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I'm playing through the classic Mana games! Let's all go plant trees!(Now playing Trials of Mana!)

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
Thanks again. It's good to know that eventually charged attacks, from the spear at least, become good. I've tried a few of them so far and they haven't been very impressive, they have essentially been just stronger attacks that take up too much time and don't deal enough damage to use over regular swings(as in, swings charged up to 100%).
Ehhhh. They're only worth using the high charge levels if the AI is doing it. For your controlled character, it's not worth it beyond levels 1 or 2 sometimes.
 
I think most of them have iFrames though.
It's difficult to employ solo however, because the AI is bad at creating space and openings for you. But in playing with a team, it became my go-to to charge up while approaching a foe and let it go whenever it looked like it would connect.
 
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I finally used cannon travel! It literally propelled them across the map before making them fall near their destination. Well, that's a strange and unsafe way to travel, but hey, if gravity is completely non lethal in this world, why not use it?

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Thanks to Watts' shortcut, it didn't take them long to come back to the lava pools underneath the dwarven village, where they cooled them by freezing a conveniently placed orb.

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The acquisition of magic made battles a lot more interesting and enjoyable, as the team now had far more tools to use against their opposition. Even better, many of their spells could be multitargeted, making battles a snap! The only real limit to this immense power was MP and MP costs, and I did have to be careful not to drain them out, especially since some of Kard's spells costed a hefty 3 MP, which, against a max MP of 11, was quite the pinch!

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The enemies within the Underground Palace put up no real resistance, relying more on numbers than strength or skill, and the team soon approached the entrance of its central chamber. But this gnome stopped them from entering. Kard took its anger out on it, enraging it and making it grow ten times larger!

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The enlarged gnome was quite the tough customer, burning the party up with multiple aoe spells! They made some progress before getting thoroughly toasted. It was clear that I would need to save up Luna's MP to keep the party alive through this fight. Frankly, he seemed outright impossible to defeat in a straight fight.

After a second attempt failed horribly, I decided to grind out about five levels to get more bulk, MP and attack power. While doing this, I discovered that the Undine element itself could be leveled up with use, and greatly increased its damage and healing. With that discovery, I resolved to get Kard to level 2 of the element. Then it gained two whole levels without gaining another elemental level. Huh.

Well, at level 13 both Luna and Kard gained an extra MP, and a decent amount of HP, so I chose to try the gnome again.

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And, sure enough, that worked! Talk about an overtuned boss though, jeez.

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Utterly humiliated, the gnome gives his powers up to them. Also, some comedy happens, and Kard regains its memories by bumping its head into the seed. Turns out, it lives in Upper Land Forest, wherever that is. We get an axe upgrade and absorb the second seed, for whatever good it does.

Well, time to deal with Luna's kingdom's woes.

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Or not, because the guards block the path ahead. Welp.

I'll try and figure it out next time. Apologies for the short post, the grinding drained me hard.
 
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Beowulf

Son of The Answer Man
(He/Him)
The number of seeds you've unlocked is the limit to how high you can train your magic. Getting the earth seed means that you can now train both Undine and Gnome to level 2.
 
Ahh, so that's what the seeds do. Good to know!

...Amusing, though, for Luka to command Revi to absorb the first seed when he didn't and wouldn't have any magic to cast. Did she know he would end up hiring Luna and Kard in the future? Or is it just one of those weird examples of gameplay-story segregation, where the mana seeds have to be stored in temples but they don't actually become relevant until the party unlocks magic?
 
I think access to the mana seeds MAY also be a prerequisite for levelling up your weapons. And in-story, you're sealing the seeds so that monsters won't chase their mana energy? Or something?
 
Looking back at my earlier posts, it seems like the storyline purpose of absorbing the seeds is to restore the power of the Excalibur, so it can fell the evil monsters plaguing the land and restore the balance of Mana, or somesuch. Correct me if I'm wrong.
 

gogglebob

The Goggles Do Nothing
(he/him)
Basically, you have two goals in Secret of Mana:

1. Travel to each of the eight elemental temples/spirits, and gather the power of the mana seeds to power up the sword to HOLY SWORD status
2. Stop whatever The Vandole Empire is up to

As you may expect, these two goals eventually intersect.

There's a second wave of re-sealing the seeds later in the game

The seeds eventually have a bad time, but, at that point, you do not have to actively do anything like double back or alike. Progressing the story at that point puts everything back (eventually).
 
I think the ??? is: Does this spoilered story beat also impact your ability to level weapons or magics, I feel like I remember it doing so.
 

gogglebob

The Goggles Do Nothing
(he/him)
I think the ??? is: Does this spoilered story beat also impact your ability to level weapons or magics, I feel like I remember it doing so.

Kinda sorta. The last element you get is wood/Dryad, and Mana gets fubared almost exactly at that moment. You have to venture through two (giant) dungeons at about that point, and then you stabilize Mana, and your "elements" are safe again. The result of that is basically normally Dryad would unlock level 8 magic, but it is not actually available until you get all of that evened out (which is just in time for the final dungeon).

Gameplay comment about that point in the game: considering you how you get Shade, Lumina, and Luna all in a row (with Luna's dungeon being, like, a screen), giving the magic upgrades a little room to breathe at that point is probably a good thing.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Ah yeah, I think I was mixing things up. Basically keep leveling things up until the numbers stop going up when you cast or hit things.
 
Welp, I'm stumped. How do we get past the guards?

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I try talking to the royalty, but they're pretty useless, choosing to lay in their bedroom in despair instead of dispensing any useful information or aid. And Jema is nowhere to be seen.

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Frustrated, I run around in circles for a bit until randomly hitting the next event trigger - that being talking to this Luna lookalike who randomly showed up here. She abruptly vanishes, and the team deduces she must've ended up in the southern ruins, somehow.

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Phanna is mind controlled and thinks she's going on a vacation or something. She literally slaps Luna when the latter tries to dissuade her! And Luna, in turn, slaps the guards out of the way! Cool move, but, uh, why didn't you do it sooner?!

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The ruins are home to zombies, strange tomato faced men that seemingly can't be hurt with regular attacks, and flying animated sword that are quite hard to hit. The enemies were manageable, but the tomato men and swords ended up putting a huge strain on the team's mana, and I found myself wishing for mana restoratives not too far in!

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Thankfully, the dungeon wasn't too long, and they soon arrived at its end, where Thanatos stood atop a raised platform with masked people surrounding him at all sides. He certainly didn't skimp on his grandeur! He delivers a moustache twirling, overtly villainous speech about how they're already too late, how he has Dyluck and Phanna in the palm of his hand, and how he needs their souls to create a new, peaceful world.

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He caps it off by hurling the team down a Looney Toons trapdoor! Well, alright. Lol.

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They end up in some sort of trapped chamber, guarded by...a sentient wall? It drains HP from time to time, making it rather obnoxious, but it isn't too hard, and on the second try it goes down without much danger. Was quite the slugfest though, the team's attacks kept missing even with the Speed Up buff, which supposedly boosted their hit rate and evasion, and the wall kept healing and reviving its eyes. At the end of the day I went through a fair fistful of sweets and even three revives!

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Thanatos, seeing his trap well and truly defeated, decides to run off with Dyluck and Phanna. I swear, this villain is even more cliche ridden than your average B movie villain. In any case, his flight breaks his spell on the townsfolk, and their souls are restored.

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Oh, and Jema was among the mind controlled! He doesn't really say much though, just speculates on why Thanatos pulled his little stunt here and points the team back in the direction of Luka's place.

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The royalty even heaps prizes on the team! Most of the chests only have a small amount of gold, but two of them contain spear and sword upgrades, which handily also grants them access to level 3 weapons! Or, according to this game, level 2 weapons. Definitely a worthwhile haul either way.

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After a bit of forging and touring, we end back at Luka's, where we find that the Water Palace's seed was stolen. Ugh, are there no competent Mana protectors besides our team? Luka thinks the seed was taken below the dwarven cave, and sends the team back there.

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The team finds an even bigger hole at the village's center, which sends them landing on a fancy warship!

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The ship is surprisingly quite short, after picking one whip upgrade the team ends up running into its crew, a trio of thieves in ridiculous getup who call themselves the Scorpion Army. They use the seed to power a robot, but it backfires and gets out of control!

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It also ends up being an extremely unimpressive opponent, relying too heavily on moogling the team. As such, it didn't even deserve a screenshot. The thieves quickly flee, the seed is retrieved, and the team hurries back to the Water Palace, hoping that this backtrack heavy sequence was at an end...

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Only to find the Palace full of fish enemies. Huh? What was going on?

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Oh. The evil empire had begun moving at last, and captured the Water Palace while they were away. I get a choice to hand the seed or run, and choose the latter, only to have Geshtar trash the party and claim the seed anyway!

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He also summoned a boss, but well, the team beat it without using more than two spellcasts worth of MP. That alone should tell you how pathetic it was. I also discover what the barrel does - it grants temporary invincibility, making it quite the nifty, if expensive item indeed!

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Apparently the Empire was turned back, but they're running out of time, and the team needs to pick up pace with the whole restoring Excalibur thing, as only it can blow up the fortress. Luka instructs them to travel to the Upper Land, Kard's homeland, via the cannoneer close to Revi's home village! Talk about awkward.....

Also we got another whip upgrade. Yayyyyy! However, this is where my session ends today. Next time we upgrade the whip further and journey to new lands! How exciting!
 

gogglebob

The Goggles Do Nothing
(he/him)
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Phanna is mind controlled and thinks she's going on a vacation or something. She literally slaps Luna when the latter tries to dissuade her! And Luna, in turn, slaps the guards out of the way! Cool move, but, uh, why didn't you do it sooner?!

So the SNES translation here is lacking. The "original" dialogue (and what appears in the 2018 remake) implies that Phanna has it bad for Dyluck, and now the two of them are going to be together in this cult, and Luna gets all "my man!" about it, prompting breaking through the guards. It is vaguely misogynistic with it implying the only thing that would get Luna to act on this cult is basically a cat fight, but it seems like it is supposed to be humorous. "Humorous".

I believe this is properly conveyed in the SNES translation the next time you're in this situation, though.

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They end up in some sort of trapped chamber, guarded by...a sentient wall?

Congratulations on conquering this wall! I may have been a kid when I first played this, but this boss battle was my personal greatest hurdle to making progress. I think it took me two whole days to find a proper strategy? Granted, this was back when you had to re-conquer the whole dungeon to take another shot. And I am sure these issues have nothing to do with the ridiculous hit boxes for these targets.

Also we got another whip upgrade. Yayyyyy! However, this is where my session ends today. Next time we upgrade the whip further and journey to new lands! How exciting!

I consider this the end of Act I of Secret of Mana. Good news: you get to do all sorts of nonsense now that doesn't involve going between Gaia's Navel and the Water Temple over and over again!
 

Lokii

(He/Him)
Staff member
Moderator
Is the idea you're supposed to attack when the eye's open? I always got that sense but could never tell if it mattered. Or does the boss have crazy evasion in general to suggest that since you're attacking a wall most of your hits are bouncing off brick? Or is it just to encourage magic, like Fire Gigas?

Secret of Mana!
 
Something that you won't realize until you play its sequel or spiritual successors: Secret of Mana is relatively bad at communicating if you, as the player mis-alinged an attack, and the dice simply did not roll, or if the attack was executed properly and the dice did not favor you. And this is exacerbated in multiplayer play.

By the way, have you discovered what the "X" button does already?
 

gogglebob

The Goggles Do Nothing
(he/him)
SECRET OF MANA GAMEPLAY FACT!

(elaborating on Classic's statement above)

Like in a lot of RPGs, every "fight" command weighs your protagonist's offense against the antagonist's defense, throws in a few "dice rolls" so it is not the same number every time, and then produces a final "you did this much damage" tally. In situations where you have less offensive power than the enemy has defense, it is very easy to return a zero or negative number if you are not evenly matched.

In specifically the original, 16-bit version of Secret of Mana (what is being played here), if the final damage calculation returned zero or negative, it was displayed as "MISS". If you see the words "MISS" at all, that does actually mean you hit a hit box, you just did not do any damage. Note, again, that the number one reason you would "MISS" would be that the enemy's defense outranked your offense.

In Secret of Mana (2018 Remake), they identified this as confusing, and made it plain that you did "0" damage, and dropped the concept of seeing "MISS". I am not spoiling any of this because I figure the "word of God" on this one is "yeah, we probably should have done that from the beginning".

If you actually, for-real do not hit where you are supposed to hit, it does not say anything. That is a real miss.

Note that "blocking" is possible by both the heroes and the villains. It happens automatically, is a sort of "critical defense" (to match a critical hit), and in that situation, you do not see a damage counter at all.
 
So the SNES translation here is lacking. The "original" dialogue (and what appears in the 2018 remake) implies that Phanna has it bad for Dyluck, and now the two of them are going to be together in this cult, and Luna gets all "my man!" about it, prompting breaking through the guards.

Huh, that just makes the situation weirder. Especially since she expressed concern for Pandora's citizens earlier, and knew Dyluck was in there already. I guess it's one of those "jokes" they wrote without thinking about how it fit the story, lol.
Congratulations on conquering this wall!

Thanks!
I may have been a kid when I first played this, but this boss battle was my personal greatest hurdle to making progress. I think it took me two whole days to find a proper strategy? Granted, this was back when you had to re-conquer the whole dungeon to take another shot. And I am sure these issues have nothing to do with the ridiculous hit boxes for these targets.

Yeah I can see that. The eyes are extremely evasive, and the constant revive/heal spam makes it a really prolonged battle of attrition. I straight up went through the dungeon a second time to save up mana for offensive spells, hoping they would work, and well, they did, but not enough. And yes, I did redo the entire dungeon to get a second attempt at the boss, I try to play these games with as minimal "cheating" as possible, aka no "modern" crutches like fast forwarding, save states, rewinds etc.
By the way, have you discovered what the "X" button does already?

Somehow I haven't! 😮 I'll use it the next time I play the game. Thanks for bringing it up!
...Stuff about how the game misidentifies evades and defensive blocks...

Huh wow that is really weird. I kinda wonder why they did it this way? Was it a translation mix up, or just a weird bit of coding?
 
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Welp, off to the Upper Land, wherever it is!

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We land in a bizarre snowy forest inhabited by Moogles, who say nothing intelligible. Almost reminds me of Pandora, only cuter, lol. Watts also followed us somehow.

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It turns out the forest depicts all four seasons of the year, in counter clockwise order! Huh.

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I try to go through the seasonal rooms in order, and end up at this bizarre place, which, after a brief fight, is revealed to be the Moogle Village! Huh.

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The game then proceeds to give away the solution to the puzzle. Well alright then. It also gives some irrelevant upgrades for weapons we aren't using.

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The team follows the directions to reach Kard's hometown...only to find it deserted! Then they fight this giant bird nearby, who's supposedly the culprit by virtue of being hostile and nearby. It is here that I discover what X does, and I smack myself for not having found it sooner - it lets me order actions from the other team members without having to swap control of my current team member. What a handy find, @Classic!

The boss itself? Eh. Basically the oversized gnome, but more irritating. It seemed to be really hard to hit, even with Speed Up, and offensive magic was the only thing doing reasonable damage. It spammed aoes and status effects, making me burn through a fair few sweets. At least Kard got its Earth magic up to speed in this encounter! And it did drop a boomerang upgrade, which I did enjoy using. I also figured out that Walnuts restore MP, and a lot of it, at that. In light of this fact, I bought two of them, and kept them for use in future boss fights.

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Ahead, the team ran into the next Palace and Kard's grandpa. Unfortunately the empire beat them again and took the power of this Palace's seed. He decides to help them with whatever he can muster, and gives them the power of the wind spirit, Sylphide, and directions to their next destination, Matango. Apparently, they are to meet a white dragon who will help them somehow. Let's hope it's cooperative!

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The team traverses the path ahead without much fuss. This cave, however, leaves me stumped for a fair while, until I figure out that the axe can break these boulders! Well that was embarrassing. On the other hand, how was I supposed to know these were breakable? They sure don't look breakable to me, and the axe was only used specifically to cut skull poles before this.

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On the other side, they come across a bizarre land full of blue grass and talking mushrooms! After upgrading their equipment, they talk to their king, who speaks of a legend of warriors riding a white dragon and saving them from evil. The king directs them to the white dragon and tells them that it has been seen fighting a giant snake! Well, we shall certainly come to its aid...next time!
 

gogglebob

The Goggles Do Nothing
(he/him)
OHOmNny.png



The boss itself? Eh. Basically the oversized gnome, but more irritating. It seemed to be really hard to hit, even with Speed Up, and offensive magic was the only thing doing reasonable damage.

This stupid thing (and its eventual color swap return boss) is my winner for worst hit box of the game. As you are looking at it there, where you are (apparently) supposed to hit is its knee region. Not that it has knees! And this is marginally impossible, as its physical attack comes from the toes/feet, so if you hit that area before you hit it, you are knocked back by an "attack". Absolute garbage monster.

You didn't encounter this, but the whole Moogle/Sprite/Seasonal Forest area is a remarkably bad piece of game design. Before you "unlock" the Wind Temple, there are no inns or any way to group heal and refill magic. If you have any party members die, you must purchase a Cup of Wishes from Neko. If you do not have the dough, you cannot revive a party member. And you cannot use Cannon Travel to go anywhere else if you have ghosts/dead in your party. So if you cannot afford Neko's revival prices, you are damned to wander around farming for gold with a limited party until you can earn revives. And, yes, with Neko, you can "save" yourself in this situation. Couple this all with a nasty boss that you must beat before finding relief, and we have easily the meanest part of the game if you are unprepared.

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On the other side, they come across a bizarre land full of blue grass and talking mushrooms! After upgrading their equipment, they talk to their king, who speaks of a legend of warriors riding a white dragon and saving them from evil. The king directs them to the white dragon and tells them that it has been seen fighting a giant snake! Well, we shall certainly come to its aid...next time!

Other translation thing that doesn't come through in this version: King Matango is supposed to be a very eccentric king, and the mushboom people are like "that's our whacky ruler". It appears a tiny bit on SNES with a random Mushboom talking back during one of the dialogues, but be aware that King Matango is supposed to be more goofy than anything.

... It doesn't really impact anything. I just like goofy mushrooms.
 

Beowulf

Son of The Answer Man
(He/Him)
As you are looking at it there, where you are (apparently) supposed to hit is its knee region. Not that it has knees! And this is marginally impossible, as its physical attack comes from the toes/feet, so if you hit that area before you hit it, you are knocked back by an "attack". Absolute garbage monster.
...I always just used the whip to fight it. That means you can keep some distance and hit a lot of its sprite (and therefore the wacky hitbox) at the same time.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
it lets me order actions from the other team members without having to swap control of my current team member.
Oh dang, this is what I was getting at in an early conversation about orbs and charging, should have been clearer. You can set what level they'll try to charge their weapon to. My go-to was always one character (typically the girl with the spear) charge to level 6 while the Sprite only charged to level 1 to keep up attacks.

I believe X is also where you can change the border/background of the text boxes.
You didn't encounter this, but the whole Moogle/Sprite/Seasonal Forest area is a remarkably bad piece of game design. Before you "unlock" the Wind Temple, there are no inns or any way to group heal and refill magic. If you have any party members die, you must purchase a Cup of Wishes from Neko. If you do not have the dough, you cannot revive a party member. And you cannot use Cannon Travel to go anywhere else if you have ghosts/dead in your party. So if you cannot afford Neko's revival prices, you are damned to wander around farming for gold with a limited party until you can earn revives. And, yes, with Neko, you can "save" yourself in this situation. Couple this all with a nasty boss that you must beat before finding relief, and we have easily the meanest part of the game if you are unprepared.
As tough as this area is (fucking goddam owls casting silence) I love it. Very memorable design, the music is repetitive but not intrusive and I also seem to remember it being a good place to grind money/XP wise. Maybe you make enough money to buy things from Neko easily so I never really processed the lack of an inn, huh.
 
This stupid thing (and its eventual color swap return boss) is my winner for worst hit box of the game. As you are looking at it there, where you are (apparently) supposed to hit is its knee region. Not that it has knees! And this is marginally impossible, as its physical attack comes from the toes/feet, so if you hit that area before you hit it, you are knocked back by an "attack". Absolute garbage monster.

Oh. That's why the team's melee hits weren't connecting. Jeez!

On a side note, is Speed Up worth it? I've cast it in a few situations to attempt countering seemingly high enemy evade, and it hasn't really seem to have helped in any of them. I'm beginning to wonder if it even works at all!
You can set what level they'll try to charge their weapon to. My go-to was always one character (typically the girl with the spear) charge to level 6 while the Sprite only charged to level 1 to keep up attacks.

Yeah I noticed. I haven't set up charged attacks for ally AI yet, in fear of them losing opportunities for damage, but I'll try it out for a bit.
As tough as this area is (fucking goddam owls casting silence) I love it. Very memorable design, the music is repetitive but not intrusive and I also seem to remember it being a good place to grind money/XP wise. Maybe you make enough money to buy things from Neko easily so I never really processed the lack of an inn, huh.

Yeah I didn't have many problems with this area, aside from the boss and that weirdly obtuse "puzzle" with the rocks, and I do enjoy the idea of it being a bizarre fantastic land with whimsical things, like the seasons switching quickly or the talking mushrooms. I imagine the designers assumed you would have enough money to stock up on revives if you got this far into the game, and I can't exactly fault them for that assumption; it seems quite a reasonable one to make, even if it has its unfortunate blind spots.
 
I will be posting an update later today, as usual. But I wanted to use my thread to ask something:

From everything I've heard and seen, it seems like the team behind Legend of Mana went on to make Sword of Mana. How is it then that the former is generally regarded as a good, albeit rather niche game, while the latter is almost universally reviled? What went wrong in the creation of the latter?
 

Lokii

(He/Him)
Staff member
Moderator
While Legend is a strange duck that def did not win universal praise when first released, it was at least it’s own thing and general audiences gave it some benefit of the doubt; Sword on the other hand was a remake of a beloved childhood classic and players were a lot less tolerant of its idiosyncrasies. Basically, Sword tried to inflate FFA by putting in a bunch of new stuff: more weapons, systems, dialogue, etc. All the new baggage feels bulky and inelegant when compared to breezy FFA’s effortless charm and audiences responded with either anger or indifference and that’s how a black sheep is born.
 
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FelixSH

(He/Him)
What Lokii said. They changed a simple game I enjoyed to something more complex. As mentioned, I don't really like the battle system from SoM forward and prefer the simplicity of FFA. The same is true for the artstyle. So just from my point of view, they simply changed it unneccessarily.

It also is hard to compare with Legends. That game is weird in so many ways, kinda open-world (you have most of the time a lot of possible questlines you can follow, however you want) and with a ton of optional systems. It feels like a playground, which is super interesting. FFA on the other hand is a simple, straightforward game, which didn't need the extra stuff they added. And granted, again as Lokii mentioned, I do have nostalgia for it (and love b/w gameboy artstyle), so the remake did nothing for me. I never hated it (why would I?), I just didn't see the point.
 
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The party makes its way through a cave that's rather unremarkable in any way outside of its concentration of holes. I try charging whip attacks from Luna and they work surprisingly well, thanks in part to the spear inflicting Balloon to stop foes, and the boomerang inflicting Slow to slow them down. I will certainly miss those when I upgrade them, those effects have been extremely helpful against the opposition. Ah well, I suppose I can just cast their respective spells if I really need them.

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They soon run into the snake. I break out Analyzer, a Sylphide spell Luna can cast, and it shows its stats in detail, including, most notably, its weakness to Sylphide. Sure enough, Kard's spells did humongous damage, and with four walnuts, it didn't take much effort to bring down.

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Past it, the team ran into the white dragon...who looks a lot younger than expected. They speculate that perhaps its parents were killed by the snake, and then ask the mushrooms' king to help it out.

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The king takes it in, then cracks a meta joke about his choice of name. I can't actually choose any of those options, pressing anything just makes him dismiss them, saying that regardless of their opinion, they are going to agree with his name. He also informs the team that the next Palace is in the desert of Kakkara, and that they can take a previously non functional cannon near the mushroom village's entrance to get there.

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The desert featured these nasty sand pits with huge spiders. They were almost as mean as the worst bosses so far, often burying the party in nasty aoes and staying too long underground to be reliably fought in melee. Thankfully, the team was well equipped, and Kard's spells fried them instantly, so despite the potential danger, they made it through with little pain.

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They found a ship in the middle of the desert, but its crew aren't enthused to find them, and in fact suspect them to be spies of the evil empire! Thankfully, the captain shows up, and takes them in...as extra labor. Well, alright.

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Inside, Revi meets this pirate, who snuck into this ship because the oceans got too dangerous for sailing, and he misses being on a ship. He distracts the guards, letting Revi escape!

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He finds Kard without much effort. Turns out it had annoyed the crew enough by eating all of their supplies, so they want it out! Well isn't that a nice little resolution.

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It then decides to play a trick on the guards ahead by blatantly lying to them. Looks like it's still a little naughty!

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Inside, the captain tries to order Luna, but she's having none of it. His father steps in and stops him. The team almost gets arrested, when suddenly, the evil empire shows up!

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They board the ship, and throw the team out to face this bike rider! Despite his impressive appearance, he doesn't do much damage, and is fairly vulnerable to Kard's magic, making this battle a breeze. He drops a whip upgrade, which is quite the welcome sight indeed!

The team is greeted by a much friendlier crew after the incident, with the captain's father profusely apologizing for the captain's behavior. They finally get directions to Kakkara, and follow them to the city.

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Unfortunately, it has fallen on hard times. They're run out of water, and the Palace nearby has already been ransacked by the empire and made bare of both its spirit and seed! Looks like the team is firmly behind, and needs to quicken their pace! But that shall happen next time, as this is where my session ends.
 
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