With roots stretching back to the release of Game Boy's Final Fantasy Adventure way back in 1991, the Mana series (or Seiken Densetsu, Legend of the Holy Sword, in Japan) has had its share of stinkers. Most elder gamers are familiar with the classic SNES Secret of Mana, which featured a lush world with action-oriented multiplayer combat, and is probably the pinnacle of the series. Secret of Mana was a pivotal title in the Square Enix stable and helped to fashion a "Golden Age" in console RPGs for the SNES, but later installments failed to follow up on the once-great legacy. Sadly, Dawn of Mana does not break from the tradition of disappointment.

Jerked Around

The primary flaw of Dawn of Mana is the wonky and totally tragic game mechanic used to defeat foes. As the wielder of the sacred sword, you must use the vines grafted to your arm to latch onto nearby debris and fling it at enemies in order to send them into a screaming panic. You can try to kill enemies without panicking them first, but they're significantly more difficult and won't cough up attack/magic/health boosting goodies. It sounds innovative, and it would be, if it worked. Sadly, between the vindictive camera and the crummy targeting the process of chucking boulders and other junk at each enemy before slicing them up becomes a tedious struggle.

Playing through until the end of the game, we'd hoped that hurling objects would get easier with practice, and we patiently awaited the day that we could throw things accurately and consistently. That day never came. Even with eight chapters of this game under our belts, we simply cannot get the hang of the jacked-up controls.


In order to panic enemies, you have to first find something to latch your vine-arm grappling hook onto -- a small rock, boulder or other enemy will do. Then you have to actually latch onto the thing, which in itself is difficult due to the fact that the auto-targeting system gets confused very easily and really has no idea what grab-able objects are lying around, which causes you to frequently shoot your grappling hook off into empty space. Once you've actually gotten ahold of something, you then have to lob it at the offending enemies. Alas, the targeting and camera stand firmly in your path, denying you an easy method of smoothly pulling off this maneuver.