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> Results: Heroes of Mana
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The ESRB Says
Language: GamerDad heard plenty of words like 'hell' and 'damn' and occasionally even 'stronger' words. Mild Fantasy Violence: Plenty of action in the real-time strategic combat, but no blood. The Nintendo DS has loads of wonderful games. This isn't one of those. It also has plenty of games that are an excellent demonstration of how well a genre could work on the system. This IS one of those. Unfortunately it fails to work very well as a game, resulting in an experience that can be summed as follows: "Heroes of Mana proves RTS games can be great on the DS, but is a mediocre game you shouldn't buy." The Mana games have always featured real-time combat, but in Heroes of Mana the typical action-RPG combat is replaced with real-time strategy. You control a band of heroes charged with saving the world in a story that unfolds in seemingly incessant cutscenes that constantly interrupt the flow of the underlying strategy game. The implementation of the real-time strategy elements are the only redeeming elements - selecting multiple units or enemies with simple stylus movements will feel instantly comfortable for fans of genre games on the PC. Unfortunately it is not enough to carry the game, as enemies are indistinct and battles never get terribly exciting. We can only hope that Square uses this combat system as a template to build an exciting and engaging real-time strategy game in the future.  
Sometimes you will be playing a game and not notice any offensive language, and other times you you will find yourself wondering "what the ... did that character just say?!?!" Heroes of Mana falls into the latter category. It isn't that the language is THAT terrible, but it felt out of step with what was being said often enough that I actually checked to see if the game was Rated T - it is just more 'edgy' than most of the E-10+ games I have played. The remainder of the game was tame, non-bloody real-time combat between different kinds of units.
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