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 Sword of Mana, released in 2003 for the Game Boy Advance, is the fifth game in the Seiken Densetsu / Mana series. In fact, it's a remake of the series' first game, Final Fantasy Adventure (in Japan, Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden; in Europe, Mystic Quest), a complete overhaul combining the action RPG gameplay that made the series famous in Secret of Mana (and refined in Seiken Densetsu 3) with the striking visuals and atmosphere that made Legend of Mana stand out. It's a combination of the best the series had to offer, and because of it, it ends up...being rather mediocre and ended up foreshadowing the inevitable death of the series. The story is roughly the same as Final Fantasy Adventure's tale of a hero that has to fight evil to protect a girl descended from the legendary Mana Tree, though it expands thoroughly on it (for better or for worse) and even lets you play the game from said girl's perspective, making her role much more important than "Love Interest McGuffin". It has the same story beats yet plays out completely differently despite the same things happening. It's kind of weird how it happens, but you'll see what I mean. This Let's Play will be three playthroughs, roughly simultaneous. The first (Hero) will play it roughly straight, focusing more on story and ignoring much of the side-stuff to make things relatively challenging (though Sword of Mana is still an easy game). The second (Heroine) will go into exploiting the game's various insane mechanics to break the game in half while examining the story content unique to that branch. The third will be a simple playthrough of Final Fantasy Adventure to compare and contrast everything that's changed from the original to the remake. Funnily enough, Final Fantasy Adventure got another remake this year, Adventures of Mana for iOS, Android, and Vita, that is essentially a straight remake of FFA except with 3D graphics, upgraded music, enhanced dialogue, and touch screen controls. Otherwise it plays identically to FFA, warts and all. I don't have a good way to play this unfortunately, but I'll bring up what dialogue differences I remember (because gently caress playing the same game four times simultaneously). Updates will be erratic, this LP will be long, and by the end I will thoroughly hate myself. Expect the usual array of music, GIFs, and boss videos.  Tag Spoilers! Lurkers can track my updates on Twitter. Update Banners will designate which playthrough the update focuses on.  Final Fantasy Adventure Sword of Mana (Hero's Path) Sword of Mana (Heroine's Path)TABLE OF CONTENTS          
Mega64 fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Jan 21, 2017 |
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Dec 10, 2016 21:09
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Reserved.
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Dec 10, 2016 21:09
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  Brownie Brown has worked on a few games here and these besides Sword of Mana. They're probably best known for creating the Magical Vacation/Starsign games, though they've worked on several other Nintendo games as well, including Mother 3 and several others. They also did Heroes of Mana, a RTS game set in the Mana universe (yes, really). I heard Square Enix had a big release recently, but considering how many Final Fantasy titles they pump out it's probably no big deal. Click the below for music.    This is a key theme with this series. There's always a Mana Tree and a Mana Goddess.  This is also a common theme. People lose faith in the goddess and the power of mana, and it's up to the heroes to restore faith. Usually it involves beating up the bad guys trying to use mana for bad, though sometimes it involves throwing random junk out in the middle of nowhere to create entire towns and dungeons so you can do odd jobs like sell lamps to dog men to help a centaur gently caress a siren. Unfortunately, this falls in the former "beat up the bad guy" camp.    Mana is a powerful thing. Which is weird because magic usually is kinda underwhelming in these games compared to the crazy damage your weapons can do.   In Japan the series is named Seiken Densetsu, which translates to "Legend of the Sacred Sword". The Mana Sword is considered the ultimate weapon in the series, though generally it's as much a McGuffin as it is an actual weapon. Still, considering it's mentioned in the intro and considering the name of this game, there's no doubt that we'll be seeing it at some point during the game. In case you're curious, the Japanese name for Sword of Mana is "Shin'yaku Seiken Densetsu", which translates to "Legend of the Sacred Sword: The New Testament". Alright, then.  Every story in this series involves a hero or group of heroes collecting the power of Mana to gain the power of the holy sword to defeat those who threaten the fate of the world. Except Legend, that one's about helping a rabbit con a sentient teapot. I really like Legend of Mana.   And so here we go!    For now, all we can do is New Game.  This game lets you play as either a boy or girl. They follow roughly the same path, though there's a lot of parts where they diverge into separate paths. Thus I'll play as both through the course of this Let's Play. Otherwise, they're functionally identical other than their primary weapon. The Hero gets a sword, the Heroine a staff.   Finally, we get to name our character. You'll end up naming the character you don't choose later on in the story. Before we get to that, though, I'm going to go ahead and jump to the Final Fantasy Adventure portion. Generally I'll keep these two separate, but FFA's intro is short enough to throw it in here.   Final Fantasy Adventure was originally released as "Final Fantasy Gaiden: Seiken Densetsu" in Japan. In Europe it's known as "Mystic Quest", which certainly is not confusing considering the existence of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.   This is the very first game in the Mana series. Many of the staple story beats of the series originate here, though most other things the series is famous for originate in later games like Secret of Mana.   This is an early Game Boy game, so the story is very simple. This can actually be seen as a blessing once we get into how Sword expanded this game's story.   Unlike Sword, in Final Fantasy Adventure you can only play as the male protagonist. The female protagonist serves as an NPC and has a much reduced role overall. You can still name both of them, though. In the instruction manual, the man is named Sumo and the woman Fuji. In the other remake for this game, Adventures of Mana, these are the official default names for these characters as well. As far as I'm aware, there's no defaults for the Sword of Mana protagonists. With that, let's name our characters! * FFA has a limit of 4 characters, Sword has a limit of 6. * You can vote to have all three playthroughs use the same names, or each one use different names. If you do the latter, make sure to clarify which playthrough you choose for names (Hero, Heroine, FFA) * Bold your votes to help me out. I'll roughly choose the names with the best votes, though I may veto them if I don't like them. Otherwise, go hog wild! Voting will end whenever I feel like it. Mega64 fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Dec 16, 2016 |
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Dec 10, 2016 21:09
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Can't wait to see how this one turns out. I was pretty interested in seeing how they compare. Also, you're crazy.
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Dec 10, 2016 21:27
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Mega64 posted:Updates will be erratic, this LP will be long, and by the end I will thoroughly hate myself. Speaking as someone who tried playing multiple Mana games multiple times, including Sword of Mana before I gave up in disinterest, yes. Yes you will hate yourself. Mega64 posted:Thus I'll play as both through the course of this Let's Play. I'm pretty sure deep down, you already hate yourself if you're willingly going to play it twice  I guess in that vain, I'm voting both FFA and SoM characters to be Hurt for the boy and Pain for the girl.
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Dec 10, 2016 21:28
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Let's name the boy R66-Y and the girl Mana and the original Mega.
Bozart fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Dec 10, 2016 |
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Dec 10, 2016 21:30
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FeyerbrandX posted:Speaking as someone who tried playing multiple Mana games multiple times, including Sword of Mana before I gave up in disinterest, yes. Yes you will hate yourself. Gonna try to be fair for this LP since it's been a long time when I last played, but I really don't like Sword that much. It'll be fun to do a LP of a game I'm actually critical of, at least I hope it will be. And if not at least I'm also doing a LP of a good Mana game. 
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Dec 10, 2016 21:32
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Let's name the boy Ben after Benjamin of Mystic Quest fame. I guess that makes the girl Phoebe. No opinion on the original game names.
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Dec 10, 2016 23:11
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Let's name the boy Ben after Benjamin of Mystic Quest fame. I guess that makes the girl Phoebe. This, and use the default names for the original.
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Dec 10, 2016 23:23
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Let's name the boy Ben after Benjamin of Mystic Quest fame. I guess that makes the girl Phoebe. ultrafilter posted:This, and use the default names for the original. MagusofStars fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Dec 11, 2016 |
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Dec 11, 2016 00:41
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I've played Sword of Mana and while everything sounds good the problem is that the game ends up getting bogged down in it's progression. It tries to do a Metroidvania style 'here's somewhere you can go once you get a powerup later' deal but the game's levels are not really set up to make that seamless.TooMuchAbstraction posted:Let's name the boy Ben after Benjamin of Mystic Quest fame. I guess that makes the girl Phoebe. Benji and Phoebe for this reason. Default names for the original too. Sumo is great for what happens there 
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Dec 11, 2016 01:05
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Going to add a vote for Ben and Phoebe for the Hero path, for variety's sake going with Reuben and Kaeli for the Heroine path, and with Dion and Faye for the FFA path. ...or should I go for the whole set and vote for Tris and Tam...
Twilkitri fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Dec 11, 2016 |
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Dec 11, 2016 01:35
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Mega64 posted:In case you're curious, the Japanese name for Sword of Mana is "Shin'yaku Seiken Densetsu", which translates to "Legend of the Sacred Sword: The New Testament". Alright, then. Toss in another vote for Ben and Phoebe for Sword of Mana on my end. I'll stick with the default/Sumo for the guy in FFA, but for the girl, I'll pick Jenn. Fuji doesn't seem like a good default to me.
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Dec 11, 2016 02:33
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I'll be uncreative and say to name the new characters Rock and Roll.
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Dec 11, 2016 04:36
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Let's go with a boy named Bob, a girl named Dole, and the original hero called Wins.
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Dec 11, 2016 05:37
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Hero playthrough: Duran and Angela Heroine playthrough: Kevin and Carlie FFA playthrough: Hawk and Lise
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Dec 11, 2016 07:51
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Trasson posted:Hero playthrough: Duran and Angela ... yeah okay I've gotta vote for this.
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Dec 11, 2016 08:27
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Trasson posted:Hero playthrough: Duran and Angela Voting for this Also tossing my own knowledge into the manaphile pool: Heroes of Mana takes place before SD3 and was their attempt at making a unifying storyline with the Mana games. Yes, really. It didn't work out, but Heroes of Mana has a character encyclopedia, and two of the characters are explicitly called, "The parents of Hawk." Hawk himself gets an encyclopedia entry as "The hero of the game that takes place after this." quote:In the instruction manual, the man is named Sumo and the woman Fuji. In the other remake for this game, Adventures of Mana, these are the official default names for these characters as well. As far as I'm aware, there's no defaults for the Sword of Mana protagonists. You're correct, there's no defaults... but they did make a novel and manga adaptation! And had them cameo in the cell-phone gatcha card game, Circle of Mana....with different names from everything else, "Duke" and "Elena." Sword's fine, just...a bit trying, at times. The AI's flat out dumb and I expect will be the source of a lot of frustration.
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Dec 11, 2016 10:09
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Hero, Heroin and FFFA, respectively.
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Dec 11, 2016 13:31
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Oof. SD3 sounds great and is pretty thematic, but I'm ending up leaning toward team Mystic Quest. I'm going to combine suggestions and go Ben/Phoebe for the Hero run, Kaeli/Reuben for the Heroine run, and Sumo/Fuji for the FFA run. I'll start the first update shortly and should hopefully have it up today. It'll be all dialogue, of course. Expect lots and lots of dialogue... Also on a technical note I do plan to stop using Tindeck for this LP since it's on shaky ground and pretty outdated in general, but I'll be using it temporarily since I'm having issues with LPix's MP3 hosting. Once that's resolved I'll go back and fix the links.
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Dec 11, 2016 15:08
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Lyrai posted:Also tossing my own knowledge into the manaphile pool: Heroes of Mana takes place before SD3 and was their attempt at making a unifying storyline with the Mana games. Yes, really. It didn't work out, but Heroes of Mana has a character encyclopedia, and two of the characters are explicitly called, "The parents of Hawk." Hawk himself gets an encyclopedia entry as "The hero of the game that takes place after this." Do you know what the theoretical order of the games is?
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Dec 11, 2016 17:09
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 Sword of Mana's naming screen is weird. In order to delete a letter, you have to press B to cancel out of the name menu, navigate to the backspace key (the Re arrow), and then hit A on that. It's cumbersome and needlessly complex for a naming screen, especially since FFA's name screen is an intuitive "A to pick a letter, B to backspace". It may seem weird that I'm ranting about such a minor thing, but it also sums up rather perfectly the design philosophy of this game. Anyway, for the Hero's playthrough we're going with Ben, after the canon name of the protagonist from Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.    Then the goddess appeared. In her left hand, she held the light of hope, and in her right, the Sword of Mana. The goddess summoned spirits to assist in the creation of life. Finally, to maintain peace, the goddess cast away the sacred sword. It is said the sword rusted the moment it left her hand. The goddess then transformed herself into a great tree that would sustain and watch over the world.  Bog-standard Mana creation myth. This will all become relevant in time, but that time is not now.     I could practically see the Mana Tree...! Your voice is so unusual... It's like I'm dreaming. Thanks for your praise, Ben. Your words are magic--and a great encouragement. Magic, you say? Not at all! I'd rather hear you tell me your story... about how the Gemma Knights defeated the evil Vandole Empire! Unfortunately... I cannot sing songs about myself. Why not!? I wanna know the truth! They get the story all wrong. Hahahahaha! A story's just a story. No matter the truth, no matter who tells it, it's still a story. Oh, I just remembered...we have a lute at home. I'll go get it!  Sword opens with your bog-standard childhood jRPG village storyline. I think you can probably already tell what's going to happen.    The consul might be angry if you dawdle. Dad won't be mad. Today's my singing lesson with Lord Granz! Wow, I'd heard that Lord Granz quit singing after he lost his lute. Nuh-uh! Lord Granz hasn't quit singing! That entire scene existed only to establish that most believe Granz to not sing anymore, which... we could have done that in the previous scene. Something like "Oh wow, Lord Granz! I heard you didn't sing anymore! I'm suprised I heard you sing just now!" would've worked fine. As you'll soon notice, Sword of Mana is not one for brevity in its story. It's in that terrible spot in handheld RPGs where games had evolved from the forced simplicity of the Game Boy era (as we'll see with Final Fantasy Adventure) and the later handheld era which had stuff like built-in sleep modes and more player-friendly design in general. In the GBA era, we get games like Sword of Mana where the writers feel compelled to have a rather dense script with little substance, much like my commentary right now.  SILENCE     This is Granz Realm Consul Hermann's estate! So what? Because he's consul, we should allow him to harbor heretics? Most certainly not! But Sir Hermann is a friend of Lord Granz! To suddenly barge in with soldiers seems unthinkable! Sir... Are you telling me to step aside!? At the very least, let us get Lord Granz's permission. It's thanks to him we enjoy peace now! Leave if you object. I have my ways. And that's that.  This is the first of several scenes that show us how laser-focused Dark Lord is on his objectives. It's not a bad scene, but considering we'll get scenes like this at least twice more in this update alone, they didn't need to ram it down our throats as much. At any rate, we're not going to waste any time on the "Tragedy falls to protagonist's childhood home" storyline, at least.    We have guests. Dad! Big trouble! We're surrounded by soldiers! What? Dark Lord's sinister plan to infiltrate the consul's home is to...enter the front door.   As a servant of the Realm, surely you know the consequences of harboring heretics!  This masked man is the one who burned down Mana Village! This man is insane! Now, Prince Stroud--I mean, Dark Lord--surely there must be... This can't be true... I vividly remember how Vandole used them to pull the wool over the eyes of the entire nation. I won't allow you to protect them! Of course not! I'm not one to protect subversives! If things are as you say-- That Granz...  If you've got something to say, let your sword do the talking....Pph, pph, pph? That's the sound they're going for with the villain? It makes it sound more like he's blowing raspberries.  Put your sword away, please!  The idea that the Mana Clan are heretics is simply laughable! I don't know what excuses you'll make. But your sins are severe! I'll make you pay! Pay? You're the one who'll pay, Bogard! What? Knowing all you do, still want to play hero!? I'll show you! I'll show you the truth! Traitor! Protect Dark Lord!  So far, we've learned that Dark Lord is really into old-fashioned religious purging and that this Bogard guy is quite good with a sword. But we're not done yet!  I don't know! Prince Stroud mentioned something about the Mana Clan being heretics...! I have no idea! (Go out the back! Take Ben and the girl... Don't let anyone see you!) Y-yes!   Ben's dad is sacrificing himself to save this girl. She must be important if Dark Lord wants her dead and Hermann is willing to die for her safety, right?    What...? What's wrong...? Where's Sir Bogard...? No time to explain! Who's she...? What's going on...? Keep quiet! Just get going! I'll deal with them!   Go! Quickly! But Ma'am... No, I won't! You come too! You're a big boy now. Take care of her!   Prince Stroud is such a nice man. I'll tell you all about it later.    -----        For once I was havin' a pretty sweet dream... Until you interrupted!This is Willy. You'll probably grow to hate him.  Hey, Ben, what kinda dream were you havin'? Want me tell ya what it means? I pick Yes because why not.  I hear they're a lot tastier than ya might think! A girl... A chick? ...Whoa! The same one as before? I couldn't protect her... Only I was left... She... After that, she... Aw, get real, will ya? It wasn't your fault. What couldja do?  We're continuing the Mystic Quest train by calling the heroine Phoebe for this run.  Phoebe!? Did you say Phoebe!? Nah, nah, can't be. Ben, after we're outta here, ya can tell me the whole story. In detail! For now... just hold that thought....How did this not come up before? It's just been established this is not the first time Ben had this dream, and he's even brought it up before with Willy. It's not like they're short on downtime considering they're loving prisoners.  Hah! I got extra. And it's primo stuff. I mean, I'm sure she's alive. No doubt about it. Ya wanna see that Phoebe chick again, right? I'm gettin' pretty interested in her, too!What the gently caress Willy.   You're not still thinkin' about escapin', are ya? Hmph! I'm serious this time. One of the soldiers told me. Your last escape plan was a disaster! Another escape plan? Oooooh, yeah! Seems there's a way out through the monsters' holding cell. He's pullin' your leg. Last time, they even punished US with no food for a week! The guy's legit, I swear! Ya believe the guy 'cause he gave ya bread? Song? He sang this sad song.  Pffft! You wish!  ...This game goes some weird directions with its humor.  Hey, actual gameplay! Not that we can do much right now. We get location, day of the week (more on that later), and the ever-classic ring menu made famous in Secret of Mana. It's a quick way to access your menu and change weapons, cast spells, and use items without having to go to a Final Fantasy-style menu.  Right now, we only have a sword. During the game we'll get a variety of different weapon types.    The stat menu lets us get better detail on our weapons and armor, set NPC behavior (useless because NPC AI is even worse than you're probably expecting,) and look at character stats. You can see weapon and magic levels as well as general stats (Mind is magic defense, Agility affects evasion and critical hit rate, rest are obvious) and money.   Beat monsters, show the crowd the "beauty of agony and pain," and go on living. Even if ya could escape, it's hell outside...  Don't make me laugh.Oh yeah, there's also this named woman that was hanging out in the background. How does a prisoner get such elaborate clothing and such a huge flower?   Goddess statues serve as save points in this game. If they're gold, they'll also heal you. If we talk to Amanda again... You can get the Mana Goddess's protection by praying at the statue. It's a good idea to get her protection whenever you can. But don't let the Realm soldiers see you!This lets us trigger the next cutscene.  SILENCE  But first, a word from our leader. Welcome, Dark Lord.  Your daily struggles are appreciated. Heretics still prowl outside the towns, but have no fear!  (If that's what they are, let's get them!) (After all, they control Mana power, right? Pretending to be weak, they're just like the Emperor Vandole.) A victory led by our own strength. Are we not more powerful than those who rely on the Mana Goddess's strength!? Without any effort, not breaking a sweat, wanting only glory for themselves. Will people such as this be victorious!? The Emperor Vandole was manipulated by Mana power and was destroyed! Let us not make the same mistake. We must be of strong mind and heart!  Tales of the three Gemma Knights from the Dark Age of the Empire are old news now. Do not rely on legends! We must shape our fate by our own hand.   We really, really could've skipped most of that. All this scene does is cement that Dark Lord's anti-Mana rhetoric now resonates with the common people, something we could gather from townspeople later in the game. I know the writers probably envisioned some grandiose speech impressing the player, but it just feels like more padding in a game that's clearly in love with the concept of "more is better".    I HOPE YOU DIE  Why am I getting screen tearing in a loving GBA emulator. I haven't had this problem in my past two GBA LP's.  So are you going through with it? You bet! Let's do it, Ben! Notice that soldier sprite isn't wearing a helmet and in fact has a rather familiar face...     Meet the first enemy of the game, the Jackal.   The bottom bar represents your Deathblow gauge. More on that later since it's not relevant to the fight.   It's hard to lose this one. Simply press A to attack. If you time your presses rather than mash like an idiot (like I do in the video) you can get off some simple combo attacks. You may also notice Willy running into a wall for the entire battle. This is perfectly normal AI behavior, don't worry too much about it.  The Jackal only has two moves. One is to swipe you if you get near him. The other is to go up to the top of the screen and charge straight down.  Sometimes you get critical hits, which display as a larger number when they trigger.  Also the jackal explodes when you kill it because it's a video game. CHEERING  Now's the time! Play it cool and smile at the crowd! Gotcha!  oh dear god    And now we finally escape. WATER FALLING   We're really gonna get outta here! Mana Goddess and Granz, hats off to ya! We can eat till we hurl! Ben, whaddaya wanna do?   I'll admit, some of this game's attempts of humor can actually land.  I know that name too. You do??? Yeah...but I'm not sure whether the Phoebe you're talking about is the same Phoebe I used to know or not. Okay, yeah. That's it... Let's go to Topple! They have lots of Mana believers. We can talk there. Okay. So we're off to Topple!Keep in mind that the general populace kinda frowns about talk about Mana and the Goddess due to Dark Lord's fanaticism. Also in case it wasn't incredibly obvious, Willy is a pretty devout believer in Mana and the Goddess.  ...Which makes it rather inconvenient that Dark Lord decides to show up all of a sudden.   Uh! We, um...just wanted some fresh air! Out with the bad air, in with the good. Aaaah, that'll do me... Whaddaya say we head back? When's the next bout!? Good fighting skills, smart enough to escape. Too bad you're slaves. How about it, you two? Why not work for me? We're short on Heretic Hunters. Well, I, um...  And Phoebe, too... Murdered? What do you mean? The law is the law. Even the laws I made are out of my hands--they've been set into motion. There's no point bellyaching to me. Do what you want, Willy. Go be a Realm soldier. But count me out! The lawless prefer the sword to the law. I can play it that way, too. Come on! SUDDEN SILENCE   Pride comes before a fall, foolish fencer!    ...Yep, this is really going to be a long LP. Mega64 fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Dec 16, 2016 |
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Dec 11, 2016 18:33
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So it's basically the Golden Sun of the Mana series. Looks like Stroud's going through his Goth phase.
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Dec 11, 2016 21:24
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Mraagvpeine posted:Do you know what the theoretical order of the games is? All we know is Dawn of Mana is the start, followed 10 years later by Children of Mana, and then somewhere else Heroes of Mana takes place immediately before Seiken 3. Scuttlebutt was that if World of Mana took off (it did the opposite) they were going to remake everything into the timeline. My own theory as to the timeline - spoilered because it has bearing on this LP, is that Secret is Last, taking place an unknown time after AoM.
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Dec 11, 2016 22:53
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Lyrai posted:All we know is Dawn of Mana is the start, followed 10 years later by Children of Mana, and then somewhere else Heroes of Mana takes place immediately before Seiken 3. Scuttlebutt was that if World of Mana took off (it did the opposite) they were going to remake everything into the timeline. I kinda checked out of the Mana series when Children/Dawn/Heroes came out, but sounds about right from what I remember. Legend is a completely separate thing as well. I enjoyed Secret of Mana a decent bit as a kid, wasn't a huge fan but it was fun. Liked SD3 a lot, Legend alone made the Mana series my favorite for awhile, and then things cooled down after Sword came out and the whole "World" thing popped up. They really took the series in a weird direction at the end, especially from the little I've played of Dawn (and of course Heroes the RTS).
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Dec 12, 2016 02:17
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Wow I am dumb, I haven't played this GBA game. The game I was thinking was a weird remake of the original was Children There is definitely a critical over-density of plot here though. The tons of use of greyscale Flashbacks reminds me of SD3, except that game had the decency of keeping those to around a minute tops.
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Dec 12, 2016 02:29
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Mega64 posted:I kinda checked out of the Mana series when Children/Dawn/Heroes came out, but sounds about right from what I remember. Legend is a completely separate thing as well. Please don't play Dawn. It's so awful. Listen to its soundtrack, the 4th disc of it is nothing but remaster/rearranges of classic tracks but the game itself just does not work.
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Dec 12, 2016 02:37
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Wasn't Dawn the one with the really annoying fairy and levels that only went to three and reset constantly?
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Dec 12, 2016 04:04
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The Mana series is kinda weird with continuity in that it actually has multiple continuities. Like, Adventure/Sword here happen before Secret, but are unrelated to Seiken 3 and Legend (and I think all the others too), meanwhile Heroes is the prequel to Seiken 3 but those are the only games in that line. Basically some of the games are related but not all are, and it is kind of confusing. I think the only one that completely stands on its own is Legend though. I remember playing this game quite a bit as a kid, and while I never beat it (same case for most games I played back then) I do remember liking it quite a bit. Though It still couldn't compare to SD3 in my mind, which is still one of my favorite Super Famicom games, and my favorite Mana game. It really sucks that SD3 is still the only Mana game without an English name and release. Also it is worth mentioning that the original director for the Mana series now is working at Grezzo, which recently has been doing work on some of the portable Zelda's and is currently making Ever Oasis, which looks very similar to the Mana games.
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Dec 12, 2016 04:31
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I played FFA over and over again as a kid, but I never really got into Sword of Mana. I got to At the time I remember liking that they were trying to humanize Dark Lord a little bit, so I'm interested in seeing where it all goes.
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Dec 12, 2016 04:47
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Mega64 posted:Why am I getting screen tearing in a loving GBA emulator. I haven't had this problem in my past two GBA LP's. It ain't the emulator. This game has all kinds of strange visual glitches that a commercially-released GBA game from a large company really shouldn't have had. Sprite layering in particular is a complete and utter mess. Sword of Mana is complete garbage and I feel bad for the artists who clearly put in a lot of work that the coders didn't bother to match. sethsez fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Dec 12, 2016 |
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Dec 12, 2016 05:58
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FFA remains the only game that I ever called the Nintendo help 900 number for. I'm pretty sure everyone who played it can guess the reason why. I remember being really excited about Sword of Mana but getting bored with it pretty quickly. I'm interested to see where it goes, though if the writing quality stays the same, I'm probably not going to like it.
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Dec 12, 2016 06:07
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sethsez posted:It ain't the emulator. This game has all kinds of strange visual glitches that a commercially-released GBA game from a large company really shouldn't have had. Sprite layering in particular is a complete and utter mess. Ahahahahaha. Of course it's the game.
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Dec 12, 2016 11:01
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Final Fantasy Adventure is one of my favorite games, despite its repeated attempts (the last being successful  ) at murdering my old Gameboy. Luckily, I first played it during the internet era so its most infamous puzzle didn't phase me too much. So, when I heard about Sword of Mana, I was tickled to drat death. I was a huge HUGE fan of SoM, FFA, and LoM so this was big. I downloaded a Japanese rom of it soon after its release and played through the heroine's story without a hitch despite not knowing a word of Japanese. It. Looked. Awesome. I couldn't wait to understand what went on in the expanded hero and heroine's stories! And then I bought and played it in English when its US release happened and my reaction went from  to  . I played through the entirity of the heroine's story and the first third of the hero's story before I fizzled out. There were some aspects of SwoM that I really liked at the time, but overall... I wanted to like it more than I did. I'm curious to see how all that holds up.
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Dec 12, 2016 11:55
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I've seen a few of these LPs pop up and none have finished. You do know there's a reason for that, right Mega?
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Dec 12, 2016 14:40
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Oh man. This sure is a game. I played a bunch of it when I was trapped in my haze of "any GBA games I could find regardless of quality", and even then I couldn't finish it. I wish you luck.
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Dec 12, 2016 16:03
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Oh, I remember this! I played Mystic Quest to death so when the remake came out, I got it for my GBA just to see what changed. I played the heroine-path until I got stuck in some kind of volcano near the end and just kind of stopped there. Sword of Mana taught me that remakes are poo poo. Also for some reason the more I played it, the more I wanted to go back to Mystic Quest, or weirdly enough, Legend of Mana. Probably because I consider both those games as far better. The original Mystic Quest might be a simple game, but it's also a streamlined and fun experience, even today.
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Dec 12, 2016 17:45
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Thirding the experience of loving Final Fantasy Adventure and being underwhelmed by the sequel. The story of FFA was actually really good for a Gameboy game, it's surprisingly dark and tragic. Sword of Mana turns good villains into misunderstood and misguided persons who nobody cares about, it's awful. FFA is the best Gameboy game, on account of it's story, gameplay, and music. This is the one area where Sword did not screw up, the music is pretty good in this. I'm glad that you are linking the pieces here. The best Mana game is SD3, which makes me especially disappointed that apparent fans of the game wanted to name the McGuffin girlfriend of FFA, whose only role is to heal the hero, after the best character in Seiken Densetsu 3. She definitely doesn't deserve Lise's name, Carlie would have been a better fit  One thing though, I actually liked using magic in Sword of Mana. But only with the heroine, for obvious reasons.
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Dec 12, 2016 23:17
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 Lise and Hawk are the only ones to fit into the four character limit.
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Dec 12, 2016 23:22
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 00:01 |
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Trasson posted:
Right, I totally overlooked that  By the way, that's the third Sword of Mana LP I've bookmarked here on SA, so I hope third time's the charm and this one finishes? Good luck, Mega!
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Dec 12, 2016 23:25
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