Work
Since the user who originally began work on this guide hasn't updated since April (was that around the move from Wikibooks?) I think that we should go ahead and get rid of all references to his request for waiting for him to finish before working on it. Besides, that isn't really with the spirit of StrategyWiki anyway. Thoughts?--DukeRuckley 09:53, 18 July 2006 (CDT)
Yes.
I, for one, would like to see the topic of the difficulty level in this game addressed. I mean, i have beat Civ 3 on Deity, Killer Instinct (SNES) on impossible/master without losing once and got the special ending, beat Secret of Mana easily, and beat games like Contra with like 10 lives or so.
But, of all the games i have played, none are as incredibly frustrating as this one....i mean, the difficulty level is RIDICULOUS! My party died so many times i lost count. Part of it is that during combat mode, sometimes slashes don't seem to "compute", as in, you press the action/A button but your character just looks at the monster. And then, the monsters are incredibly vicious, will hit you several times while on the ground, block almost 30% of your attacks, while the AI helpers almost always die, quickly. At any point in the game (i didn't finish it, the only action/RPG i never finished- got to lv 20 sometime after the class upgrade)the player is probably 5-6 hits away from death. This eases up a tiny bit after the mana stone change, but still i found it alarming how this game would drive me insane. It's probably no coincidence that characters are resurrected every time for free at 1hp.
I literally stopped playing because I thought it was not entertaining anymore. It was borderline masochistic to keep playing. Looking forward to getting back on the bike, though!
Dragonlord kfb 11:40, 3 August 2006 (CDT)
The game may be difficult at times, but it shouldn't be THAT difficult. I have a few guesses about what your problem may be:
- Do you realize that you can't spam the A button to attack repeatedly? If so, do you realize that your character will do a little animation when he is ready to attack again (usually a little glint on your weapon)? I found that when I try to be really lazy and not pay attention to that animation, the game does get a bit harder. I heard that if you press tha A button when you aren't ready to attack, it resets the attack timer anyway (so the more you push A, the longer you have to wait between attacks).
- Are you charging and retreating? When you get hit by a monster (or when your character does his/her dodge animation) your attack timer is reset so sometimes (but not always) it's best to try to charge when your attack is ready and retreat back a little bit while you wait to recharge. Also, some monsters have to get very close to attack you, so if you're careful you can attack them without getting in their attack range.
- Do you buy the best equipment (especially weapons and breastplates) as soon as you can? There are a few places where it's easy to miss the weapon shop (the new weapons in Palo after you save Rolante, and the weapons available in the village of Dark Priests come to mind). A few times when I have missed weapon shops, I have been beaten brutally (namely when trying to go up the mountain on Bucca without the equipment from the Dark Priests).
- What was your party? I find that 3 physical attackers (Hawk, Duran, Kevin, or Lise) can decimate the opposition early in the game. It's amazing how fast this kind of group can kill certain bosses, especially with appropriate Saber spells and/or Stat altering magic. I haven't really used Angela at all, but I think if you have both Angela and Carlie in your group, the game will be extra difficult.
Anyway, whatever the reason is, we probably should put up a "Tutorial" section or something like that including mistakes like this that people often make that make them think this game is extremely difficult.
Allies' equipment
I've looked all over the net for this and couldn't find anything, so I thought it might be appropriate to ask here. I can't figure out how to change the equipment on my two allies - the equip menu just lets me change my main character's equipment. I'm not really certain what kind of things y'all put here, but I noticed the basic controls were here, so I thought something like this might be appropriate as well. --Eruhildo 16:26, 9 March 2008 (CDT)
- After a couple more hours of playing, I figured it out on my own. You just have to hit select after pulling up the menu. Do y'all usually put up info like this? --Eruhildo 13:25, 11 March 2008 (CDT)
English name
Okay, this entire guide needs to be renamed "Trials of Mana" now that it's finally been released overseas under that name. Wanderer (talk) 06:53, 12 June 2019 (UTC)