E3: Sword of Mana Impressions

[Hero]

If you ever played Seiken Densetsu or Final Fantasy Adventure on the original GameBoy, you've played this. Minus the new graphics. And improved storyline. And refined gameplay. So...

Sword of Mana is a remake of the aforemention titles, but brought to the realm of 16-bit, color, and coherent plots. You take charge of a young lad whose parents were killed by the Dark Lord and subsequently, he takes you as a slave to battle in a colessium for his amuesment. Soon enough, our hero makes a break for it, is caught, and left for dead after taking a long fall from a bridge.

And so you start, alone and dazed - but who is that weird cat-guy? Yep...there's cameos abound already. So shake off your hundred-foot plummet, thank the stars that you're still alive, and venture out to find some answers - and revenge. Aiding you in this quest will be a trusty sword, Zelda-style combat, a neat magic/ability system, and a lot of elements that has made the Mana series second only to Final Fantasy.

The graphics are on the amazing side of the GBA spectrum, offering art, style, and animation quite close to the PSOne's Legend of Mana and the gameplay retains the original's simplicity, but does let you equip an ability to the L button, and a magic spell to R. At E3 no spells were present, and the only ability was 'sleep' which allows you to lay around (unprotected) and regain life. Also noteworthy is the inclusion of swapping between your main character and NPCs that join later in the game - something entirely new from the original.

Sword of Mana is shaping up to be a great game; with so many tucks and tweaks, you'd be hard-pressed to call it a port.

[frostwolf ex]

cool, when is the release date? this is a buy title for me.

[Hero]

Q4 is all Nintendo is saying right now.

[Starfox]

Yeah - there are some really impressive RPG's coming our way this year.
I strongly hope this will be one of them.

[Drewbacca]

Games like these seriously make me rethink my decision to wait for the PSP. I think I may just give in a buy one soon.... and a GBA player.

[Saint of Killers]

So they remake a game that's already available in the US instead of releasing SD3. Thanks alot, Square.

[red_war_machine]

I wonder if they'll bother bringing it to Europe this time.

Not that I really care. I detest the damn game.

[OmegaFlareX]

Very, very cool. FFA is one game that I've played through dozens of times, and I'd still thoroughly enjoy playing it again in this version. Now there's only one problem I need to solve first... I need a GBA.