Children of Mana

"Multiplayer definitely adds value, while the presentation, as noted, is absolutely beautiful. Mana completists and Square Enix fans will probably be glad to find room for this in their swelling DS collections; the rest of us should skip this game, keep our eyes peeled for the tactical RPG Heroes of Mana, due out in Japan this year, and hope for Secret of Mana to pop up on the Wii Virtual Console sooner rather than later."

"The shallow, repetitive gameplay of Children of Mana negates any nostalgic charm that the game might have attempted to capture."

"As far as hack-n-slash RPGs go, Children of Mana is one of the best we’ve seen on a handheld, and for dungeon crawler addicts Square Enix has definitely hit the spot. It has its downfalls, such as a lack of diversity on side quests and a few nagging multiplayer issues, but the overall product is definitely one to pick up if you’re looking for a button-mashing, action-intensive role playing experience on DS. Grab a few copies, your three bestest buds, and enjoy."

"Children of Mana is ideal as a pick-up-and-play game, if you fancy a quick whizz through a monster-inhabited tower or two, maybe on the bus or train. But playing it at length feels like the most tedious, level grinding and repetitive waste of time, particularly when you consider that the DS has so much more to offer in terms of RPG actioners."

"In a nutshell, the gameplay is fun for the first handful of hours, but it gets really old, really stale, and really repetitive really quickly. The game can easily be completed in around 20 hours, but by the 11th hour, most folks will already be sick of it."