Released by Square in the year 1991 on the Gameboy, Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden,
also called Mystic Quest, also called Final Fantasy Adventure was a spinoff adventure
title that would start a new Mana franchise.
It was written and directed by Koichi Ishii, who also worked on the early final fantasy
games, as well as Final Fantasy Legend that also started the SaGa franchise.
Originally created as a game called Gemma Knights, the game was meant to be more of
a high fantasy action-adventure title like the Legend of Zelda, and rebranded as Final
Fantasy Adventure in the US, and later remade as Sword of Mana in 2003.
The gameplay is very similar to the Legend of Zelda, with the overhead camera angle,
real-time combat, enemies on the field, interchangable weapons and usable items, and scrolling screen
transitions.
However, there are more RPG aspects to this, as when players level up, they control which
stats to grow, companions characters, and there is equipment and inventory to manage.
For story, the game features the protagonist hero though most time he will be followed
by a companion that usually helps him fight or travel.
The game also focuses much more on combat than puzzles, though the ample amount of dungeons
require a healthy amount of exploration and uncovering of secrets.
Keep in mind the hero and heroine of the game have no official name and are chosen by the
player, so I'll be referring to them genericaly.
The story only gets larger from here, so let's cut it down to size with a RECAPitation.
The game begins by introducing the Tree of Mana, which thrives off the will of all living
things, atop Mt Illusia.
According to legend, anyone who touched it would be given eternal power, and so it has
now become targeted by the Dark Lord seeking that power.
As the game starts, the hero is a captive of the Dark Lord in the Empire of Glaive,
forced to fight in his arena everyday.
One of his arena friends sucuumbs to his wounds and asks the hero to seek Bogard and tell
the Gemma Knights that Mana is in trouble.
Escaping prison, he overhears the Dark Lord and Knight Julius discussing the location
of the Tree of Mana atop the falls, but to get there, they need a key from a certain
girl.
The Dark Lord spots the hero and pushes him over the edge of a cliff, though somehow he
survives the fall.
In the wildeness, a dying man requests he deliver a girl to Wendel to also see Bogard,
and since he's seeking Bogard too, he accepts.
Later, he finds an old man who spots the Pendant of Mana on the girl, and reveals he is Bogard,
the former Gemma Knight who helped take down the Vandole empire who also tried to use the
power of Mana to conquer the world.
The 3 Gemma knights were losing until a lady with that Pendant helped them seize victory.
He urges them to see Cibba in the town of Wendel, and along the way, the girl teaches
him how to use magic, but she is kidnapped overnight.
Seeking her out, he runs into a red-mage looking man who might have a lead and offers to help.
Fighting past a giant twin headed dragon, the hero learns yet more magic and the answer
to where the girl is being kept.
Finding and rescuing her from her Vampire captor, they make it to the sacred town of
wendel and meet Cibba, who aided the former Gemma knights.
He reveals the truth of the pendant to the girl, which is her mother helped the previous
knights, and she is part of the Mana family, sworn to guard it as they are seeds to the
tree.
She sealed the way to the Mana tree when Vandole attempted to abuse it, but now history is
repeating itself with the Empire of Glaive.
She instructs her daughter to continue the mission of guarding the Mana Tree, though
at this time they hear a ruckus outside as the red mage from before comes in, shouting
that the Glaive empire is assaulting the town.
Before anyone can react, he takes the girl to guide her somewhere safe, but both the
hero and Cibba find that awfully suspicious and follow him, just to find the girl gone
and the red mage was actually Julius in disguise.
He confirms the girl as his target and easily blows the hero away as he makes off with the
girl.
When he comes to, Cibba tells him Julius took her to his airship and headed west, so the
hero heads off in pursuit.
His path take him through a minecart ride in a cave and encountering a dwarf named Watts
who's here hunting for Silver.
Teaming up, they safely fight through the underground dangers and past a Megapede, where
Watts thanks him and invites him to the Dwarf cave to check out his Silver armory.
He is met again by Bogard who has heard of the trouble with Julius's trickery, and offers
to help find the girl now, and informs him of where the airship is currently docked.
The Hero and the Knight make it to the airship and climb aboard, where they learn from the
crew that the Dark Lord found Julius as a baby at the base of the sealed waterfall.
As the ship lifts off, the hero finds Julius and moves to battle him but once more Julius
overpowers him and sends him flying off the edge.
His fall is broken by the thatch roof of a cottage, as it turns out to be home of his
former gladiator slave friend Amanda who also escaped from the arena cells.
However, as the hero rests, she reluctantly takes the Mana Pendant and leaves the village.
Chasing her now, he runs into a Chocobo egg that hatches before him.
The chick imprints itself upon him, allowing him to ride it across the desert, and follow
her to the cave of the Medusa.
When he catches up to Amanda, she confesses she took the Pendant to a man named Davias
in exchange for her captive brother Lester, but Lester was still cursed into the form
of a bird by Davias.
Apparantly, the tear of a Medusa can lift a curse, so here she is.
The hero sympathizes with her and agrees to help her, and together they fight and kill
the Medusa within.
Unfortunately, they can't produce a tear from it, and worse yet, Amanda was bitten by the
Medusa which dooms her into turning into a Medusa.
She then begs the hero to kill her and make sure to get her tears, so that Lester may
be free, and reluctantly he does so.
Returning to where Lester was held captive, he frees him, and Lester swears revenge on
Davias from cursing him and leading to his sister's death.
He teams up his bardic music with the hero who also seeks Davias to retrieve the Mana
Pendant, and the two infiltrate his hideout.
Confronting Davias, he reveals his true monstrous form, but even when defeated, gets the last
laugh by revealing he already sent off the Pendant to be delivered to Glaive.
Now crossing the mountains and defeating the terrors within, the hero makes it to the Dark
Lords castle, finding the girl safe for now, and moves to confront the Dark Lord himself.
After a close duel, the hero emerges victorious but is shocked to find the Pendant he has
is a fake and the girl is leaving to the waterfall.
There, he is too late to find Julius has mind-controlled the girl into opening the waterfall for him,
who happens to be the sole remnant of the old Vandole Empire, here to revive the mission
of claiming the power of the Mana Tree.
Once more the hero tries to attack Julius and once more he is hopelessly beat down as
Julius ascends the waterfall gate.
Resting and meeting back with Bogard, the hero is frustrated at how hopeless it is for
him to beat Julius.
Even his chocobo was injured, though they get his legs replaced with mechanical ones
that can run on water.
Bogard tells the hero he can do it, even though Julius has the power of Mana now, if the hero
can obtain the Legendary Sword, excalibur, for this is how they beat the power of Vandole
before.
Going to Cibba to learn where the sword is now, the hero finds he's helping a kingdom
frozen over by Julius.
After assisting with that, Cibba tells him exactly where to find it, and tells him to
defeat the guardian and then prove his worthiness before the sword will reveal its true power.
Retrieving the seemingly rusted sword, he braves a fierce labyrinth to unlock the way
forward with power of the sword.
Nearby, the Dime Tower rises to reach the Mana Sanctuary the Hero must climb to, and
within he meets a robot named Marcie.
Defeating the mighty Garuda atop the tower, the tower loses its balance and begins to
fall.
Marcie tosses the hero across the gap to the Mana Sanctuary, telling him to move on and
save the world as it sacrifices itself to the crumbling tower.
Ascending the waterfall gate himself, the hero enters the sanctuary, filled with the
strongest of Ninjas and Dragons.
Passing this trial of the sword, the hero is granted the true Excalibur blade by the
girls mother, and he braces himself for the inevitable clash.
With the mighty excalibur in hand, the hero faces off against Julius and his powerful
magic, but even defeating his normal form, Julius uses the power of Mana to drain it
as he ascends into more terrible forms.
As the final clash ends, the hero stands victorious, but at the cost of the Tree of Mana.
The girl's mother appears again, explaining that they will need a new Mana tree now.
As she mentioned before, her family are seeds to the tree, and the girl must become the
gemma of the new Mana Tree.
Like before, they will become a bud called Gemma, and grow into the tree, while the Gemma
knights are tasked to guard it.
The tree they just destroyed was her mother, and even though the girl is the last of the
Gemma line, she must step up for this duty, even though no one can force her.
The girl thinks but firmly decides to give her life for the sake of the world, even though
when she should fall, peace is uncertain.
The hero is asked to protect her as the last Gemma knight, and he agrees, as the girl's
mother asks him to thank her old Gemma knights for her.
As the game ends, the final Gemma knight takes up his duty for the sake of the final Tree
of Mana, thanking his friends that helped him along the way, and prepares to guard the
peace for the future to come.
Final Fantasy Adventure has enjoyed the success of selling over 700 thousand copies worldwide.
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