Tendo City

Because if there's anything I like more than talking about games, it's playing them! So why not do both AT THE SAME TIME?!

Radical Dreamers

One of the few Japan-only SNES games to get a translation that isn't an RPG and it actually kind of is, in a very basic sort of way. It's a choose-your-own-adventure book in game form, with some pictures, sound effects, and music thrown in for good measure. The game is also brutally hard, as I found out when I was killed during only the second "encounter" when my character got thrashed by some piranhas. This will be one that benefits greatly from instant saves and multiple save states.

Bahamut Lagoon

A turn-based strategy game from Square that features dragons, also bears some similarities with Final Fantasy Tactics. I played through the first battle and enjoyed what I played of it, the presentation is pretty good too with lots of story coming out early on and some character interaction. Having dragons on the field, who do things based on three basic orders you can give them do make things a bit more interesting. It's going to feel a bit old fashioned up against the new wave of TPS games from Nippon Ichi though.

Seiken Densetsu 3

I like the early Mana games, but not so much the later ones. They share a lot of similarities, but it feels like the new ones are just missing something that the older ones have. I've not been able to play too much just yet, but I like the idea of having multiple characters and giving you the choice of which ones to play through the game as. Story, characters, and presentation are all top-notch, which isn't surprising given when it came out and which company made it [Square].

I consider Secret of Mana to be far superior to "Final Fantasy Adventure" (the original translated name of the original GB game). That said, FFA was still a good game, and just about everyone you meet dies horribly.

Eventually I hope they translate and release SD3 on the DS or something in the future... I've heard it's a very good game.

I also heard about "Radical Dreamers" and well, if it's basically a "choose your own adventure" game, then it's basically like an interactive movie without the movie. I expect it to be "hard" (if you can assign difficulty to 1/0 instant death choices), because those books were always killing you horribly too. Honestly I wouldn't pay $70 for something like that (the going rate of SNES games at the time). Chrono Cross's story is apparently loosely based on the characters and setting of Radical Dreamers, and a journal in Chronopolis apparently references those events as another alternate reality. That one though is actually a GAME, so I'm fine missing out on this thing.

I remember reading about both SD3 and Bahamut Lagoon in some old issues of Nintendo Power, and being disappointed when it was later announced they got cancelled for an American release.

Secret of Mana somewhat disappointed me when I got it several years ago, so much grinding, and some not-great design decisions... Final Fantasy Adventure is my favorite Mana game. I haven't played any of SD3 in years, but I do remember liking what I played of it, apart from getting annoyed at not being told where to go and just wandering around lost some of the time.

Sword of Mana was disappointing and really not very good. I mean, sure, you could play it, and it looks nice, but the actual gameplay was so lame in comparison to any of the older Mana games... it was completely linear, with no exploration really, easy, and more. I never actually finished it, I got bored well into the game and stopped playing.

I did finish Children of Mana, though. I didn't love it, it's not much above average, but it was one of the earlier DS games I got and I found it playable. It's an okay dungeon crawling hack and slash game with a somewhat confusing story, nothing more than that. Took me quite some time to finish, but I did keep coming back often enough to eventually get through the thing, so obviously I liked it at least somewhat.

I haven't played the PS2 Mana game, Dawn of Mana, but all reviews are awful, so I don't know how badly I want to. Heroes of Mana I do want to try sometime (the RTS-like one on DS). As for Legend of Mana on PSX, I've played (and liked) a few hours of the game in emulation, but wanted to save actually playing the whole thing for when I found an actual copy, which I haven't managed to do in the years since getting a PSX, so I haven't played more of it than that.


Oh, as for those other games, I played a little of Bahamut Lagoon a little while ago, and yeah it did seem pretty good. I was happy to see that it was a strategy game and not another RPG, I like strategy games more. It's something I should go back to. :)