I am an
action-RPG veteran, and the Seiken
Densetsu series, better known in the West as the Mana series, is one of my favourites when it comes to real-time
foe-slashing action. However, like many self-professed Seiken aficionados, my knowledge of the series centers mainly on
the two 16-bit era installments released for the SNES. I actually missed most of
the Seiken games, including Sword of Mana on the Gameboy Advance; I
was thus really thrilled to get the opportunity to play it a good decade after
its original release, and I expected quite a lot from it.
Sword of Mana, released in 2003(jp/na) and 2004(eu) for the
GBA, had quite an interesting development process. It was originally designed
as a remake of the little-known first game of the Seiken series, known as Final
Fantasy Adventure in North-America and Mystic
Quest in Europe and released for the Gameboy, respectively in 1991 and
1993. The development of Sword of Mana
was handled by Square Enix along with Brownie Brown, an independent studio packed
with former Squaresoft employees—including some who had previously worked on Final Fantasy Adventure/Mystic Quest. The expertise of the
people who created the original, along with all the experience accumulated by
Square in ten years of crafting Seiken
games; what could possibly go wrong with that picture? Well, quite a lot,
unfortunately.
As this
post’s title implies, my main gripe with Sword
of Mana is that it fails on both fronts. This is a game that doesn’t know
if it wants to be a glorious remake or a shiny new entry, and it shows
painfully. It seems that Square Enix and Brownie Brown couldn’t decide on a
clear-cut orientation for that game
and make a satisfying choice between creating a full-blown remake or a
brand-new game; as a result, Sword of
Mana turned out to be an uneven, gravelly and ultimately unfulfilling mix
of both.
Failing as a remake: Betraying the spirit
Ironically,
the very first sign that Sword of Mana
is going to fail as a remake is blatant and unmissable, for it is embedded in
its very title. Instead of reusing the name of the original, Square Enix and
Brownie Brown went out of their way to create a different title more in tune
with the rest of the series, both in Japanese and English. This is a betrayal
of the original game, and a betrayal of the very essence of remaking. A remake
is supposed to be an enhanced, glorified version of a game that respects the
spirit of its source material while using the latest advances in technology to
sublimate it. To use a different name is a very bad start and may lead one to
fear that the spirit and essence of the original will be further spoiled and
tainted in the game. And that fear would be very well-founded indeed, o yes
precious.
Let’s first tackle the story and characters. They are the same as in the original
game, which is what you would rightfully expect from a remake. Still, the
developers felt compelled to flesh out the story and introduce a measure of
character development, which is also quite common in remakes. In order to
expand the storyline and make it cohesive with the mythology introduced by
latter Seiken entries, the
relationships between the characters were reworked and new faces were
introduced—or reintroduced, like Isabella from Seiken Densetsu 3—along with a decent amount of extra dialogue and
cutscenes. New storyline elements were added as well and the narrative was split between the respective paths
of the two playable characters; as a result, you will need to clear both
playthroughs if you want to contemplate the full picture story-wise. This all looked
really good on paper and could have turned out quite well, but the actual in-game
results are absolutely miserable. The clear-cut story of the original game is
bastardized and ends up being unnecessarily convoluted, to the point of
actually being nearly incomprehensible. It doesn’t help that the characters
constantly refer to past events or supposedly famous NPCs like this is all
common knowledge, not bothering to explain anything to the poor player who just
popped up unaware in their world. The newly created relationships between the
characters feel unnatural and forced—most likely because they are exactly
that—and the pacing of the game is stilted and uneven. This is not a flowing,
seamless game experience—far from it: in fact, it’s nearly possible to pinpoint
the additions to the original storyline, so off-balanced and laborious do they
feel. There is one particular point that really rubs me the wrong way, even though it's but a detail: they introduced the reincarnation theme, which was totally absent from the original. Not only is it cliché to the point of outrage, but it actually adds nothing to the story, which makes it even more infuriating. Does Square Enix have a secret rule dictating that every one of their RPGs must feature a reincarnated character? I would believe it, given the overabundance of that trope in their productions. And frankly, it's getting old. And boring.
But the
disfigurement of the venerable first game of the series doesn’t end here; it goes
further and deeper with the inclusion of gameplay elements lifted directly from
latter entries. Now, once again, this is something quite common in remakes, and
is not bad per se; but in the case of
Sword of Mana, it definitely turned
sour. The main issue here is that those gameplay elements have not been woven
smoothly and seamlessly into the fabric provided by the original; instead of
being integrated into the game in a lively, organic way that would enrich and
nurture the gameplay, they’ve been basically copied and pasted there, creating a
jarring patchwork of clashing elements.
Take the
night-and-day cycle, which was imported from Seiken Densetsu 3 on the SNES. It was justified in that game by
storyline elements and by the presence of a specific character that would
transform at night, and was smoothly implemented in real-time. In Sword of Mana, the presence of that cycle
is not justified by anything special, and feels more like a new feature added
just for the sake of it; not only that, but it’s implemented in a really clumsy
way, with few visible changes from day to night and no real-time progression.
Instead, the moment of the day changes when you go from one screen to the next,
which is just nonsensical. All in all, the copy-paste of this feature was just
plain unnecessary: far from bringing anything interesting to the fold, it only
puts an ugly blemish on the face of the original.
Let’s also
talk about the forging system, which was lifted straight from Legend of Mana on the Playstation; it’s
a wonderfully whimsical mix of gardening and forging that involves growing fruits
and vegetables and pairing them with randomly found raw materials to power up
your gear. This system is actually twofold: you can either reforge your weapons
and armors by using raw materials only in order to increase their stats, which
is the simplest option, or modify them by using raw materials coupled with
fruits and vegetables in order to modify their properties. This is the most
complex option, as it involves growing the fruits and vegetables beforehand by
sowing seeds that you find randomly through the game world. Once again, the
system is not bad per se; it’s
actually quite efficient and pleasant to use once you get the hang of it—and
get past the ludicrousness of having to mix forging materials with groceries to
upgrade your stuff. The problem is that once again, it’s been blatantly copied
and pasted without considering whether it would fit into the canvas provided by
the original. And unfortunately, it does not fit well. For all the fluff added
to the narrative, Sword of Mana
remains a very short and linear RPG, just like its venerable model, and this
forging system is simply too complex for such a game. It requires some farming
and a lot of experimenting and tinkering, and the pay-off is simply not yummy
enough compared to the amount of time you have to invest in that process. I
only used the reforging option a couple of times and didn’t bother with the
whole gardening thing, and yet I breezed through the game. So once again, it
feels more like a caked layer of garish make-up plastered all over the face of
the original than like a smooth and masterful relooking. And once again, it
totally betrays the spirit of the remaking process by not being faithful to the
essence of the original game, which was anything but a farming and forging
fest.
If there is something else that the original was not, it’s definitely a sidequest fest, which Sword of Mana is to a fault. This is another element imported from Legend of Mana, whose structure was built around the fulfillment of numerous sidequests of various sorts. Once again, there is nothing wrong with sidequests per se; I actually love them, and usually go out of my way to fulfill them when I play RPGs. However, just like with the forging system, the implementation of these sidequests was done without considering if they would fit into the canvas provided by the original; and just like with the forging system, this is not the case, and for the same exact reason. Given the linearity and shortness of Sword, the sidequests could not be integrated seamlessly into the narrative and feel rather like they’ve been thrown haphazardly into the mix. They are totally disjointed from the main story and don’t add anything to it nor expand on it, which is quite a pity. They force you to backtrack quite a lot, which may have been an attempt to expand the player’s horizons and let them make the game world their own; however, it doesn’t work that well and this forced travelling feels more like a chore than a joy. To add insult to injury, these sidequests won’t give you with anything truly valuable or worth possessing in return: more often than not, you’ll get only a monetary reward for your efforts, which you could have easily reaped faster by slaughtering a few enemies. All in all, they’re not a valuable enhancement that sublimates the original, but rather another ill-advised addition that further bastardizes it.
If there is something else that the original was not, it’s definitely a sidequest fest, which Sword of Mana is to a fault. This is another element imported from Legend of Mana, whose structure was built around the fulfillment of numerous sidequests of various sorts. Once again, there is nothing wrong with sidequests per se; I actually love them, and usually go out of my way to fulfill them when I play RPGs. However, just like with the forging system, the implementation of these sidequests was done without considering if they would fit into the canvas provided by the original; and just like with the forging system, this is not the case, and for the same exact reason. Given the linearity and shortness of Sword, the sidequests could not be integrated seamlessly into the narrative and feel rather like they’ve been thrown haphazardly into the mix. They are totally disjointed from the main story and don’t add anything to it nor expand on it, which is quite a pity. They force you to backtrack quite a lot, which may have been an attempt to expand the player’s horizons and let them make the game world their own; however, it doesn’t work that well and this forced travelling feels more like a chore than a joy. To add insult to injury, these sidequests won’t give you with anything truly valuable or worth possessing in return: more often than not, you’ll get only a monetary reward for your efforts, which you could have easily reaped faster by slaughtering a few enemies. All in all, they’re not a valuable enhancement that sublimates the original, but rather another ill-advised addition that further bastardizes it.
So, I've made my point: Sword of Mana pitifully fails as a remake. It fails to enhance and sublimate its model, choosing instead to disfigure it Frankenstein-style. Could it fare any better as a brand-new Seiken entry? Well, I won't answer that right now. I was initially
planning to write only one article about Sword
of Mana, but the amount of things I want to say about that game went beyond
my wildest expectations, and my article became a mammoth of an essay. For the sake
of clarity and comfortable reading, I will thus stop here for now. I'll come
back very soon with the rest of my rant, in which I will expand on how Sword of Mana also fails as a brand new game, and then rest my case and give my final thoughts on the matter. As for now, thanks for reading, and be my guest
anytime!
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