YMMV / Dawn of Mana

• Annoying Video Game Helper: The Fairy Companion that casts magic for you and asks "are you okay?" every single time you recover from Status Effects.
• Audience-Alienating Era: While accusing Dawn of being an outright Franchise Killer can be a little suspect (given that titles were still released after it), it is almost universally agreed that Dawn spearheaded a decline in game quality for the franchise as a whole, and one that Square-Enix has struggled to overcome ever since.
• Awesome Music: The soundtrack is the best part of the game and really the only thing people remember fondly about it. That and the graphics are some of the best out there at the time of its release.
• 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 in a heroic attempt to keep the view over your character's shoulder.
• Complete Monster: Stroud, later known as the Dark Majesty, is the Emperor of Lorimar who tried to murder his own baby brother by hurling him into the ocean and eliminating all other potential claimants to his throne. Making a pact with the demons of Mavolia, Stroud intended on sacrificing his own nation and later the world for power, even betraying the demons to become an archdemon himself. Ages later, Stroud is revived as the Dark Majesty and intends to eliminate Mana's goddesses, fusing Mavolia with the world to bring Hell on Earth in a dark realm where he is the only god.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Unless you have earned the right badges, you lose all of your accumulated stats at the end of every chapter.
• Sequelitis: Despite its gorgeous graphics and a stellar soundtrack, this game is considered the worst entry in the Mana series due to its repetitive gameplay, bad camera angles and terrible level up system.

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