Dawn of mana is a very interesting action/adventure. The combat system can get very confusing at times- it takes a while to master using the whip and it took me a very long time to actually understand and get good at starting enemies, making them easier to kill. Instead of a free, open world, you are forced to follow one storyline, one path, and do all of the same objectives. There are multiple decently long worlds to fight through, including an old ruin as the first level, a forest, a mine and crystal cave, a boat, a desert, and your homeland. I am not saying that this game isn't fun; lobbing creates and beating up on your enemies takes awhile to get boring. And even though the game may seem to be sort of childish due to its gimpy monsters in the first few worlds, there are many creative, well designed monsters that take strategy to overcome. As far as challenge goes, the game will seem quite hard until you get used to all of the controls and fighting strategy. There are some parts of levels that take a VERY long time to figure out where to go and how to get there, which almost caused me to quit the game myself. The most challenging parts of the game are a couple of the last bosses, which will especially test your gaming skills. One of the things that I personally didn't enjoy about the game was that it NEVER SEEMED TO END. When I finally thought it was over it turned out to be half way though. I don't think the game is actually too long, but it just seems to drag on and on until it just can't go on anymore. Lastly, one of the things that I think that could've helped give the game some more detail is that, even though the story is actually spread over a decent amount of years, only one of the charecters shows age progression, and everyone else seems to be timeless. The game Dawn of Mana comes down to personal preference. It has been ignored by most people since it came out in 2007, when most people had moved on to the newer systems. I bought this game because at the time, I hadnt moved on yet, but if anyone ever wants to go a little old school, I would reccomend this game to people who love games with deep storylines and hard bosses.
