History YMMV / LegendOfMana

*** Is Matilda a [[TheWoobie sympathetic character]] who [[spoiler: [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy doesn't want to curb Irwin's demonic urges]]]], which is why she [[spoiler: doesn't object to him trying to destroy the world]]? Or is she an [[TheScrappy unlikable]], [[LoveMakesYouDumb love-addled]] fool who [[spoiler: [[DoubleStandard would willingly step on the rest of Fa'Diel's freedom to avoid stepping on Irwin's freedom]]]]? Or is she [[spoiler: a SecretlySelfish MagnificentBitch who orchestrated both her own and Irwin's deaths so that they could each fulfill their obligations as best they could and be TogetherInDeath afterwards (basically having her cake and eating it, too), a plan that would have worked flawlessly if only Irwin had chosen to stay with her? Or was she just as angry at the world as Irwin was, and thus happy to let him destroy it for her?]]
*** In the same vein, every Wisdom is involved in the Heaven's Gate Arc in one way or another. Most of them are unhelpful at best: but is this by accident or design? When Selva (the hardest Wisdom to encounter in the game) first appears in this arc, he explicitly states he wants Matilda to be their Seventh Wisdom. If all six of the Wisdoms agree on this, their actions (or lack thereof) might've been meant to secure their desired outcome. For instance, when Daena speaks with Gaeus about Matilda, he tells her to allow Matilda to let herself die. This takes on a whole new dimension if Gaeus' motive for this was to enable Matilda to become a new Wisdom like he and the others wanted.

*** Is Matilda a [[TheWoobie sympathetic character]] who [[spoiler: [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy doesn't want to curb Irwin's demonic urges]]]], which is why she [[spoiler: doesn't object to him trying to destroy the world]]? Or is she an [[TheScrappy unlikable]], [[LoveMakesYouDumb love-addled]] fool who [[spoiler: [[DoubleStandard would willingly step on the rest of Fa'Diel's freedom to avoid stepping on Irwin's freedom]]]]? Or is she [[spoiler: a SecretlySelfish MagnificentBitch who orchestrated both her own and Irwin's deaths so that they could each fulfill their obligations as best they could and be TogetherInDeath afterwards (basically having her cake and eating it, too), a plan that would have worked flawlessly if only Irwin had chosen to stay with her?]]

* BrokenBase: Aesthetically, it’s a masterpiece, but the quests can be very tedious and sometimes impossible without reading a guide. The hand-drawn art style, rotating cast, and overall lack of direction is just is too big of a shift for longtime fans to continue. Conversely, fans of ''Legend'' tend to prefer it to other ''Mana'' titles for it's unique style and mood that is pretty unique to the game.

* BrokenBase: Aesthetically, it’s a masterpiece, but the quests can be very tedious and sometimes impossible without reading a guide. The hand-drawn art style, rotating cast, and overall lack of direction is just is too big of a shift for longtime fans to continue. Conversely, fans of ''Legend'' tend to prefer it to other ''Mana'' titles.

* TierInducedScrappy: Among the weapons, the spear kinda... sucks. It's supposed to be a long reach weapon with a 4 hit combo, but the 4th hit in the combo has less range than anything besides a punch, which means you have to get in close to combo-stun. But it's still slow to swing like the other long reach weapons.
** On the other hand, you can abuse the combo system to build up the meter, and one of the spear's {{Limit Break}}s hits almost everything on-screen and gives you a massive stat boost.
* TheWoobie: Too many to name. Larc, Matilda, Irwin, ''every single Jumi'', Elle, Bud and Lisa, Rachel...

* AccidentalAesop: Throughout the game, characters passively refuse to take action because they don't want to infringe on anyone's freedom, only for The Hero to show up and do what needs to be done. "It doesn't matter what you do, the ChosenOne is going to breeze through and fix all of your problems", perhaps?
** Perhaps that just sitting around and accepting things as they are won't make anything better, change things, or get anything done. One of the only people in the game that takes an active role in things is the protagonist, and things only get resolved through their actions.

* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: The ending of the Jumi story arc. Just that.
** Also, try visiting Sierra with Larc in as your partner or vice versa after completing their story path.

** Tropicallo. He's a plant monster with two heads - a "fighting" head and a "magic" head. You knock the heads off the main body, kill them, and each dead head drains a bit of Tropicallo's life. The thing that makes him hard? The magic head, after getting knocked off, releases an area-of-effect magic blast that one-shot-kill you. It may not be too, too hard to avoid, but when you literally have no room for error, "not too hard" can easily become "way too hard". It doesn't help that Tropicallo's rate of demise is tied to [[MarathonBoss how how quickly you can kill off the heads]], and therefore, later on (especially in No Future mode), it winds up with [[UpToEleven eleven FREAKING life bars.]] Tropicallo also has a brother named Labanne, who is easier only because he's fought in a much bigger area where it's easier to dodge his magic blasts.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: Kristie. She's supposedly a RichBitch, but she's never anything other than gracious to the Hero, or nasty to anyone besides Skippie and Hamson (who, to be fair, are quite deserving of her anger due to their obnoxiousness and sheer incompetence). Yet when she loses everything to Niccolo due to his dirty tricks, the game still treats it as though she was getting her just rewards. It doesn't help that the guy who claims her fortune is a ''much'' greedier and self-centered bastard than Kristie's ever shown to be.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: Kristie. She's supposedly a RichBitch, but she's never anything other than gracious to the Hero, or nasty to anyone besides Skippie and Hamson (who, to be fair, are quite deserving of her anger due to their own obnoxiousness and sheer incompetence). Yet when she loses everything to Niccolo due to his dirty tricks, the game still treats it as though she was getting her just rewards. It doesn't help that the guy she loses her fortune to is a ''much'' greedier and self-centered bastard than Kristie has ever been shown to be.
* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Due to a case of ValuesDissonance. In Japan, greediness can be seen as cute or endearing in some characters. This is not the case in the West. So Niccolo is one of the most promoted side characters in the game art because he's just seen more sympathetically in Japan. Western audiences generally find him to be a highly unlikeable KarmaHoudini - in fact, his karma houdini status is one of the main reasons he's disliked there.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: Kristie. She's supposedly a RichBitch, but she's never anything other than gracious to the Hero, or nasty to anyone besides Skippie and Hamson (who, to be fair, are quite deserving of her anger due to their own obnoxiousness and sheer incompetence). Yet when she loses everything to Niccolo due to his dirty tricks, the game still treats it as though she was getting her just rewards. It doesn't help that the guy she loses her fortune to is a ''much'' greedier and villainous bastard than Kristie has ever been shown to be.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: Kristie. She's supposedly a RichBitch, but she's never anything other than gracious to the Hero, or nasty to anyone besides Skippie and Hamson (who, to be fair, are quite deserving of her anger due to their own obnoxiousness and sheer incompetence). Yet when she loses everything to Niccolo due to his dirty tricks, the game still treats it as though she was getting her just rewards. It doesn't help that the guy she loses her fortune to is a ''much'' greedier, shameless bastard than Kristie has ever been shown to be.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: Kristie. She's supposedly a RichBitch, but she's never anything other than gracious to the Hero, or nasty to anyone besides Skippie and Hamson. Yet when she loses everything to Niccolo due to his dirty tricks, the game still treats it as though she was getting her just rewards. It doesn't help that the guy she loses her fortune to is an ''greedier'', shameless bastard than Kristie has ever been.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: Kristie. She's supposedly a RichBitch, but she's never anything other than gracious to the Hero, or nasty to anyone besides Skippie and Hamson. Yet when she loses everything to Niccolo due to his dirty tricks, the game still treats it as though she were getting her just rewards.
* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Due to a case of ValuesDissonance. In Japan, greediness can be seen as cute or endearing in some characters. This is not the case in the West. So Niccolo is one of the most promoted side characters in the game art because he's just seen more sympathetically in Japan. Western audiences generally find him to be an highly unlikeable KarmaHoudini - in fact, his karma houdini status is one of the main reasons he's disliked there.

* GuideDangIt: EVERYTHING to do with crafting -- the information you're given when you receive your crafting tools is so inadequate as to be laughable in the face of this kind of complexity.
** Here's exactly how you create the best weapon of one type in the game: You need to capture a Pet that has a specific ability that necessary to get the material you need. Then, you need to grind in specific places and bringing along said pet to get the money to buy the ridiculously expensive materials in ridiculous amounts. Then, you need to grow a number of specific fruit, and farm certain item and coins for your weapon. Then, you need to grind for something that [[RandomDrops drops randomly]] for the weapon material, with a ridiculously tiny chance. Finaly, you need to follow a set of Forge/Temper steps that takes hours to complete. Even with a guide this becomes a convoluted process. Imagine doing this all ''without'' a guide. That involves knowing where to farm, understanding how the system works, and understanding the effects of each Material and their results and figuring the steps you need to take to make the weapons, and finally the fact that the materials and steps in making each weapon is different according to the material and weapon type.

* MoonLogicPuzzle: All over the place. A lot of quests give absolutely no hints on how to continue them and expect you to talk to everyone and anyone until you find the right person that'll point you in the right direction. Now that open world [=RPGs=] are more common but usually come with markers, or clear instructions and get borderline annoying by [[ContinueYourMissionDammit constantly reminding you where to go]], many players can feel lost or feel the game is being NintendoHard just by the lack of any kind of guidance.

* MoonLogicPuzzle: All over the place. A lot of quests give absolutely no hints on how to continue them and expect you to talk to everyone and anyone until you find the right person that'll point you in the right direction. Now that open world RPGs are more common but usually come with markers, or clear instructions and get borderline annoying by [[ContinueYourMissionDammit constantly reminding you where to go]], many players can feel lost or feel the game is being NintendoHard just by the lack of any kind of guidance.

** Made worse by the fact that [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0-oaFBK7Us Matilda's comments at the end of her arc suggest one.]] Years of picking the game apart have produced nothing on it so far. It seems it was [[AbortedArc conveniently forgotten about]]

* ThatOneBoss: Boreal Hound. His level scales with the players and he has multiple attacks that can only be dodged if you're lucky. Plus he goes invulnerable when he's charging his attacks - and he charges so frequently it's tough to finish a combo to stun him and pull off your own big move. He's moderately difficult even on the normal EasierThanEasy mode, and if you meet him in No Future Mode? You'll need that gamebreaker sword...
** Tropicallo. He's a plant monster with two heads - a "fighting" head and a "magic" head. You knock the heads off the main body, kill them, and each dead head drains a bit of Tropicallo's life. The thing that makes him hard? The magic head, after getting knocked off, releases an area-of-effect magic blast that one-shot-kill you. It may not be too, too hard to avoid, but when you literally have no room for error, "not too hard" can easily become "way too hard".
*** It doesn't help that Tropicallo's rate of demise is tied to [[MarathonBoss how how quickly you can kill off the heads]], and therefore, later on (especially in No Future mode), it winds up with [[UpToEleven eleven FREAKING life bars.]]

** Heres exactly how you create best weapon of one type in the game. You need to capture a Pet that have specific ability that is necesary to get the material you need. Then, you need to grind in specific place and bringing along said pet to get money to buy the ridiculously expensive material in ridiculous amount. Then, you need to grow a number of specific fruit, and farm certain item and coins for your weapon. Then, you need to grind for something that RandomlyDrops for the weapon material, but the chance is ridiculously tiny. Finaly, you need to follow a set of Forge/Temper step that take hours to complete. Heck even after using guide, [[NintendoHard its still hard to understand the process]]. Imagine doing this all without a guide. That involve knowing where to farm, Understanding how the system work, and understanding the effect of each Material and their result and figuring the step you need to take to make the weapons. Then the fact that the material and step in making each weapon is different according to the material and weapon type.