Games Revisited: Children of Mana

[Sk8teland85]

The Nintendo DS has been out for a good while now and the line up of games for it is rather extensive. Many genres have been represented on this little handheld and many of them stand out. One of these genres that really stands out is RPGs, there are a good number of RPGs on the way including the next entry in the ever popular Dragon Quest series. Another Square-Enix series that made it way onto the DS is the ever popular Mana or Seiken Densetsu series. Now there are 2 Mana series games for the DS but as the title suggest the one I revisited was the first one on the DS Children of Mana.

Now I did like this game when it came out since it was an easy to get into game and on my revisit that fact was still very true. I was able to jump right back in no problem. Children of Mana may be a simple dungeon crawler RPG but it still has a decent amount of depth in terms of story and such.

While playing through I went through only two of the many missions in the game. But this was enough for me to utilize many of the games features. All combat is in real time and this does help keep things from getting too boring. Another thing that helps dampen the repetitive nature of the game is that each floor usually has a different objective for clearing it. On some you may have to defeat all the enemies on others you may have to destroy a specific part object on the floor like a block of ice or a pot. While it can still get repetitive after a while it still does not feel as repetitive as other games of this type.

Other interesting things I liked was the fact you can have 2 weapons equiped at a time. This makes things so much easier since you don't have to switch out weapons as much. You can keep 2 weapons you need the most equiped and switch to the other 2 when needed.

Another thing that still amazes me about this game is the art style and the overall graphical look and presentation. The Mana series has always has a nice unique art style to it and this game is no different. Overall the graphics are also very nicely done especially for a 2D game. Adding to this is the music, which while not the best in the series is still very good overall.

After this revisit I have to say overall this was a very nice game and is a good amount of fun. While yes it can get repetitive after a while there still is a lot of fun to be had with this one. You likely can find this one for cheap now a days so I would say it is well worth the pick up if you can find it.