Children of Mana/The Mana Tower

Children of Mana doesn't really change that much whether you play as Tamber, Poppen, Ferrick or Wanderer. Either the ways you go, deliver the reports on plant activity to Moti (who's in the middle-right house), watch the cutscenes and choose as your companion spirit either Wisp (as his healing is good to have in dungeons) or Undine (as her offensive magic is good against the boss of this level when you can hit it), but it is better to go with Wisp for he's usually the most useful to have - particularly when you're out of gumdrops, on your last legs and a bunch of invisible swordsmen are after you...

Floor 1
You may notice that the Mana Tower is somehow different. Your pet Elemental will somehow know that some force inside the Tower is ripping its fabric (probably the fabric of space-time, as happens in all epic videogames and movies) apart and creating monsters, which all conveniently explains why there are monsters in the holy tower of Mana.

Enter the tower to get to the first floor, where you explain to those who haven't read the manual that you press button to attack and you can press it up to 3 times in a row to create a combo attack. Now you're fully equipped to lay waste to the Rabites, so decimate them, check the chest to get a Gumdrop (and possibly and explanation that you can press the button to use recovery items). Smash the jars around the room to see if there are any items in them and continue onwards.

Now, you will be met by some cute but highly unfriendly squirrel-like monsters called Chopin Hoods (what a bad pun). Yet another explanation/tutorial where you learn about the deflection skill you can do by pressing and holding down the button. Use your new-found mad skillz to kill them all, and move into the next room.

Again, a tutorial, this time about Fury techniques, where each time you hit someone or are hit your Fury gauge fills up, and you can release your rage against the machine by pressing, then holding to release some of the ultimate power within.

Next room your Elemental will do more than give suspiciously sarcastic remarks. Now they'll actually help you and tell you how they can help. Press and hold the button to release your pet, and let your pretty fly to release some attack power against the Slime monsters that've appeared. You can also touch them to gain a support ability, check the section on Elementals for more details on this. Either way, release your elemental, as just slashing at the slimes to kill them takes a while, no matter how strong your characters attack stats are, then watch the destruction from afar as they all wither and die.

Now you are faced with serious problems due to there being no stairs. Unlike a certain band, you can't walk on sunshine, so you're informed by your all-knowing Elemental that the stairs are no longer there due to the fabric of space being altered. Then your companion will feel the warming glowing warming glow of the Mana Goddess and he or she will point out the Gleamwell, a glowing spot on the floor, which, when enhanced by a Gleamdrop, will allow you to continue to the next floor.

So, the Gleamdrop is somewhere in a pot around here. Smash all the pots in between fighting off Slimes, grab the items if you find any, and press when you find the Gleamdrop to pick it up. You get a neat little explanation that tells you that a Gleamdrop is the crystalised form of the Mana Tree's power, so you can reach the next floor.

Before you make off with the sparkly shiney Gleamdrop, upon picking it up you can't do anything else but hold it, so make sure you've killed all the enemies before you do. This will make sure that you don't get sliced and diced as you march up to the Gleamwell.

Boss: Xangar
Watch the cutscene, where you're introduced to the bad guy of the game.

Like all good heroes (or heroines) of mana, you're given the task of checking all the strange occurances out, so you get a new weapon, the Light Flail.

It's highly recommended that rather than immediately going to the upstairs of the Silver Mermaid to continue your quest as suggested in-game, you should instead speak to Tess. This will present you with the opportunity to go back to the Mana Tower and eradicate the monsters there.