Could you please take some of that money you throw at graphics and hire someone to code up a good 3D camera? Somehow you’ve managed to make it worse in Dawn of Mana, which I didn’t think was possible, and it’s really important to the whole gameplay aspect of your 3D action oriented games. I know graphics sell and all but now that you’ve gone ahead and wrecked the “Mana” license you might need to actually make some good games in order to redeem it. So if you get a decent camera and add on clear objectives, a functional lock-on system, a readable radar, and maybe even a decent coherent story then maybe just maybe Seiken Densetsu 5 might be worth playing.
Notice how there is no gameplay footage in this official trailer?
After some lengthy Square Enix style cutscenes you’re thrown into the action. The left analog stick moves you around, the right one controls the camera, and the square button slashes away. After you take out a few mushroom head enemies you’ll notice that the radar in the top right corner has a single yellow square which happens to indicate your first objective. And unfortunately I’ve just summed up 80% of Dawn of Mana. You go to the yellow square, follow the arrow or kill the enemy/boss, and then move on to the next yellow square. Blue squares are interactable objects and red are enemies.
You can lock on to enemies with the L2 button but you’ll be lucky if it locks on to the one you want. Most of the time you’ll lock on to something that’s way far away from you and behind a few hills and structures. It’s pretty useless unless you’re facing a boss that takes up half of the screen. The R2 does the same thing but for regular objects. It’s just as buggy. It would probably be pretty decent if the camera wasn’t so horrible. As far as I can tell there is no auto-center. So you’ll constantly be struggling to use the right analog stick to bring things back into focus. You can of course go into first person mode to shoot your slingshot or whip but that’s beside the point.
One of the cooler things you wield is the whip, at least when the targeting works, which is not often. You hit the triangle button to send out a kind of grappling hook which hooks on to objects and enemies. You can then throw the attached thing with the triangle button or spin it around with the circle button. This is really handy for stunning bosses. X jumps, O fires your slingshot, L1 blocks, R1 is used to have your fairy buddy cast a spell, and you can do a few other moves with button combinations. The controls sound great and all but they have that loose Square Enix feel to them that you get in games like Kingdom Hearts. It’s kind of like Zelda but not nearly as solid. It’s not nearly as good as Kingdom Hearts for that matter.
