Happy 15th Anniversary SD3!

[invisibleham]

Don't ever lose hope! I think that one day we may get a 'good' & satisfying Mana game. What it's gonna take however is for the team involved in said future game is going to have to...

The problem is that that team has been dissolved and reassigned to teams. We know that at one point in time Mana creator Koichi Ishii headed SE's PDD 8 which was responsible for the Mana games. After Ishii left SE there has been no word on any Mana projects. I think it's safe to assume that PDD8 has been dissolved or completely reassigned to a different franchise. Since Ishii's departure there has been a new team headed by Takashi Tokita which has been responsible for the sequel to FF IV ("The After") and FF: 4 Heroes of Light and now the upcoming Final Fantasy Legends... Perhaps this new team is the new PDD8?

But anyway, my long-winded point is that with Ishii gone, it seems unlikely that SE will do anything Mana. World of Mana was a financial (and critical) failure, so SE seems unlikely to toss any more money into it.

I don't neccessarily think that you need the original Mana 'team' to make a good Mana game. In fact, I'd say your chances of having a young, completely new yet dedicated team on a new mana project would weild better results, because as you say, the "World of Mana' stuff was a financial failure... sounds like it's time to bring some new talent in because Ishii obviously doesn't have what it takes to keep the franchise solid & profitable.

3.) No more gimmicks. Solid, compelling story with some solid, fun action-adventure gameplay. As much as I hate to say it, Legend of Mana introduced so many useless gimmicks that many people feel are standard for Mana games.

Which is why I'd contend that MogHunter's Memories of Mana trilogy is actually much closer to what many of us consider "real Mana" than anything official post-SD3.

Haven't checked these out but if a series of fan-made Mana games are better than anything that has come out of the "World of Mana" franchise, that surely says nothing positive about their team.

... but still I have hope that perhaps someone over there will make a game that goes back to the roots of what made the series great & stop clinging on to gimmicks & trying to re-invent the wheel!

[bastian]

Don't ever lose hope! I think that one day we may get a 'good' & satisfying Mana game. What it's gonna take however is for the team involved in said future game is going to have to...

The problem is that that team has been dissolved and reassigned to teams. We know that at one point in time Mana creator Koichi Ishii headed SE's PDD 8 which was responsible for the Mana games. After Ishii left SE there has been no word on any Mana projects. I think it's safe to assume that PDD8 has been dissolved or completely reassigned to a different franchise. Since Ishii's departure there has been a new team headed by Takashi Tokita which has been responsible for the sequel to FF IV ("The After") and FF: 4 Heroes of Light and now the upcoming Final Fantasy Legends... Perhaps this new team is the new PDD8?

But anyway, my long-winded point is that with Ishii gone, it seems unlikely that SE will do anything Mana. World of Mana was a financial (and critical) failure, so SE seems unlikely to toss any more money into it.

I don't neccessarily think that you need the original Mana 'team' to make a good Mana game. In fact, I'd say your chances of having a young, completely new yet dedicated team on a new mana project would weild better results, because as you say, the "World of Mana' stuff was a financial failure... sounds like it's time to bring some new talent in because Ishii obviously doesn't have what it takes to keep the franchise solid & profitable.

The problem with that logic is that SE already tossed a LOT of money at World of Mana only to have it fail. That WAS their shot at reviving Mana. Since it failed, they will likely never again money into Mana. That's the way business work; they exist to make profit, not to create entertainment. They can't keep putting money into flops.

Haven't checked these out but if a series of fan-made Mana games are better than anything that has come out of the "World of Mana" franchise, that surely says nothing positive about their team.

... but still I have hope that perhaps someone over there will make a game that goes back to the roots of what made the series great & stop clinging on to gimmicks & trying to re-invent the wheel!

It would be nice. And I'd say that IF there hadn't been so many World of Mana games... if Ishii had just done the Dawn of Mana he really wanted to do and THEN left, then SE might have been interested in promoting someone else to head of the Mana team and we might have gotten a 2D game that went back to the basics. But because there were SO many WoM games and they all failed, I think SE is more than happy to let Mana die with Ishii's departure.

And yeah, as much as I love Ishii for what he initially created, he became FAR too concerned with gimmicks and wheel-reinvention. The stupid collision thing in CoM and the DoM equivalent were an interesting concept on paper, but in practice were just plain annoying. They didn't add anything to the games and only detracted from them.

His Line Attack Heroes that he left SE to develop exemplifies what is wrong with his current thinking. As far as I can tell, that game is ALL "new concept" and completely devoid of plot or anything to make you WANT to play. It's a Wiiware party game with a gimmick. The fact that it plays like an AARPG but with the "line attack" gimmick makes me wonder if the idea was going to be the Wii Mana game that was supposedly in preproduction for a bit?

[ReasonsUnknown]

What irritates me the most is that they messed up so badly, that at this point it doesn't matter even if they did notice the SD fans. It's understandable if a series goes under because of a weak fan base that slowly lost interest, but there are many adamant SD fans far beyond what we see here. While it isn't the largest fan base, I consider it one of the strongest; therefore why should the series die? In fact, ours is a rare case where a good number of people would buy and play a game, knowing full well that it will absolutely suck. But some flukes are just too much; a game like LoM (my favorite SD game) was a toss up, yes, but all it's down points were forgivable. Even if you hated LoM, it's hard to say it was a bad game. But the WoM games have been ridiculously gimmicky, and even the stories felt watered down, especially for an SD game. In fact, when I play WoM games I can't help but feel they were never even tested... I mean everything in them probably looked good on paper, but became blatantly pointless and annoying in practice; leading me to believe they sent them off to be sold right after production. But I'm beginning to ramble. My point is, it's okay if you want to add gimmicks to a game (there's a whole console built on gimmick), but they went so overboard that what could have potentially made a fair amount of profit ended up destroying the series.

The problem with that logic is that SE already tossed a LOT of money at World of Mana only to have it fail. That WAS their shot at reviving Mana. Since it failed, they will likely never again money into Mana. That's the way business work; they exist to make profit, not to create entertainment. They can't keep putting money into flops.

I think I'm mostly bitter towards SE because they have the money to recover from slip ups like that. Mana fans have been known to drop a lot of money on stuff that is actually good, the potential is still there. But that might be hypocritical of me, because at this point I don't think I really want another Mana game. But I understand business is business, so I can't blame them for axing the series. But... do I really want to play games made by people that don't care about what they put out as long as it makes money? That's a stupid question, because I want to play video games and that doesn't leave me many options. But now I'm just being cynical, haha.

[moichispa]

Great! Where is my anniversary remake?

Dear Valued Seiken Densetsu Fans,

We'd love to bring you an anniversary edition of your favourite series, but in all honesty, if it doesn't say "Final Fantasy" or "Kingdom Hearts", then it's not worth publishing.

Thank you,

Square-Enix.

That's so true, people continue buying stuff just for the "label name" maybe SD3 is a bit forgot by the mainstream but is has potential to be a great retro game remake in today consoles.

But I know they will not do it It has not a double F before (sorry about being pessimistic)

[Argus_Faraday]

So, like I'm the only SoM fan that enjoyed Sword of Mana?.... :(

[Dr. Sheexy]

I enjoyed Sword of Mana, but as a FFA fan I don't agree with everything they did in it. XD

[RevRFish]

Great! Where is my anniversary remake?

Dear Valued Seiken Densetsu Fans,

We'd love to bring you an anniversary edition of your favorite series, but in all honesty, if it doesn't say "Final Fantasy" or "Kingdom Hearts", then it's not worth publishing.

Thank you,

Square-Enix.

LMAO! True [CENSORED!] that!

[Argus_Faraday]

what is the name of the music track of SD 3's is the one with the piano version of Angel's Fear (the SoM theme music from SoM intro)? I can't seem to find it.

[Dr. Sheexy]

Angel's Fear is the 12th track on the 3rd disc for SD3.