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Gameplay may at first be a bit confusing to figure out. First, you select a character, and yes, the one on the left IS male. You then select a map area, which has little bearing on anything other than the location of water squares. Finally, you're put on the world map screen. Here, you place artifacts, which turn into the areas you will explore. At the start, all you have is a mailbox, which corresponds to your house. There are over twenty more, obtained when you solve quests.

Each quest can be solved in around a half hour, with some taking longer and some taking a lot less time. The quests range from defeating a dragon on a mountaintop to helping a teapot find its daughter. The game is cute that way without being sickeningly so, and as such should appeal to a wide audience. However, it's nowhere near as dark as Vagrant Story or Parasite Eve.

Some of the quests unlock combination areas, where you can create new instruments (for spellcasting), weapons, armor, and golems (for soaking hits during battle). There's so many different items to combine, though, that I never did use these rooms much.

While the beginning quests can be quite easy, later quests and especially the second playthrough should provide plenty of challenge. Overall, the game plays as something fun to do, rather than a series of frustrating challenges.

While a few of the quests tie into each other, there is no overriding plot to Legend of Mana. Instead, as you place more areas and solve more quests, the Mana Tree symbol on the world map gets closer to finishing. When it's complete, you get the last artifact and can go win the game.

After winning, you can save clear data, a common feature in Square games. This allows you to start again with all quests and artifacts cleared, so if you screwed a quest up or weren't able to get one you can try again. One of the best features of the second playthrough is the Forbidden Tome in your house, which lets you set the difficulty to Nightmare or No Future. This affects the strength of the enemies you fight. Nightmare mode is difficult for my character, and No Future mode is outright impossible at this point.

Sadly, Square has again seen fit to include a Pocketstation minigame to torment the American audience. Why won't Sony release the Pocketstation here?

As with Secret of Mana on the SNES (remember the SNES?), you can play Legend of Mana with two controllers. This is handy for boss fights where your NPC will usually run around like an idiot.

Going through the entire game took me around 25 hours the first time, and I didn't find a good quarter of the quests. I'm currently playing through a second time, switching back and forth out of Nightmare mode, because some of the bosses are just insane with it on.

The graphics aren't necessarily bad, but they're not great either. After having just played through the visually stunning Vagrant Story, LoM looks 1998 in comparison. That being said, this is Squaresoft I'm talking about, and as such LoM is about as good a job as you can do with sprites on the trusty old Playstation.

Sound effects are the standard RPG dings and bloops. The background sound, as in most Playstation RPGs, is excellent. And the music, as with everything Square does, is top of the line, varied enough to not get repetitive and appropriate to the location.

Legend of Mana is one of the most uniquely put together titles I can remember. It provides a fun experience that is difficult to put down, and I have no problem heartily recommending it.