | Publisher(s) | JPN Square Enix
NA Nintendo | | Designer(s) | Koichi Ishii (producer, game design)
Takeo Oin (director)
Kenji Ito (composer) | | Series | Mana series | | Platform(s) | Game Boy Advance | | Release date | JPN August 29, 2003
NA December 1, 2003
EUR March 18, 2004 | | Genre(s) | Role-playing game | | Mode(s) | Single player | | Rating(s) | ESRB: Everyone
PEGI: 7+
OFLC: G8+ | | Media | 64 megabit cartridge |
Sword of Mana (æ–°ç´„ è–剣ä¼èª¬, Shin'yaku Seiken Densetsu?, New Testament Holy Sword Legend) is an enhanced remake of the original Game Boy game Seiken Densetsu, which was released as Final Fantasy Adventure in North America and Mystic Quest in Europe. This remake was released on the Game Boy Advance in 2003.
GameplayAt the beginning of the game, the player is able to choose to play as the male lead or as the female lead, both of whom are named by the player. They each have a different quest, however the plot remains similar. Notably, the remake adapted many elements from the original game, which had their origin in Final Fantasy, and favored elements traditional to Mana games (for example, the chocobo was replaced by Cannon Travel). One notable exception to this are moogles, which do appear in the game. Sword of Mana was made to resemble the graphical style of Seiken Densetsu 3, but the artwork rather resembles that of Legend of Mana. There are nine weapons, each with one of three attack traits, and its own unique look. The female character starts out with a rod, and the male character begins with a sword. The player can accumulate more weapons throughout the whole game. There are also eight spirits to use. Each has an attack based on its element, and a support spell as well. Both characters get a variety of sidekicks who accompany them throughout the game. These characters may be used by the player in battle or allowed to run through programmable AI. These sidekicks are key characters of the story and often contribute significantly to character development.
CombatSword of Mana uses a real-time combat system similar to that of The Legend of Zelda. There are different times of day in which only certain monsters appear. Several weapons, such as swords, axes, spears, etc. are acquired throughout the game. Each weapon has an attack trait of either jabbing, bashing, or slashing. These attack traits help to determine damage done to enemies throughout the game. In addition to this, a deathblow gauge is included which, when full, allows a more powerful strike than normal attacks. A magical attack system is included as well, with elements such as light, fire, earth, etc., each affecting enemies in different ways. The magic trajectory differs for what weapon you equipped.
StoryThe stories of both the male and female lead characters are somewhat similar. For the male character, when he was young 10 years ago, both his father and his mother were killed as well as Lord Granz by Dark Lord. Before they died, his mother tells them to escape with the Heroine. While escaping, the Hero gets captured and was thrown into Granz Castle's dungeon and was turned into a slave to fight monsters everyday for him to survive. He hopes that he can avenge the death of his parents and defeat Dark Lord. He also wonders what happened to the girl when he got captured. At one time, he was talking to Willy (Heroine's friend) while in the dungeon that they would escape the castle just right after the daily fight-monsters routine. Another slave, Amanda, tells you to pray to the Mana Goddess for success. After the fight, unfortunately, Dark Lord caught them outside Granz Castle when the Hero jumped out of the bridge and into the waterfall. He is later found by Niccolo (possibly the one from Legend of Mana), who rescues him from a river while fishing. From here on, the Hero's and Heroine's stories become intertwined. For the female character, this happened at a relatively same time as the Hero's did. She is a citizen of Mana Village and part of the Mana Clan. She was to leave on a journey with Bogard when suddenly Dark Lord and his soldiers appeared. Her mother told her before they escaped that the Heroine has a real mother. The Heroine and Bogard escaped to Granz Castle, where they learned that Dark Lord burned down Mana Village. Then, the Hero's mother leads the Heroine inside this room and is told to rest. After a few hours, that's when the Heroine is waken up and is told to flee with the Hero. Now, she stays with Bogard in the Cascade Cottage outside of Topple Village. One day, Bogard asks her to gather up some information in Topple to see if there are any more Mana Clan survivors. While in the village, a boy asks her to do her an errand, to find a book in the village outskirts. She finds the book, and is suddenly attacked by Julius, Dark Lord's assistant. She then screams and the Hero comes in to save her. She thanks him and they both go together back to Topple to give back the book to the boy. The Hero doesn't realize that he was actually with the person he met 10 years ago. Their journey goes to the town of Wendel, to meet a sage named Cibba who has knowledge on how to defeat Dark Lord. They are road blocked because they need to break the seal to Wendel. So they come across Vinquette Hall, where they plan to stay the night with the Count Lee and a guest. It seemed that Isabella, the guest, knows the Count very well, so they don't need to worry about a thing. The Hero and the Heroine doze off, until the Heroine wakes up. She went to check on Isabella, but she was gone. Going downstairs, she sees a different looking butler, not the one that led them to their room. She follows the mysterious butler further inside Vinquette Hall. Meanwhile, the Hero also wakes up and finds that Isabella was also gone. He also sees a butler, but the same on that led them to their room. Both of them, trail the butlers until at a point where the Hero and Heroine fight the butlers inside a place full of coffins with Mana Women inside them. They defeat the butlers and continue further inside. The Heroine arrives at a big hall and finds Count Lee and asks him why is he putting Mana Women in coffins. He simply told her that he did it to protect them, somebody said that to him. The Hero then arrives, but after that, Count Lee turns into a vampire-like beast, trying to kill the Hero and Heroine. They defeat Count Lee, he tells them both that to acquire Undine to break the seal to Wendel. They leave the Hall and run into the woods. There was a familiar scene that happened while they ran. The Hero tripped, just like what happened to him 10 years ago while trying to protect the Heroine. The both of them suddenly realized that they were reunited after a long time of waiting. They continued on and acquired Undine, a water spirit, to break the seal to Wendel, and the Moon Mirror, to show the true face of some people. Arriving at Wendel, they find a young and talented singer named Lester, who happens to be the brother of Amanda. After he singing, he headed out to Granz Castle. They soon arrive at the Wendel Cathedral, to find Bogard and Cibba waiting. Cibba says to the Hero that the Sword of Mana can defeat Dark Lord. After a while, a big sound from above comes up which happened to be Dark Lord's airship. Outside the cathedral, the Hero confronts him but is thrown back into the cathedral, with the Moon Mirror, an item they acquired before getting Undine that can show the true face of some people, shattered. Dark Lord and Julius go inside the cathedral and asks to hand over the girl. While at that, Cibba, because of the Moon Mirror, saw Julius' face change into Vandole's face. The Heroine agrees to go with Dark Lord and is taken to his airship. The Hero, Bogard and Cibba were planning how to get to her. Cibba predicted that the airship would land at West Lake, so that would be their target. The Heroine is taken into a room where she would stay in until they reach Granz Castle. Dark Lord and Julius arrive in the room whn the Heroine asks where she is. Dark Lord tells her where and that there's no chance of escaping. Dark Lord asks the Heroine if she wants to join him but she refuses. They exit the room and Marley, a maid, enters the room. She tells the Heroine if she wants to go and sleep. The Heroine then does and upon waking up the next day, the airship shook violently. They then had to make an emergency landing on West Lake to figure out the problem. After fixing the problem and taking off, Marley suggested to the Heroine that she is allowed to read the books on a nearby table. She then does and senses a magical aura in one of the books. Upon reading the book with the aura, she finds a symbol like an asp in a page. Coincidentally, the closet nearby also had an asp symbol. Marley leaves and the Heroine tries to open the closet. She goes in and ends up in another room, where Isabella is staying. Dark Lord comes in her room and talks to Isabella and after a while, he leaves and the Heroine shows herself. Isabella notices her and tells her to keep distance from Julius. Exiting the room where Isabella was staying, a Realm Soldier noticed the Heroine. She asked to see Julius personally. Dark Lord with Marley and Julius were in the room she was taken to. The Heroine asks to let Marley go, and he does so. They talk about killing all members of the Mana Clan and so on. Dark Lord takes Marley out of the room, leaving Julius and the Heroine alone. Julius asks to the Heroine to hand over the Mana Pendant, the key to the Sanctuary, but she refuses to do so. He then casts magic to give him the key and she still wouldn't. Outside near the room's window, the Hero and Cibba were watching what was happening. Cibba enters and hits Julius with magic before he can do another hit on the Heroine. She throws the Pendant to the Hero, when Julius hit both the Hero and Cibba with magic, falling off the airship and landing near Menos Village. After that, a Realm Soldier takes the Heroine back to her room. She said to him that she could walk by herself. The soldier then takes off his armor and appeared to be Bogard in disguise. They fought their way to the airship's Control Room to destroy the engine which was guarded. They destroy the engine and the airship crash lands outside Menos Village. The romance between the hero and heroine blossoms.The heroine was to become the new mana tree as the mana godness was her mother.The hero is shown to vist the new mana tree(heroine)in the end with the sword of mana retrieved from subsea volcano, and returns it to its original place in the santuary.
DevelopmentWhile originally it was thought that it would feature multiplayer options, the only connectivity feature implemented was the ability to trade information in order to enhance the power of characters. As the game's box information does not reflect this, a number of potential buyers were left confused.
ReceptionSword of Mana received a score of 30/40 (7/7/8/8) in the respected Famitsu. In American reviews (as listed on GameStats), it received about the same types of scores: 1UP.com (01/07/04) 6.5/10 IGN.com (12/02/03) 7/10 GamePro (12/01/03) 4/5 GameSpy (12/01/03) 3/5 According to GameStats.com, the average press rating (21 source reviews) was a 7.1.
MangaSword of Mana has been adapted in manga form by Enterbrain..
References- ^ http://www.square-enix.com/eu/en/game/year/05-01/
- ^ a b http://www.gamestats.com/objects/487/487812/articles.html#reviews"
- ^ æ–°ç´„ è–剣ä¼èª¬ アンソãƒã‚¸ãƒ¼ã‚³ãƒŸãƒƒã‚¯ | æ ªå¼ä¼šç¤¾ã‚¨ãƒ³ã‚¿ãƒ¼ãƒ–レイン
External links- Sword of Mana official site
- Gamespot UK Sword of Mana article
- Gamestats' list of Sword of Mana reviews
| Mana & World of Mana series |
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| Final Fantasy Adventure • Secret of Mana • Seiken Densetsu 3 • Dawn of Mana | | Legend of Mana • Sword of Mana • Children of Mana • Friends of Mana • Heroes of Mana |
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