المراجعات

• gamedeal user

  Nov 25, 2021

  Legend of Mana is one of my favourite games of all time. It's mostly known to other people as a major disappointment. If you're reading this, you're maybe thinking "isn't this the bad sequel to Secret of Mana?". I find this pretty unfair. Mechanically it's stronger than Secret of Mana (or Trials). The writing and worldbuilding is great. It's obviously gorgeous and it's got a killer soundtrack. So what is it about the game that doesn't click with people? I've come to the conclusion there are two main hurdles you need to get over if you want to play this game, but the good news is that if you know these in advance, you can approach the game in a healthy way. [b]The first hurdle is that the game has literally dozens of different mechanical systems, none of which are explained in game.[/b] The developer's philosophy is that trying to discover how they work is rewarding. I'm not sure I agree, but here's what I think: you have internet access, you have access to FAQs and Wikis and YouTube videos. No one thinks Stardew Valley or Hollow Knight or Dark Souls are bad games because playing them often involves consulting community resources. The same is true here. But I'm also not sure this was ever a problem, because Legend of Mana is designed so even if you fumble your way through the game, that's OK. To wit: LoM has pet raising, it has weapon and armor crafting, it has programmable AI-driven Golem raising, it has a magic system, and the game can be beaten on the default difficulty without ever thinking about any of these things. The game has an elaborate system where you build the world map and where you place various regions affects loot tables, enemy difficulty, and more in a really complicated way. And... it's also the case that it doesn't matter because 95% of the game's content is accessible if you just do it haphazardly. So approach this game with the idea that if you want to min/max, it has unparalleled depth, and if you don't, then just chill out about it. The weapon/armor crafting system in particular is something that it took fans about 5 or 6 years of dedicated work to reverse engineer. Again, you can completely ignore this and beat the game, no problem. Or you can copy a recipe you find online for amazing weapons. Or you can take the time to watch an hour of videos and unpack this. The depth here is insane, comparable to building a card deck in a competitive meta deck-building game -- understanding how every part interacts together is immensely satisfying. [b]The second major hurdle is the style of storytelling.[/b] In most of the conventionally popular JRPG contemporaries, the story is an epic save the world tale. Even Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana have this kind of escalation. Legend of Mana doesn't. Instead, it mostly has vignette-based storytelling -- little self-contained 30 minute stories attached to a given character or area. If you want serial storytelling, there are a handful of quest chains and three serial main stories (the endgame opens when you finish one of the main stories, but you can do more if you want). The three stories involve a dying race of magic beings with "Jewel cores", hunted for sport; a malevolent dragon that conscripts you to kill other dragons so he can absorb their power; and a Romeo and Juliet star-crossed story about a religious leader and her demon boyfriend. Even in these larger stories, the stakes exist at the level of the characters. Your protagonist is almost entirely an observer. Again, you have two choices. You can either ignore the story and mash through to see the pretty pictures and fight the enormous bosses, or you can choose to engage with the story on the level the game wants you to. But if you resent the game for not being FF7, you'll have a bad time. This comes off like a very defensive review, and it's mostly because after 20 years I'm a little tired of trying to convince people the game deserves a second chance. We're now at the point where the legendarily obscure SaGa series has enjoyed a public revival -- and in fact if you like SaGa, you'll like Legend of Mana, because most of what people resented about it is true of the SaGa games. In some ways I wish Legend of Mana was even less popular, so I could present it as an undiscovered gem instead of trying to rehabilitate it as something people have already considered and discarded. Brief details on the port: The game looks amazing in widescreen, the AI upscaling is not perfect but it's the best solution in 2021, the music sounds great (I prefer the original arrangements generally, but you can choose), controller support is excellent, achievements cover the range of things you want them to. Highly recommend the port -- I'll never play the PS1 original again.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 25, 2021

  Game has the same great classic under it's skin. Unfortunately, myself and many others are experiencing various levels of framerate stutters and input lag. I'll change my recommendation once it's fixed but for now, purchase at your own risk.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 25, 2021

  It is a great game BUT the fact that they did not update the sprites and just did the backgrounds and menus n such is very jarring. They have proven they can make nicer sprites with the SaGa Frontier remake so there is no excuse for this not also being updated. Disappointed but I will still play it because I love the game, maybe in some other reality they will patch it with updated sprites. In addition they missed an chance to give proper guidance to some of the less explained more difficult to understand features like smithing, which even to veterans of this game like me is still a nightmare without a guide. I just feel like they put alot less care into this than it deserves, Saga got alot of love but from my understanding was a passion project of a remake from a higher up so that makes sense. Again I will play the game and probably get all the achievements but it is disappointing.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 25, 2021

  This is a great remaster of the PS1 classic. The updates to the pre-rendered backgrounds are incredible and the new arranged soundtrack is incredible. I am thrilled with how this turned out. I can recommend this game with some caveats. If someone played this game upon the original release and did not like it, you still will not. The combat is a little simplistic and clunky, very much a product of the time it was released. The focus on placing the land and loosely connected stories and exploration was pretty divisive when the game released and I do not see that changing. It really takes a guide or really good knowledge of the game systems to get the most optimal play through. I always enjoyed the loose structure of it. Not everyone will. To sum it up: Buy if you want a loosely structured action RPG with a simple battle system that has great art work and music. Do not buy if you want a game with deeper combat or a more structured plot.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 25, 2021

  I've waited 20 years for this.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 3, 2022

  I had read the reviews complaining about how bad the framerate and input lag were, but I had assumed that people were putting modern expectations onto a PS1 game. I bought the game anyway because I enjoyed it a lot back on the PS1, but never got to explore all of the content. Unfortunately, the framerate and input lag are abysmal. Things that are smooth on the PS1 stutter on the desktop. Combos don't go through because of the input lag (or actions are simply dropped entirely) and the sprites occasionally jump around the screen with a non-trivial number of dropped frames. I've chosen to refund the game. This was not an easy choice, because I enjoyed it a lot on the PS1. It's unique and has a lot more to it than you first see on the surface. Unfortunately, the game just isn't enjoyable to play with the framerate and input lag issues.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 27, 2021

  Game has terrible performance and input delay. No, I'm not playing on a potato. Seems like the opposite is going on, where people with more up to date systems are struggling to run the game without lag. Honestly I think it's Denuvo which the idiots at Square decided to add. It's usually the root of all kinds of performance issues. Do not buy until Square removes denuvo
• gamedeal user

  Dec 11, 2021

  This... this is what childhood dreams are made of, beautiful art, and music that one does not see anymore... Clean humor and a sense of innocence. Enjoy the game, and remember upon happier times when one was a child. Enjoy this timeless legend that will bring a smile to your face, and simply enjoy.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 27, 2023

  IF YOU'RE NEW, GET IT First, let's get this out of the way: Legend of Mana is beloved for a TON of good reasons. The fact it recently got an Anime adaptation OVER TWENTY YEARS AFTER ITS RELEASE should tell you something about its appeal! If you've never played it, I urge you to give it a try now. You'll want a controller to play since it was originally a PS1 game, but if you don't have one, you can remap the keyboard easily enough in the menu (look up a classic PS1 controller scheme as your guide). I don't want to spoil too much, but it's great for any age or skill level. And it even has decent 2-player co-op, albeit asymmetric play (1p is the Hero, 2p is the Sidekick). So again: if you're new to the game, buy it. Hands down, get it. If you like Japanese-style RPGs, you won't be disappointed. IF YOU'RE NOT NEW, LET'S TALK I bought the game brand new on the PS1 when it first came out, and have played it for years. I've scoured it constantly, and have even introduced friends to it via the PS3's backward compatibility, even as recent as a month before I bought and played this one. So to say I was excited about this one was an understatement. And having 100%'d the game just now (including making a weapon with 207 offense and raising a level 99 pet with 347 defense and 74 offense), I can say...it's good. Just good. Not "great", not "bad". Good. To be more clear, I could describe it as "for every step forward, they took a step back". On the good, it's a faithful remake of the beloved classic, so you'll scratch the itch well enough. The main change is the redone HD graphics, which are noticeably crisper and look great with the artstyle on my 4K monitor. The controls also work just about how you expect, with your character moving around as you remember. They went light on the changes, which was a good idea; don't mess with perfection, after all. And several of them are great: the achievements may even push you to do things and see things you never did in the game before (seriously, the 32 crabs thing was a fun surprise for me). They included two of the three impossible-to-get Save Bonuses from Japan (not the FF8 one; the other two) which you get as just regular story moments now, plus the Pocket Station Ring-Ring-Land is accessible as soon as you unlock it and at all times. They've added the ability to disable enemy AI at will, as well, which allows for easy traversal of the maps for resource hunting and fine-tuned leveling, which can be much appreciated if you understand the mechanics well enough. ...BUT. There's also bad to consider. First, the new soundtrack *tries*. It really does. But it's just not as good as the original composition; especially with the boss battle music, you'll find that it's not as punchy as it should be, and several portions of other tracks have different instruments muted in bizarre ways. Fortunately, they include the option to switch to the Original tracks if you want...but if you weren't confident in the new music, then why spend money making it in the first place? It feels like a waste of money. Further, they decided to use the alternate North American translation instead of the original. This means that many of the names of items and techniques were censoredchanged - "Virgin's Sigh" becomes "Damnsel's Sigh", for example. While you can get used to it, it's going to play havoc on you for the first few hours as you try to remember that "Bash" has been renamed "Catapult". Also, I've seen reports of some graphical glitches in the game, and have even experienced a couple of crashes to desktop, myself. The reported glitches are so minor that it took me an hour of searching to find one even after reading about it online, but if you're hyper conscious of this, you'll want to be aware. The crashes, fortunately were mitigated by the new auto-save system that happens on entering each screen, but they're still annoying and it's unlikely Square plans to patch it at this point. There's also now a noticeable second's hang whenever you grab an Artifact to place. This is bad, but can be forgiven since it seems they fixed the stuttering that happened whenever you picked fruit or opened a menu screen, which happen WAY more frequently depending on how you play anyway. Hence my verdict - for every good thing they added, they've seemingly also introduced a bad thing to counter it. Fortunately, it's freakin' Legend of Mana, and they made sure that it was playable and would be exactly as you remember it form back in the day. So if you're unable to get your old copy of the game to play on your PS1/PS2/PS3, or just want your friends to play with you without having to lug such equipment everywhere and have nicer graphics, I recommend it. But this isn't a complete replacement for the PS1 original - if you're happy with that version and can still play it, I recommend saving your money for now and look for this on sale a few years down the road when your Playstation finally dies.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 26, 2021

  I love the Legend of Mana game, and this port does exceptionally well in graphics & music, at the sacrifice of playability. - Denuvo anti-tamper lags the game insanely bad - The co-op feature has been torn apart to be only NPC's - Steam overlay lags terribly If you're looking to play this game alone on a beefy PC, then this is fine for you. Unlike me, I wanted to play with a friend. Having this massive co-op limitation just completely makes my friends not wanna play with me. Please, fix this M2. PLEASE.