The Steam page confirms M2 as the remaster's developer, back on the series after Collection of Mana.
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Legend of Mana: Remember me! Need me! I am love.
- Thread starter spines
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- action rpg mana square square enix
I'm interested in this remaster but have never played a single second of Legend of Mana, so I'm perplexed by the talk of encounters. I had always assumed the battle system worked like the previous three Mana games, where enemies are just wandering around in the world and you can run up and whack em if you want. Does LoM actually have random encounters?
It's a beat em up with a discrete "combat" mode much like previous Mana games, but encounters are not optional and cannot otherwise really be avoided or mitigated. A screen cannot be exited until all enemies are killed. It can be annoying.
Yeah, it's this. If you've played SD3/Trials of Mana it works almost exactly like that, where each screen goes into a discrete "combat time" and only ends when you clear the screen. Except for LoM it's a 2D side perspective rather than top-down. A problem with LoM (and honestly OG Trials of Mana too) is when you get lost looking for the "right" room to advance the story or what not, and encounters on each screen reset, so you can end up getting really bogged down and more lost having to go back through rooms you've already cleared once.
Weird! Thanks.
This isn't exactly the same thing but it makes me think of Crisis Core, where each encounter arena had an invisible boundary that would trigger the fight once you crossed it. It was entirely possible (and happened to me way too often) that during the course of the fight you would roll into a corner or cranny and end the fight there, such that the only way to get back onto the path was to cross the boundary again and trigger a repeat of the exact same fight you just finished. Fun times!
This isn't exactly the same thing but it makes me think of Crisis Core, where each encounter arena had an invisible boundary that would trigger the fight once you crossed it. It was entirely possible (and happened to me way too often) that during the course of the fight you would roll into a corner or cranny and end the fight there, such that the only way to get back onto the path was to cross the boundary again and trigger a repeat of the exact same fight you just finished. Fun times!
yeah, it's not on that level because they won't reappear until you return to the screen. unfortunately, that's something that still tends to happen a lot since the areas tend to have a lot of similar screens and branching paths where you either dead end or loop around before you even realize it
I'm thrilled to hear it's M2 handling this: who better, really? Giving this game a modern platform for everybody to enjoy is all I could ask. The remaster - and the choice of M2, which ofc has precedence for the Mana collections - shows a high regard for the source material; even after the million sales of the surprisingly fun and fitting Trials of Mana remake, it's determined that a modernization for LoM is unnecessary, and I am wholeheartedly on board with this. What with a slightly updated SaGa Frontier headed our way too, the Switch is getting some pretty neat gifts lately!
(Optional) Rearranged music?! Shimomura confirms she'll be supervising the new arrangement in the second tweet below. The original OST is one of my fave works as it is, but I am certainly looking forward to listening to all the new tracks. Between this new arrangement and the somewhat-recent and very incredible "Promise" jazz arrange album, LoM's soundtrack has been getting a lot of love. <3
Pajaro Pete
(He/Himbo)
if only they'd consider adding in an encyclopedia that lists card effects for smithing.........
I'm ready to give this game another chance. It's been probably 20(??) years since I tried it the first time, a time when I was expecting a follow up to Secret of Mana, one of my then-favorite games. My tastes are more refined now. Its time.
The remaster looks dope. HD hand-drawn backgrounds while preserving the exquisite pixel art? Best of both worlds.
The remaster looks dope. HD hand-drawn backgrounds while preserving the exquisite pixel art? Best of both worlds.
Pajaro Pete
(He/Himbo)
also, it's like, the gaming industry is much more open to nonlinear open world action rpgs with light crafting elements
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
They finally put up a price on the eShop, $30, which is really reasonable!
Sprite
(He/Him/His)
The reviews of the Remaster are glowing, but also show just how poorly this game is understood (which is, to be fair, the game's fault). Lots of weird asides which just aren't true, but I can see how someone would think them. The one that made me saddest was one guy who lamented that he was playing the game "wrong," because he wasn't optimally placing artifacts to get all the events, which made him think he was locked out of a special ending. There's only one ending, friend! And you can still see and log all the events in New Game+! Don't try to understand this game before you beat it!
The only system that I find truly frustrating going in blind is the effect of weapons on leveling up, since if you stick with one weapon type for all 98 level-ups you can end up with one subpar stat (except for sword, which is balanced), and you can't undo that change later. Though you can compensate for that with equipment, and you can't get all max stats through level-up anyway so it's not worth stressing over too much.
The only system that I find truly frustrating going in blind is the effect of weapons on leveling up, since if you stick with one weapon type for all 98 level-ups you can end up with one subpar stat (except for sword, which is balanced), and you can't undo that change later. Though you can compensate for that with equipment, and you can't get all max stats through level-up anyway so it's not worth stressing over too much.
Does Legend of Mana have the biggest disparity between how complex its crafting is vs how necessary that crafting is?
Would you kindly elaborate on more of those misconceptions? I have not played the game in 20 years, and my OCD brain is probably going to assume I am doing gorram everything wrong.
EDIT TO ELABORATE: I am not worried about playing optimally, so I'm not looking for a FAQ. I would really like some more assurance that "yes, you are not missing anything if you don't do X first" or whatever.
EDIT TO ELABORATE: I am not worried about playing optimally, so I'm not looking for a FAQ. I would really like some more assurance that "yes, you are not missing anything if you don't do X first" or whatever.
Now it Capcom will just step to putting their PSX stuff on eShop I can finally put my PS2 in storage...
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
I am going to be good and wait to start playing this until after my second round of interviews on Monday, but I am so excited.
Sprite
(He/Him/His)
Just make sure you talk to Lil’ Cactus after every quest. Maybe look up how to finish the quest where Lil’ Cactus goes missing. If you’re freaking out about optimizing stats and don’t want to follow a guide, use the one-handed sword.
There is nothing in the game that is truly “missable” because it is designed to be played over and over again on a loop. Any quests you miss on your play through can be finished on a subsequent loop and logged in the diary.
Playing this for the first time. It's not unfamiliar material on basis of music and other osmosed aesthetics as well as the bandied about reputation built over the prior few decades, but short of trying it for a minute or two once that's as far as I've involved myself with Legend. It's fun because I have absolutely no sense of what the game in practice entails so there's an opportunity here to play completely unassisted by external resources. Doesn't happen that often with games this old and which aren't exactly unknown niche material.
I think this might be the best remaster treatment and approach yet landed on for games of this type and vintage. SaGa Frontier's newly redrawn character sprites were excellent and spot-on evocative of Kazuko Shibuya's render art style, but in a way the loss of the original pixels still stung. The Super Famicom-era SaGa remasters occupy the inverse space in characters retaining their assets, but the redrawn environments transforming the overall look substantially, whatever value judgement one applies to the change. With this, you get the newly-realized high-quality adaptations of environmental art, presumably accomplished through a combination of A.I upscaling algorithms and painstaking case-by-case manual redrawing efforts, and the crisp pixel renditions of every character on top, creating compelling and pleasing contrast in an effect that still stays entirely authentic to the original's art style in the ways that it can be presented on modern displays. It's not just the characters alone, but various other odds and ends in the object sprites retain their pixels as well, making one wish the practice had been applied even more holistically down to a unified interface and font aesthetic, and partly it is, but that aspect of visually remastering old games remains the field's most unacknowledged and inconsistent facet. Still, what's here is best of class and I hope they take the lessons learned forward into future projects.
From first impressions, the writing is already standout material in the voice it has and how it's delivered. Nothing is particularly explained, and you're left alone to shape the world according to your whims within the allowed frame, free to reject or involve yourself with the chance meetings that occur as it's filled in. And when you do speak to the inhabitants, they say odd, startling things, each having the capability to capture one's rapt attention in just a few words or thoughts betrayed. What am I supposed to think of Niccolo's extended, vicious bile directed at the Sproutlings, expressed seemingly at random and suddenly casting him as possessing violently racist fantasies that he cannot contain in his inexplicable hate? It was right off one of the most upsetting things I've come across in any game I can think of, and that it wasn't particularly called attention to, and how much there was of it when I did press the matter, both made me feel uneasy and captivated about the possibilities of other such abrupt turns and characterization that might develop later on. It's also not the Mana I'm used to based on the prior three games in the series, as for any of them I could not say the world at large or the people in them save some exceptional individuals held much import or relevance for whatever strengths those games had--I'm finding the battling interesting even this early on in Legend, but it already feels like a world that demands to be heard and seen for all its wild creativity that exists in the folk living in it and the places that house them.
I think this might be the best remaster treatment and approach yet landed on for games of this type and vintage. SaGa Frontier's newly redrawn character sprites were excellent and spot-on evocative of Kazuko Shibuya's render art style, but in a way the loss of the original pixels still stung. The Super Famicom-era SaGa remasters occupy the inverse space in characters retaining their assets, but the redrawn environments transforming the overall look substantially, whatever value judgement one applies to the change. With this, you get the newly-realized high-quality adaptations of environmental art, presumably accomplished through a combination of A.I upscaling algorithms and painstaking case-by-case manual redrawing efforts, and the crisp pixel renditions of every character on top, creating compelling and pleasing contrast in an effect that still stays entirely authentic to the original's art style in the ways that it can be presented on modern displays. It's not just the characters alone, but various other odds and ends in the object sprites retain their pixels as well, making one wish the practice had been applied even more holistically down to a unified interface and font aesthetic, and partly it is, but that aspect of visually remastering old games remains the field's most unacknowledged and inconsistent facet. Still, what's here is best of class and I hope they take the lessons learned forward into future projects.
From first impressions, the writing is already standout material in the voice it has and how it's delivered. Nothing is particularly explained, and you're left alone to shape the world according to your whims within the allowed frame, free to reject or involve yourself with the chance meetings that occur as it's filled in. And when you do speak to the inhabitants, they say odd, startling things, each having the capability to capture one's rapt attention in just a few words or thoughts betrayed. What am I supposed to think of Niccolo's extended, vicious bile directed at the Sproutlings, expressed seemingly at random and suddenly casting him as possessing violently racist fantasies that he cannot contain in his inexplicable hate? It was right off one of the most upsetting things I've come across in any game I can think of, and that it wasn't particularly called attention to, and how much there was of it when I did press the matter, both made me feel uneasy and captivated about the possibilities of other such abrupt turns and characterization that might develop later on. It's also not the Mana I'm used to based on the prior three games in the series, as for any of them I could not say the world at large or the people in them save some exceptional individuals held much import or relevance for whatever strengths those games had--I'm finding the battling interesting even this early on in Legend, but it already feels like a world that demands to be heard and seen for all its wild creativity that exists in the folk living in it and the places that house them.
Sprite
(He/Him/His)
The world is definitely the game’s strong suit, and binds it together in a way that makes it more than the sum of its parts. It might be my favorite fantasy world from an art design standpoint, if only because of the sheer variety of fantasy creatures on display. It feels a lot like a more European take on the Oz books to me.
I'm so glad you are! I look forward to more of your thoughts on the game.
Pajaro Pete
(He/Himbo)
Baba Dubababa Dub
Dub?
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
You know, I've never really thought about this until now but I think I agree. It's so delightful.
Although I didn't try very hard to finish any of his questlines so it's certainly possible there's something I didn't see, Niccolo remains a dislikeable character to the end, and while I saw the game elaborate on his personality and role in the world to some extent I didn't get to anything that seemed like an effort to paint him as unexpectedly "good" or reform him or anything like that. It's certainly shocking because his design and dialogue otherwise suggest at first that he's supposed to be, well, a friendly and appealing character, but as far as I can tell he really just is...a selfish and mean person hiding under the thinnest veneer of outward-facing charm. And it makes sense to me, since I've certainly known people like this in my own life as well, who were overwhelmingly nice and happy in their dealings with me but clearly didn't extend those kinds of attitudes toward people at large, and likely assumed I shared their own view of the world. Despite being one of the first characters the player encounters and having a few unexpected appearances through the game, he's not a "central" character in anyone else's plotlines, and I certainly think his presence as a surprising and unpleasant character is intended and memorable.
I'm not sure how many times I've said or written "I hate Niccolo" or something similar, but it's more than a few. And still true.
I'm not sure how many times I've said or written "I hate Niccolo" or something similar, but it's more than a few. And still true.
I fiddled with Ring Ring Land a little bit and got a few mid-tier crafting materials, then jumped on a Japanese wiki to see if there's something I was missing.
(it's a legend of mana minigame, of course there was)
(it's a legend of mana minigame, of course there was)
The only thing your monster choice does is determine what monster type you get a +1 roll bonus against. Since the monsters you encounter are totally random, there's no reason to use any monster over any other.
The most important decision in the game is the number of laps, which is obvious enough. 1 lap only gives up to 2 star items, 2 laps gives up to 3 star, 3 laps gives up to 4 star. The only reason to play this is for crafting materials, and most relevant materials are 4 star, though there are exceptions. Dragon Scales are 3 star for some reason, and some normally limited items like Ash and Mirror Pieces are 1-2 star.
If you go 3 laps, you have to fight a Machine Golem boss at the end. No monsters are strong against it, and it can roll up to 9s in combat. If you beat it, you get a 4 star item. If you lose, you take 2 damage. So you need to get home with 3 HP to guarantee you'll be able to take anything back.
The other important decisions are starting point and direction. It doesn't just change the order you encounter location tiles in, it changes the drop rates for every item type. In addition, the Golem boss has an 80% chance to drop a specific material for each route.
The best items are all bags (Dior Wood, Adamantite, Dragon Scales, Unique Aerolites, etc), so Left + Up is where you should be going unless you want a better shot at Adamantite specifically.
The rest of the game is fairly straightforward. The wiki suggests that you can aim for the number you want to hit by pressing the button two numbers before your target, but I haven't been able to get it to work consistently even by using Cheat Engine to slow the game speed to 50%. It seemed to land on the numbers flanking my target just as often, if not more. My solution was to not bother trying and just mash randomly while doing something else until I got what I wanted. I got a Dior Wood and two Adamantite in probably less time than it would have taken to get them from monsters. I don't think I would recommend aiming for anything outside of Golem drops.
And since the monster you use for this doesn't matter, it means you can take your starting Rabite and have a full set of Dior Wood/Adamantite/Dragon Scales gear as soon as you get the smithy.
Legend of Mana!
The most important decision in the game is the number of laps, which is obvious enough. 1 lap only gives up to 2 star items, 2 laps gives up to 3 star, 3 laps gives up to 4 star. The only reason to play this is for crafting materials, and most relevant materials are 4 star, though there are exceptions. Dragon Scales are 3 star for some reason, and some normally limited items like Ash and Mirror Pieces are 1-2 star.
If you go 3 laps, you have to fight a Machine Golem boss at the end. No monsters are strong against it, and it can roll up to 9s in combat. If you beat it, you get a 4 star item. If you lose, you take 2 damage. So you need to get home with 3 HP to guarantee you'll be able to take anything back.
The other important decisions are starting point and direction. It doesn't just change the order you encounter location tiles in, it changes the drop rates for every item type. In addition, the Golem boss has an 80% chance to drop a specific material for each route.
Start + Direction | Mineral | Seed | Bag | Golem |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Left + Up | 40% | 10% | 50% | Dior Wood |
| Left + Down | 20% | 30% | 20% | Adamantite |
| Right + Up | 30% | 50% | 20% | Gaia's Tears |
| Right + Down | 50% | 20% | 30% | Altena Alloy |
The rest of the game is fairly straightforward. The wiki suggests that you can aim for the number you want to hit by pressing the button two numbers before your target, but I haven't been able to get it to work consistently even by using Cheat Engine to slow the game speed to 50%. It seemed to land on the numbers flanking my target just as often, if not more. My solution was to not bother trying and just mash randomly while doing something else until I got what I wanted. I got a Dior Wood and two Adamantite in probably less time than it would have taken to get them from monsters. I don't think I would recommend aiming for anything outside of Golem drops.
And since the monster you use for this doesn't matter, it means you can take your starting Rabite and have a full set of Dior Wood/Adamantite/Dragon Scales gear as soon as you get the smithy.
Legend of Mana!