Geek vs Life

Well, I’ve had almost a week to play around with the game now, so I think I’ve figured it out well enough to review it.

First off, my experience with the Mana series is fairly limited. While I have seen (either on the shelf or in action) Secret of Mana and Sword of Mana, I have no experience with Final Fantasy Gaiden: Seiken Densetsu (aka Final Fantasy Adventure), Legend of Mana, Dawn of Mana, or Children of Mana. Seiken Densetsu III (not released in the US), however, I have extensive experience with.

Which, in hindsight, might be for the best. The other World of Mana titles, Dawn and Children take place early in the Mana storyline, and both Secret and FF:A/Sword take place further in the story (Legend isn’t clear on where, or if, it takes place in the canon, and Sword is a remake of FF:A, hence the ‘/’). Heroes, however, takes place just 19 years before Seiken III, even going so far as to feature characters related to the characters of Seiken III; most notably, the fathers of Kevin, Riesz, Hawkeye, Angela, Duran, and grandfather of Charlotte, and the mothers of Riesz, Hawkeye, and Angela, as well as the grandmothers of Reisz and Angela. According to the walkthrough on GameFAQs, Hawkeye even makes an appearance, but he’d only be an infant.

Heroes takes a bit of a departure from the real-time action RPG system of the other games. Instead, Heroes uses a real-time strategy system, requiring a player to keep on their toes at all times. The touch screen is utilized fully, as one has to use it to summon units, direct them, check stats, equip units (outside of battle)… Basically, you use the touch screen for everything. There’s a button in the top right corner that lets you switch screens at will, allowing for quick changing to check stats, equipment, quick moving on the map, etc.

In battle, you have a variety of different types of units. Your leaders are your characters. You start the game with the five main characters, and pick up additional characters along the way. These characters can be equipped with items you pick up, but you can only take a limited number of leaders into battle (the number is determined by the map and the battle). However, each leader has two skills. One works in battle, boosting your stats/healing/etc., and the other works out of battle, increasing your building abilities. And building is important. Because if you want anything other than those leaders, you’ll have to build bases and summon them. The basic type of units you can summon are gatherers, which are… RABITES! Yes, rabites, the chocobo of Mana, are your gatherer units. You’ll use rabites to gather Gaia stones (which are used to build bases) and Treant berries (which are used to summon units). Once you have enough, you can start building your fighting strength. There are four types of fighting units you can summon: ground units, heavy units, flying units, and missile units. Unit damage works in a round-robin. Ground units do half damage to heavy units, and take double damage; heavy units do half damage to flying units, and take double damage; flying units have half damage to missile; and missile half damage to ground.

In addition to fighting units, there are also special units you can create, such as the healing house (heals units within a 5-square radius of your ship), or other units that I don’t currently have access to (I’m only in chapter 6, of over 20).

The game is pretty straightforward. Hit the “GO!” button to trigger the next event, which usually includes a battle. When it does, you select and equip your leaders (if they’re not already equipped), and start the battle. You’re shown your victory and loss conditions, and then the battle starts. The first thing you need to do is spread out your leaders to find the Gaia rocks and Treant bushes in the field (unexplored areas of the map are in shadows, and you can’t see enemies, resources, or other special things on the map), and summon your rabites. Once you get your rabites set to gathering supplies for you, you can start searching for enemies, or working on your victory conditions (which could be simply getting to a certain spot).

The graphics and music of the game are top-notch. The animated cut-scenes are at least as high of quality as on a PS1 game (remember that this is a DS, which has limited quality), and the music actually reminds me of the music from Suikoden II, and is as high quality as I’ve heard on a Nintendo portable (listen to it with headphones; the speakers don’t do it justice).

What I find most amusing with this, is how much I’m enjoying this. It took me well over a year to finish Suikoden V, because I didn’t like the army battles (which were real-time strategy). Maybe it’s the simplicity of the controls (touch screen vs. controller), but I’ll let you know if my opinion of Suikoden V’s army battles changes when I go back to replay it after Heroes.

I definitely recommend this game to anyone who’s a fan of the series.