Hey Cred Forums, do you like Legend of Mana? How about the Mana series as a whole?

One of my favorite games of all time. I spent so much time on my golem and pets.

>sword of mana and children of mana were boring

I fucking love it, except for the fact that it's practically impossible to do all the quests without a walkthrough.

I haven't played the other games, but I've really been meaning to try Seiken Densetsu 2 and 3 along with Terranigma.

I played the hell out of Sword of Mana when it came out. I'll never forget when I beat it for the first time, I had in-school suspension and they isolated me in a tiny room with the printer. I just played SoM on my GBA SP using my binder as a cover and then pretending to do work whenever someone came in to use the printer.

Also I'm playing Seiken Densetsu 3 right now, went with Kevin, Angela and Riesz. I'm almost to the point where I can change classes finally.

Sword of Mana was my shit

OP here. I was like 10 years old when I used to play LoM and I loved it. Finding out new things all the time was amazing. It was very chaotic though. 90% of the time I had no idea what I was doing and that whole terraformation system is something that I didn't fully understand.

I remember that the more you did things in the game the more your tree would grow. A friend of mine's got a bigger tree than I did and we did the same shit. We had no idea why it was different. Another thing that I remember being annoying is the lack of control over your second character. I had to play with a friend or else the bunny guy would do some stupid shit.

I looked it up on the internet and it seems like what people really remember about this game is how chaotic it was. You had no idea what was going on most of the time.

Chaotic is a perfect way to describe this game

I try to jump into it every now and then and I am just lost the majority of the time. I really want to dive into it sometime though.

>it's practically impossible to do all the quests without a walkthrough

This. I was watching a video about the game on youtube and the guy said that even if you follow a walkthrough, the results will be different sometimes and you'll have no idea why.

Legend of Mana is, without exaggeration, my favorite game. I fucking love it to death. I go through it like once every year. The music, art style, characters, customization for combat stuff, and everything is just perfect.

Which is somewhat of a bummer because apparently it's an oddball in the Mana series. I tried playing other Mana games and none grabbed me in the same way. The atmosphere of LoM is just so fucking good. The way everything plays out feels like you're just traveling the world, meeting weird but fun people, and going on small, mostly isolated adventures. No other game is like it from what I've seen.

The combat is super broken though. Once you realize 90% of enemies and bosses get stunlocked by repeating the first part of any weapon combo, the game's difficulty just melts. Especially with the spear. Poke once, wait half a second, poke again, repeat until the boss is dead.

I distinctly remember playing, beating, and thoroughly enjoying Legend of Mana, but I could not tell you one thing that happened in the entire game's confusing ass story. I fucking loved the art work though.

A game full of side quests that did side quests right.

>spend like 20 hours making a perfect 2h ax

The smithing process only took doing like 90 steps in the right order.

Definitely my favorite game as well, though I like to wait a couple of years between playthroughs so I can come in more or less fresh and enjoy everything all over again.

I've yet to really find another game that does what it does with the same level of quality and depth. Weirdly enough I think Crystal Chronicles gets pretty close, though not quite close enough.

The world was fragmented, due to the events from Seiken Densetsu 3 if I recall. You were basically finding parts of the world and putting it back together, restoring and reviving the Mana Tree in the process.

I didn't like how they handled the second player in Legend of Mana. Felt less like two people playing an RPG together and more like one guy gets to be the bitch Tails to your Sonic.

It's weird. There was a time when I'd restart every couple of months. One time, in the second-to-last quest in the Daena/Escad arc, Duelle just offers to teleport me straight to the final fight.

No walkthrough makes any mention of it, and people on forums were completely clueless about it. In hindsight, my best guess would be that it had to do with the day of the week you did the mission on, but if the game made minor changes based entirely on that, it'd be fucking CRAZY to list them.

>Weirdly enough I think Crystal Chronicles gets pretty close, though not quite close enough.

You're not even wrong. Crystal Chronicles also had the same sense of adventure and smaller, more contained story lines and character interactions. It also had a similar atmosphere in that both had you going through the countryside and small villages most of the time.

Wow, both even have the same issue in that they're a bit of a confusing mess to actually complete.

>We had no idea why it was different.

You guys chose different starting areas and placed areas differently. To get a perfect game you had to max out a worlds mana level and where you placed them and what you placed them next to altered the mana levels.

Secret of Mana 2 is god tier and an absolute shame is wasn't released here.

The game has 3 main story arcs. The Dragon arc with Larc that ends up fighting that dragon emperor guy. The Jumi arc with Pearl and Elazul that ends up with the Lord of Jewels fight. And finally there's the last arc with the half demon guy that you fight as the last boss which was basically a Romeo and Juliet type story. The last arc is the one that I have the least memories of since it was so convoluted and I didn't like any of characters associated with it.

It has pretty bangin' music
youtube.com/watch?v=W_bUAQvOk0Q
youtube.com/watch?v=Elu5LoFiiXE

Anything after SD3 is shit, so Legend of Mana is shit. Legend of Mana looked pretty and had amazing soundtrack but everything else about it was lackluster.

alright, I want to replay this now. haven't touched it in probably 5 years, and I didn't get terribly far then either.

should I follow a walk through or would that make it less satisfying? I'm afraid that contributed to me dropping it last time, but I don't want to fuck up too bad

Now that I looked it up, both were produced by Akitoshi Kawazu, which might explain some things.

Also looks like I might need to give the SaGa series a shot based on his track records with various games I've liked.

Sword of Mana was boring and the story was lol. Better just to stick to the original or the remaster version of Final Fantasy Adventure.

I would follow a walk though in the sense on where to place objects. That way you can do everything in one run. Do everything else by yourself.

>both were produced by Akitoshi Kawazu,

Go fucking figure. No wonder I had an obsession with Crystal Chronicles too.

It's actually not very hard to finish the game without a walkthrough. The real issue is completing all the quests since some of them have hidden requirements to do so. The easiest way to finish it is probably the Larc's route since he's always in the same place so it's pretty easy to start the next quest in his chain to the end.

It's the least "secret of mana" of the series. Composer, writer, designer, director all different from 1-3.

Half the fun is in discovering shit for yourself in that game. Like said, if you really want to get everything on your first playthrough then it's fine to use a guide for object placement on the map. But otherwise just go at it.

aren't there missable side quests if you don't do them in the right order? i might be misremembering. if i could just look at a placement map that would be great.

>all these people saying LoM is their favorite game

What the hell? You people never talk about this game here. Actually the Mana series is barely ever mantioned.

Thanks for the info. I remember actually liking the Romeo/Juliet storyline now that I think about it. I think it's time for a replay.

Don't you also have to keep the kid in your party quite a bit so you don't miss out on meeting all of the big hero guys for his quest?

I could swear some of them can get locked out if you don't find them before certain quests.

There are threads for it rarely. But they're always fun threads. Problem is there's very little to talk about other than yeah, the game is fantastic. Especially since LoM is a weird entry compared to other Mana games.

I do when it comes up in stuff like PS1 or old JRPG threads, but without new content you can't really keep up a discussion about it.

There's almost always a Mana thread at all times in /vr/

No. But this one is underrated. If only it were less repetitive. Everything about it is A grade but the problem is that everything's a fucking damage sponge and taking away the building gauge made it a pure mash-fest.

>Current Year
>We STILL don't truly know what's the best material for each weapon

Back when I first played it, people were claiming Altena Alloy couldn't get its elements raised that high. Now, formulas are getting it just as high as Adamantite or whatever it's called.

Mana is more or less dead. Children and Dawn made sure of that, and Square's focus on "Lightning Only" lately has helped none. I really enjoyed Legend of Mana, but while it has a ton of content, there isn't really anything new about the game to discuss.

I thought there was some type of wood you could minmax for the best weapon for every weapon.

Not really. The bird guy, if you miss him in his limited appearances, will still be there at the end of the game at the entrance to the tree of mana. I think the only quest that can be truly missed was the one where you hatch the bird in hometown domina if you break the egg by talking to it too much. Well outside of the ones where you miss out on the mana requirements to activate them that is.

Not quite, but that fucking bird's availability is AWFUL.

I tried playing it and got kinda far. The game's beautiful, but the combat is just so easy and spammy. There's supposed to be lots of depth but what's the point if the game is so easy?

It depends on which weapon you were making. I'm fairly certain that different weapons had different best materials. The better metals did more damage, but the better woods could raise magic stats, for example.

>Encountering your first monster egg
>Visiting older areas to find new quest lines that just seemingly appear
>Taking the kids in and letting them live at your house
>The entire moment when your cactus buddy runs off
>Trying to avoid every crab or crush as many as you can
>Following the specific path set out in the toy junkyard, and then learning about what the toys are
>Fighting each of the dragons in Larc's story line
>Having someone just pop by your house and they unlock robots, instruments, and other cool stuff
>Getting an orchard set up
>Wandering each of the cities
>Solving murders with the detective

Fuck man, LoM was amazing.

But then I remember exploring the one tower, the hell palace in Larc's story line, and trying to figure out how in god's name the smithing system works.

I fucking found out years later that you could do the dragon arc with Sierra instead of Larc and also that quest where you become the knight of Esmeralda only to have that girl popped by that thief lady, kind of sad senpai

Mana threads are rare. SoM is probably my fav game from my early childhood.

I bought that game on a whim and it was okay. Sort of disappointing compared to SoM though

Also I've tried playing LoM like 2-3 times and I have no idea what to do so I drop it a few hours in. One of the most confusing games I've ever played, but I really want to try to beat it someday.

played it on emulator some five years ago, I got lost in some big jungle area and then stopped playing. Fun game though.

Man was she an OP partner.

The start of the game is weak and the story is uninteresting, but about halfway through (after the god awful Ice Citadel that initially made me drop it for 7~8years) there's several side plots that get to going and I became immersed and interested in seeing what happened next. Can fuse certain gems and do a lot more damage so it's more bearable to play, and in general the last 4 areas make the most of the game's mechanics and don't have retarded gimmicks like slippery floors, moving floors, spike floors etc

>Encountering your first monster egg
>Visiting older areas to find new quest lines that just seemingly appear

This. There was no internet back there and I didn't buy magazines, so suddenly having a little Pokémon in a game that was a regular RPG till that point was totally mind-blowing. When I came back to old areas and found new stuff it just blew my mind as well.

Yeah it seems like a really fun game that's mostly side quests. I wanted to try to make it to the point where you get lots of cool stuff at your house but didn't have the patience.

lil cactus still makes me emotional
same with the toys in the junkyard

>Synchro immediatly maxes out your attack gauge
Were they TRYING to make her the most stupidly overpowered thing in existence?

I have the fondest memories with Legend of Mana.
Dawn of Mana is the prettiest looking game on the PS2 for sure. Shame that looks is all it's got going for it.

Vanillaware style Legend of Mana remake for the Vita when?

>Vanillaware style Legend of Mana remake for the Vita when?

That would be the comfiest thing.

>you could do the dragon arc with Sierra instead of Larc
Wait what?

>Legend of Mana with Vanillaware food
We can only dream, user.

Legend of Mana is one of my favourite games, but I'll admit it has some flaws. I think most stat systems are obtuse. I could never quite figure out how to properly build a character and had to refer to a guide.
Also, trying to 100% the game is a nightmare. It really helps that the game has some of the best visuals and music of the entire generation. If there is any world I'd want to live in, it's this one.

I thought it looked interesting (whichever mana came out around 2001) but I was more into golden sun.

Wait, what. Wasn't the whole thing that you were with Larc for every mission but the last, then you & Sierra save the day?

There are other ways of doing this?

What the fuck happened to this game? I remember seeing trailers for it even after the PS3 was out and getting fairly excited about a new Mana game. Apparently it's trash, like most of the series after Legend.

Just started a new game for the first time in 14 years. Wish me luck. I have no idea what I'm doing.

>I could never quite figure out how to properly build a character and had to refer to a guide.
What?

You just used moves in battle to unlock new moves. All the weapon attacks were available from the start. From there, it was just magic (use whatever you like), equipment (pick the biggest ones), and feeding fruit to your critters. Golems were complex but just tossing whatever decent equipment you had lying around would generally give you an awesome enough one.

Agreed about trying to 100% the game. It was far too easy to end up missing a quest, and some quests relying on certain locations being next to other certain places made it that much harder.

>remaster version of Final Fantasy Adventure

looks bad but Im biased since I love sprites
not the guy your replying to, but I also liked Sword of Mana a lot

>You just used moves in battle to unlock new moves.
I could have sworn there was more to it than that. What I remember was that you had to switch around different equipment to get optimal stats, because using a spear for example would give you more of a one stat, but less of another, so you had to follow a chart or something.

it's havok physics the game
you grapplehook shit and fling it around

oh and every level forces you to grind experience to level yourself up from Lv1 every time

Actually there is a bit of character building if you care enough to try to min max it. Each weapon gives a different amount of stats per level up so if you really wanted to, you could try to optimize your stat gains by switching weapons every 3 levels I think it was. Of course this is a minor thing since overall your stats don't count for much of your damage output compared to weapon smithing.

nope, it's a prequel to seiken densetsu 3. It's due to the events of dawn of mana. A terrible game based on physics.

Disregard. I thought you were talking about children of mana.
the world is fragmented in legend but it's unrelated to seiken 3.

I feel like Legend of Mana is one of the better beat em ups out there, and the story is really nice too. It's one of those games you can replay many times over, make slight alterations, and discover something a little new each time. Plus, the huge variety of weapons is awesome, as are the special moves you can unlock in different ways.

It's a shame there hasn't been a similar game made. I'd love some kind of remake or spiritual successor in a similar vein to LoM, preferably with online play.

Hell, while we're at it I'd like a new CC game with online as well. Obviously, the sense of comradery isn't the same as with couch multiplayer but the option would be very welcome.

Man LoM was a clusterfuck. Especially to throw a young kid into. So much shit just isn't explained in the slightest and trying to do everything was a nightmare even if you had a guide. Some seriously obtuse shit. But damn did that game have fucking atmosphere and amazing music. Game really felt like real fucking FANTASY too. It was all surreal as fuck. Also was this boss theme not fucking bad ass or what? Every boss fight was hype as fuck.

youtu.be/Elu5LoFiiXE

Hmm, I thought each game just followed up after the previous ones. Secret of Mana was a followup to Final Fantasy Adventure, where your were the Legacy of the Mana Knights and the last remaining Mana Tree was in danger. I didn't recall the plot to SD3, but Legend of Mana was piecing the world together. Children of Mana involved going out into the newly pieced-together world, clearing out the dungeons which were established due to how the Mana Tree was revived/tainted in Legend, and I didn't even pay attention to Dawn of Mana.

That's really one of the big shames about the series. Each new game continued to just progress the "timeline" and add to what was happening, rather than just revisiting the same events over and over.

>You will never get a group together to go do boss fight missions in the Toy Junkyard with.

>Yfw Biting Lizard

Secret of Mana is my favorite game of all time. The only other Mana games I've played are Secret of Mana 2 and Secret of Evermore.

he always scared me as a kid

It's true. There's a retarded stat growth system that chages according to what you equip.
And of course, the game made it so 1H swords got the best benefits because Japan.

She made me hard

...

What? You could have Sierra, that dragon girl as your AI bro? this game i swear

I replayed it 5 years after I "finished it" and I found out there were other missions with that guy Niccolo, fuck this shit

All the girls in this game are great and top qt, and all of them are underrated as fuck too.

>Irwin's story
>the moment where you have to choose to side with Daena or Escad
Who did you side with Cred Forums? As a kid, I went with Daena and as an adult, I went for Escad.

It's weird - as a kid, I figured Escad was being too rash and acted more out of anger and jealousy than anything. Plus there was a history to consider between the girl and Irwin. As an adult, I realize that while you really can't trust demons/devils, Daena was being a noisy and meddling cunt. Sure she was a friend to what's her face, but she got needlessly involved and always questioned her choices.

I remember the window to fight Deathbringer 2 is retardedly small.
Supposedly, you could fight him anytime if you had a Saga Frontier save on your memory card, but, well, I didn't.
I swear there's something else with a stupidly small window of opportunity as well.