Collection of Mana part 1

E3 has come and gone and like the last few years, Nintendo basically dominated the whole show. Luigi's Mansion 3, Animal Crossing, Banjo Kazooie in Smash I doubt you'll find anyone disappointed in Nintendo's showcase. One of the bigger surprises for me was the reveal of a remake of Seiken Densetsu 3, now dubbed Trials of Mana for western audiences. This is a big deal since the game was a Japanese exclusive for years, and now the games getting remade for a worldwide release? Sign me up. Then right after that, they announced that they revealed that Collection of Mana, a compilation of the first three games in the Mana series, would finally be released in the west right after the Nintendo Direct had finished. Meaning you not only get Final Fantasy Adventure and Secret of Mana but you can now play an official translation of Trials of Mana for the very first time.

I'm not a big fan of the Mana series I've been meaning to get into it for a few years now. I tried Secret of Mana a while back and I remember not caring for it but I admit I didn't exactly give it a fair shot and I've been meaning to give it a second look. With the release of Collection of Mana I now have the perfect excuse to do so. But before we get to that it's probably best to begin at the beginning by taking a look at the very first game in the series, Final Fantasy Adventure. OK, I should probably explain the name for a second, in Japan the Mana series is known as the Seiken Densetsu series with the first game being called Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden or Legend of the Holy Sword: Final Fantasy Gaiden, Gaiden is a common suffix meaning side story in Japan. Since that's a bit of a mouthful the game was renamed Final Fantasy Adventure when it was brought over to America and Mystic Quest when brought over to Europe because Europe wouldn't get a Final Fantasy game until the seventh entry. To make matters even more confusing, because it wouldn't be a Square game without needless confusion, this game has been remade twice, once on Gameboy Advance under the name Sword of Mana and again on IOS under the name Adventures of Mana. This game has had more name changes than Hank Pym.

But who cares about the name you probably want to know how it plays. Final Fantasy Adventure is a top-down action RPG with various similarities to the Legend of Zelda series. You explore a big overworld, find and complete dungeons it's easy to call it a Zelda clone at first glance. That's not to say the game is a Zelda clone mind you, with the stronger emphasis on RPG elements Final Fantasy Adventure manages to carve out its own niche alongside its more revered inspiration. As a Gameboy game, I find Final Fantasy Adventure to be among the most impressive on the system in terms of mechanical depth. For one thing, this game has stats that can be increased when you level up.. Granted the stats building in this game is rather basic, you only have four to build up Stamina, Power, Wisdom, and Will which can be increased every time you level up. And I say “can” be leveled up because you actually have a choice in which one you want to increase every time. You will also level up two other stats depending on your choices so it's hard to have unbalanced stats unless you deliberately go out of your way to do so.

The actual hack and slash gameplay is pretty good, by Gameboy standards anyway, playing this nowadays really puts it into perspective how far we've come. I'll give the game credit for trying to add depth to the game through the different weapons you find, not only do each have their own ways of attacking but some are used for secondary purposes like the Axe being able to cut down trees or the Chain Whip being used to latch onto wooden poles. I like it when weapons have uses other than killing things. Then there's each weapons special attack which can be done by building up the Power Meter. The higher the meter is when you press the attack button the stronger your attack will be so it's actually best not to just wildly swing away at enemies but rather to wait for the power bar to fill up and give the enemy a stronger attack, although wailing on them is still a viable option. Build the meter all the way and you can execute a special move for the weapon you have equipped. Most of the time it simply increases the weapons range or does a projectile attack but Swords have access to two different moves, a spin attack, and a flying lunge attack. The bar doesn't fill up very quickly at first but as you level up, particularly when you increase Will, it gets faster and faster. The meter will also affect the strength of the various spells you learn throughout the game. Magic isn't that spectacular, you've got your standard spells like fireballs and healing magic but others stand out like the Ice spell which turns enemies into snowmen, yes seriously, and the Nuke spell. No, you didn't misread that, the Nuke spell. It's the best spell in the game too which makes it all the more hilarious.

As the first game in the Mana series, a lot of the Mana series more recognizable elements got their start here like the Rabite enemy, which would go on to become the series mascot and the Mana Tree which become the backbone of the lore in each game going forward. Speaking of which I should probably explain the plot. The story centers around a man named Darklord, no seriously that's the dudes' actual name, who is after the Mana Tree to take over the world. The Hero, a captive gladiator of Darklord, finds out about this plan during an escape attempt and gets hurled over a cliff for doing so. He survives and decides to set out to stop Darklords scheme with the help of a girl who has a strange connection to the Mana Tree and the ancient group of Gemma knights that protect it. I should mention that the Hero and the girl are named by the player but are officially named Sumo and Fuji respectively, weirdly Japanese names for a game set in a medieval European setting. The story is, OK. The set-up is simple enough and I'll give the game credit for trying to add a bit more depth to the plot like it did with the gameplay, but it doesn't change the fact that the story is the same typical fantasy story you've seen a million times before. I'll give it this, there's a surprising amount of death in this game, it even starts with the friend of the main characters dying, and there's plenty of twists and turns that kept the story interesting. At the very least the story isn't annoying or boring.

One thing I should mention is that this game has a few elements from the Final Fantasy series. What you thought the name was just for marketing reasons, nope there are a few references to Squares flagship series. One of the more prominent references is the Chocobo, you find one early in the game and it becomes your faithful companion throughout the game. You can even ride it and when it gets robot legs later in the story you can surf on the water with it. Cyborg Chocobos need to be in more games. That's not the only Final Fantasy reference, one of the status ailments you can get will turn the main character into a Moogle that can't defend itself and dies in one hit. I know that sounds bad but it doesn't last for very long, none of the status ailments do, and you get a cute jingle whenever you turn into one. At most you'll be affected for about 5 seconds before it wears off so status ailments are more of a mild annoyance than anything else, well except for poison in the early game as that can kill you quickly if you don't cure it.

This actually leads me to one of my main issues with this game, item management. It's not the limited inventory space that bothers me, I actually like it when RPG's do this since you have to think carefully about what you will actually need, no my issue is how useless most of the items are. Sure the basic status healing and curative items are useful in the early stages but once you start getting magic they quickly become irrelevant. Granted the sleep and mute spells are worthless but everything else was pretty good if a bit basic. The problem is that the magic is so useful that it renders half the items you get useless, not just the healing items but the attack items that are pretty much just magic spells that don't cost MP. That's assuming the item even works, to begin with, remember the Moogle ailment I mentioned earlier, there's an item that's supposed to cure it but for some reason, it would never work for me. Even in a fantasy world, nothing works.

Now I know what your gonna say, “sure magic is better but what if you run out of MP? Surely the items are useful then,” nope, I almost never had this problem. For one Ethers exist so I could replenish my MP easily and two you level up so frequently that you'll almost never have to replenish it. I do like this since it means that grinding is completely nonexistent but because every level up refills your MP you almost never run out of magic in this game. I suppose if you spam magic you'll eventually run out but the game never encourages you to do this. Enemies have different weaknesses with some being resistant to elemental attacks and some resistant to physical attacks so you'll be swapping between using magic and weapons quite often. You'll also be swapping out weapons since many of the late game weapons also have elemental properties. You will be doing this a lot and it gets annoying fast. Same goes for magic and items quite frankly, the Gameboy only had two buttons to work with so they did the best they could but this set-up hasn't aged well. It''s why I didn't use many items in the game, having to swap out my magic for items I use once then swap back again wasn't worth it. You can't use the items in the menu either because that would be convenient and actually make sense. Here's a tip, you only need three types of items, Mattocks (which is rendered useless by the flail weapon so you only need them for a short while), Ethers and Keys.

For the love of God and all that is holy do not run out of keys, I did and had to spend 10 minutes killing skeletons hoping they would drop some, ha skeletons dropping keys I see what you did there Square. Don't think it's difficult to run out of these things either because the dungeon design in this game is pretty weak. Granted it's not the worst but this is where the Gameboy's limitations really shows. For one all the dungeons look exactly the same, I know that might seem strange given that the Gameboy could only display games in black and white but Final Fantasy Adventure is very good at keeping its locations varied in spite of the limited graphical fidelity. It looks decent by Gameboy standards but why do all the dungeons look the same. One of the dungeons is set in an airship and yet it looks like a typical castle dungeon, that doesn't begin to make sense. I would be more forgiven of this if the dungeon design picked up the slack but it doesn't. The dungeons are basic with very little actual puzzles, assuming you feel comfortable referring to block pushing as a puzzle. Sometimes you'll run into a fun puzzle but most of the puzzles involve pushing things on things to activate other things. I do enjoy the ones that involve turning enemies to snowmen though if only because turning them into snowmen is always funny.

Then there's the music, I actually like the music in the game quite a bit but the dungeon music gets old fast and only helps emphasize how dull the dungeons are. Most dungeons are pretty much the same, explore rooms, fight enemies, get lost because every room looks the same and then fight a boss at the end. There are some optional rooms in these dungeons which contain healing fountains or optional weapons so at least the dungeons reward you for exploring them which is nice. You know what isn't nice, being forced to take damage from unavoidable obstacles. There's making the game challenging and then there's being a dick. Not that the game is all that challenging, it's pretty easy all things considered. Even the bosses don't put up much of a fight with there easy to dodge patterns and attacks. The only boss I even remotely struggled with would be the Lich and that was only because he does a ridiculous amount of damage he does is ridiculous. For the most part, your more than equipped to deal with anything the game throws at you. That's not to say the game won't kick your ass if you're not careful so it's best to save whenever possible. Luckily you can save at any time which for a handheld game is a nice addition. But don't think you'll have to tackle this adventure alone because you will be joined by several companions throughout your journey, and they are all frigging useless. OK that's unfair as some of them do have unique abilities through the games ask command but when it comes to actually attacking the enemies they're worthless. Oh they'll hit the enemies every once in a while but most of the time they'll fire blindly into the darkness, it's like I'm playing with the Dead Ale Wives DND group. Luckily the sequel adds in a feature that fixes this but that's something for next time.

Is Final Fantasy Adventure rough around the edges? It's a nearly 30-year-old Gameboy game what do you think? The game is gonna be a tough sell to people these days mostly due to its age but if you can look past that I'd still say the game is still worth playing. I feel like it's simplicity is what gives it it's charm and to Squares credit they at least tried to add depth to the game even if it didn't always work out. It's worth playing as part of this collection at the very least. Next time I'll be taking a look at the second game in the series and in this collection, The Secret of Mana.