A look back at: Sword of Mana

Whenever I try to play some of these games, I do my best to actually play the first game in the series. That doesn't usually come to fruition with certain series such as Growlanser or Dual Orb which have no reliable translation available for their first release. Sword of Mana is a game I accidentally played, in a sense that is. In other words, for those that are not aware, Secret of Mana, the most famous game in the series, is NOT the first game in the series, but rather Final Fantasy Adventure for the Game Boy. Sword of Mana is essentially an enhanced remake of Final Fantasy Adventure.

Looking back on it and remembering just recently what I was talking about with sidequests and Breath of Fire 3 being so bad at them, this game had tons of actual sidequests, and tons of optional content that the completionist in me just beckoned to check out. The day changes upon screen changes, there's log entries to make for a certain location that repeatedly pops up, there's the idea of filling up the beastiary. There's also a distinct character class system when you level up certain traits in the game, where you can be of a certain class, although it becomes permanent which boosts you get after a while. Oh yes, and lots of leveling up of weapons and magic contributing to an overall long experience. Put simply, this game has a TON of stuff.

I didn't care that much for this game's plot though. It's pretty meh overall. There's this obviously villainous dude with the unoriginal name Dark Lord, and he naturally isn't the main enemy of the game. There's the characters that join up with you and act as AI commands them to on the quest. There's also vampires, which are okay overall. And naturally, the quest for the title item is pretty straightforward. Notably though, only the male hero can use the swords in this game, the female can only use the staves. There's more of that ancient technology thing that is common in JRPGs too. It's pretty bland for a main plot, and here's an example of a game in which I'm happy with the sidequests, because there's a lot more interesting stuff there than there was with the game as a whole.