Mana Force for the TI-83+/84+/SE v2.1 en - 9/10

Note: This review may change as I continue to play through the game. So far, I've beaten the game once and am currently running through it again in a New Game Plus.

Since for the moment, I'm only able to download programs onto my monochrome graphing calculators (a TI-83+ and a TI-84+), Mana Force caught my eye almost instantly. I found it while scrolling through programs for some of the less popular graphing calculators supported here on Cemetech. Upon seeing it for the first time, I immediately decided that I wanted to play it for myself. I decided to try it on emulator first, and thought it fun and intriguing enough to download onto my physical TI-84+ (for space and speed reasons). I must say, from what I've seen so far, I haven't been disappointed yet. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I quite like the game. It has a certain ineffable charm to it that no other game I've tried so far exudes. Of course, that may change as I try new and different games, but it doesn't change the fact that Mana Force is most certainly one of, if not my favorite game on the TI-83+/84+.

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The game starts with a short opening cutscene explaining the story. You play as Yam, a small (or big, depending on the version you play; on the TI-83+/84+ version, he's a lowercase) O who is trying to save the Kingdom of Hope by collecting 5 crystals from the Kingdom of Death. Immediately, this engaged me in the game. Even a simple story such as this breeds amazing potential with the right gameplay, and it helps to hook the player in right at the start in order to keep them invested as they continue on through the game.

From there, Yam enters the Village of Hope, your base of operations for the rest of the game. It is from here where you can buy items for your inventory, purchase mana for your class, and most importantly warp to your specified location within the Kingdom of Death. You're also given a menu with the [ENTER] key, providing stats, skills, jobs, inventory, and the save menu. Now the game really starts.

Each warp zone is a major jump in difficulty, so you'll want to go in order. Of course, this leads you into Tunnel, the first stage, which sets up expectations for the rest of the game almost perfectly. (We'll get to this in a second!)

Within the Kingdom of Death, you can move around freely, navigating your way through unique environments towards the area's boss, which holds a crystal marked by a degree symbol. The stages are split up into multiple screens, giving the whole game a "Legend of Zelda" feel to it as you must learn to memorize where you're headed and where you've been. Since Yam can't face in any one direction, it's easy to get disoriented, with I assume is in some ways intentional.

Soon, you'll come across your first battle, and my first gripe with the game. When battling, you'll be given three options: Fight, Skill and Inventory (marked with a slash, a question mark and a theta, respectively). At the beginning of the game, however, you'll only really be able to use Fight for the entire first zone, unless you happen to save and quit or backtrack after enough fights, at which point you'll be able to buy things at the shops. Even then, though, mana is useless until you beat your first boss, and the healing items are too strong to use strategically; you'd be better off healing after a fight/level up. In that way, I feel that the pacing of the game is a bit off track, especially since the enemies in the area can have quite a lot of health for the stage you're in, and fights can quickly become quite tedious. Indeed, within each stage, except for magic spells and bosses, damage dealt, gold payout and experience earned upon defeat are the same for each monster. While some monsters do have unique attack patterns or use magic spells, this ultimately means that most enemies are essentially interchangeable. In fact, the enemy "sprites" (letters used for enemies) don't change between zones; only the damage, gold and experience do. It's not the biggest deal in the world, but especially before you defeat your first boss and gain access to skills, it cheapens the fighting experience.

After you successfully traverse the Tunnel, you'll encounter your first boss. Bosses hold the crystal of each stage, and they do extra damage and have a unique sprite compared to the normal enemies. As long as you have enough health, though, you should be able to defeat the inequality sign and earn your first class/metamorphosis/job: the Mage. As you defeat bosses, you earn a new class which you can take on to earn new skills or stats, adding a new dimension to fighting. Unfortunately, the Fight option is still usually your best bet, but the ability to use magic points and heal regularly in battle is still invaluable. To use classes, you'll need mana, which like healing items are purchaseable with gold points, although from a different house.

My second big gripe with the game rears its ugly head around now, and it's the fact that there's no clean and easy way to return to the Village of Hope, or exit the game for that matter. If you want the return to the Village, you'll either have to make your way to the first screen, fighting any enemies you might encounter along the way, or quit using the built-in [ON] break after saving. Quitting with [ON], while functional, feels messy and I personally would much rather return or quit within the program itself.

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This gameplay loop, of continuing on to the next area and fighting your way to the boss, continues as you continue to get stronger and stronger. The Maze stage introduces branching paths, testing the player's memory (or their map-making skills). It's also a big jump up difficulty-wise, bringing in fresh challenges in battle as well as in the overworld. The Tower is a straight line, emphasizing combat more than movement, and from here on, I actually find that it's quite easy to be potentially overleveled, something which persists into Death Trap, something of a mix between the previous two stages. Where movement is used to create puzzles, usually it's through dead ends which increase your chance of another random enemy encounter. Fire Dungeon is similar to Tower, in that it's a very repetitive and long map, making it mostly focused on battles. The boss for the Fire Dungeon is one of the most creative, in that it tries to dodge your attacks, and you must use skills to damage it.

Since you only need to defeat 5 bosses to access the final area, the Death Kingdom, Labyprog and Dark Ruins are more or less "optional". However, the enemies in the Dark Ruins are significantly stronger than any other, and they also drop a lot of experience, making the Dark Ruins an optimal place for grinding for the final boss.

The final boss sequence is surprisingly tense. The boss yells "DIE!" at the player, making it some of the only dialogue outside of the intro cutscene. The boss fight itself is fairly standard, even if the boss hits hard and takes a lot of hits. And the fight looks amazing; it's the only one with a proper background and (at least by TI ASCII standards) it's very pretty.

Upon beating the game, you gain access to a New Game Plus. It's quite simple, you retain your stats and items but not metamorphoses or access to the Death Kingdom, but that very fact that the creator thought to implement something like it speaks volumes.

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My final major gripe with the game is the number inflation. Quickly, you'll see attacks do hundreds and even thousands of damage and still leave survivors on the other side. Personally, I find this sort of number inflation in RPGs to be somewhat sloppy, although I won't deny that this is a matter of personal preference.

The battle system in general is a bit too shallow for my liking, but I still appreciate the effort that went into it, and I still have enough fun in battles to call it a good system. I only wish that random encounters were a bit less frequent, and perhaps a run option as well.

I am a big fan of homescreen games and programs, and the use of the homescreen here is astounding. The whole aesthetic of the homescreen is a part of why I like the game so much, and why I believe it to have the charm it has. I quite enjoy seeing those letters and symbols being used the way they are, and quite effectively at times; the Village of Hope and the magic spells are highlights visually for me, and the unique letters for each zone are also quite nice, giving a touch of environment and personality to each.

I am truly amazed at how good the game plays and runs at times. Unfortunately, it is quite the hefty package, but I'd argue it's quite worth it, especially as it and its subprograms can always be archived when the game's not being played. Of course, this is in many ways affected by the hardware being used to run it, the TI-84+. On emulator, where I used a TI-83+ ROM, the game ran quite a bit slower, although it was not unplayable. In particular , battles ran much longer on TI-83+ than on 84+.

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Mana Force is a wonderful little RPG for graphing calculators. Taking full advantage of the homescreen, it's an innovative TI-Basic gem with fun gameplay and good visuals. For the above reasons, I highly recommend the game and give it a 9/10. If you can, give it a try.