Меч Маны: Перерождение легенды

2003 video game

Sword of Mana, originally released in Japan as , is a 2003 action role playing game developed by Square Enix and Brownie Brown and published by Square Enix and Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance. It is an enhanced remake of the first game in the Mana series, the Game Boy game Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden, which was released as Final Fantasy Adventure in North America and as Mystic Quest in Europe. Sword of Mana was the fifth release in the series. Set in a high fantasy universe, the game follows an unnamed hero and heroine as they seek to defeat the Dark Lord and defend the Mana Tree from enemies who wish to misuse its power. While incorporating gameplay elements from the original game and generally following the same plot, Sword of Mana has new gameplay mechanics and a much more involved story. It removes elements of the Final Fantasy series present in the original game as a marketing ploy, while adding in gameplay elements and artistic styles from later games in the series. The plot is modified to allow the player to follow the parallel stories of either the hero or the heroine, and the backstory and dialogue is expanded from the original. Sword of Mana was produced by series creator Koichi Ishii, directed by Takeo Oin, and largely developed by employees of Brownie Brown who had previously worked on the series for Square. The game received weakly positive reviews from critics. Reviewers praised the graphics of the game, as well as its enhancements to the original version. They were generally dismissive of the plot, even with enhancements, and disliked elements of the gameplay, especially the computer controlled ally. Critics recommended the game mainly to fans of the genre or the series. Final Fantasy Adventure received a second remake in 2016, Adventures of Mana.

The gameplay of Sword of Mana is an expanded and modified version of the gameplay of the action role playing game Final Fantasy Adventure, with elements added from later games in the Mana series. Like previous games in the series, Sword of Mana displays a top down perspective, in which the player characters navigate the terrain and fight off hostile creatures. Unlike the original game, the terrain is in color, is not composed of square tiles, and the player is not restricted to moving only in the cardinal directions. At the beginning of the game the player chooses to follow the story of either the unnamed hero or heroine, and controls them thereafter. Square, in turn, outsourced development of the fifth game in the Mana series to Brownie Brown. The producer for the game was Square's Koichi Ishii, who had directed or designed the previous games in the series. Ishii had served as the director for the original game in the series, Final Fantasy Adventure, of which Sword of Mana is a remake.

The remake, in addition to adding enhanced graphics to the original Game Boy title, sought to add elements present in later games in the series, such as the Ring Command menu system, and to expand the game's storyline. For the heroine, her design was guided to make her look both like a warrior and a princess. The Eight Mana Spirits were designed to look like three dimensional characters from a storybook. In order to hide the Dark Lord’s identity, a mask was designed so that this aspect of the plot could remain hidden until later on in the game.

Square announced in August 2002 that a Mana game for the Game Boy Advance was under development, and in early 2003 announced that the game was a remake of Final Fantasy Adventure and would be released in Japan later that year under the name Shinyaku Seiken Densetsu.