Sword of Mana Review - GBA

A young man who's parents were killed by Dark Lord - the leader of the Granz Realm and killer of members of the Mana Clan, believers of the Mana Goddess - was thrown into the dungeons of Granz Castle and forced to become a fighter-slave, battling monsters each day with the hopes of surviving and, someday, avenging his parents' death by eliminating Dark Lord once and for all.

Gameplay

Sword of Mana plays similarly to Golden Sun, Breath of Fire and other RPGs but, as mentioned earlier, delves deeper into the genre and gives itself originality by utilizing new gameplay elements - you could even say that it plays similarly to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. The game's story sounds simple enough, but it can become quite confusing as more and more characters are introduced and you'll often find yourself fighting through dungeons and helping unimportant characters for no apparent reason. At the start of the game you can choose to play as either a Wonder Boy look-alike or a girl with long, curly hair. After that you must name your character so that he or she has an identity throughout the game. Each character is given their own personality in Sword of Mana as some use multiple connotations, such as the Hero's best friend, and some are very outgoing and brave such as the Hero of the game himself.

Instead of travelling to new towns and key areas via a world map, you must travel there on foot through the enemy-infested wilderness, which gives the game a touch of realism. Luckily, there is scarcely any backtracking in Sword of Mana, so you need not worry about travelling for hours to get back to a certain town. You'll often find treasure chests - which usually contain recovery items - in the wilderness so that you're able survive the onslaughts on enemies. When travelling in the wilderness the time of day changes when you move off the screen into a new area, but this has very little effect on the game and therefore seems a bit pointless. The day also changes, and this has a greater effect on the game; throughout your adventure you'll collect Spirits, small creatures similar to the "Djinn" In Golden Sun, and their powers will be more or less powerful on certain days.

While inside one of the game's many towns you can enter just about every building to gather repetitive and often unnecessary information from its residents, and to collect an item or two from the odd ... (continued next page)