A Legend of Mana Analysis

by Mark "Intrasonic" Gross 

Seeing the editorial written (a few weeks ago, now) by VenusHero, I decided to finally bite the bullet and write this little blurb up. Having played Legend of Mana and thoroughly enjoyed it, I have to take exception to many of the poor marks that have been bestowed upon it by many. The criticisms that the game shared nothing in common with the rightfully-acclaimed Secret of Mana have generally been met the with the (somewhat lackluster) defense, 'That's because it's _not_ Secret of Mana'.

Anyway, Here is my own take on the whole thing.

First things first, usual stuff. Graphics, I personally thought they were excellent; a more mature variation of Secret of Mana, if you will. Still somewhat childish, but much higher quality and a fantastic attention to detail. Take a moment to look around, there's surprisingly little cut-and-paste duplication going on for the backgrounds.

The music, not too bad. The fact that the music continues on even when a fight starts lets you actually hear the entire track. The fighting system, while disgusting easy, has the distinction of operating without a single pulldown menu or ring and lets you have fun with various tricks and skills. Really, it took longer than any other game for me to actually tire of it. An excellent non-turn-based system. I don't think the game owes anything in these respects.

Another aspect is the 'Ground-breaking' or 'Pain in the ass' way the game is set up, depending on who you talk to. The 'create your own world' really is sort of a crock, because there isn't much that you can do with it, and extremely little of meaningful, enriching use. But expanding on the idea could certainly result in some extremely cool things happening.

The story? This seems to be the fuzzy area that so many people like to bitch about. As so many others before have stated, it's not Secret of Mana. What this game is, is a combination of multiple, excellent stories with a less than ideal way of linking the various chapters together. I can almost guarantee a gamer will enjoy the game more the second time than the first. Even better, once you know how the game works, try hitting each section of each story one after the other.

The stories themselves? Basically exercises in shades-of-grey morality. As far the three main story arcs go (The Jumi story, the Irwin/Matilda story, and the Larc/Sierra story), the one thing they all have in common is the fact that there's no 100% 'good' side.

• You may be working with Elazul and Pearl to keep the Jumi alive, but Alex(andrite) is trying to save Florina and is willing to sacrifice herself for her ideals. And there are hints that Di(amond) may have done something questionable to make the whole mess in the first place...

• Irwin may be a demon bent on trashing things, but he's the only one of the bunch who's willing to let Matilda decide things for herself. Escad doesn't care about anything except killing the 'evil' Irwin, while Daena's determined to keep Matilda away from Irwin no matter what Matilda wishes. In the end, one of them is dead and the survivors still aren't agreeing with each other.

• Larc may be helping Drakonis (and he sure killed a lot of bird-people), but he's just trying to get back to his beloved sister. And after all that hard work, you and Sierra get to kill Larc. And after you finally kill Drakonis, all you get is a bitter-sweet ending.

In short, it's not a feel-good game. It's not a game where the party goes up against impossible odds and triumphs and all is right with the world once again. Granted, the 'feel-good' game in all its mundane glory is much rarer now than it was five or ten years ago. But I think this game takes the idea much further than others do.

Legend of Mana is a game where the hero(ine) is not only a mime, they rarely even nod or shake their head. you don't journey and become a Paladin, you don't come to grips with your own tragic past, or save the world under the banner of love and righteousness.

You're an observer in the truest sense of world. You're not fighting for an ideal or higher cause. You're just a watcher who might occasionally give a prod to start the wagon rolling down the hill. But you don't steer.

The bad guy in Legend of Mana isn't always merely 'evil', or suffering from some neurosis. Heaven forbid, when all is said and done, s/he might be the only one in the right. That being said, don't try to save the day, try to see how the day is saved.

Or decide if it really _is_ saved or not.

Mark
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intrasonic@angelfire.com

P.S.
One of the aspects of Secret of Mana that I found most interesting was the lack of the aforemention 'feel-good' ending. I mean, the game ends with Dyluck dead, Flammie getting killed and the sprite disappearing. No romantic finish, no banner-ladden homecoming. I didn't see any village full of returned sprites. I didn't see a regrown Mana tree. I _did_ see the girl shaking her head at the boy, then him leaving. The Mana Sword gets stuck back in the log again, suggesting that if nothing else, things are going to be peaceful for awhile. But time marches on, and the broken pieces haven't glued themselves together on their own.

It's the way life is, sometimes. Any decent RPG will have some connection to real life. Through an excellent game like Secret of Mana, I think that an exceptional bridging between pixels and reality was forged.
For that, I think Legend of Mana was truly a worthy successor to Secret of Mana.