Disappointment Post 2: Dawn of Mana

[seawasp]

Here I'll give a



Long ago, in the ancient days when something called the Super Nintendo was the apex of game console technology, there was a CRPG called "Secret of Mana". It was a good game, oddly bright and almost cartoony on the surface (by the standards of the day -- by today's standards EVERYTHING was cartoony on the SNES, and pretty blockily cartoony, too) but with a serious, sometimes quite dark, storyline. It was considered one of the best of its era, following just behind its creator Squaresoft's other two great CRPG achievements -- Final Fantasy, and the immortal and still unequalled Chrono Trigger.

So when I heard that finally a sequel was in the works, I was very excited. Initial screenshots I saw were interesting, and when I finally got a copy and started it up, it looked good, maintaining the bright cheerful world overlay and a clear implication of darker deeds to come.

But after a few hours of play, I've become sorely disappointed. The imagery and so on is good, but, to sum up the problems in a single succinct sentence:

Dawn of Mana is not an RPG.

Unless something changes rather drastically farther into the game than I've been able to get, it's basically a chop-and-jump killfest. Given the imagery and kawaii graphics and sounds, it appears to really be nothing more than a Mana-inspired version of Spyro the Dragon. There's no roleplaying, no running around and talking to people and trying to figure out what's going on, no choices to be made, just cutscenes and then on to the next thing to kill. There's some amusing combat choices and skills to be mastered, but overall it's really not anything like what a sequel to an old RPG should be, could be, or appeared to be.

I was disappointed by Chrono Cross in a number of ways, but it was, at least, a large, expansive, and reasonably well-done CRPG. It wasn't really a sequel to Chrono Trigger (no matter what it claimed) and it certainly didn't reach nearly the heights of its predecessor, but it was a decent game of the same type. Dawn of Mana isn't. It's just a shoot-and-slash through multiple complex levels, of exactly the sort that I REALLY don't like (trying to solve these kind of puzzles really pisses me off if I don't have the ability to save at pretty much any point I want to; you can spend an hour struggling through some complex climb-the-mountain and hop over floating platforms puzzle, make one misstep, and have to start all over again.

Christopher seems to be having fun with it, but even he may be getting frustrated with the latter issue.

Ah well, maybe Wild Arms 5 will be good.

Comments

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

Oh, no!

I just bought it on Friday and am planning on starting it tonight. I love Secret of Mana and was hoping it would be more like the original.

[shana.livejournal.com]

Too bad.

[xyzzysqrl]

Goddamn it.

It sounds a lot like Kingdom Hearts, or like Children of Mana on the DS.

(Also, yeah, Chrono Cross was a sequel to Chrono Trigger. Same world, some returning characters... just different dimension/universe.)

[salkryn.livejournal.com]

I dunno about Wild Arms 5...the fourth game was really disappointing to my mind. None of the newer games seems to have caught quite the spirit that the original had.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

Are there ANY really well done CRPGs out now that match what was done five years ago? I've been playing Oblivion, and while some elements of graphics have improved, it isn't quite as good as Morrowind.

The industry really feels like its stagnating, and has been for some time.

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

I used to hang out on comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg to complain that there haven't been any decent games in a decade. If only someone would make a sequel to Ultima 5, Star Control 2, or Betrayal at Krondor...

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

That's about what happened to the Shining Force series. The early games were good strategy RPGs. The most recent offerings, Tears, Neo and EXA, are pretty generic hack-and-slash games. If I want to play.

Dunnow about WA5. WA4 wasn't bad? But the franchise has been going the way of Suikoden. WA5's battle system is similar to WA4's hex grid layout which ISTR you not liking. OTOH, the one review of WA5 that I read implies that it isn't all attack/cure like WA4. We'll see.

In the part I played...

[seawasp]

... it's even LESS RPG'y than Kingdom Hearts. At least in KH you often were able to wander around and talk to people, sometimes even finding out useful things. As far as I got in DoM, it was just cutscene and then into next dungeon.

Well...

[seawasp]

... I thought there were some really nice parts of WA4, but it had some annoying ones as well.

FFXII is fun so far (I'm going through it slowly). Rogue Galaxy is fun, sometimes annoying, but I haven't gotten to the point that I have to drop it from annoyance. Star Ocean 3 was amazingly good.

None of the RPGs of course push the envelope of the "RP" part of it nearly as much as they could.

I did...

[seawasp]

... like parts of WA4. I haven't finished it yet, but unlike WA2 I didn't give up on it.

No...

[seawasp]

... They SAID Chrono Cross was a sequel, but if the "sequel" doesn't show that it is until the end, and mostly uses oblique references, it don't make the grade.

What *I* want is Chrono Trigger 2, which would pick up IMMEDIATELY after CT left off. And you'd select WHICH ENDING YOU LEFT OFF AT and play from there.

I could write that puppy.

Re: No...

[xyzzysqrl]

But it did show it was a sequel via repeated references, and used most of the same storytelling mechanics, and directly continues plot threads.

I would absolutely -hate- a "Chrono Trigger 2". That story is -done-. Any sequel would have to be a world-setting sequel. Going back to Crono and company would be stupid.

Re: Well...

[salkryn.livejournal.com]

I loved the whole Star Ocean series. The only one I haven't played is Blue Sphere, which was never imported and was on Game Boy Color...which I don't own. Rogue Galaxy went to hell plotwise in the second half of the game, especially with the lame "plot twists," particularly those that were easily figured out within the first two hours of gameplay. I haven't played FFXII yet. Have you tried the Valkyrie Profile series? It's by Tri-Ace, the same team that did Star Ocean. As for pushing the RP envelope, it's part of what makes me interested in getting in the business.

Re: No...

[seawasp]

ATD. To me there's clearly more to do with the original characters (hell, most of the endings make it pretty clear, and there's at least one far larger plotline to address), and Chrono Cross was a very poor excuse for a sequel (a decent CRPG, but not a true sequel as it hid most of its connections until the end, only making sidewise references, and didn't address any of the questions of the original while making all of the EVENTS of the original pointless or worse.)

Re: Well...

[seawasp]

Valkyrie Profile was a side-scroller, which drives me absolutely bugfuck. I'll put up with it on SNES and before games, given their limitations (though CT showed it wasn't necessary) but in nothing later.

Well, if you get into the business and want someone to offer you a few scripts...

[spamtek.livejournal.com]

"So when I heard that finally a sequel was in the works..."

Have you played the english translation of the actual sequel, Seiken Densetsu III? You're not forgetting about that... right?

[(Anonymous)]

Think World of Warcraft ate the market, split the bones, sucked out the marrow, and then crafted them into a flute to play a jaunty tune on all the way to the bank. It really is the only rpg-type thing I play anymore at all.