Welcome to the Mana game that even I think is terrible…
Sword of Mana
Aka A New Testament: The Legend of the Sacred Sword
2003
Nintendo Gameboy Advance
What’s the story?
This is an “expanded remake” of Final Fantasy Adventure. As such, it technically has the same plot. However, I will emphasize “technically”, as the story has been expanded to a ridiculous degree so that you will likely know Cibba’s boxers size by the finale. Boy is a Wheel Idiot now. Girl has opinions on stuff. Unfortunately, like this paragraph, it is still a teeny tiny bit of content stretched to a bloated breaking point.
Who are the baddies?
Case in point: it is the same “evil empire” as Final Fantasy Adventure, but this time Dark Lord has mommy issues regarding the Mana tribe letting his mother become a medusa. Did the Dark Lord need additional motivation beyond being the friggen’ Dark Lord? I say thee nay. Julius is still only a genetic descendant of bad people, though.
What is the Mana Sword?
Rusty Adventure gets upgraded to the murder machine like in FFA, but the Mana Sword is much more of a known goal in this version of the story. Boy is lusting after that blade from practically the first moment. To draw the Legend of Zelda comparison again, it feels like the difference between The Legend of Zelda’s “The Magical Sword” and A Link to the Past’s Master Sword.
How does it play?
After three solid games of combat being weirdly clumsy, we are finally getting back to something more akin to “traditional” gameplay. Hit things whenever there is an opening, charge your super meter with hits, and then unleash a special attack by holding (not tapping) the attack button. No gauges or other nonsense holding you back! On the other hand, between battles, there is a quasi-crafting/loot system, and that just serves to slow upgrades and consumable item acquisition down to a crawl. At least something is unnecessarily sluggish in this Mana game.
Is it pretty?
It’s damn pretty. We’ve got Brownie Brown handling the sprite-work of a Gameboy Advance game, and, three years later, they would be releasing Mother 3. Nobody on the BB team was taking a magical vacation while developing this game: this is one of the best-looking titles to ever grace the GBA.
What is Magic?
Magic is provided by the elemental spirits, and every spirit gets a buff and an attack spell. Presumably to finally make magic immediate in a Mana game, spells are cast by tapping or holding a shoulder button. This would be an amazing boon to the franchise if not for “charging” MP requiring your protagonist to sit quietly on the ground while doing nothing.
What’s Watts?
The OG dwarf returns as an adept party member and eventual in-(cactus-)house blacksmith. This is an upgrade over the original, as that Watts was one-and-done and vaguely forgotten after his vignette early in Final Fantasy Adventure. This smith is here to stay, baby!
Are there Duck Soldiers?
Yep! And they show up within the first couple of hours, too. These fluffy little guys are the only thing that appears faster in this reimagining.
What makes it good?
At a time when RPGs were in short supply on Nintendo systems, this is a big, wordy game like those Playstation-based Final Fantasy titles. It was also a “traditional” entry in the Mana series after America had not seen a straightforward “hit things with swords” Mana game in a full decade. There, in its moment, Sword of Mana was at least something to do.
What makes it bad?
Goddamned everything. This is a master class in taking a simple story and game (hero beat bad guy with magic sword) and expanding it to the point where there is technically “more”, but that “more” is nothing. Boy rescues Girl from Vampire becomes a secret plan by an emotionally-significant ghost mentor and a random immortal to hide magical maidens from an evil empire in exchange for assuaging the Vampire’s misery over the main bad guy’s mother’s snakey fate… But it still just ends with you fighting Vampire to rescue Girl. Can we just put a stake in it!?
Anything else?
A focused goal of Sword of Mana was stripping out all the Final Fantasy trappings, and making the origin point of the Mana franchise exclusively based on Mana myths. But did anyone consider that people like the Final Fantasy franchise? And, particularly, chocobos? Something to ponder.
Even Worse Streams Presents The Mana Franchise
Night 5
Sword of Mana
October 15, 2024
Random Notes:
- You can eat your dinner in the grocery store parking lot with Cassandralyn, BEAT, fanboymaster, Ample Vigour, and Chromes. Or choose your own parking lot!
- The audience has selected Bobb/Prince Adam for starring in this evening’s events. Gogg will be appearing in a supporting role.
- Sword of Mana has a needlessly long prologue. Let’s talk about Star of the Giants.
After ten friggen’ minutes, we are playing the game. We finally see some action, and BEAT has issues with Sword of Mana sword length.- Ample Vigour claims he does not show up in the show notes often enough.
- If you are curious about the time I found my Wild Arms 2 Let’s Play was being plagiarized, the story of my growing fear of the net as we know it is relayed as we hit the Topple outskirts.
- As we venture through a generic cave, we discuss both Blues Traveler and Green Day. Welcome to twenty years ago!
- Rabites are not pigs.
- Misery is Top Model backwards.
- As we venture through the Vampire Mansion, we examine which of our dads understand Gwen Stefani songs.
- I said I would provide a picture of Beartato sitting on my couch, so here you are.
He looks comfortable. - “I’ve accidentally eaten soup with a fork.”
- Caliscrub joins as we raid the Marsh Cave. Yes, we are playing the right game.
- “Snap with me, son. Snap with me like the old days!”
- Ample Vigour leaves, presumably due to my pronunciation of “aeroplane”.
- Mother 3: An excellent game for proving why capitalism sucks ass. Also, you play as a monkey named Salsa. GOAT right there.
- And this naturally segues to Final Fantasy 7/Final Fantasy 7 Remake discussion. All those busy little bees…
- We made it to Wendell! So we’re done!
Next time on Manapiece Theatre: Screens, like Children, should be limited.
