Dawn of Mana

Platform: Playstation 2
Developer: Square Enix
Completion Time: At least 20 hours, probably 30

To quote from the final ending screen "Where there is Love there is Mana, where there is Mana there is Love".

That pretty much sums it up. I am required by my soul to love any game in the Seiken Densetsu series, regardless of major gameplay flaws. This game is a pain in the ass to play, yet it is beautiful and enchanting in a heavenly masterpiece kind of way. I love the visuals, music, story, cutscenes, nostalgia, everything... Everything except the very limit of frustration that is achieved at times while playing due to the terrible camera system and gimmicky use of Half-Life 2's physics engine, that's right. Dawn of Mana is some kind of weird action sandbox physics sim game that isn't exactly that fun to play most of the time. Still I trudged through it as the universe of the game speaks to me in ways I will never be able to properly define.

From the menu screen with the melodic piano intro with 3 red crane silhouettes appearing and fading away, a tingle ran up my spine because I knew this was fan service in every way but the gameplay, ha! I just wish they would have made this a classic Seiken game, top down, 2d sprite based, kill shit and level up. The genre crossbreed retard cousin that resulted is not exactly flattering to the Mana legacy but the game makes up for it in presentation.

I would love to ramble on about the virtues of this game but I fear it would be lost on the majority of gamers these days. In reality, I'm beginning to assume that Square Enix by some divine grace tailors these games specifically for me. They can rest assured that no matter how bad of a game they make, if it's Mana, at least one copy of it will sell.

Oh yeah and Watts in a tank tearin' shit up with Flammie flyin' around firing lasers from his mouth was one of the most oh fuck yeah moments I have had in many moons.

So if you love Seiken Densetsu unconditionally like me, trust me you don't. Run to your nearest game retailer and pick up a copy of the game that no doubt is selling for half the price I paid for it at release by now. Happy times!

All fluffing and very little stuffing Kuni rating: 5/5