Already Done with Seiken Densetsu: Children of Mana. O_O

[leene_chan]

Arghh...I have not been feeling well today. I don't know if it's allergies or a cold coming on but I am not pleased!

Last night I finished with CoM. I was at level 60 and the last dungeon was surprisingly easy. Huzzah!

For someone who died four times against the first boss I beat the last boss without even losing half my hit points. O_o

All righty, and here's my rundown!

Gameplay: While I'm a big fan of the series in general I admit that gameplay has never been one of its strong points. Aside from the added fun of the multiplayer the battles in SD2, SD3 and Legend of Mana suffered from glitches and slow-down. Not the case in CoM! I felt more like I was playing a Zelda game when I dashed right up to the enemies and whipped them with my flail (my favorite weapon!)! The enemies do their fair share of beating you down as well, but I'm happy to say that battle-engine-wise, CoM was up to scratch with the best of the adventure RPGs. I never thought I'd have so much fun actually fighting monsters in a Seiken Densetsu game!

Unfortunately, magic was mostly useless. You could only bring one elemental with you at a time and even though they could heal you and boost your stats, the range of their offensive magic was too limited for them to do any good against the hordes of monsters bent on kicking your rear. I enjoyed myself more after I pretended magic didn't exist. And I was using Tumble, who was supposed to be good at magic. =_=

Yes, and the game is a dungeon crawler. No wandering around on the world map. It had its strong and weak points. Dungeon layouts could be extremely repetitive, especially if you've been playing for long stretches. But set the game down for an hour or so and you're ready to go! You need to find the Light Tear and bring it over to the Light Spring and teleport to the next area. Usually only the Light Tear is hidden but in the later dungeons the portal is hidden as well! The radar on the lower display screen does tell you where to look for them.

I'm giving this game an 8 for gameplay because even though the dungeon layout could be boring the battles were the smoothest ever in a Seiken Densetsu game.

Characters: Cute. I have a low tolerance for annoying characters and I couldn't find any. I would've liked to learn more about some of the NPCs but whenever a bit of background material popped up I was ever-so-pleased! I wanted to know more about Seamoon! I did get some background material on her during her errand and later during Tumble's event at the end of the game but it left more to be desired. Oh, and did I mention that Moti in CoM was different from the usual turban-wearing merchant? You learn more about him in another sub-event but unfortunately throughout most of the game he's a vacant pretty-boy who stands in his house, gives you a tutorial and occasionally charms you with his guileless smile. ^o^;....

I'll give the game an 8 for characters because what was there was nice but more, dammit! I only played through the game with Tumble and I don't know if you learn more about other characters in the other quests.

Music: Fantastic! It's been such a long time since I played a game with genuinely good music. There wasn't a single track I didn't like. The boss music was probably the best in the series. Maybe it wasn't as good overall as Secret of Mana's or Legend of Mana's soundtrack (but those are like, for me, the best of the best in RPGs). I'll give CoM a 10 for music. They'd better release the soundtrack on CD!

Graphics: Pretty! The character portraits were nice and crisp and the backgrounds were lovely. A 10. 2-D graphics can be nice...

Story: Heh...it wasn't a bad story but it lacked tension. I found myself wondering what would happen next but my heart never pounded at any moment. The plot had a lot of mysteries to unravel and in the end I wasn't satisfied that I'd seen it all. I'll give it a 7 for story because even though it wasn't any worse than any of the other games of the series they could've done much more with it. Oh well.

Fun Factor: An 8. Because you had to work hard to get through each dungeon and sometimes the rewards were sweet (finding out more about the characters was always fun!) and sometimes there were no rewards at all. If you were to consider it as an old-school platform game it could be great. The music and backgrounds are lovely and the battles are fast-paced and enjoyable, especially if you're in a bad mood and want to beat something up! The characters are charming and the script is not bad but I couldn't help but feel like they only fleshed this game out halfway. It didn't offend me like some games I can't forgive but it left me a little disappointed.

My Overall Score: 8.5. It wasn't all it could've been but I don't regret buying it!