Final Fantasy Adventure (Game Boy)



Yes I know it's the first in the Seiken Densetsu series but it's the original localization so I'm going with the original name. Although if you weren't told this was a different series it'd be hard to guess because it does feel like Final Fantasy translated into an action RPG. There are Black, White, and Red mages lifted straight from the NES game, the Nuke spell, three of the Four Fiends are featured as bosses and you could always head-canon one of the dragon bosses as Tiamat, and the Mana Sword is called the Excalibur. There are also Chocobos which were first featured in Final Fantasy II, and Moogles but those actually debuted here then made their way to Final Fantasy.

The game itself is... uh, well it's interesting to see where the series started but there is so much jank I hope the Sword of Mana GBA remake sorted out. You constantly have to fuck around in the menu to swap out weapons for one the current enemy is vulnerable to, the menu has a habit of moving two spaces when you press a direction so you'll pick the wrong thing then have to start over because it closes entirely when you back out, the inventory is obnoxiously small and the items that stack don't stack nearly as high as you'd like them to, the game doesn't let you discard the weakest versions of weapons because you need them to cross obstacles but doesn't replace them with stronger versions that do the same job, and one time I had to reset because doors relock when you pass enough screens, I'd run out of keys, and I couldn't leave the dungeon (tip: use the second save file to make a backup outside the dungeon).

Does anyone remember how Jay Resop of Neglected Mario Characters repeatedly cited Secret of Mana as the worst game he'd played? I'm sure it was just a dramatic way of saying his most overrated game but when asked why he didn't like it he said it was because you could beat every boss in the game by spamming magic (though, yeah, that doesn't work on the Mana Beast). I bring this up because because the best way to beat most bosses in this game is to stand on top of them and mash attack while spamming the healing spell.

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