The last Seiken Densetsu game I played was that gacha mobile port shit RISE of MANA, which definitely left a sour taste in my mouth. So naturally I went and bought the Vita port of the mobile remake of the first game in the series. After all, this game has the same janky mobile graphics like the last one I hated so gotta buy it, right? (Gamer logic 101)
Concept art looks great but a Gameboy doesn't have the specs to-, wait what? $700 iPhone? ...oh.
Now that I actually played through the game that I bought almost 3 years ago on $ale (no doubt for more than the current list price), I'm happy to report that it's actually still (almost) a real game unlike RISE of MANA. I say almost because this game is so easy, you can practically play with your eyes closed or I guess poke at your screen like some lab monkey as intended for the mobile folks. The graphics don't look so hot either. I may even go as far as to say you may as well stick with the OG Gamboy sprites. Yeah yeah, once again the Switch probably got the better deal with the whole collection of the original games, don't worry I'm already moving off of the Censorstation (but the trophies...).
25 years of technological advances and this is what we end up with?
As for the gamplay, the bosses are so easy this game is kind of like Sekiro except it's like you switched places with the bosses and they only get one try to kill you. I know cause I totally beat and can write a "review for Sekiro". (← Google, please rank this part) In fact, instead of the pro journalists that used a cheat to beat it, I'm so efficient, I beat it by watching somebody use the cheat. Actually I didn't even watch it, I count one of the views of somebody else watching on Youtube as me beating the game, I'm super pro like that. Uh where was I? Oh yeah the gameplay.
It's cool, it's just a game- wait... is this like... your job? Oh... wow.
I'm not sure about the difficulty but everything else seems to be a faithful port of the original so I did have to look up a guide when I got stuck in a few places as this is old school "You stuck? Well I guess you fucking stuck then" type of game. It's pretty ridiculous when one NPC says "Yeah, why don't ya get your ass out there and try flare on dem rocks 'till you find em hidden entrances like?" Other than getting stuck, it was a pretty simple game that I finished in a little under 12 hours. It was a bit annoying that you have to constantly switch out stuff from your menu. The 3 quick slots helped but I could have used like 6 slots, especially one for those goddamn fucking annoying keys.
Going back to the Jhipster agenda, let's discuss the localized title Adventures of Mana. Now you can play as Mana going on countless amazing adventures, wait, that's not a character? It's what? But the grammar... fine whatever.
This first game of what non-Jhipsters call the Mana series is also a Final Fantasy spinoff hence the localized title Final Fantasy Adventure for the original game. Now, you may be inclined to think that it's a spinoff in name for marketing purposes only like the Final Fantasy Legend series but no, it's a real spinoff with Moogles and Chocobos.
Aww so cute, sorry about your legs oh spoilers
In fact, in the GBA "new testament" remake, they removed all the FF stuff and made it a proper Seiken Desetsu game. However, this is definitely NOT that game so not sure why they changed the English name but once again, we are not new to localizers who don't know jack here at Jhipster land.
As for this original GB remake, I found the story had some good moments. Yeah, it's a Gameboy faithful remake so the dialogue isn't going to win the Pulitzer eg "Ugh, I'm dead. Croak." but it wasn't bad and had kind of an interesting ending (again "for a GB game" being the key caveat).
The script says "don't die!" but the face says "whatever"
I did find it funny for the best part of the story, they still decided to censor one item you need from Medusa blood to tears instead. This game obviously was loved by the JP kids back in the day because there's a whole page of details of how in the original game, you get experience for the end of the Medusa boss potentially putting up an awkward "You leveled up ze" message, ruining a touching moment. No worries, they fixed that "bug" in this remake.
Amanda, is she going to be a girl you hook up with? Play to find out!
Overall, I found Seiken Densetu - Final Fantasy Gaiden to be a standard old school portable title, something to kill time or to decompress while playing a "real" game. It's a really good Gameboy game, one that probably deserves a 3 or even 3.5 score in its day. However, on the Vita with these graphics and zero difficulty, it's a mediocre experience overall. The title screen music is great though at least.
The rest of the OST unfortunately was not as good as the title screen
Score: 2.5 buckets of blood out of 5 (12 hours to beat, 16 for plat)
Now if you'll excuse me, I have like 5 hours of grinding left killing scores of elephants to get the rest of the trophies since it's SOOO much fun and yes, I totally have a life (not really). OMG, killing elephants, what kind of message is that sending our kids? I demand this game be taken down immediately! Oh excuse me... what? We only care about censoring sex? But that's a natural part of our species... uh huh... uh ok I understand... Stay tuned for our extensive coverage of MK11, the hottest new game just released!
Don't forget to only pick Warrior and Mage to be able to unlock all 99 stats trophies!
Good thing the Auto save works as well as it does (shitty mobile port)
Oh, does this lead into the sequel? I haven't played that since before my Jhipster evolution.
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
So I guess this is what gaming has come down to nowadays, huh? Spin up an online, free-to-play game, only to shut it all down less than a year later. Of course, I'm a sucker for this shit because I can't stand having a game that I can't finish on my profile (Resistance 2, I'm talking about you). So here we go, it's time to marathon Seiken Densetsu, RISE OF MANA.
Here we go again with this gacha shit
The only positive thing I have to say about this game is at least you can finish it relatively painlessly. Pair up with some crazy lvl 95 dude who OBVIOUSLY is way cooler than you and lives a highly fulfilling life and the other dude will take care of everything for a while. There's even some people with Metallica (no I'm not talking about the band, oh RIGHT, they changed her name to Metallia for Merica). I guess I missed the NIS collab event but whatever, who cares.
Am I jealous I missed this? NOT AT ALL!
And here's where I think this game failed ultimately. Doing a collab event took way too much work. You have to create a 3D model and have it you know... be PLAYABLE??? Compare that to million shit arthur where you can drum up some illustrations, maybe throw a few seconds of voice acting at it, slap some card numbers on it and call it a day. Even PSO2 collab events is mostly just costumes and weapons from my understanding, plus PSO2 is a way bigger game in terms of scale.
Rise of Mana is just a shitty gacha mobile port that takes FOREVER to load and is filled with useless filler missions such as, "Hey, I dropped some shit in a cave. Can you go pick it up?" It doesn't even have voice acting for the main story which even million shit arthur had.
Congrats, you got some useless shit. Hope you didn't pay real money for it
Near chapter 17, the lvl 95 pal wasn't cutting it and I started dying. Of course, you can use gems or some shit to revive yourself (bargain deal at ONLY 100 yen). But you get free gems for beating the missions so I hit up the gacha and upgraded my weapons. I finished chapter 20 in a matter of a few days and while I'm not technically finished with all 30 chapters, my trophies told me I could put this shit down for good.
If this looks like fun to you, trust me, it isn't.
Score: 1 at least you don't have to spend months to reach level 109 for yet ANOTHER round of trophies, yeah I'm talking about you fucking million shit arthur out of 5.
The story is meh, the gameplay is meh, the music is meh, the Japanese gaming industry lately is meh. But at least I got some goddamn trophies.
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely
