(header graphic is from the box art)
A personal note before I begin
I think this game has some sort of personal record for me for amount of time between me playing it for the first time and me actually finishing it. The first time I played Seiken Densetsu 3 was ~2002 and I gave up after I couldn’t beat Zable Fahr, a somewhat notorious boss fought around 80% of the way through the game. I’m writing this in 2020, after finally finishing the game. This time, I surprised myself by absolutely wrecking Zable Fahr’s face(s). After psyching myself up, getting closer and closer to “that one boss I never beat in my childhood,” the battle was…anticlimactic. Why I couldn’t get past her in 2002, I have no idea. Geez I must’ve been some sort of moron.
Why people love this game
The way the game presents the plot through its characters really puts this game on the map. You start Seiken Densetsu 3 by picking one of 6 characters; whom you choose becomes the main protagonist. The other 5 characters still exist and have interweaving stories. As the game progresses, you’ll run into them – 2 will join your party – and they’ll still be doing what they would have been had you picked them as your protagonist.
For example, if you pick Hawkeye as your main character, he begins the game by getting exiled from his thief clan because some lady framed him for the murder of his best friend, Eagle. Moreover, she cursed Eagle’s sister Jessica, so if Hawkeye tries to tell her he’s innocent, she would die. So Hawkeye’s quest is to find a way to remove the curse and avenge Eagle. If you pick someone else as your main character, you’ll still run into Hawkeye and he’ll still be trying to remove the curse and avenge Eagle. The plot from the player’s perspective simply doesn’t focus on him. It’s great for worldbuilding – you feel like you’re part of a greater world, with other protagonists walking their own paths that may intersect with yours, rather than being in a world where everything just revolves around you.
Another aspect of the game is the character class system. Each character can class change at level 18 – and there’re two classes to pick from (light or dark). At level 38, there’s a second class change and another light v. dark class choice, meaning each character has 4 possible final classes. Remember, your party has 3 characters that you choose out of the cast of 6. This all means that Seiken Densetsu 3 has a mind-bogglingly high number of combinations of characters and classes that you can choose through each playthrough – and remember, this game came out for the SNES in 1995.
It was also Japan-only, but luckily, the heroes of the common gamer, the fan translators, rose to the challenge and gave us an absolutely excellent translation that was the only way people got to enjoy this game in English until 2019, a full 24 years later, when Square finally decided to localize the game to the West with the name Trials of Mana. Even better: a year after that, Square released a full 3D remake.
…Actually, I just thought of something. This is the third game that has met all the following criteria:
Live A Live, Bahamut Lagoon, and this one. Weird. Do I gravitate to these oddly specific criteria?
The game’s flaws
First off, the game is buggy. Evasion boosts don’t work, so items whose sole purpose is to increase evasion (i.e. shields) instead do nothing. Actually, I lied: shields do have another purpose, which is to confer elemental resistance…except that’s bugged too, so most shields, in fact, actually do nothing.
Item management is also very clunky. You can only use items in your ring menu, but there’s a limit to how many items you can slot into the ring menu, so if you want to use an item from your main inventory, you need to go into your storage, manually exchange items into your ring menu, exit the storage menu, pull up the ring menu, use the item, go back into your storage, and exchange the original item back. The storage menu is also just one giant list, so be prepared to do lots of scrolling. By the way, the useable item menu is separate from the equipment menu, which is itself split into your 3 characters’ individual inventories. It’s a chore to navigate through.
Gameplay is a mixed bag. Combat is real-time action (think Zelda), but the game emphasizes traditional RPG stats and levels over the action combat aspect, since many of the enemies’ best attacks are full-screen unavoidable animations, so you just have to tank the hit. The worst offenders are these shape-shifter enemies in the last area: they can shape-shift into your party members, copying your stats and abilities, but whereas your party members need to build up a tech gauge to use their full-screen attacks, these guys can just spam them willy-nilly. Oh, and they’re immune to Silence for some reason (if you get hit by Silence, you can’t use those techs at all).
And don’t get me started on the nightmare that was farming Weapon/Armor seeds. The best-in-slot gear in the game comes from these seeds that are random drops from endgame enemies and each seed yields a random piece of equipment. Everyone has 4 equipment slots except light-oriented Duran, who has 5 (he has a shield slot). There are 1-2 possible shields for him, meaning any Weapon/Armor seed can yield 1 of maximum 14 possible items. I went through at least 50 seeds before getting one of Duran’s shields, by which point I’d gotten all the best [everything else] for everyone multiple times. Assuming equal probability for each piece of gear, the chance of getting a shield should be 2/14 = 14.29%. The chance of not getting a shield 50 times in a row is therefore 0.0449%. This means one of 3 possibilities:
The sad part is that by the time I was farming these seeds, I was such a high level that my characters’ Defense stats were at the cap (300), so getting better armor didn’t actually do much. I did it anyway for completion’s sake, because I’m weird; get over it.
Comments on the 3D remake
In short, I absolutely love the remake. Trials of Mana adapts the original very faithfully, from those perpetually dancing shopkeepers to the adorable merchant cats. The remake looks and sounds astoundingly like the original, just modernized – and the visuals, in particular, are gorgeous. Honestly, playing Trials of Mana after having played the original is probably the best way to experience the game. Aside from faithfulness, the remake improves on the original in almost every way, from simple things like an area map to an OH-SO-MUCH-BETTER inventory system.
Combat is now much more action-oriented, with emphasis on moving around the field and dodging attacks. This is in many ways an improvement over the original, except…let’s talk about the AI. In the original, nobody needed to worry much about positioning or movement, except maybe keeping Angela/Charlotte out of melee range (this is why I had Angela as my main character – I controlled her most of the time so the AI wouldn’t moronically charge her into enemies). Hard-hitting enemy attacks were full-screen and unavoidable anyway. But in the remake, positioning is important; namely, not standing in the red areas telegraphing an oncoming attack. The AI…isn’t good at dodging those. The AI is so bad, in fact, that I felt it was the main source of early-game difficulty. It gets better as time goes on – not because the AI improves, but because you level up so everyone can now comfortably tank hits.
There are 2 things in particular the remake does objectively worse compared to the original. First, in the original, the AI characters will use class strikes (techs) pretty much anytime they can unless you set their behavior specifically not to (and in many instances, you want to do this). In the remake, I’ve seen AI characters sit on a full tech gauge throughout a boss fight even though I’ve set them to use those strikes as much as possible. And yes, I could switch control and manually do it, but (1) the point still stands that the remake AI is worse in this regard, since I don’t need to do that in the original and (2) combat is so much more frenetic and fast-paced in the remake that switching in-battle generally isn’t worth it.
Second: gear farming. Weapon/Armor seeds no longer exist; instead, the best-in-slot gear comes from general item seeds, with a higher chance for them to yield gear depending on the level of the seed (regular v. silver v. gold v. rainbow) and the level of the magic pot you grow the seeds in. Here’s the problem: whereas in the original, only best-in-slot equipment dropped from Weapon/Armor seeds (maximum 14 possibilities), the item seeds in the remake can drop anything. Healing items. Serums. Battle items. Also, save-scumming is no longer viable due to the remake’s RNG mechanics.
Anyway, here’s what I’ve done. I’ve played through the original SNES version, then gone through the 3D remake Trials of Mana with the same party/classes and I’ll be comparing the two. This shrine is to both games – a truly unique original classic and a faithful, fun modern remake.
Party setup
Let’s first talk characters. The person you choose as your main character also determines the last boss. There are 3 possible bosses, each corresponding to 2 characters. Plot-wise, each character has some personal beef with the boss, so it’s beneficial to choose the counterpart character to your main character for one of your party slots as their stories intersect the most. To sum up: Angela/Duran share a boss, Riesz/Hawkeye share a boss, and Kevin/Charlotte share a boss.
Now each character has an archetype, as follows:
Now there’s one caveat: there is a superboss, the Black Rabite, but in the SNES original, you can only fight it if your main character is either Angela or Duran. So I went with Angela as my main character, Duran as the counterpart, and Riesz because Riesz is awesome.
As for the Black Rabite, here’s me after kicking its ass (original) and narrowly winning (remake). In the original, it disappeared and dropped its unique item, the Moogle Badge. In the remake, it didn’t drop anything and instead just scampered off.
A personal note before I begin
I think this game has some sort of personal record for me for amount of time between me playing it for the first time and me actually finishing it. The first time I played Seiken Densetsu 3 was ~2002 and I gave up after I couldn’t beat Zable Fahr, a somewhat notorious boss fought around 80% of the way through the game. I’m writing this in 2020, after finally finishing the game. This time, I surprised myself by absolutely wrecking Zable Fahr’s face(s). After psyching myself up, getting closer and closer to “that one boss I never beat in my childhood,” the battle was…anticlimactic. Why I couldn’t get past her in 2002, I have no idea. Geez I must’ve been some sort of moron.
Why people love this game
The way the game presents the plot through its characters really puts this game on the map. You start Seiken Densetsu 3 by picking one of 6 characters; whom you choose becomes the main protagonist. The other 5 characters still exist and have interweaving stories. As the game progresses, you’ll run into them – 2 will join your party – and they’ll still be doing what they would have been had you picked them as your protagonist.
For example, if you pick Hawkeye as your main character, he begins the game by getting exiled from his thief clan because some lady framed him for the murder of his best friend, Eagle. Moreover, she cursed Eagle’s sister Jessica, so if Hawkeye tries to tell her he’s innocent, she would die. So Hawkeye’s quest is to find a way to remove the curse and avenge Eagle. If you pick someone else as your main character, you’ll still run into Hawkeye and he’ll still be trying to remove the curse and avenge Eagle. The plot from the player’s perspective simply doesn’t focus on him. It’s great for worldbuilding – you feel like you’re part of a greater world, with other protagonists walking their own paths that may intersect with yours, rather than being in a world where everything just revolves around you.
Another aspect of the game is the character class system. Each character can class change at level 18 – and there’re two classes to pick from (light or dark). At level 38, there’s a second class change and another light v. dark class choice, meaning each character has 4 possible final classes. Remember, your party has 3 characters that you choose out of the cast of 6. This all means that Seiken Densetsu 3 has a mind-bogglingly high number of combinations of characters and classes that you can choose through each playthrough – and remember, this game came out for the SNES in 1995.
It was also Japan-only, but luckily, the heroes of the common gamer, the fan translators, rose to the challenge and gave us an absolutely excellent translation that was the only way people got to enjoy this game in English until 2019, a full 24 years later, when Square finally decided to localize the game to the West with the name Trials of Mana. Even better: a year after that, Square released a full 3D remake.
…Actually, I just thought of something. This is the third game that has met all the following criteria:
- Released for the SNES
- Japan-exclusive, but fan-translated (excellently)
- RPGs made by Square
- Received a shrine from me
Live A Live, Bahamut Lagoon, and this one. Weird. Do I gravitate to these oddly specific criteria?
The game’s flaws
First off, the game is buggy. Evasion boosts don’t work, so items whose sole purpose is to increase evasion (i.e. shields) instead do nothing. Actually, I lied: shields do have another purpose, which is to confer elemental resistance…except that’s bugged too, so most shields, in fact, actually do nothing.
Item management is also very clunky. You can only use items in your ring menu, but there’s a limit to how many items you can slot into the ring menu, so if you want to use an item from your main inventory, you need to go into your storage, manually exchange items into your ring menu, exit the storage menu, pull up the ring menu, use the item, go back into your storage, and exchange the original item back. The storage menu is also just one giant list, so be prepared to do lots of scrolling. By the way, the useable item menu is separate from the equipment menu, which is itself split into your 3 characters’ individual inventories. It’s a chore to navigate through.
Gameplay is a mixed bag. Combat is real-time action (think Zelda), but the game emphasizes traditional RPG stats and levels over the action combat aspect, since many of the enemies’ best attacks are full-screen unavoidable animations, so you just have to tank the hit. The worst offenders are these shape-shifter enemies in the last area: they can shape-shift into your party members, copying your stats and abilities, but whereas your party members need to build up a tech gauge to use their full-screen attacks, these guys can just spam them willy-nilly. Oh, and they’re immune to Silence for some reason (if you get hit by Silence, you can’t use those techs at all).
And don’t get me started on the nightmare that was farming Weapon/Armor seeds. The best-in-slot gear in the game comes from these seeds that are random drops from endgame enemies and each seed yields a random piece of equipment. Everyone has 4 equipment slots except light-oriented Duran, who has 5 (he has a shield slot). There are 1-2 possible shields for him, meaning any Weapon/Armor seed can yield 1 of maximum 14 possible items. I went through at least 50 seeds before getting one of Duran’s shields, by which point I’d gotten all the best [everything else] for everyone multiple times. Assuming equal probability for each piece of gear, the chance of getting a shield should be 2/14 = 14.29%. The chance of not getting a shield 50 times in a row is therefore 0.0449%. This means one of 3 possibilities:
- The chance for getting a shield is actually much less than is the chance for getting anything else, meaning the game treats shields differently from how it treats everything else for no real reason.
- I got incredibly, cosmically, mind-bogglingly unlucky.
- The game’s RNG is unadulterated Bolshevist bullshit.
The sad part is that by the time I was farming these seeds, I was such a high level that my characters’ Defense stats were at the cap (300), so getting better armor didn’t actually do much. I did it anyway for completion’s sake, because I’m weird; get over it.
Comments on the 3D remake
In short, I absolutely love the remake. Trials of Mana adapts the original very faithfully, from those perpetually dancing shopkeepers to the adorable merchant cats. The remake looks and sounds astoundingly like the original, just modernized – and the visuals, in particular, are gorgeous. Honestly, playing Trials of Mana after having played the original is probably the best way to experience the game. Aside from faithfulness, the remake improves on the original in almost every way, from simple things like an area map to an OH-SO-MUCH-BETTER inventory system.
Combat is now much more action-oriented, with emphasis on moving around the field and dodging attacks. This is in many ways an improvement over the original, except…let’s talk about the AI. In the original, nobody needed to worry much about positioning or movement, except maybe keeping Angela/Charlotte out of melee range (this is why I had Angela as my main character – I controlled her most of the time so the AI wouldn’t moronically charge her into enemies). Hard-hitting enemy attacks were full-screen and unavoidable anyway. But in the remake, positioning is important; namely, not standing in the red areas telegraphing an oncoming attack. The AI…isn’t good at dodging those. The AI is so bad, in fact, that I felt it was the main source of early-game difficulty. It gets better as time goes on – not because the AI improves, but because you level up so everyone can now comfortably tank hits.
There are 2 things in particular the remake does objectively worse compared to the original. First, in the original, the AI characters will use class strikes (techs) pretty much anytime they can unless you set their behavior specifically not to (and in many instances, you want to do this). In the remake, I’ve seen AI characters sit on a full tech gauge throughout a boss fight even though I’ve set them to use those strikes as much as possible. And yes, I could switch control and manually do it, but (1) the point still stands that the remake AI is worse in this regard, since I don’t need to do that in the original and (2) combat is so much more frenetic and fast-paced in the remake that switching in-battle generally isn’t worth it.
Second: gear farming. Weapon/Armor seeds no longer exist; instead, the best-in-slot gear comes from general item seeds, with a higher chance for them to yield gear depending on the level of the seed (regular v. silver v. gold v. rainbow) and the level of the magic pot you grow the seeds in. Here’s the problem: whereas in the original, only best-in-slot equipment dropped from Weapon/Armor seeds (maximum 14 possibilities), the item seeds in the remake can drop anything. Healing items. Serums. Battle items. Also, save-scumming is no longer viable due to the remake’s RNG mechanics.
Anyway, here’s what I’ve done. I’ve played through the original SNES version, then gone through the 3D remake Trials of Mana with the same party/classes and I’ll be comparing the two. This shrine is to both games – a truly unique original classic and a faithful, fun modern remake.
Party setup
Let’s first talk characters. The person you choose as your main character also determines the last boss. There are 3 possible bosses, each corresponding to 2 characters. Plot-wise, each character has some personal beef with the boss, so it’s beneficial to choose the counterpart character to your main character for one of your party slots as their stories intersect the most. To sum up: Angela/Duran share a boss, Riesz/Hawkeye share a boss, and Kevin/Charlotte share a boss.
Now each character has an archetype, as follows:
- Angela, the mage
- Duran, the swordfighter
- Hawkeye, the thief
- Kevin, the martial arts guy
- Charlotte, the healer
- Riesz, the best character
Now there’s one caveat: there is a superboss, the Black Rabite, but in the SNES original, you can only fight it if your main character is either Angela or Duran. So I went with Angela as my main character, Duran as the counterpart, and Riesz because Riesz is awesome.
As for the Black Rabite, here’s me after kicking its ass (original) and narrowly winning (remake). In the original, it disappeared and dropped its unique item, the Moogle Badge. In the remake, it didn’t drop anything and instead just scampered off.
Yes, that’s Duran on the right over there holding his hands as if he were wielding his sword, except his hands are empty as his sword is sheathed on his back. Face to the palm.
At any rate, I found the Black Rabite much more difficult in the remake, though it might have something to do with me fighting it before getting the remake-only postgame classes/items. I wanted to do things the way I did it in the original, after all – which means fighting it right after killing Koren the Crimson Wizard. By the way, killing Koren was so much more satisfying in the SNES original, where buffs are permanent per fight and I used an item that reflects all magic on my three characters. Since his whole thing is being the most powerful wizard in the world, all he could do the entire fight was cast spells at me and hurt himself when they reflected. In the remake, that item wears off after one reflect, so it was more-or-less useless. I still kicked his ass handily, but it wasn’t as hilarious.
The heroine of the Sword of Mana: Angela, Princess of Altena
At any rate, I found the Black Rabite much more difficult in the remake, though it might have something to do with me fighting it before getting the remake-only postgame classes/items. I wanted to do things the way I did it in the original, after all – which means fighting it right after killing Koren the Crimson Wizard. By the way, killing Koren was so much more satisfying in the SNES original, where buffs are permanent per fight and I used an item that reflects all magic on my three characters. Since his whole thing is being the most powerful wizard in the world, all he could do the entire fight was cast spells at me and hurt himself when they reflected. In the remake, that item wears off after one reflect, so it was more-or-less useless. I still kicked his ass handily, but it wasn’t as hilarious.
The heroine of the Sword of Mana: Angela, Princess of Altena
Here’s how these screenshots work: the left side is the SNES original, stat screen at the top and gear screen at the bottom, after I beat the Black Rabite and before I fought the last story boss (for Angela, it was the Dragon Lord). Take a moment to appreciate how inefficiently the original used space. The right side is the 3D remake, where the top screenshot is again between the Black Rabite and the Dragon Lord and the bottom is at the end of the postgame, right before the secret postgame boss. Take another moment to realize that the remake expect you to be level ~60 at the end of the story, but I was level 91. And I thought being level 59 by the last boss in the SNES original was overleveled (there, the game expects you to be level ~50). I didn’t grind to level 91 on purpose. I got there solely because it took that many kills for me to get enough Gold Item seeds to get the equipment I wanted – the equipment in the top screenshot is the same equipment as in the SNES original, just different names due to translation differences. RNG is a bitch, and I had to do that again in the bottom screenshot with the even rarer Rainbow Item seeds to get the postgame-exclusive equipment.
I’ve heard people say picking Angela is the SNES game’s hard mode. Kevin and Duran have great physical/melee attacks, which are more straightforward to use and don’t elicit full-screen counters. Charlotte can heal, Hawkeye’s debuffs are invaluable, and Riesz is super versatile. Angela starts off squishy but has to fight in melee before getting her spells. Later, when she gets her spells, she still has to watch when she uses them, since many bosses full-screen counter them. All of this is true, but I still found her gameplay fun and there were definitely times I felt that a fight would’ve been far more difficult without Angela – in particular, the God-Beasts that like to fly around/disappear out of melee range. I mean geez; she pretty much had to solo Dangaard.
I like to believe that after mana disappears at the end of the game, Angela leads Altena to pursue scientific development, replacing their reliance on magic. It’s not much of a stretch; for example, they already know how to make robots…now just power those with technology rather than with magic.
The heroine of the entire game: Riesz, Amazon Queen of Laurent
I’ve heard people say picking Angela is the SNES game’s hard mode. Kevin and Duran have great physical/melee attacks, which are more straightforward to use and don’t elicit full-screen counters. Charlotte can heal, Hawkeye’s debuffs are invaluable, and Riesz is super versatile. Angela starts off squishy but has to fight in melee before getting her spells. Later, when she gets her spells, she still has to watch when she uses them, since many bosses full-screen counter them. All of this is true, but I still found her gameplay fun and there were definitely times I felt that a fight would’ve been far more difficult without Angela – in particular, the God-Beasts that like to fly around/disappear out of melee range. I mean geez; she pretty much had to solo Dangaard.
I like to believe that after mana disappears at the end of the game, Angela leads Altena to pursue scientific development, replacing their reliance on magic. It’s not much of a stretch; for example, they already know how to make robots…now just power those with technology rather than with magic.
The heroine of the entire game: Riesz, Amazon Queen of Laurent
I find it pretty remarkable that all of Riesz’s original-game equipment names match between the fan and official translations. On the flip side, when I first played Seiken Densetsu 3, I had Riesz go Fenrir Knight for the sole reason that I wanted to use “Hundred Flower Dance.” The remake changed it to…Raging Fury. Such a generic name. -_-
Anyway, Riesz is great. Her dark classes can debuff and her light classes can buff, making her a great support character for any team regardless of what class she changes into. She’s also great on the front lines with solid melee capabilities. In the SNES original, her summon as a Starlancer (Marduk) was easily one of my favorite abilities in the game, since it Silences all enemies, meaning that with a few exceptions, she completely shuts down (or…shuts up…see what I did there?) those hard-hitting full-screen techs. Walk into a room with 2 beastmen ready to use 2 back-to-back Suzaku Sky Dances? See a ninja who wants to use Split-Image Slice? Riesz has you covered.
On the subject of Marduk, the AI will use it liberally in the remake as long as Riesz has the MP to. She’ll use it all. The. Time. Of course, it has a high MP cost and she’ll run out – except cue hilarity when I gave her Black Rabite’s ability, which reduces all MP costs to 0. Unfortunately, the game seems to have trouble ensuring enemies caught in Marduk’s radius actually take damage from it, which is annoying.
The Saiyan: Duran, Knight-Lord of Valsena
Anyway, Riesz is great. Her dark classes can debuff and her light classes can buff, making her a great support character for any team regardless of what class she changes into. She’s also great on the front lines with solid melee capabilities. In the SNES original, her summon as a Starlancer (Marduk) was easily one of my favorite abilities in the game, since it Silences all enemies, meaning that with a few exceptions, she completely shuts down (or…shuts up…see what I did there?) those hard-hitting full-screen techs. Walk into a room with 2 beastmen ready to use 2 back-to-back Suzaku Sky Dances? See a ninja who wants to use Split-Image Slice? Riesz has you covered.
On the subject of Marduk, the AI will use it liberally in the remake as long as Riesz has the MP to. She’ll use it all. The. Time. Of course, it has a high MP cost and she’ll run out – except cue hilarity when I gave her Black Rabite’s ability, which reduces all MP costs to 0. Unfortunately, the game seems to have trouble ensuring enemies caught in Marduk’s radius actually take damage from it, which is annoying.
The Saiyan: Duran, Knight-Lord of Valsena
Seriously, combine Duran’s personality with Kevin’s abilities and you pretty much get Goku from Dragon Ball Z. At any rate, I mostly chose Duran because he has the most to do with Angela’s storyline, but he’s a solid party member, make no mistake. His job was to heal everyone, remove status effects, and tank on the front lines. In the remake, early-game AI-controlled Duran was terrible (he couldn’t do any of these things, especially that last one), but later in the game, he really came into his own. A nice combination is Duran’s Provoke to attract enemy attention and Angela’s Enigma to make it harder for enemies to target her, allowing Angela to sit back and spam spells.
On the topic of Duran: in the remake, each character has a little postgame sidequest to find a class-change item to access the remake-only class 4. In Duran’s case, he approaches the king of Valsena, who invites him into a sword tournament. Duran fights one guy, wins, and then the king tells him that next up is the final match of the tournament.
…This tournament only has 2 matches? The hell kind of sad tournament is this?
Bonus: the other 3
I didn’t go through the original with these, but I used New Game Plus in the remake to play Riesz’s/Hawkeye’s route and Kevin’s/Charlotte’s route. Here they are right before fighting Anise:
On the topic of Duran: in the remake, each character has a little postgame sidequest to find a class-change item to access the remake-only class 4. In Duran’s case, he approaches the king of Valsena, who invites him into a sword tournament. Duran fights one guy, wins, and then the king tells him that next up is the final match of the tournament.
…This tournament only has 2 matches? The hell kind of sad tournament is this?
Bonus: the other 3
I didn’t go through the original with these, but I used New Game Plus in the remake to play Riesz’s/Hawkeye’s route and Kevin’s/Charlotte’s route. Here they are right before fighting Anise:
And here are Angela and Riesz in one of the playthroughs where they classed into the dark class 4 rather than the light class 4 above:
As a side note, Angela’s Spellbinder and Riesz’s Fenrir Knight costumes in the remake are absolutely idiotic. Look at Angela’s left leg…is that a tattoo or a boot or…? I’m not showing Riesz’s Fenrir Knight costume in these screenshots, but in that she’s essentially wearing a wolf. Not a wolf pelt, mind you – a full wolf. I don’t normally pay too much attention to clothing/costumes in games, but this was so ridiculous I just couldn’t take it seriously.
And finally…a plot analysis
Like I said at the beginning, one great hallmark about this game is the way it presents its plot. The plot itself is pretty basic with one-dimensional villains and standard go-here-get-this-repeat quests, but seeing it from 6 different viewpoints is pretty cool. Now in the flow of the game, your main character becomes the chosen hero/heroine and the plot just automatically makes one of the villains the main Big Bad depending on the main character. I like to think of a head-canon where everything sort of happens together, involving all the characters and all the villains, so here goes. I’m going to put things I made up in red, as opposed to things directly implied or supported by in-game events, which remain in black text.
First off, my chosen heroine is Angela. Besides that fact that, well, she’s the protagonist from my main playthrough, in any route besides her own and Charlotte’s, you see her sleeping in the inn when you reach Jadd, implying Angela always gets to Jadd first. This suggests to me that she already figured out the plan of sneaking out of Jadd at night and is napping at the inn when the other heroes arrive. Right when night falls, she’d be ready to get the hell out of Jadd and hightail it to Cascade Cavern, so she has the highest chance of meeting Faerie first, which means Faerie would choose her as her host.
Charlotte, on the other hand, never goes to Jadd. The spring mushroom Mik has her use sends her crashing into Kevin outside Cascade Cavern; Kevin then brings her to Astoria to recover. Since the beastmen sack Astoria the night Angela/the other heroes escape Jadd, this implies Kevin brought Charlotte to Astoria the night before. Charlotte would wake up the next day, go out of Astoria, run into Heath and Goremand, and witness the former get kidnapped by the latter.
Kevin, on the other hand, would return to Cascade Cavern but have no way of getting past the barrier. Since you see Kevin in Jadd if you’re playing on someone else’s route, I think Kevin chose to go to Jadd afterwards and arrives the day the other heroes arrive by ship. Seeing the beastmen there, his goal would be to leave and warn Astoria and/or Wendel that his people are invading.
So far, here’s the timeline:
Day 0/Night 0: Kevin swims across the sea to get to Jadd. Whether he actually enters Jadd at first isn’t really relevant. Whatever happens, he ends up outside Cascade Cavern by middle of Day 1.
Day 1: Charlotte uses the spring mushroom to leave Wendel to chase after Heath. She crashes into Kevin outside Cascade Cavern. Kevin brings Charlotte to Astoria.
Night 1: Charlotte sleeps at the inn in Astoria. Kevin returns to Cascade Cavern and finds he cannot enter because of the barrier. The beastmen under Ludgar arrive at Jadd and take over the city.
Day 2: Angela arrives in Jadd, finds the city occupied by beastmen, and concocts her plan to escape that night. She rents a bed at the inn to nap. Duran, Hawkeye, Riesz, and Kevin arrive in Jadd sometime after. In the meantime, Charlotte wakes up in Astoria and goes back out to search for Heath. She finds Heath but he immediately gets captured by Goremand. Charlotte goes to Cascade Cavern to try to go home, but cannot enter because of the barrier.
Night 2: Angela leaves Jadd the first chance she gets, goes to Cascade Cavern, cannot get inside, and goes to Astoria to try to find a solution.
At this point, Angela is in Astoria and Charlotte is sitting outside Cascade Cavern wondering what to do. The others are in Jadd and/or on their way out of Jadd. In my mind, Kevin warned Duran, Hawkeye, and Riesz about the beastmen’s plans. Because of the barrier, he surmises Wendel is safe, but Astoria is not. The four would then leave Jadd to go to Astoria to warn the town.
In the middle of Night 2, Angela sees Faerie and follows her into Rabite Forest. While she is in the forest, Duran, Kevin, Hawkeye, and Riesz go to Astoria and manage to evacuate it right before the beastmen arrive and sack the town. Why do I think this? We see exactly 0 bodies in Astoria. You might argue that this is a kid-friendly game, except we do see bodies in other scenes, such as the sacking of Laurent, the attack on Valsena, the aftermath of the battle in the Sanctuary of Mana…with this in mind, us seeing 0 dead bodies in Astoria tells me there are, in fact, 0 dead bodies in Astoria, which means they must have evacuated. All I’m doing here is saying Kevin and co. were the ones who did it.
So now, Angela returns to Astoria (with Faerie) to find it in ruins. Duran, Hawkeye, Riesz, and Kevin are hiding in Rabite Forest with Astoria’s evacuated population. They have nowhere to go – Astoria is on fire and Jadd is occupied by beastmen. Kevin and Riesz volunteer to try to go to Wendel for help. Kevin decides he can just swim across the lake to get to Wendel. Riesz goes back to Cascade Cavern, which is where Angela finds her. They enter using Faerie’s magic. Charlotte sees this and follows them.
Angela and Riesz part ways after going a bit into the cavern; Riesz returns to Duran and Hawkeye to tell them that the cave is now open. Angela continues on and discovers/saves Charlotte. The duo travel to Wendel through the cave. A bit after, Duran, Riesz, and Hawkeye lead Astoria’s population through the cave. Kevin reaches Wendel around the same time Angela and Charlotte do. The six heroes converge in Wendel with Astoria’s evacuated population. The Temple takes them in.
Eventually, Faerie makes her appearance to the Priest of Light and the Priest of Light sets the 6 heroes on the quest of finding the elementals so they can enter the Sanctuary of Mana and save the Mana Tree. All 6 heroes go into Cascade Cavern to find Wisp/Lumina.
At this point in the game, your party runs into Ludgar, who knocks them down the waterfall and then inexplicably brings them back to Jadd to be thrown into prison. This sequence always bothered me because it makes no sense. Ludgar is on his way to attack Wendel, since the barrier is now down, so he doesn’t have much reason to go out of his way to attack your party. When he does attack your party and you fall off the ledge to the bottom of the waterfall, he has no reason to look for you. When he does find you, he has no reason to bring you back to Jadd rather than just killing you on the spot.
So I’m going to make something up here – the 6 heroes try to leave Cascade Cavern after getting Wisp/Lumina, but run into Ludgar and his entire army en route to Wendel. They fight but are outnumbered. Hawkeye uses his ninja skills to allow the party to escape. Ludgar doesn’t go after them because he doesn’t want to waste time on 6 random guys while he has a city to attack.
At this point, the party has a choice: chase after Ludgar to save Wendel or go north to Jadd. The former is an idiotic plan because…what exactly are they going to do once they catch up to Ludgar and his army? So they decide to go north to Jadd – they know the beastmen are no longer there because they’re all attacking Wendel. If they get the Sword of Mana, they can just ask the Goddess of Mana to restore Wendel (in line with the plan most of the party is going on throughout the game, which is “once we awaken the Goddess, she’ll magically solve everything”).
The party reaches Jadd and gets on the ship to go to Maia. As occurs in-game, they become more acquainted along the way and exchange backstories. Once they reach Maia, they decide to go to Valsena to ask King Richard for advice. Here is where I make up some more head-canon: Duran is against this because he promised he wouldn’t return home until he defeats Koren. Charlotte also becomes agitated when she learns from the sailor outside Maia that her grandfather fell ill after summoning another barrier to repel the beastmen. Kevin is mad because it was his own people who caused all this. The three decide to find a way to return to Wendel, so they stay behind while the other three head to Valsena.
Angela, Riesz, and Hawkeye follow the in-game events, where they go to Stonesplit Gap but meet the mages from Altena, who sic 2 fucking annoying Machine Golems on them. They prevail but the golems explode and take out the bridge, so they return to Maia. In the meantime, Duran, Kevin, and Charlotte have met Von Boyage, who is working on his cannon. He finishes as Angela’s party gets back to Maia, but requires nitromyte, so he sends all 6 heroes out to get some. They figure out to ask the dwarves.
They eventually meet Watts, who charges 5000 Luc for the nitromyte. In my head, Hawkeye simply steals it while Watts isn’t looking, but decides to help him with his quest to find Gnome as “payment.” He gives the nitromyte to Duran, Kevin, and Charlotte, who return to Maia first. The rest of the party follows Watts and in-game events to fight Jewel Eater and recruit Gnome.
Duran’s party gets back to Von Boyage and gives him the nitromyte and asks to be shot to Wendel. But, Charlotte is SO ANNOYING that Von Boyage messes up the calculations in his rush to get rid of her and shoots them to the Molebear Moors instead. They decide they might as well go to Valsena. In the meantime, Angela’s party gets back to Maia and this time, Von Boyage gets his calculations correct. Angela’s party reaches Valsena via cannon the same time Duran’s party arrives on foot.
They find Valsena under attack by Altena and fight their way to King Richard. In-game, they find him about to be killed by Koren, but Koren just sort of…leaves when the party arrives. This made no sense to me, so I say they fight, and Koren loses due to him fighting 6 heroes + King Richard. This (1) prompts Koren to retreat and (2) justifies Duran being there, as he has now technically defeated Koren.
Now here’s what happens in-game: King Richard tells the party that they need Jinn’s/Sylphid’s powers to find the other elementals, so he sends them to Laurent. This baffles me because the party never uses Jinn’s/Sylphid’s powers for anything other than retaking Laurent – his powers have very little to do with finding the other elementals. So I’ll say that King Richard knows for a fact that the Windstone is in Laurent and the Waterstone is in Altena, but isn’t entirely clear on where the others are – this makes sense to me because Laurent and Altena are nations in good standing with Valsena, so King Richard would naturally know more about those 2 stones compared to the Firestone (in a desert governed by no nation except a hidden fortress of secretive thieves), the Moonstone (in hostile beastmen territory), or the Darkstone and Woodstone (in-game, he doesn’t know where these are).
The party now splits up. Angela, Riesz, and Duran travel to Laurent, while Hawkeye, Charlotte, and Kevin travel to Altena. King Richard says he’ll research the other stones in the meantime. Both parties follow in-game events: Angela’s party reaches Laurent, finds the remaining Amazons, goes to find the Minor Mallet and ask Domperi for help, recruits Jinn/Sylphid from Gusthall, and liberates Laurent; Hawkeye’s party goes to Altena, sneaks through Frostbite Fields, fights 3 Machine Golems, and recruits Undine.
Hawkeye’s party returns to Valsena. Angela’s party is still on their quest, which would naturally take much longer compared to what Hawkeye’s party had to do. Even when they try to return home, they end up boarding the Ghost Ship (a serendipitous event, as this allows them to find Shade) and having to escape Beuca Island. While in Valsena, King Richard informs Hawkeye’s party of the remaining elementals. Kevin goes back to beastmen territory to find Luna, Charlotte goes to elf territory to find Dryad, and Hawkeye returns to Nevarl after Salamando.
Kevin’s quest: Kevin meets Ludgar and defeats him in single combat. Goremand retreats into Chartmoon Tower, but is ambushed by Koren and Koren kills him. Koren attempts to activate the Moonstone with Goremand’s soul, except Goremand is a soulless fuck, so this doesn’t work. Koren retreats, which explains why in-game, you enter Chartmoon Tower to find nobody there and the Moonstone intact.
Charlotte’s quest: follows in-game events. She meets the Elfin Elder, who readily welcomes her as she is family. Charlotte goes to look for Dryad, annoys a plant monster to death, and rescues Dryad.
Hawkeye’s quest: Hawkeye goes to the fire cave, killing Bil and Ben along the way, and confronts Belladonna. Nikita distracts Belladonna with a surprise attack and Hawkeye attacks Belladonna while Nikita rescues Jessica. Hawkeye kills Belladonna, but not before Belladonna activates the Firestone and gives her standard villain final monologue. This alerts Hawkeye to the Dark Majesty and his base, the Dark Castle beyond the Night Cavern. Hawkeye returns to Nevarl, where the ninjas are now free from Belladonna’s mind control, and directs them to attack the Dark Majesty’s base. The Dark Majesty uses the last of his life force to summon the Darkstone back to the mortal realm and dies. The ninjas besiege the Dark Castle, killing Malocchio and rescuing Elliot. They fall back, believing their work complete.
The 6 heroes re-converge in Valsena, now with all the elementals. They go to Oblivion Isle to open the portal to the Sanctuary of Mana, but the villains open the portal first and invade the Sanctuary while the party tries to figure out a way of entering the portal, which is high in the sky. At this point, the Dragon Lord’s faction has both lieutenants still alive and they invade with Altena’s mages. The Masked Mage’s faction only has Heath, as Goremand is dead, and with Goremand dead, the beastmen don’t invade the Sanctuary. The Dark Majesty’s faction is pretty much gone.
The Masked Mage and Heath enter the Sanctuary themselves after Koren and the Darkshine Knight. The Dragon Lord, still weakened, remains in his home base. The Masked Mage and Heath fight Koren and the Darkshine Knight, preventing either team from reaching the Sword of Mana before the protagonists, on Flammie, enter the Sanctuary and get the Sword themselves. The Masked Mage and Heath ambush the protagonists, intending to steal the sword, and Koren kidnaps Faerie while they’re distracted. This addresses something that always bothered me in-game: Faerie gets kidnapped right in front of the protagonists and they don’t notice until after she’s long gone. Umm…what?
The 6 heroes kill the Masked Mage and Heath. The latter, free from the Masked Mage’s mind control, makes peace with Charlotte before dying. The heroes now need to contend with Koren and the Darkshine Knight, who take the Sword of Mana in exchange for Faerie. They promptly go release the God-Beasts. The Masked Mage’s faction is now completely destroyed.
The 6 heroes now go after the God-Beasts, mostly following in-game events until they’ve defeated 7 of them. Hawkeye recalls the Darkstone is in the Night Cavern from his earlier raid, so the party travels there. This skips the Pedan sequence, which annoys me in-game since Pedan is supposed to be an illusion, but the protagonists glean crucial plot details and are able to buy equipment there? Also, they are able to enter “illusion-Pedan” by sleeping in Pedan’s dilapidated inn. Who the hell finds some ruins and decides they’re going to go sleep in the inn? Didn’t any of them find it weird when the wall of the inn talks to them and invites them to stay a night?
The party goes to the Night Cavern and defeats Zable Fahr, inadvertently powering up the Dragon Lord. Upon realizing this, the party hightails it to the Sanctuary of Mana, but they are slowed down by Koren and the Darkshine Knight. They kill Koren and the Darkshine Knight, the latter making peace with Duran after the party frees him from mind control, but by that point the Dragon Lord has destroyed the Mana Tree. The party fights the Dragon Lord, wins, and the game ends.
And finally…a plot analysis
Like I said at the beginning, one great hallmark about this game is the way it presents its plot. The plot itself is pretty basic with one-dimensional villains and standard go-here-get-this-repeat quests, but seeing it from 6 different viewpoints is pretty cool. Now in the flow of the game, your main character becomes the chosen hero/heroine and the plot just automatically makes one of the villains the main Big Bad depending on the main character. I like to think of a head-canon where everything sort of happens together, involving all the characters and all the villains, so here goes. I’m going to put things I made up in red, as opposed to things directly implied or supported by in-game events, which remain in black text.
First off, my chosen heroine is Angela. Besides that fact that, well, she’s the protagonist from my main playthrough, in any route besides her own and Charlotte’s, you see her sleeping in the inn when you reach Jadd, implying Angela always gets to Jadd first. This suggests to me that she already figured out the plan of sneaking out of Jadd at night and is napping at the inn when the other heroes arrive. Right when night falls, she’d be ready to get the hell out of Jadd and hightail it to Cascade Cavern, so she has the highest chance of meeting Faerie first, which means Faerie would choose her as her host.
Charlotte, on the other hand, never goes to Jadd. The spring mushroom Mik has her use sends her crashing into Kevin outside Cascade Cavern; Kevin then brings her to Astoria to recover. Since the beastmen sack Astoria the night Angela/the other heroes escape Jadd, this implies Kevin brought Charlotte to Astoria the night before. Charlotte would wake up the next day, go out of Astoria, run into Heath and Goremand, and witness the former get kidnapped by the latter.
Kevin, on the other hand, would return to Cascade Cavern but have no way of getting past the barrier. Since you see Kevin in Jadd if you’re playing on someone else’s route, I think Kevin chose to go to Jadd afterwards and arrives the day the other heroes arrive by ship. Seeing the beastmen there, his goal would be to leave and warn Astoria and/or Wendel that his people are invading.
So far, here’s the timeline:
Day 0/Night 0: Kevin swims across the sea to get to Jadd. Whether he actually enters Jadd at first isn’t really relevant. Whatever happens, he ends up outside Cascade Cavern by middle of Day 1.
Day 1: Charlotte uses the spring mushroom to leave Wendel to chase after Heath. She crashes into Kevin outside Cascade Cavern. Kevin brings Charlotte to Astoria.
Night 1: Charlotte sleeps at the inn in Astoria. Kevin returns to Cascade Cavern and finds he cannot enter because of the barrier. The beastmen under Ludgar arrive at Jadd and take over the city.
Day 2: Angela arrives in Jadd, finds the city occupied by beastmen, and concocts her plan to escape that night. She rents a bed at the inn to nap. Duran, Hawkeye, Riesz, and Kevin arrive in Jadd sometime after. In the meantime, Charlotte wakes up in Astoria and goes back out to search for Heath. She finds Heath but he immediately gets captured by Goremand. Charlotte goes to Cascade Cavern to try to go home, but cannot enter because of the barrier.
Night 2: Angela leaves Jadd the first chance she gets, goes to Cascade Cavern, cannot get inside, and goes to Astoria to try to find a solution.
At this point, Angela is in Astoria and Charlotte is sitting outside Cascade Cavern wondering what to do. The others are in Jadd and/or on their way out of Jadd. In my mind, Kevin warned Duran, Hawkeye, and Riesz about the beastmen’s plans. Because of the barrier, he surmises Wendel is safe, but Astoria is not. The four would then leave Jadd to go to Astoria to warn the town.
In the middle of Night 2, Angela sees Faerie and follows her into Rabite Forest. While she is in the forest, Duran, Kevin, Hawkeye, and Riesz go to Astoria and manage to evacuate it right before the beastmen arrive and sack the town. Why do I think this? We see exactly 0 bodies in Astoria. You might argue that this is a kid-friendly game, except we do see bodies in other scenes, such as the sacking of Laurent, the attack on Valsena, the aftermath of the battle in the Sanctuary of Mana…with this in mind, us seeing 0 dead bodies in Astoria tells me there are, in fact, 0 dead bodies in Astoria, which means they must have evacuated. All I’m doing here is saying Kevin and co. were the ones who did it.
So now, Angela returns to Astoria (with Faerie) to find it in ruins. Duran, Hawkeye, Riesz, and Kevin are hiding in Rabite Forest with Astoria’s evacuated population. They have nowhere to go – Astoria is on fire and Jadd is occupied by beastmen. Kevin and Riesz volunteer to try to go to Wendel for help. Kevin decides he can just swim across the lake to get to Wendel. Riesz goes back to Cascade Cavern, which is where Angela finds her. They enter using Faerie’s magic. Charlotte sees this and follows them.
Angela and Riesz part ways after going a bit into the cavern; Riesz returns to Duran and Hawkeye to tell them that the cave is now open. Angela continues on and discovers/saves Charlotte. The duo travel to Wendel through the cave. A bit after, Duran, Riesz, and Hawkeye lead Astoria’s population through the cave. Kevin reaches Wendel around the same time Angela and Charlotte do. The six heroes converge in Wendel with Astoria’s evacuated population. The Temple takes them in.
Eventually, Faerie makes her appearance to the Priest of Light and the Priest of Light sets the 6 heroes on the quest of finding the elementals so they can enter the Sanctuary of Mana and save the Mana Tree. All 6 heroes go into Cascade Cavern to find Wisp/Lumina.
At this point in the game, your party runs into Ludgar, who knocks them down the waterfall and then inexplicably brings them back to Jadd to be thrown into prison. This sequence always bothered me because it makes no sense. Ludgar is on his way to attack Wendel, since the barrier is now down, so he doesn’t have much reason to go out of his way to attack your party. When he does attack your party and you fall off the ledge to the bottom of the waterfall, he has no reason to look for you. When he does find you, he has no reason to bring you back to Jadd rather than just killing you on the spot.
So I’m going to make something up here – the 6 heroes try to leave Cascade Cavern after getting Wisp/Lumina, but run into Ludgar and his entire army en route to Wendel. They fight but are outnumbered. Hawkeye uses his ninja skills to allow the party to escape. Ludgar doesn’t go after them because he doesn’t want to waste time on 6 random guys while he has a city to attack.
At this point, the party has a choice: chase after Ludgar to save Wendel or go north to Jadd. The former is an idiotic plan because…what exactly are they going to do once they catch up to Ludgar and his army? So they decide to go north to Jadd – they know the beastmen are no longer there because they’re all attacking Wendel. If they get the Sword of Mana, they can just ask the Goddess of Mana to restore Wendel (in line with the plan most of the party is going on throughout the game, which is “once we awaken the Goddess, she’ll magically solve everything”).
The party reaches Jadd and gets on the ship to go to Maia. As occurs in-game, they become more acquainted along the way and exchange backstories. Once they reach Maia, they decide to go to Valsena to ask King Richard for advice. Here is where I make up some more head-canon: Duran is against this because he promised he wouldn’t return home until he defeats Koren. Charlotte also becomes agitated when she learns from the sailor outside Maia that her grandfather fell ill after summoning another barrier to repel the beastmen. Kevin is mad because it was his own people who caused all this. The three decide to find a way to return to Wendel, so they stay behind while the other three head to Valsena.
Angela, Riesz, and Hawkeye follow the in-game events, where they go to Stonesplit Gap but meet the mages from Altena, who sic 2 fucking annoying Machine Golems on them. They prevail but the golems explode and take out the bridge, so they return to Maia. In the meantime, Duran, Kevin, and Charlotte have met Von Boyage, who is working on his cannon. He finishes as Angela’s party gets back to Maia, but requires nitromyte, so he sends all 6 heroes out to get some. They figure out to ask the dwarves.
They eventually meet Watts, who charges 5000 Luc for the nitromyte. In my head, Hawkeye simply steals it while Watts isn’t looking, but decides to help him with his quest to find Gnome as “payment.” He gives the nitromyte to Duran, Kevin, and Charlotte, who return to Maia first. The rest of the party follows Watts and in-game events to fight Jewel Eater and recruit Gnome.
Duran’s party gets back to Von Boyage and gives him the nitromyte and asks to be shot to Wendel. But, Charlotte is SO ANNOYING that Von Boyage messes up the calculations in his rush to get rid of her and shoots them to the Molebear Moors instead. They decide they might as well go to Valsena. In the meantime, Angela’s party gets back to Maia and this time, Von Boyage gets his calculations correct. Angela’s party reaches Valsena via cannon the same time Duran’s party arrives on foot.
They find Valsena under attack by Altena and fight their way to King Richard. In-game, they find him about to be killed by Koren, but Koren just sort of…leaves when the party arrives. This made no sense to me, so I say they fight, and Koren loses due to him fighting 6 heroes + King Richard. This (1) prompts Koren to retreat and (2) justifies Duran being there, as he has now technically defeated Koren.
Now here’s what happens in-game: King Richard tells the party that they need Jinn’s/Sylphid’s powers to find the other elementals, so he sends them to Laurent. This baffles me because the party never uses Jinn’s/Sylphid’s powers for anything other than retaking Laurent – his powers have very little to do with finding the other elementals. So I’ll say that King Richard knows for a fact that the Windstone is in Laurent and the Waterstone is in Altena, but isn’t entirely clear on where the others are – this makes sense to me because Laurent and Altena are nations in good standing with Valsena, so King Richard would naturally know more about those 2 stones compared to the Firestone (in a desert governed by no nation except a hidden fortress of secretive thieves), the Moonstone (in hostile beastmen territory), or the Darkstone and Woodstone (in-game, he doesn’t know where these are).
The party now splits up. Angela, Riesz, and Duran travel to Laurent, while Hawkeye, Charlotte, and Kevin travel to Altena. King Richard says he’ll research the other stones in the meantime. Both parties follow in-game events: Angela’s party reaches Laurent, finds the remaining Amazons, goes to find the Minor Mallet and ask Domperi for help, recruits Jinn/Sylphid from Gusthall, and liberates Laurent; Hawkeye’s party goes to Altena, sneaks through Frostbite Fields, fights 3 Machine Golems, and recruits Undine.
Hawkeye’s party returns to Valsena. Angela’s party is still on their quest, which would naturally take much longer compared to what Hawkeye’s party had to do. Even when they try to return home, they end up boarding the Ghost Ship (a serendipitous event, as this allows them to find Shade) and having to escape Beuca Island. While in Valsena, King Richard informs Hawkeye’s party of the remaining elementals. Kevin goes back to beastmen territory to find Luna, Charlotte goes to elf territory to find Dryad, and Hawkeye returns to Nevarl after Salamando.
Kevin’s quest: Kevin meets Ludgar and defeats him in single combat. Goremand retreats into Chartmoon Tower, but is ambushed by Koren and Koren kills him. Koren attempts to activate the Moonstone with Goremand’s soul, except Goremand is a soulless fuck, so this doesn’t work. Koren retreats, which explains why in-game, you enter Chartmoon Tower to find nobody there and the Moonstone intact.
Charlotte’s quest: follows in-game events. She meets the Elfin Elder, who readily welcomes her as she is family. Charlotte goes to look for Dryad, annoys a plant monster to death, and rescues Dryad.
Hawkeye’s quest: Hawkeye goes to the fire cave, killing Bil and Ben along the way, and confronts Belladonna. Nikita distracts Belladonna with a surprise attack and Hawkeye attacks Belladonna while Nikita rescues Jessica. Hawkeye kills Belladonna, but not before Belladonna activates the Firestone and gives her standard villain final monologue. This alerts Hawkeye to the Dark Majesty and his base, the Dark Castle beyond the Night Cavern. Hawkeye returns to Nevarl, where the ninjas are now free from Belladonna’s mind control, and directs them to attack the Dark Majesty’s base. The Dark Majesty uses the last of his life force to summon the Darkstone back to the mortal realm and dies. The ninjas besiege the Dark Castle, killing Malocchio and rescuing Elliot. They fall back, believing their work complete.
The 6 heroes re-converge in Valsena, now with all the elementals. They go to Oblivion Isle to open the portal to the Sanctuary of Mana, but the villains open the portal first and invade the Sanctuary while the party tries to figure out a way of entering the portal, which is high in the sky. At this point, the Dragon Lord’s faction has both lieutenants still alive and they invade with Altena’s mages. The Masked Mage’s faction only has Heath, as Goremand is dead, and with Goremand dead, the beastmen don’t invade the Sanctuary. The Dark Majesty’s faction is pretty much gone.
The Masked Mage and Heath enter the Sanctuary themselves after Koren and the Darkshine Knight. The Dragon Lord, still weakened, remains in his home base. The Masked Mage and Heath fight Koren and the Darkshine Knight, preventing either team from reaching the Sword of Mana before the protagonists, on Flammie, enter the Sanctuary and get the Sword themselves. The Masked Mage and Heath ambush the protagonists, intending to steal the sword, and Koren kidnaps Faerie while they’re distracted. This addresses something that always bothered me in-game: Faerie gets kidnapped right in front of the protagonists and they don’t notice until after she’s long gone. Umm…what?
The 6 heroes kill the Masked Mage and Heath. The latter, free from the Masked Mage’s mind control, makes peace with Charlotte before dying. The heroes now need to contend with Koren and the Darkshine Knight, who take the Sword of Mana in exchange for Faerie. They promptly go release the God-Beasts. The Masked Mage’s faction is now completely destroyed.
The 6 heroes now go after the God-Beasts, mostly following in-game events until they’ve defeated 7 of them. Hawkeye recalls the Darkstone is in the Night Cavern from his earlier raid, so the party travels there. This skips the Pedan sequence, which annoys me in-game since Pedan is supposed to be an illusion, but the protagonists glean crucial plot details and are able to buy equipment there? Also, they are able to enter “illusion-Pedan” by sleeping in Pedan’s dilapidated inn. Who the hell finds some ruins and decides they’re going to go sleep in the inn? Didn’t any of them find it weird when the wall of the inn talks to them and invites them to stay a night?
The party goes to the Night Cavern and defeats Zable Fahr, inadvertently powering up the Dragon Lord. Upon realizing this, the party hightails it to the Sanctuary of Mana, but they are slowed down by Koren and the Darkshine Knight. They kill Koren and the Darkshine Knight, the latter making peace with Duran after the party frees him from mind control, but by that point the Dragon Lord has destroyed the Mana Tree. The party fights the Dragon Lord, wins, and the game ends.