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[Monk]

What do you get when you mix Secret of Mana, Sword of mana and Sim City? You guessed it, this game. This game gets so much hate because of a lack of story it's absurd. ie it has less of a stroy than any of the "Secret of" games, yet it's gameplay more than makes up for it. If you liked Sword of mana, SoM and Sim City, you will definately atleast like this imo.

 

[MrDaravon]

I love the game myself, but I think people were expecting more a Secret of Mana type game, with plot and so forth. LoM loses points for being non-linear and having not much of a centralized plot for most people.

 

[Dead]

I really liked it, but my biggest gripe was just how easy the game was. It was a breeze the whole way through :/

 

[Fragamemnon]

A decade? I thought LoM was a 2000 release.

I think a lot of the dislike for it is bourne out of when it was released and its contemporaries. Threads of Fate was a better game than LoM, and certainly Chrono Cross, Vagrant Story, and Valkyrie Profile being released around when LoM came out didn't help.

Really, the freebie LoM soundtrack I got from Square from some preorders is better than the game, IMO.

 

[Hitokage]

The OST is pretty nifty, yeah.

 

[MrDaravon]

I really liked it, but my biggest gripe was just how easy the game was. It was a breeze the whole way through :/

You should try it sometime on that hardest difficulty (Nightmare?). Takes like 2-3 minutes to kill the weakest enemies in the game, and they'll kill you in a couple hits.

Threads of Fate was a better game than LoM

What?

The OST is pretty nifty, yeah.

Agreed. One of the best OST's in recent years.

 

[Brandon F]

Really, the freebie LoM soundtrack I got from Square from some preorders is better than the game, IMO.

Agreed, the game had some stunning music. It also had some horrendous combat mechanics, bland dungeons, and a treasure trove of gimmick 'features' barely worth anyone's time.

Like Frag says, pick most any other RPG released in that window, and you'll have a better game to play.

Spoiler

PS: Sword of Mana is also garbage!

 

[Deku]

Secret of Mana and its sequel Seiken Densetsu 3 has a kind of charm to them that has since died from the franchise.

They truly felt like storybook fairytale RPGs that was very different in tone than the RPGs of the day. I'm not sure if we'll ever see that brand of Mana ever again. I hope we do, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[bobble]

I loved it

The art and music were both awesome. If only the characters would face up/down

 

[BobbyRobby]

Great game. I don't understand the hate either.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

A hugie was that Secret of Mana was such a great multiplayer game. Whereas in Legend of Mana you had a revolving door of characters temporarily there, or the ability to load in a character from another save who couldn't make any real progression. And no 3 player option if I recall correctly, though it's not like I've ever bought the PlayStation equivalent of a multitap.

 

[CO_Andy]

Youse guys forgot to mention Secret of Evermore.

Iz Magical Vacation a great game like everyone says it iz? I hav my doubts about Brownie Brown.

 

[Swordian]

Youse guys forgot to mention Secret of Evermore.

Iz Magical Vacation a great game like everyone says it iz? I hav my doubts about Brownie Brown.

I've heard that it's actually quite mediocre. I don't want BB anywhere near a new Seiken game.

 

[madara]

Resident Evil 5 gets turn into a puzzle game and gets alot hate and you wonder why? That is basicly what you are saying. I have no problem with this experimental game if it was named something else. Multiplayer action rpg with no multiplayer and combat interactions more fitting for a semase street game does not bode well for past mana fans.

 

[Bizarro Sun Yat-sen]

They truly felt like storybook fairytale RPGs that was very different in tone than the RPGs of the day.

So... Legend of Mana wasn't a storybook fairytale RPG and was similar in tone to the RPGs of the day??

 

[Shouta]

I loved the little stories presented within the game but it just needed an overall story to tie them all together. Otherwise, the battle mechanics were ass and the customization systems were a bit too obtuse or difficult to use to get good results.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

I had a bit of fun messing around with the game's save file using a Dex Drive, though. It was pretty easy to with a few tests determine where it stored information about what items were equipped, and it must not have paid attention to a checksum because switching items around willy-nilly worked fine.

 

[CO_Andy]

Heh, i had fun doing the same thing but with FF Tactics.

 

[Alex]

DUD BEARS.

 

[totoro'd]

I loved LoM. Some of the 2d backgrounds were amazing. And the opening is one of my all-time favorites

It had so many nice ideas too: raising pet monsters, growing fruit, making your own weapons, making magical musical instruments, etc.

 

[Kiriku]

I thought the game was OK, but it really lacked a coherent story. It felt like a collection of small missions that never really engaged me. The battle system wasn't really for me either.

But the backgrounds were awesome, and the music was great as well.

And it has a cool intro just because of the Swedish song! Sorry, just couldn't resist mentioning that. :lol

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Heh, i had fun doing the same thing but with FF Tactics.

Me too, but to a lesser extent. There were already some great FFT save editors around, so I tried to build from them. I tried making a utility that would take all the character/item data from one save and transfer it to another... sort of a New Game + with a lot more flexibility to it. Couldn't get it working, though.

Also in Legend of Mana the items could be modified and renamed, so backing up weird items or making random modifications and seeing if anything neat happened were things not possible in FFT.