I played. I saw. I died.

Long ago, there was a goddess. Her love for her world was so great that she transformed herself into a Mana Tree to watch over and protect its life.

As time passed, the people forgot about the goddess and the legend of the Mana Tree. Until one day, when a man came to the tree, and harnessing its power, used it to create a great civilization, and taking advantage of his newfound power, brought the world into darkness. However there were those willing to face this darkness, and they fought long and hard until they had freed the power of the Mana Tree from the evil Vandole's hands.

Years have passed, and again, the memory of the goddess has faded from the hearts of the people. And so it begins again...

Sadly to say, it was a bit painful to have to review this. I already lacked interest in the title, as I've never gotten into the Mana series, and I don't think I'll start to either. As if to accentuate my disinterest, I had named the main character of my selection the first name to come to mind, BOB, and the second, BOB II.

As evident with other GBA games, the sound and graphics were high quality for a cartridge game. It does have pretty graphics, but then, graphics do not make a pretty game. The character designs scare me for some reason. It's a sort of niche between super-deformed and full proportion scale... but that's no new style, and not the reason it disturbs me. Can't really put my finger on it.

You can choose one of two characters to play, although as the story progresses, you're given the option to switch between them to get through. There's the typical swordswielding guy, and then the female magic user, a survivor of the Mana Clan. Even before starting, cliches are evident. The dialogue isn't much better in originality, and from early on seems somewhat forced, making the characters very one-dimensional.

Fighting in the game is done manually, so you have to whack away at the bad guys with the A button, holding it to power up some attacks- reminiscent of the Legend of Zelda games. I found it kind of morbid that after bonking the cute little bouncy bunny monsters long enough, they disintegrated into skeletal remains that scatter and vanish... and look suspiciously like cattle bones... or the dried remnants of a Krayt Dragon. Never did get a chance to try whatever spells BOB starts out with.