Dawn of Mana

Dawn of Mana
North American box art
Developer(s)	Square Enix
Publisher(s)	Square Enix
Director(s)	Koichi Ishii
Producer(s)	Koichi Ishii
Artist(s)	Nao Ikeda Airi Yoshioka Hiroo Isono
Writer(s)	Ryo Akagi Masato Kato
Composer(s)	Kenji Ito Tsuyoshi Sekito Masayoshi Soken Ryuichi Sakamoto
Series	Mana
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2
Release	JP: December 21, 2006 NA: May 22, 2007[1][2]
Genre(s)	Action-adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player

Dawn of Mana^{[Note 1]} is a 2006 action-adventure game for the PlayStation 2. It was developed and published by Square Enix. It is the eighth game of the Mana series and the third entry in the World of Mana subseries, following the release of Children of Mana nine months prior and Friends of Mana two months prior. Set in a high fantasy universe, Dawn of Mana follows a young hero, Keldric, as he journeys to close a portal to a land of darkness that has been opened in the base of the Tree of Mana and is corrupting the world.

While it contains some small role-playing elements, Dawn of Mana diverges from the prior two-dimensional action role-playing game titles of the series to focus directly on action-adventure gameplay in a full 3D world. Incorporating the Havok physics engine, the gameplay focuses on the player grabbing and throwing objects and monsters in order to startle enemies before attacking them with a sword and magic. Keldric grows more powerful as the player journeys through an area, only to reset to his base abilities with each new zone unless difficult extra challenges are met. Unlike many of its predecessors, the game does not feature any cooperative multiplayer component.

Dawn of Mana was designed, directed, and produced by series creator Koichi Ishii. The script was written by Ryo Akagi, based on a story created by Masato Kato, and the music was composed by a group led by Kenji Ito. It is the final game in the series to be developed in-house by Square Enix. The game was a moderate commercial success: it sold 229,000 copies in its first ten days of release in Japan, and over 410,000 copies worldwide by the end of 2008. While critics praised the graphics and music as beautiful and lush, they found the leveling system annoying, the combat controls difficult and frustrating, and the story trite.

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