Those of us who've played Secret of Mana back in the SNES's prime have had much reason to look forward to Legend of Mana. It was a wonderfully done Action RPG that tied all the elements necessary for a good game together. What Legend of Mana presents is not so much a sequel in gameplay, but a sequel in spirit. As such, the gameplay is vastly different from what many people might have been expecting. Mind you, different does not automatically equal bad, and I'm a big supporter of trying new concepts whether they be for better or worse. So was it better, or worse for LoM?

Let's start with the best part of LoM, and that would be the graphics. The backgrounds consist of gorgeously hand-drawn artwork. All of the areas I visited were lushly and meticulously done, and the hard work put into them is readily apparent at almost every step. There were no instances where I felt any doorways or passages were obscured from view by bad layout, and places seemed to always just feel "real."

The enemies and your characters are all beautifully animated, and show a fair amount of personality. What I was most impressed with was the ultra realistic animations of Trent and Gaeus. These are characters you talk to who are actually part of the background, and fill up more than a third of the screen… yes, these backgrounds actually animate in astonishingly realistic detail. I suppose if I had one gripe with this game's graphics it would be that I didn't like the design of the male hero. I far preferred the female hero's design in almost every way, but I suppose that is a personal preference.

The game's controls are tight. There are a couple of things I wasn't expecting from the game, considering that I was drawing on my past SoM experience. For one, this game plays a lot like a Double Dragon or Final Fight game once the battles are engaged. There were no real problems getting things to work in this game. The ring menu system only makes its appearance when you enter one of your home workshops or your monster farm. The character menus look a lot more "traditional" in this installment. However, despite the more traditional layout, the menu screen layout isn't the most intuitive. You run into a lot of sub-menus that require the use of more (and occasionally different) buttons than you may be used to.

The music is always pleasing to the ear. The tunes tend to be upbeat, and always fit their locations, but none of them really have that push that makes me repeat them over and over in my head. In fact, I really only remember the one from the Ruon Highway, and the little tunes you play to the elemental spirits to gain their favor. The sound effects struck me as fairly standard on the whole, though the sound effects for the special moves tended to be really rather good. The only sound effects I didn't really care for would be the ones for spell casting.

Unfortunately, LoM tends to fall short in other, very critical categories. The storyline does exist… But aside from what you're told in the instruction booklet, there is very little in terms of strong central development. The game consists almost entirely of sub-quests, which, albeit fun in and of themselves, don't constitute a central storyline. I admit, that this does have its charm… lots of it. You get to interact with a vast plethora of people, and there are very few palette swaps, except for the priests in Gato, the Sproutlings / Flowerlings, Wind city Citizens, and the Magic School students. There are a lot of people with quirky personalities, and just plain insanity that was interesting for a while, and was the most memorable part of the experience.

The populated important cities have plenty of individuals to interact with. I only wish there were an apparent story arc to tie all these little vignettes together. Instead, you use the power of your imagination, and the power of artifacts, to place all the lands you visit on the map… totally at your whim. In the beginning, your choices are naturally limited, but as you continue, your avenues for exploration grow exponentially, and you are totally free to chose which ones you do in what order. Please, I ask of you not to get the impression that I hate non-linearity. I have no problem with it when it is well done, and I feel like this game could have done it well, but simply fell short. You do unlock a sort of encyclopedia of the world's history with every subquest you complete, but I just did not find it satisfying.

The gameplay seems to offer a lot on the surface, and there was such an abundance of unspent potential that it is with the most heartache of all that I have to give this area a thorough thrashing. The root of this game's problems here is that it is just far too easy. Subsisting solely on the weapons and armor you can find from the enemies, and buy at shops, you are more than a match for any enemy you come across. Encounters are not random in the slightest. Every time you enter a screen, there are fixed points where you will get into a fight… and you cannot avoid them. You can't even run away from them. This means that if you clear a screen, then come back, the enemies are back… this equals tedium to the extreme when all you want to do is explore.

The game offers you a lot of attacking choices, which include the ability to make combos with quick attacks, setups, and strong attacks. You also have a number of other abilities to choose from like a spinning strike, or a counter attack. However, all of these pale in comparison to the simplest and most deadly combat technique… the "Quick Strong attack." By making a half-circle motion either up/down or left/right in conjunction with the strong attack button produces an attack with the power of a strong blow, but without any recovery time… at all… none. This renders any other technique almost useless, especially when you're talking about extra large enemies like bosses whose sheer body mass makes them impossible to miss. In another game this wouldn't be a problem, but all of the above utterly annihilates the purpose behind LoM's most intriguing and fascinating elements. These elements are the ability to raise monster pets as NPCs, the ability to create golems as NPCs, the ability to forge and temper weapons and armor, and the ability to create magical items.

You have no need to forge or temper your weapons, because of the simple fact that you already have more powerful equipment than you'll ever need to make or modify. There's no need to bother with elementals on weapons because they're far too strong as it is, and there's no point in giving a perfectly good weapon an arbitrary strength or weakness when you can't change weapons in the middle of a fight. Creating magical items (or more accurately, making instruments that cast spells for you) is nice, but why do you need it when the simple fact of the matter is that your attacks are a far faster and more efficient way of dealing with opponents than your magic could ever hope to be? I never once found magic to be a worthwhile endeavor in this game.

The AI for the NPCs is dumb, to put it lightly. It does very little real fighting, and because you have to pick up your EXP off the ground when you kill enemies, the NPCs tend to avoid picking any up. Not that this matters because your character is so ungodly strong that they can slaughter everything by themselves. Story characters level up between scenarios, but your pets and golems will likely never see a level up from fighting. Only from "grazing." You can raise your pets and golems to have custom stats by feeding them fruit that you grow in your own backyard, and if you actually needed them, this might have been a very engaging and rewarding feature… but it was just another missed opportunity. This, even more than the lack of strong storyline prompted me to return the game.

After about 20 hours, I felt that neither the gameplay nor the storyline were particularly rewarding or offered a compelling reason to continue… all I could see was a very pretty, and aesthetically pleasing waste of potential. Thus it is with sorrow in my heart that I must declare Legend of Mana an unworthy title for my collection. As always, your mileage may vary.