Stumpokapow said:
Legend of Mana is the best game Squaresoft made on the PS1, the pinnacle of the Mana series, and probably their best game ever made.
If you played Legend of Mana once, as like a ten year old, and immediately exclaimed "lol this isn't secret of mana this is bullshit", you're basically a joke of a poster. There's a lot of people like this, perpetuating the myth that the game wasn't any good because it immediately put people off ten+ years ago because it wasn't Seiken Densetsu 2 part 3. Analyze the game with a level head and you'll see where it shines.
*snip*
I don't want to say "haters gonna hate", but virtually everyone who hates the game played it once a decade ago, didn't get it, and immediately bitched that it didn't match their expectations for a Mana sequel. If you have the maturity to come to terms with that and actually play the game for what it is, it is a masterpiece.
I'm certainly in the "played it once a decade ago and hated it" camp. I'm working on rather fuzzy memories, but while my memory of the story and the specifics of the gameplay are fuzzy, I do remember exactly what I didn't like about it.
I agree that the game is technically proficient in the sound and art departments. However, the game had one fatal flaw that led to it being trade-in fodder:
it was ridiculously easy. I remember plowing through level after level, waiting for the game to become a challenge, and it never happened.
Seiken Densetsu 1-3 (AKA Final Fantasy Legend, Secret of Mana, and an awesome game that US never got) were awesome, world-spanning action-RPGs. Legend of Mana was a glorified side-scrolling beat-em-up with a pointless powerup system and zero challenge. It's not that it didn't match my expectation for a Mana sequel, it's that it didn't match my expectation for a Mana game, period! It was as if Nintendo made a Zelda sequel that played like a shitty version of Final Fight.
Those are my memories. I'm not unwilling to give the game another shot, except for the fact that I currently lack the means.