Dark Lord rules! Let's play Sword of Mana!

Okay! We're going to be a female grappler named Gretel!



Like any good JRPG, it starts with an expository dump on the backstory of the setting. I'll put this part in its entirety here, but I'll probably be concatenating later text dumps because it's pretty long-winded and not too interesting in a lot of places, not to mention it's hard to understand even without the meandering pace. I'm not sure if it's translations shenanigans or if the original story was just badly written or what, but I'm getting ahead of myself.





The scene then transitions to a village, with Gretel's mom finishing up her song.



And here's Gretel herself. Apparently that song is good enough to literally induce visions. Cool!

Honestly, this here is just small talk. Not even really worth concatenating. Gretel really likes the song, Gretel's mom says there's a better singer than her, and then Gretel wonders if she'll ever meet her.



Anydangfreakinway, we're gonna go off on an adventure!



d'awwwwwwwwwwww



In a transition from tradition, rather than being excited about going into the world to make friends, Gretel wants to stay at home because she worries she might not like people like she does the other villagers.



Momma makes a good point. Granted, she also says "liking and disliking have something in common, and as long as you feel, that's what matters". Which... I don't even know.



They move on to the subject of the journey. Turns out it's common among the women of this village to travel the world at Gretel's age, except rather than chucking them into the wilderness with nothing but a small turtle for defense, they send a fully-trained Mana Swordsman with them! Pretty good step up if you ask me.



Gretel's mom sends her off to say her goodbyes to the village, and this funky-looking kid with an accent of some kind hops out to talk about the aforementioned Swordsman, Bogard. He's heard tales of his prowess.



Doesn't seem particularly wise in an RPG, kid. He just might chop down a tree with your face and then force you into a harsh training regimen to become a world-class swordsman.



Anyway, this is Willy. Hope you don't think having a name means he'll be relevant in the future, cuz oh man.



Here's the Chief! He does not have a Metal Ox, sadly.



He does have a name, though. Kaseem, as it were.

...Wait, this is a village with the names Willy, Gretel, and Kaseem all in one place? Crazy!

Anyway, more about how awesome Bogard is. Yes, we get it, can he show up now so we can get on with the gameplay?



That doesn't sound like Bogard.



Looks like one guy with a mask and one guy with a cloak.



Oh, this seems good.



The soldier talks about how peaceful this village is, despite constant strife around them.



I like the attitude, but I don't think these are your average door-to-door missionaries, Kaseem.



Kaseem starts to explain about the situation as he sees it, but the soldier declares his outrage at even DARING to preach to Dark Lord.

...Cripes, Evil last game, and now this guy literally calling himself Dark Lord. What next?



Dark Lord at least tries living up to his name by ordering an immediate attack on the village. Good for him! Not so much us.



His cloaked companion steps forth, trying to coax Gretel into following her.



By "coax" I mean he looks like he's going to hit her with a spell. Run for it!



Or that!



Elise trips and falls on the way out, though. This is the worst adventure ever!



Oh, not this nonsense again. WE KNOW HER NAME, DAMN IT.



Gretel refuses to do so, and Mystery Man catches up.



Apparently, they're attacking for being the 1% when it comes to Mana. Which... I dunno, does it work like that?

Apparently not.



But Dark Lord and his followers will have none of those shenanigans. Which... are probably true shenanigans. BUT OH WELL, GUESS GRETEL'S GOING TO DIE NOW.



Wow, Granz Realm sounds like they're full of jackasses.



Not to belittle you or anything, but just how do you prop--



Oh, right. Mana Clan and all that.



Elise's spell locks down the mystery man where he stands for the time being.



And then... we get told by Elise that she's not our real mother. Which... would probably have more impact if she'd been built up as a character for more than a third of a scene.



A gruff-looking warrior runs in from the back, but he doesn't seem to be with the guys burning down the village.



Oh, it's Bogard. How lucky for us!



He doesn't waste words. I like him already.



Gretel wants OFF of this ride.



Elise casts another spell, telprotting Gretel and Bogard to...



Looks like a city. And who's that guy?



Fortunately, the noble recognizes Bogard on sight.



This is Hermann! He is the consul of Granz Castle City! And he apparently doesn't know we're a "heretic". Good aim, Elise.

Do you get a name? That would be neat.



Gretel's top priority, of course, is what happened to her hometown and everyone in it.



Well... that's one way to put it.



Elise might've been good with magic, but that was one little village facing down an entire troop of soldiers. Even if you could telprot yourself back, you'd be killed in an instant.



Well, balls. But... at least we're with Bogard and can continue our adventure like Momma wanted, right?



Yeah, this could've been a lot worse. We're in a nice home, we have people who will protect us and help us cope... honestly, this is a damn quick recovery.



Tomorrow is a new day and all that garbage! One screen transition later, and...



...Man, Gretel can not catch a break, can she?



The consul's wife (criminy she doesn't even have an easy title like Mom) warns us that there's no time to explain, and instructs the boy next to us to take her somewhere safe.



He looks just as confused as we are. Also, he totally isn't going to be relevant to anything ever. Nope.



The hell kind of armor is that? Seriously, what? Is that a face-griddle?



I'm not sure that will work on something that has a griddle for a face.



I guess that works. Not that she's going to survive much longer, from the looks of it.



I could see that working.



But nope, Auntie tells them to go on without her.

The boy promises to try, and then leads Gretel out the back door.



Who the hell is Prince Stroud?

Actually, if we started with Hansel instead, we'd see Hermann would refer to Dark Lord as Prince Stroud, and Dark Lord would tell him to shut the hell up. But we don't know that because we're playing as Gretel so SHHHHH!



The soldiers break down the door, and the consul's wife backs away uneasily.



We don't see her fate, though, and it seems as though the flashback is coming to an end here, so we won't know what happens to Hansel either.



Gretel wakes up shrieking in her third home, where Bogard resides.



Complete with a nice little animation of her snapping awake, panting, then shaking her head.



And then she literally walks from where she was on the bed to the ground. Pffff.



Ease up, Bogard, we only lost two homes and families in the space of as many days, maybe less.



Unsurprisingly, Gretel is more than a little guilty about it.



Bogard tells her to relax and calm down, and not to make such snap judgments, unless she wants to be like Dark Lord. Good advice, but bad phrasing, man.



What, the kid? Why him specifically?



Bogard advises Gretel to look into the kid's state herself. He also asks the name of the kid.



Don't ask me how she knows this. I don't think she had enough time to learn it, unless more than one day went by.



Bogard recognizes the name, but doesn't claim he really knew anything about the kid.



...Yes? This is the name you provided for the kid from the estate, why would you be surprised at learning this?

Bogard doesn't know what happened to the parents, either.



Dude's more optimistic than he looks.



Where to, captain?



Here being... where, exactly?



Wherever it is, it's where the answers to our hell of a past aren't.



At the very least, Gretel does cheer up a bit.



To the village of Topple, then!



Once we get outside, Bogard offers us a tutorial on magic usage.



Gretel is more than competent in magic, however, and declines.



So Bogard ignores her completely and moves on to a second tutorial.



As our MP reserves are limited, we can sit and rest should they exhaust completely.



This gets us the first of the game's two abilities! Yes, two. I think there's more in the other game with abilities, Seiken Densetsu 3 or something, but here they're basically chucked on as the biggest of afterthoughts. Both characters get Sit as soon as they obtain magic, and the second ability will be picked up before long to let us out of the tutorial area.



Also, Bogard tells us to pray at Mana Statues. This gets us the protection of the goddess. Which is to say, it saves the game.



Looks like Bogard's going to head off on an errand while we're gone. He instructs us to wait for him at the cottage when we're done, and then sprints off.



Hey, hey guys, guess what we get to do now?

WE GET TO PLAY AND SAVE



Here's Gretel's stats to start off. We'll tackle the left table first. Level, HP, and MP are all pretty obvious, and Next is how much experience we need for a new level. Power determines the strength of physical attacks, Defense determines our resistance to them, and ditto for Intelligence and Mind with regards to magic. Agility affects our accuracy and dodging capabilities. We're going to see our Power end up the highest, as we'll be playing a grappler.

We have no lucre right now, and the day is Luna day. Sword of Mana has a basic time system, with seven days to the week, six being based off of spirits like Luna, and the seventh being Mana Holy Day. As for the spirits, you can see all eight in the right table, as well as the nine weapons, and our respective skills with all of them. These improve as you use them, natch.



We start with the staff weapon. Which... is kind of junk, physically-speaking. It's easy enough to use, it can do a three-hit combo when swung, like Ocarina of Time. It's just that the stats of the staff are awful and a half. It's got meh power, no dodge or accuracy bonuses to speak of when wielded, and no elemental effect. Later staffs will have pretty good elemental effects, mind you, but the real benefit of the staff isn't close combat.



No, the real benefit is magic. Gretel starts with a Wisp spirit, which governs light magic, and it's one of the best elements in the game. Very few things resist light magic, and our staff lets any offensive spell with Wisp home in on enemies, making it very easy to connect with. Even better, attacks have a chance to charm enemies, making them fight on our behalf for a short time. But the real beauty of light magic is the support spell, Healing Light. This, of course, heals you, as well as any nearby characters, and since MP can regenerate, this basically means that the only limit to your health is your patience and what enemies are around you.

But y'know, I could talk about how the gameplay here works, or I can show you.

Next Time: Achievement Unlocked: Most Least Most Likely Reunion

Alas, you're stuck playing as the heroine. You are going to have a hell of a rough go of it; my condolences.

Also, you made me start a new Sword of Mana save, and I didn't do much of anything else today. I wanted to do other things today. I hope you're proud of yourself.

This doesn't mean much, because practically everything in this game is an afterthought.

Except, I guess, the graphics, which are generally quite nice.

This game still weirds me out to this day. "Hey, it's a prequel to Secret of Mana but we're making it more like Legend of Mana and oh yeah here's some random references to things from SD3".

It was interesting to play as the girl and see some behind the scenes stuff from the first game but as you noted it didn't make much sense.

So, here we are in the village of Topple. I figure how I'm going to handle this LP is to show exploration and fighting in video, and put cutscenes and towns in screenshot form. Sword of Mana has a heap of both, after all.



Anyway, first stop is the inn. Now, you may have noticed that praying to the Mana Goddess at gold statues fully heals you. So what's the point of staying at the inn if that's the case?



Especially if it costs money? Well, two things. First, sleeping at the inn puts your character in peak condition, giving them a buff to all stats for a few screens after leaving the town. Second, and more importantly, is that it sets it to the morning of the next day of the week. There's a bunch of fiddly little things in Sword of Mana that depend on both the day and time, particularly in the vein of sidequests.



I totally would if there was any form of documentation in-game about classes!



Speaking of sidequests, Sword of Mana has a ton of them, all in varying lengths of obtuse.



This one here, offered by Blassie the 3rd, will pay us if we bring back blood pouches from bats we kill. Which, on the surface, seems simple, and it honestly is. However, only the very last enemy defeated on the screen has a chance to drop a chest, and even then, you've no guarantee of getting the blood pouch. So, uh, hope you like farming.

I'm going to ignore every sidequest in the game unless I'd barely have to go out of my way to complete them. With... a few exceptions. But, again, we'll get to that later.



The general store, despite the voluminous racks of weapons here, does not sell us any new weapons. Instead, we can buy consumables like the Gumdrops we have, or accessories which boost your stats, although we can afford very little with our paltry 13 lucre we got from wanton rabbit slaughter.



Anyway, to advance the plot and for little other reason, we go into this house and talk to the boy here. He says he lost a book in the meadow southwest of here.



So we go get it!

Shown here is the support magic we can use with Wisp. As you no doubt can see, it's pretty good at healing, and as our skill with light magic improves, it'll only get better. Granted, that requires investing in magical skill, and as you've seen, this will be hard, especially early on with our sharply limited MP pool.

Anyway, there's a reason I didn't take a video of this area, and that's because we're going to backtrack through it in short order.



Anyway, we get there bright and early on Salamander day.



Course, lacking any kind of cutting implement to wave around like a maniac, it's slow going to search the bushes.



And who should bump into us but this guy?



Yeah, remember Mystery Man? Hey now, he's an all star, et cetera.



Anyway, he comments that he's surprised any Mana Clan survivors are left. Uh... you DO recall that we had been telprotted right out from under your nose, yes?



In any case, he just says that Dark Lord's word is law and that's all there is to it.

Gretel, do you happen to have telprot magic? Because that could be useful right about now.



Haha what a dick.



...Maybe? We prayed to her yesterday, I think.



A Realm soldier interrupts, calling Julius... somehow. It's not made clear if he's just shouting from a distance or using telepathy or what. Also yeah this guy's name is Julius.



Since Julius can't kill us himself, he calls in a monster, much to Gretel's surprise.



OR! Or or or! Or you could capture her and take her with you! Slackass Julius.



Anyway, some random military guy shows up to help us fight off the nefarious Ewok.



To be perfectly fair, he hits the Ewok like a truck, but after two hits he decides to just shimmy in place for a bit and ignore it, so Gretel gets fed up and finishes it off.



We're fine, just fine.



I think she's trying to imply that his sword doesn't just have Ewok blood on it, but rather that it's seen more use, and quite recently at that, but... yeah, this is not a very well-written game.



Anyway, as thankful as she is for being saved, she doesn't exactly trust this guy.



He doesn't give us his sword.



When Gretel insists she's fine on her own, the soldier implies that she might get ambushed again. Which... well, we WERE ambushed, but not by a random monster.



Well, may as well get facts straightened out.



I'm not sure if he's taking offense or just being sarcastic. Especially since I don't know what Granz citizens are supposed to look like.

The sound of EEEEVIL MAGIC echoes from the forest, no doubt Julius telprotting away or something.



Faced with that reminder, Gretel reluctantly accepts the soldier's help.



Looking for it TO BURN IT DOWN? I'M ON TO YOU.



Anyway, the soldier introduces himself as Hansel. Because we totally didn't see this coming from a mile away.



Gretel's surprised, at least.



Hooray for teamwork! Hansel is our first teammate, but I'll talk about that in a bit.



Right, she asks Hansel to look for the book with her, that being her whole point for showing up.



The funny thing is, if you're playing as Hansel, this is another tutorial, to indicate that you can cut the grass with slashing weapons like Hansel's sword. Of course, we get no such tutorial when Gretel gets her own slashing weapon. Not that it matters, items you find in the grass are junk, for reasons I'll get to later.



Anyway, we find the book. Let's move on to more relevant matters.



Hansel's got a four level lead on us, and it shows. Despite having no magical abilities at all, his MP pool is bigger than ours, to say nothing of his physical stats. Hansel is very much a physically-inclined character.



This is most evident in his weapon of choice, the sword. Swords are about as fast to swing as Gretel's staff, but they actually have respectable stats across the board. Okay, not this bronze one, but later swords are worthy of respect. And even the bronze sword Hansel starts with is good. The deathblow for the sword is also pretty neat, a lunge that carries him about the length of the screen. This comes at a cost, but we'll get there later.

For now, let's exploring together!



And then we explored together. And this kid's going to reference a game.



I... okay?



I don't feel very validated for this.



For fetching the kid's book, the grandpa apologizes and offers to let us stay the night.

Eh, may as well.



This fully heals us and changes it to the morning of Dryad day, but we don't get the buff for staying at the inn.



We DO get an actual reward for all of this, though.



Namely, the Magic Rope! Using this, we can travel back to the last Mana Goddess statue we prayed to, instantly.

Hansel gets this by breaking into the house in JRPG protagonist fashion, scaring the family into thinking he's a Heretic Hunter, and then he gets the rope as an apology when the kid kicks his shin.



Also, since it's morning now, we can go to the general store and meet a few new people, like Clive the pharmacist!



I have never done this and have no plans to do so. He claims that he'll make a honey elixir that will "build up our strength" with this, but why bother when you have to get all that junk?



Here is a sidequest I will be attempting. This is Luke!



He wants us to find his dad, wherever he may have gone. Normally he works in Wendel, but the address changes from time to time.



I hear that's popular among novice adventurers.



Anyway, we'll want to look out for the guy in Wendel, I guess.



Now, you'd think that to advance the plot, we'd go back to the cottage and go meet Bogard, yeah?



Nope. We have to talk to this guy, who mentioned Bogard to Hansel. How do you know this? By talking to everyone until the plot says you can move on, that's how.

Hansel does have to talk to this guy to find out where to go, but then, he also has nowhere to go once he actually reaches Topple, so it makes slightly more sense for him.



Yeah, let's go save Bogard! Because, y'know, we didn't have to rely on Hansel earlier to be saved, and Bogard hasn't been guarding us all our life or anything!



Before we can leave, Niccolo the niccolo stops us.



This guy will randomly show up after a certain point, replacing monsters in a given room. You can buy items from him.

I hate that I have to say this so much, but we'll get to that bit later.



Anyway, piss off, we have to go save Bogard.



Only he won't shut up about it unless we tell him what we're after, really.



Whose notebook? Hang on, did you steal this?



I'm not taking any marked goods, man.



Oh, well then.



At least he only charges 10 Lucre, but still. What a jerk.



If nothing else, Popoi's Notebook gives us more to talk about. It will automap the world as we explore it.



It will also record any monsters we kill.

As you can see, monster stats aren't too different from our own. What they get, though, is resistances and weaknesses to different damage types. Rabites, being beasts, are generally susceptible to most weapons, only being weak to bashing weapons to make the early game a bit less murderous on Gretel. Magicwise, they're sporting a resistance to light, fire, and moon magic, and a weakness to wind magic. However, they are completely immune to earth magic, as all beasts are. Immunities are one of the game's biggest dick moves, and you need to be sure to account for them with your weapon selection.

Also, the Prime and Sub things are the rabite's senses. These are stupid and boring and still give the rabite better AI than Hansel.

Finally, the killcount. This doesn't seem relevant at first. However, if you're the sort to grind enemies, you might end up killing far more than 20. Kill enough (I think a thousand) and normal rabites will no longer spawn. Instead, any enemy you've killed enough of will spawn as a black variant, getting a boost to all stats in the neighborhood of +100 to everything, and an extra 500 HP.

That's not even the best part. No, the best part is that black monsters have a chance of dropping the game's best material for forging new equipment. I just... I don't even know. Why would anyone ever think this is a good idea? Are they trying to punish grinding and then reward it? And who the hell would even have the patience to discover this? What? Seriously, what?



Moving right along, Popoi's Notebook also has a glossary, and...



An "Amigos" list. You can get new Amigos by linking your GBA with friends, which lists them here and also does other stuff I'll get to later. But really, it's just the most pointless thing that isn't the abilities.



Anyway, back at the cottage!



Busted, Hansel!



Gretel demands to know what happened to Bogard, and Hansel denies everything.



KILL, GRETEL, KILL

She wallops him a few times with the staff, to little effect.



I like how the staff is completely useless for physical combat even in cutscenes and yet she still uses it here.



And she taunts him to fight back.



He tells us to calm the hell down.



Gretel just takes offense to this, seeing as Dark Lord is "the sworn enemy" of her village. Which, if she's the sole survivor, makes sense, I guess.



Once it's established that both parties are enemies of Dark Lord, they calm down a bit.



Yeah, those Granz Realm guys are dicks!



What Gretel doesn't know is that Hansel is actually from Granz Realm, as is Hermann. So yeah, kind of awkward.



Anyway, Gretel looks over the letter. Or summons a Wisp, whatever.



Hansel, since he wasn't paying attention AT ALL earlier, is freaked right the hell out.



Hi!



Yes, we can! We choose not to, because MP don't come cheap.



And yeah. No one in the game can use spirit magic unless a spirit specifically allows them to do so. Everyone in Mana Village had a spirit of their own, including Gretel, of course.



Since Wisp's given Hansel its blessing, Hansel now can use spirit magic. He doesn't actually have a spirit of his own, mind you, so he still can't actually USE magic.



And we give him the tutorial on how to use it anyway. Despite having already denied such a tutorial from Bogard earlier, because Hansel needs to be taught about how to use magic from the first character he finds that can use it. Never mind that we could have learned how to cut grass for useless sensory-luring items like Potent Posies and Tone Stones earlier.

This game, man. It's got problems.

Anyway, eventually Hansel will get spirit magic and be able to use it. He'll just be terrible at it, between his low intelligence and the sword being terrible for casting at all.



Wait no, NOW we get the letter.



It reads "Head to Wendel and we'll meet up there". Not that we actually get to read it, but you can if you're playing as Hansel!



Not that it matters, because Gretel explains it anyway.



Hansel explains that he wants to meet a sage living in Wendel, by the name of Cibba.



Yeah, why not?



Well, that was quick.



Something else we learned by talking to unremarkable NPCs! We need to get to Wendel, but the caves have been sealed by the master of Vinquette Hall.



Ah, yes, that's why we couldn't progress to the caves earlier.



We lacked the second and final ability, the power to jump. This lets us clear small ledges and bypass monsters, but is otherwise useless.

GAMEPLAY!

Next Time: Achievement Unlocked: Jinkies!

Black monsters are there to surprise the grinding types, yes. As I found out on my first play-through when I got lost in the cave past Miasma Valley and accidentally made everything in that cave black as I sought the exit. Of all the allies you can have to help in a fight against black enemies, I had the absolute worst. It's a good thing I was pretty patient, or I probably would've quit entirely after that debacle.

Making Black Rabites is a good idea, though. Their AI is terrible compared to later enemies, and their Black stats are actually sub-par compared to most late-game enemies (HP excepted). Plus, you get a free hit on 'em at night. Around the time fast travel becomes available is when I tend to transform them, and then reap the rewards as my weapon and magic skills go through the roof (and my offensive capabilities shortly after that too).

I love how the intro tries to make The Dark Lords being evil a bit ambiguous.

Because, you know, if you call yourself Dark Lord... ambiguity is about the best you can hope for.

He just thought she was loaded for bear.

Kalir... I don't like to criticize, but you're a little all over the place when it comes to the videos. Also, I would assume that the reason you're not doing most sidequests would be a lack of good rewards/100% sidequest completion bonuses, but it might be helpful to actually say that.

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Star Wars joke not detected
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I'm not doing most sidequests because they're awful and unintuitive and awful and not worth my time and also awful.

And yeah, I guess I am a bit spastic about my commentary. But that will change when we get to areas that have more time for me to actually talk about what's going on. Maybe.

I love kalir's spastic commentary.

Never change.

I certainly hope you're going to do the side quest that requires you to get rare-drops from specific monsters that only appear on one screen, in one region, on one day, during certain times, sometimes.

It was learning the true scope of that side-quest that made me truly realize the sheer scope of the problems this game has.

I meant to post this immediately after the first gameplay post, and it's more related to the boy's story anyway, but I made a chart a while ago about exactly what bugs me about this game compared to its original version. Everybody shut-up and let me hit something with a sword already!

I never noticed how similar Gretel's sprite is to Angela's from SD3. The hair and crown thing are almost spot on.

I can relate. Especially after having gone through the gigantic middle finger to fun that is the Rocky Wastes and the two dungeons that follow it. They figured the best way to close out an incredibly annoying and tedious sequence like that was to have a 15-minute story sequence where 70% of the dialogue is just characters repeating what other characters have said already or spouting inane pseudo-philosophical bullshit.

Come to think of it, that description of the dialogue pretty much sums up every story scene in Sword of Mana... Not sure why, but ever since Legend of Mana, the series seems dead-set on having an ongoing story that's constantly interrupted by pretentious nothing statements and attempts to make everyone sympathetic.

KALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Yes, Liquid Ocelot? :>