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Dawn of Mana, released in 2007 for the Playstation 2, is a prequel series for the World of Mana. It follows the story of the orphan Keldric, his Unlucky Childhood Friend Ritzia, the destruction of his Doomed Hometown by The Evil Empire, and how all of this ties in with the awakening of the Mana Spirits and the Mana Tree.
Dawn of Mana plays like its Spiritual Successor Kingdom Hearts, but instead of gaining experience to level up, the hero has to earn badges before he can permanently upgrade his abilities. This mechanic, in addition to the frustratingly difficult boss battles and jumping puzzles, has made Dawn of Mana reviled by fans.
- Auto Revive - Chalices will restores all of your HP and MP should you die. Too bad you can only find one or two of them in any given chapter...
- Bag of Spilling - You lose all of your accumulated stats at the end of every chapter. Most definitely a Scrappy Mechanic.
- Barrier Change Boss - the Masked Mage.
- Bizarrchitecture - The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
- Camera Centering
- Camera Screw - Boss fights and jumping puzzles would be a lot easier if the camera controls didn't jerk your POV and controls around wildly at the slightest provocation.
- Cherry Tapping - Killing enemies with the Slingshot or Whip.
- Continuity Nod / Mythology Gag - the Big Bad shares a name with a minor character in Legend of Mana; Word of God says that they are the same character.
- Another of these shows up in the presence of Thanatos, here a malevolent spiritual force rather than one very irate body snatching Lich archmagus. The designs of the afflicted characters and creatures, and the form taken by this energy when it's free-floating, all reference 'original-flavoured Thanatos' in Secret of Mana.
- For that matter, so does the Masked Guru!
- Another of these shows up in the presence of Thanatos, here a malevolent spiritual force rather than one very irate body snatching Lich archmagus. The designs of the afflicted characters and creatures, and the form taken by this energy when it's free-floating, all reference 'original-flavoured Thanatos' in Secret of Mana.
- Double Jump
- Die, Chair, Die! - A lot of the game's environment is destructible and contains loot; you can even earn an accolade for destroying more than 700 objects.
- Enemy-Detecting Radar - Color Coded for Your Convenience: blue ones drop items, red ones are there to improve your level completion grade and to abuse the Ragdoll Physics with their bodies, and the flashing yellow dot indicates the direction you need to go.
- Everything Trying to Kill You - Partially averted; you can trick enemies into attacking each other.
- Fairy Companion - Casts magic for you and asks "are you okay?" every single time you recover from Standard Status Ailments.
- Grievous Harm with a Body - How you can hurt enemies with the Whip.
- Indestructible Antimatter Keys - Blue ones unlock the way for further progress; gold ones open doors to secret goodies and/or shortcuts.
- Kenji Ito - Composed part of the music. This was the fourth World of Mana game to feature his music, after Final Fantasy Adventure, Sword of Mana and Children of Mana.
- Level Grinding - A necessity in every chapter thanks to the Bag of Spilling.
- Minecart Madness - Featured in Chapter 2.
- Ragnarok Proofing - Discussed in Chapter 6; Fay is amazed that a structure built apparently hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago still has working components, whereas Keldy thinks it's a result of Mana spirits.
- Rank Inflation - S is the best grade you can earn on all of the stats that the game cares to keep track of (and it's a lot).
- Ragdoll Physics - Abusing it is the only way to gain much-needed stat boosts in the game.
- Scenery Porn - The game uses a Legend of Mana-esque color palette and, excepting the desert chapter, isn't all brown (and even there contains plenty of impressive sweeping vistas).
- Where It All Began - The game begins and ends with a chase through the Lost Woods...but the second time around, you're going after the Big Bad after she's pulled a Grand Theft Me on Unlucky Childhood Friend Ritzia and the monsters have all been corrupted by Echoes.
- Wreaking Havok - the whole game just seems to be an engine experiment for use in later titles.