It clear to me by now that BradyGames certainly knows what makes a good guide. What they constantly fail to do though, is put all of these elements into a single book, but rather churn out one mediocre guide after another. Legend of Mana: Offical Strategy Guide is no exception.

The good first: The intro is decent, and proves a rather informative read (something the instruction booklet was lacking BIG TIME). All game screenshots are very clear, and the events are labelled properly. The correct amount of space is devoted to each event as needed (it's not like each particular one is squeezed onto one page as some other guides have tried in the past). The monster compendium is also nicely done, telling you about where each baddie can be found, what they can do, and what goodies they'll give you upon their defeat. All of the mini-games and other secrets are accurately detailed in the back of the book as well (though there aren't many).

And the not so good: The walkthroughs start out rather decent. Up front you are told where to go, and how you get there. Given that Legend of Mana is a non-linear game, a good effort was made to cover all areas of the game and what is required of the player to get there. Unfortunately, this information is not always accurate. I found numerous incorrect event "prerequisites," navigational mistakes in the dungeon walkthroughs (sometimes with whole sections missing), and some bosses were just plain left out of their events' discussion. Maps to most of the games' areas are all together in a separate section of the book, which would otherwise have been fine had they not been so poorly layed out. Very few of the treasure chest contents are labelled--if you're going to label some of them, you label them all. This is laziness on the part of the author in it's purest form. In addition, some game screen are missing from the maps, and the lines that show you how rooms connect to each other are only often mismatched or run off the page--literally. This is laziness on the part of the editor!

And the downright bad: The lists in the back of the book. Talk about completely useless. This is obviously something pulled off an online FAQ and formatted nicely, or it's direct information from Square that was cut and pasted onto a spread of 14 pages. You get a list of the items, weapons, armors, and instruments, each with their basic stats. You are not given where to find them, how to make them (equipment creation is a major area of the game), or what to do with them. That's ludicrous. The whole notion of golem creation and pet raising are ignored as well. This might be acceptable had the list section been a lot more comprehensive, but to not be mentioned at all (save repeating what's in the instruction booklet) is very bad. The worst feature of this guide, though, is the complete lack of information regarding character abilities and magic spells. The fact that battles are the core of this game makes this absence inexcusable. The worst part about this, however, is that in the book's introduction, it says "we have included a complete list [of abilities] in the abilites section." WHAT ABILITIES SECTION!

Overall, I just can't recommend this one over an online FAQ for the game, of which there are many. It might help to get you started on a quest if you have no clue as to where to go or help you solve one of the few puzzles, but there's so much more that you'll be craving if strategy guides are your thing.

4 of 5 found the following review helpful:


Legend of Mana Guide is pretty good  Mar 21, 2001 By Matt
This guide is good a helping you complete all of the events in a good order, and the flowchart in the front of the book helps out simetimes. On the other hand, the flowchart is flawed and sometimes doesn't work, and some of the events are out of order (one event concerning Daena is placed in the middle of the book, whereas, it should be in the front, which is the only ime in the game that you can complete the event). Although the guide states that there is an ability list, there isn't one at all. If you're not trying to master this game, I suggest you buy this guide. If you're looking to find everything, find a walkthrough at GameFAQs or something.

4 of 5 found the following review helpful:


This is helpful but can be confusing  Sep 07, 2000 By S. Rhodes
BradyGAMES has made several guides to Square-Enix (when this guide came out they were Squaresoft) games. Legend of Mana is not exactly one of the better guides, however. Despite my four star review (this is an edit, and Amazon doesn't let you change the number of stars you give a product should your opinions change over time), this guide is, in reality, a three star deal.

The main reason it's a three star guide? Simple: This guide is not complete. There's a ton of information that's missing here, and there's some that's just incorrect all around. The walkthrough is the biggest setback to this guide aside from all the secret goodies its missing. Certainly the walkthrough gets you through the game, but there are a lot of drawbacks in it. For starters, the maps are not in the walkthrough but rather they're in the back. The walkthrough tries to give directions on where to go in certain dungeons, but they're all around confusing. The second thing that the walkthrough misses is that it just isn't well organized. Legend of Mana is a very non-linear game. If you don't follow the guides route through the game you'll be page flipping forever. This could've easily been countered by listing all the quest in an index or table of contents and a reference to a page number. The maps being in the back of the guide doesn't help either.

The biggest knock against the guide may very well be the secrets and explanation of all the extra stuff like making weapons and armor. They don't tell you HOW to make weapons and armor, or even what'll net you some of the best stuff. Much of what's listed in the tables is also just all around inaccurate and wrong. Lastly, they don't mention too many secrets here, and after reading FAQs, you'll see that Legend of Mana has a lot more to it.

The maps in the back aren't all that detailed either. Simple everyday screenshots. They point out items but not all of them, and some areas are so big that the maps are a bit confusing in their layout.

On the whole, if you need a route through Legend of Mana, this guide helps. However, it's a disorganized mess, and there's a ton of information you're just not getting.

1 of 1 found the following review helpful:


Legend of Mana  Apr 03, 2010 By Anthony W. Barnett "Anthony B"
I bought it for my aunt and for my mom they seemed to like it and they seem to be happy with it so as long as there happy I'm happy, so I'm very happy with my purchase.

1 of 1 found the following review helpful:


Great Guide for A Great Game  Jun 23, 2000 By Nick Fowler
This is a wonderful guide for yet another great Squaresoft game. It is full color with maps of all the screens, and is well worth the money. It even tells you which artifacts create wich lands. If you have LoM and you don't have this guide, get it!

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