I got that game with the Swords and the Mananserfants

[OB1]

...and played it for about fifteen minutes so far.

Discuss.

[Dark Jaguar]

You're gonna have to be a little more specific...

[OB1]

If you got the game, talk about it.

[Dark Jaguar]

WHAT game? That's a very unspecific title, and WHAT is manington? Is it some sort of high scale restaurant, or the name of some butler Mannatee?

[Great Rumbler]

I have no idea what you are talking about, OB1.

[OB1]

MANA!

Yeesh.

[Dark Jaguar]

Mana?

Oh now I get it, Sword of Mana. Still, your little word change just wasn't nearly close enough to make one think "mana"... (Manington? Ouch...)

I'll eventually get it, can't now though. Enjoy!

[OB1]

I told that to my friend at work and he got it...

[OB1]

Why did you delete the "h" in "that" when you edited the title?

[Sacred Jellybean]

I correctly guessed was OB1 was talking about... and oddly, I haven't been following the game and didn't even know it's been released already.

[A Black Falcon]

I've got to get this game. Like, now. I read the reviews, but don't care... (or about the fact that I'll pretty much be out of money, but Christmas will solve that problem... :D)

Having the rom just made me want it more...

I've really been looking forward to this game... I just really love the series. I don't think that it'll be as good as SD3 (easily one of the best SNES games ever), but that game was so good that it's kind of hard to live up to... don't know about FFA, though. They seem different and both good. SoM doesn't have really bad English translations, for one... :)

[OB1]

If only Square would release ports of SD2&3 for the GBA...

[A Black Falcon]

Now THAT would be incredible. Both of them on one cart? I'd buy it... :)

However, I bet that if they do do that eventually it'll be two seperate carts. Just because they care (to make buckets of money like Nintendo with SM Advance).

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah, though I DID just spend an incredible amount of time killing things just for that 1 in 255 random item drop of the LEVEL 9 WEAPON ORBS. That took forever... Also a Griffin Helmet was there.

I'm far more interested in the 3rd than the 2nd what with the already owning of that and all.

OB1, you forget your roots!

Tat has been around since TC was just a mailbag!

[A Black Falcon]

Secret of Mana? I'll eventually play more of that game... once I finish SD3... though it's not as good as SD3, it still is good.

But I'd buy both if they released them for GBA. :)

[Dark Jaguar]

Having played SD2 first of the three, I'll see SD3 as inferior simply due to chronology I bet.

[A Black Falcon]

First, SD3 is set before SD2/Secret of Mana. Like, hundreds of years before, I think...

Second, it's got lots of variety. There are six characters to choose from, and you choose one as your main character and two as the other members of your party. Each of the six characters has a somewhat different quest with a completely different beginning section and story differences throughout, and some different bosses at the end... but the story doesn't suffer for anyone at all by having more stories. Having just one would have been fine, I am sure... but they put more in. Of course the customizability stuff went farther in Legend of Mana, but SD3 was really the start of that and it's great in it. Oh, SD3 is pretty linear once you choose your party, but there is still replay value even within parties because at several points you can change your character into better forms on a branching tree...

[Dark Jaguar]

I mean I played it first.

[A Black Falcon]

I still don't really understand what you mean... uh, yeah, I know you played Secret of Mana first... but you didn't just say that...

[OB1]

I would never expect SD2&3 to be released on one cart. I just want to have both of them for my GBA, especially SD3 since I've barely played any of that. Yeah I have the ROM but I don't like playing console games on my PC. I need a more comfy chair.

Back to the main subject, I've put a bit more time into Sword of Mana and while I understand the complaints, I'm still loving every minute of it. The NPC buddy is more of a nuisance than helpful and switching weapons is a bit of a pain, but overall it's still fun. Not as fun as SD2, but more than the original Gameboy version. So far there are plenty of save spots so that hasn't been a problem for me either, but that will probably change if what Gamepro said was correct.

[A Black Falcon]

I think SD3 is the best game in the series. :)

And yeah, I can see how some things about the game could be annoying... but I just like the series enough that to me they don't matter much. Save points? Yes, it's quite annoying to not have them that often, but that's so common in games... and as for the NPC, they're really bad? In FFA they couldn't be killed, in SD3 they could hold their own (with melee attacks), and you could take control of them anytime you wanted... in Secret of Mana too you can control multiple characters. Is this worse than previous games, or have AI standards just gotten higher over time?

[OB1]

I forgot how it was with the other games, but the NPC buddy AI is simply atrocious. It would make someone like LL cry. Seriously. They do lose health but I haven't found out if they can die yet.

I'm gonna try co-op this weekend with a friend of mine so I'll let you know how much fun that is.

[A Black Falcon]

Okay, bad buddy AI. Oh well. And I assume that like FFA (and unlike SD3) you can't control your allies too... but in that game generally they would just go up to enemies and attack them. Pathfinding? Yeah, they got stuck constantly. :) But poor AI isn't a game-killing problem or anything... it's annoying, but you learn to deal with it.

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah, the original didn't have super intelligent buddies either, and if I remember correctly they couldn't even take damage. But, it didn't matter because once the hero died, game over regardless of the status of the ally.

[A Black Falcon]

SD3 is different, since you can switch between all three characters in your party... when one dies and you're controlling them you just get switched to one of the others and better use some healing to get the 'out' member back. :)

That would be wrong for Sword of Mana, though... this is based on FFA, where you just control the main character.

But the AI has been bad in all the games in the series.

[OB1]

It's a pain in this one because not only do you have to defend yourself against the enemies on the screen, but you have to defend your stupid companion as well.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, that would get annoying... why not either have them be indestructible (make them useless, fine, but that's better than them being a pain...) like the first two games or that you can play as all the characters like the third game? :)

[Dark Jaguar]

Maybe you should PLAY Secret of Mana ABF before you say words. You CAN control all 3 characters at once in SOM, and in fact NEED to. You press select to switch direct control, and press X to simply give orders via the ring menu. They work EXACTLY like the main character, and in fact during gameplay there really isn't any way to tell the difference aside from the story.

More than that, with a multi tap you can have a 3 player adventure.

[A Black Falcon]

Right, yeah, I remember that you can control multiple characters in Secret of Mana... but I haven't gotten too far into that game so I wasn't sure if they were all on the screen at once and the other two were always computer controlled when you weren't controlling them or if there was some other scheme.

[OB1]

Okay, I found out that your NPC buddy can indeed die, and just like SD2 the person turns into a ghost. However unlike SD2, if your buddy gets stuck in a wall or something it won't stop you from moving to the next room. So overall, no big deal.

Also, the art is just wonderful. It's the perfect blend of styles of SD2&4. Brownie Brown did a wonderful job in the graphics department.

Now if only Nintendo would release Magical Vacation here!

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah, they are all on screen at once with the other two being PC controlled (or other player controlled if someone decided to join you).

[Great Rumbler]

I thin I'll wait until next year to buy Sword of Mana, when there aren't so many other games I want coming out and already out.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, in SD3 you could just go to the next screen when your other guys got stuck on walls too... in Secret of Mana you had to wait for them? Given how bad pathfinding was back then... that could get very bad very fast. :)

And the graphics... they look just like SD3 and Legend of Mana, which is a good thing. It took until the third game to really get the graphics down, but that look is very pretty...

[Dark Jaguar]

Actually, Secret of Mana had it handled well enough. Yes, you could get them stuck, but pathfinding was done well enough. Generally, you didn't want to leave without them anyway. There were only a few times were they got stuck often enough to get annoying. Nice thing was being able to alter their behavior, like if you wanted them to stay away from enemies so they didn't end up fighting when you just wanted to move on.

[OB1]

You can do that in Sword as well, but it doesn't make a whole lot of difference. An idiot running towards and enemy isn't much better than an idiot running away from it.

[Dark Jaguar]

In fact, one might even conclude it's worse :D. However, no matter. Generally my buddies "ask" commands were more important than their actual battle skills in the original game. And then they died...

[A Black Falcon]

Actually, Secret of Mana had it handled well enough. Yes, you could get them stuck, but pathfinding was done well enough. Generally, you didn't want to leave without them anyway. There were only a few times were they got stuck often enough to get annoying. Nice thing was being able to alter their behavior, like if you wanted them to stay away from enemies so they didn't end up fighting when you just wanted to move on.

Huh? In SD3 when you leave the screen they are both next to you on the next one, no matter where they were... you can't leave without them...

And sure they are stupid, but they do a good enough job of walking up to enemies and hitting them with weapons to be a help in battle... somewhat.

[Dark Jaguar]

Talking with you is like struggling with a drowning victim sometimes ABF! You always think things I say to HELP the conversation are an evil shark trying to eat you! I don't know how else to put it. STOP INTERPRETTING THINGS WRONG! Seriously, it's frustrating...

I never said that you can, just that you wouldn't want to anyway. Oh, and if you managed to get to a border even if your characters are stuck or something, they'd automatically walk through walls and empty space just to get to the next screen.

Just play the game.

[A Black Falcon]

I will when you start explaining yourself better...