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kinoko's Legend of Mana (PS)
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| [February 8, 2008 08:17:10 PM]
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(gamelog 3, part 2, for CMPS 80K)
GAMEPLAY
In my second session of Legend of Mana, I focused primarily on becoming more familiar with the game's battle system. Though I played through a couple of battles during my first session, being afforded the ability to further extend my party this time meant that I was able to take on more enemies and thus better understand the mechanics involved. I was pleased to find that the ability to customize extends also to the battle system. Essentially, the player had the ability to assign any available action to almost any of the buttons on the Playstation controller. This feature came in particularly useful as I began to encounter different enemies, since I was able to assign the most useful offensive and defensive moves available according to my situation. Winning battles with these moves also gains the player a new ability from time to time, and these new abilities will differ depending on the moves already equipped.
The battle system in Legend of Mana is also real-time and action-based as opposed to turn-based, which I always find to be an interesting feature in an RPG. The system is very successfully integrated into the gameplay, and the shift between battle and field mode is very subtle, meaning that the player does not have to reorient his or herself a great deal when an enemy is encountered. Battle style also differs according to the player's self-designated class, since each class has a different method of attack.
Other elements, such as interactions with NPCs, are also fun to participate in. The characters inhabiting an area have a surprisingly large number of things to say, and quite often asked for my input as a player, presenting me with a variety of responses to choose from which would, in turn, affect the outcome of the interaction significantly.
DESIGN
The most obviously innovative element in the way that Legen of Mana is designed is, as I have said before, the level of customization offered to the player. Although the game does seem to follow some sort of linear progression plot-wise, quests and events can almost always be completed out of sequence. The ability to decide who to recruit as a party member, which quests to complete, where to place certain areas on the world map (and so forth) all contribute to the extremely loose and free tone of gameplay, and permit prospective players with an unprecedented amount of control over how the game will advance.
While I did not find the design of the playable character to be particularly memorable, the distinctive design of the gameworld and its NPCs is extremely successful in its contribution to Legend of Mana's overarching tone. This is even further enhanced by the dialog: the game has a very cute and whimsical feel to it that managed to overcome my better nature and win me over almost instantaneously. Although the dialog is, to be frank, rather silly, I found it to be surprisingly appealing when it was presented to me in the context of the bright and cheerful gameworld. In particular, I found characters such as the Sprouts (sentient, walking plants which happily exclaim “I have no soul!”) and the main character's pet cactus, to which you can relate your many adventures, to be particularly irresistible.
Perhaps the one element of the game that was frustrating for me, however, was that the lack of an overall narrative (at least at this point) makes the game feel just a bit purposeless. While the overall goal of the game appears to be to replenish the land's magical energy or Mana, the lack of any evident conflict in the beginning is a little underwhelming in spite of the freedom it permits.
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| [February 8, 2008 07:27:38 PM]
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(gamelog 3, part 1, for CMPS 80K)
SUMMARY
Legend of Mana is an action RPG published by Squaresoft for the Sony Playstation in 1999. Unlike other role-playing games, the Mana series is distinctly different in that it allows the player a large level of customization. The objective is to progress through various quests in a loosely defined order that the player determines his or herself, which in turn expand the number of available routes the player can take.
GAMEPLAY
As I had not heard much about Legend of Mana before, I didn't quite know what to expect when I began playing. For that reason, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the game deviates from the standard RPG model in that it allows a large amount of customization, and hence in many ways is much more emergent than any other game of its genre. Since the game is by now nearly a decade old, it was produced with a great deal less aesthetic quality than modern games. Nevertheless, Legend of Mana makes use of the capabilities available to it, using cel-shaded sprites on a two-dimensional plane.
As the game begins, a vague historical background of the world is related to the player, and he or she can choose the gender and class of the main hero. S/he may then continue customizing the game by choosing the location of the protagonist's home village. Once this is done, the protagonist will be left to his or her own devices, with no established direction in which to head. The lack of conventional narrative was something that I found to be particularly refreshing, since it leads the player to the immediate realization that the game itself is rather open-ended.
After navigating around my character's home village, I was able to exit to the world map and choose the location of the second area: a substantially larger town. Engaging in conversation and other interactions with NPCs provided me with opportunities to progress further, both narratively and spatially. For example, by responding in a particular way to one particular character, I was able to recruit him temporarily into my party and enter a new area, whereupon I assisted him in a quest to find his missing friend. The completion of each quest permits access to a new area, which the player may place on any square of the map adjoining an existing location. However, since such quests are entirely optional and can be placed in many different locations, there are a large number of paths to potentially be taken. For me, this element sets the game apart.
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kinoko's Legend of Mana (PS)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Friday 8 February, 2008
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