For every title out there, there has always been a similarity & feeling that came with that game. That feeling like..."Hey I know this is a X title" because there are similar elements of that series. The Mana series by Square/Enix, has always given that feeling. Stating this fact, this is a Mana game, however, it's a pretty WEAK Mana game. Suffice to say, since Secret of Mana, other Mana titles have always came out weaker & weaker. Children of Mana is a fine example of this.

​

Every Mana game followed a similar principle: Mana is dying or being threatened & you the hero must save it. This is a fine concept and it has always worked in the past, even with very vauge games such as Legend of Mana. I knew that game was about saving/restoring Mana but the storyline beyond that & its characters were very vague, the gameplay off that game pretty much saved the product from being a bad game. CoM is similar to this concept except the other way around, the characters are understandable in this version but the storyline sometimes itself gets confusing. Out of all the elements of this game, its the gameplay aspect that hurts it the most.

​

CoM starts out with you picking one of four heroes, which with their strengths and weaknesses, even though it doesn't make a HUGE difference which character you do pick. I picked the taru looking small kid because I like magical based characters, but overall CoM comes short. Most of the time you'll be hacking & slashing and when it comes to magic, its not very useful. The games storyline is just like I said above: Mana is being threatened you find this out after a incident that happens at the Mana Tower after rescuing your friend Tess.

​

CoM main core gameplay is randomly generated dungeons. While this interesting to see being pulled off in a Mana game, it comes out short. It just doesn't feel adventurous plus most of the dungeons lay outs are very similar. Each level has gem pool to advance to the next floor but you need to sometimes locate that and to proceed to the next level your character has to carry the gem he/she finds to get to th next level. This gem might be contained in an enemy or hidden in bush. Gameplay in the dungeons are very repetitive and enemies aren't that tough. Sure are some enemies that are buggers but its not easy to get overpowered, especially once you get the bow & arrow (which is early in the game), you can just sit back and hammer away at your foes. Boss fights are pretty challenging but once you figure them out they're not much of a problem. Even the last fight was a breeze, it only took me 5 minutes to take down the last boss!

​

Mana games has been known for spirits you can acquire and use their abilities to unleash awesome magical attacks or buffs. Unfortunately, its not that strong in CoM.You can only carry one spirit with you at a time and either you let them do their attack (which each attack is VERY similar and overall useless unless you time it perfectly and even then its still not effective) or you can touch them to get buffed up (like ice swords from Undine) or get healed. Out of all the elemental, Luna was the most useful because she could regen your hp back and quickly.

One aspect they added in CoM was Gems that could enhance your character. These gems could add strength or mp, make your spirits strong & other increases. Eventually you'll either find or create certain gems that will literately over power your character to the point the game isn't that very difficult. Gems that I found recovered my hp/mp by 6 per tick and made luna regen 30 Hp when I needed it. So I never ran out of mp most of the time. So overall it doesn't matter as I said in the beginning which character you pick.

​

The games control is good and it is better than Sword of Mana and it is more fluid. The game has sidequests and some of these quests are rewarding and add to the story but sidequests, like the main quests is you returning to that same previous dungeon and hacking & slashing. If I didn't do sidequests this game would prolly take me less than 13 hours to finish. It was interesting to see randomly generated dungeons but for some reason it just didn't feel executed right, like in Lufia III. The only other good aspect I can say of this game was the music. The soundtrack is pretty good especially victory musics. CoM doesn't live up to the Mana series but if you don't have much of anything else to do, its an OK interruption game as I like to call it.

​

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Graphics: 1.000/1.000: (Has that Mana look & cool FMV's)

​

Sound: 1.000/1.000: (Pretty good sound for a Mana with a various mixes of the series)

​

Control: .600/1.000: (Better control than previous Mana game, characters are overall responsive most of the time)

​

Storyline: .400/1.000: (Storyline makes somewhat sense but its also feels weird that the whole world relies on you. Funny to see a 9 year old kid bear that kind of weight on his shoulders.)

​

Gameplay: 0.300 (There's no real travelling to various places through out the world. Magic is hardly used in the game, making it no difference which character you pick. Gameplay and quests are very repetitive. Bosses aren't that challenging)

​

RETURN TO PREVIOUS PAGE

​