This guide will focus on artefact placement and event order so you can experience everything in the game, complete the diary, and claim every possible reward. By compiling data from many different sources and using my own experience, I established the following route for a 100% run that I hope will also help you. This guide is not a walkthrough, it won’t help you if you’re lost in your own playthrough. It’s made to be followed very strictly from the get-go and won’t make much sense otherwise. You could still be interested in the various appendices that contain general informations about the game’s mechanics and checklists for completion.

Routing

In Legend of Mana it’s up to the player to decide how the world map is built. When you place an artefact (AF), its distance to the home base will determine its level, and the artefacts placed immediately around will determine its mana levels. Events, shops, and other unique rewards are all dependent on land level and mana levels, and many combinations are possible. The placement used in this guide will guarantee access to everything. You must however pick the correct map tile at the beginning of the game: start from the top right corner of the map and move left twice, down three times.

The starting tile

Please note that the following events must all be completed in order before moving on, with the exception of The Seven Wisdoms which will start early but will only be completed much later. After each event is over, make sure you talk to Lil’ Cactus in your bedroom to have him fill its diary. I will start each section with the name of the AF to place and where it should be on the grid, then follow up with a summary of the steps required to move forward.

The completed map

In addition, I will give you pointers to make the most out of your playthrough in combination with the appendices. If you want to forge the best equipment in the game as early as possible, do note that you will need to farm for a few resources (check Appendix 8 for more info). I also recommend opening every chest along the way and not waste a single resource.

Appendix: Cross-Game Rewards

There are a couple of rewards in Legend of Mana that can only be obtained by having on your memory card a save file from a different game. Three rewards, for three games. If you want those rewards you will need a save file from Final Fantasy VIII, one from Chocobo Racing, and another one from SaGa Frontier 2. Note that any save will do, you do not have to complete any of those games.

The Chocobo

Having a Final Fantasy VIII save file, simply start the event 58 “The Monster Corral” and the first egg you will receive will hatch a Chocobo. There are no other way to get another Chocobo later, or to get the egg if you already started this event.

The FastestWheel

Any time after completing event 65 “Catchin’ Lilipeas” go to your home. In the save menu, hover your cursor over a Chocobo Racing save file and leave for Polpota Harbor. Skippie will immediately appear and give you this ring.

The Heishihorin

After completing event 40 “The Ghost of Nemesis” but before starting event 41 “The Crimson Dragon” you have the possibility to acquire this unique sword. Start by going to your home. In the save menu, hover your cursor over a SaGa Frontier 2 save file and leave for the Bone Fortress. In the room where you fought Deathbringer, you will be treated to a rematch where, upon victory, you will receive the sword.

Appendix: Attributes

There are 8 attributes for your character. The impact of those are not always intuitive so I will list what I was able to gather about them. Please note that the difference between power-based weapons and skill-based weapon is still not very clear to me. For some weapons like bows or staves it make sense to say that they rely on skill (dexterity) more than brute strength (power) but it’s difficult to test and find out for sure which weapon belongs to which category. Fortunately, we’ll see how to max out both of those attributes so it won’t matter too much.

• Power influences the damage of power-based weapons.
• Skills influences the damage of skill-based weapons.
• Defense is a global defense modifier against physical attacks.
• Magic only affects your defense against magical damage.
• HP does not give you more health but improves the regeneration during fights.
• Spirit is defense against negative status effects.
• Charm influences how likely you are to affect an enemy with a status.
• Luck is only useful to trigger rare drop events (cf. Appendix 6).

Attributes are impacted by the weapon you use when you level up. Each weapon will bump every single stat except Luck by at least 0.5, but while the stats are recorded internally as floating point numbers the number you see in the menu is a truncation (so 98.75 shows up as 98).

Considering your character starts at level 1, with a score of 5 for each stat, we can plan our final stats at level 99 and decide how to distribute the 98 level-ups available to us. I’ve spent a lot of time on calculations with this formula, but the number of combinations are too much to handle. It seems however that the highest average you can reach is 88.3.

My personal build is 82 levels of 1H Sword, 12 levels of Staff, 3 levels of Hammer, and 1 level of Flail. The final stats of your character will be 99 for Power and Skills, 98 and 84 for Defense and Magic, 75 in HP, 78 in Charm, and 85 in Charm. To be clear, this distribution means you should use for example a 1H sword until you hit level 83, then a Staff until level 96, etc. It makes it easier to track things down if you stick to one weapon at a time, but any other order will work just the same as long as you respect the distribution.

Appendix: Abilities

Abilities are the special skills like Defend or Push that you can assign to a face button independently from your choice of weapon. Each time you complete a battle with an ability equiped, you will increase an internal counter, akin to a mastery level. You do not need to use the ability in combat, what matters is to have it equiped during the fight. New abilities will unlock once the requirements in masteries are met, as the following table points out.

All in all, you will need the following masteries to unlock everything: Lunge (18), Retreat (18), Jump (14), Defend (12), Back-Roll (12), Crouch (10), Push (10), Cheer (10), Spin (8), Somersault (8), Counterattack (6), High-Jump (5), Whirl (4), Grapple (3), Back-Flip (3), Bash (1).

Appendix: Special Techniques

Special Techniques (or STs for short) are ultimate moves that you can unleash when your special bar is full, using one of the four shoulder buttons. The game has an internal counter for how many battles were completed using each ability (cf. Appendix 3) that we’ll call “Ability Mastery,” and another counter for battles won with each weapon, which we’ll call “Weapon Mastery.” Unlocking new techniques depend on both type of masteries.

Some techniques can be used by more than one weapon, when that is the case you only need to unlock it once. I’ve added an asterisk for techniques that can also be unlocked with other weapons. Do note that the requirements will not necessary be the same from one weapon to another even for the same technique, so you might want to pick the easiest route. Also note that your starting weapon will give you the first basic ST for that weapon for free.

Appendix: Shops

The level of a land (distance from your home base, although not an exact 1:1 match) directly influences the level of a shop contained therein. Seed shops and jewel shops are not influenced by level, so they will always sell the same items. The only seed shop in the game can be found in Bone Fortress, while jewel shops exist in Geo, Lumina, and Bejeweled City.

Instrument shops are also a special case: the instruments they sell are specific to their location and are independent of land level. However, level 7 instrument shops will give the player access to a unique list shared between all level 7 shops regardless of location. They can be found in Domina, Lumina, Geo, and Polpota.

Weapon and armor shops will sell complete equipment crafted from a specific material, depending on their level. For instance, a level 1 weapon shop will sell every possible weapons crafted from MenosBronze. Weapon shops can be found in Domina, Gato, Lumina, Geo, Polpota, and Ulkan Mines. Armor shops can be found at the same locations, with the exception of Gato which has no such shop.

1. MenosBronze
2. ForsenaIron
3. GranzSteel
4. LorantSilver
5. WendelSilver
6. VizelGold
7. IshePlatinum

Finally, material shops are very important to crafters. They can be found in Domina, Lumina, Geo, and Polpota. That’s only 4 different locations, but fortunately there are only 4 levels of material shops in the game.

Appendix: Loot Tables

Drops from enemies are classified according to their rarity, a number between 1 and 8. The higher the rarity, the less likely it is to drop. However, only the drops of rarity 1 to 4 are always available. Dropping items of higher rarity will require enemies of a minimum level, which depends on the level of the land where it is encountered. This is why AF placement is important if you want to be able to access some of the rarer crafting materials.

• Rarity level 5 items can be dropped on enemies level 16 or higher
• Rarity level 6 items can be dropped on enemies level 32 or higher
• Rarity level 7 items can be dropped on enemies level 48 or higher
• Rarity level 8 items can be dropped on enemies level 64 or higher

Luck does not influence the probability of an item to drop per se, rather it may trigger a rare drop event where the minimum rarity will be increased by 2 levels (but not the maximum). For example, if you are fighting a level 15 enemy, you will be limited to drops of rarity 1 to 4. But if your luck triggers, said enemy may drop items of rarity 3 to 4.

The only way to actually access higher rarity tiers on lower level enemies is to bring a Polterbox pet in a fight. If you kill an enemy while under the synchro effect of the Polterbox (when the UI looks electrified) you will increase the drop rarity by 2 levels, minimum and maximum. To reuse the previous example, the level 15 enemy will now drop items of rarity 3 to 6. Consequently, the rarest drops can be obtained on enemies as low as level 32 when using a Polterbox pet (Polterbox come from Poltergeist eggs which can be captured at the top of the tower of Leires and in the junkyard).

The following table will list materials dropped by enemies. Some of them will also drop equipements, but in order to keep the list concise and useful I decided to focus on materials only, since they can always be used to craft equipment far better than what you can loot.

Appendix: Produces

After completing event 57 “The Mana Orchards” you will be able to plant seeds and grow produces. The higher the mana of the land, the faster the produces will grow. After harvesting enough in your backyard, you will receive an AF (Golden Seed) for an actual independent orchard. Produces have a direct influence on pet growth and are very useful as tempering materials, as strange as it may sound. The exact influence is quite complex and beyond the scope of this guide.

In the following chart I will list the seed combination that yields the best probability for each produce. Some entries only list a single seed; when that is the case you can combine the seed with itself for an additional produce. In other words, instead of getting 3 produces per harvest, you will receive 4, but each has the same probability of yielding the desired produce. As you will see Spiny Seeds are particularly strong. As far as I can tell your only hope of getting them is by dropping them from specific enemies (cf. Appendix 6) but I believe there is a very slim chance to get one after a harvest, although I’ve yet to confirm it.

Appendix: Recipes

In this section I’m gonna list a few recipes to forge some of the most powerful items in the game. As you may already know, Legend of Mana has an insanely complex crafting system. I won’t even try to explain it to you because it’s very complex and not fit for an appendix. Although, let’s be honest, I don’t understand it fully. But I’m not sure anybody does at this point.

Money Laundering

This is a very simple recipe that allows you to make an item that sells for 26,000 Lucre apiece. Probably the best way to make money in the game, if you ever need to. Start by buying a ToppleCotton in a level 1 shop for 60 Lucre and forge a hat out of it, resulting in a WindCap. Simply temper it with 4× ClearFeather (level 4+ drops from Stinger Bugs, easily found in Luon Highway or Lake Kilma) and voilà, amazing profits.

Strong Instrument

I haven’t spent a lot of time with instrument crafting, nor with magic itself, but here’s a quick recipe for a strong instrument. Simply use an AltenaAlloy with a Gold spirit token. I suggest going for a Flute, with a Salamander token to create a control spell. This is the kind of magic that you can precisely aim from a distance. You will receive alloys from events toward the end of the game if you followed my route, they are handed to the player when an event that was supposed to reward an AF has no new AF to offer.

Experience Sharing Ring

If you want to level up partners and pets easily, you can use a ForbiddenRing. But did you know you can also forge a ring with the same property and give it even better stats? For this 23 Defense Ring, start with Emerald as your base material and follow the tempering process below. Emeralds can be acquired in any jewel shop.

Ultimate Pendant

The following recipe will give you one of the most powerful pendant you can get in the game. The resulting item has a defense rating of 34, provides a +20 bonus to every attribute, and immunity to every status. Base material will once again be the Emerald (available in jewel shops).

Emerald Pendant [ Toggle ]

Ultimate Axe

This amazing 2H Axe has 999 attack power and will require some very rare materials. Fortunately you should be able to access everything if you follow my route. It’s a very, very long tempering process… and considering the number of ingredients, I will also give you a checklist of what you will need, and where to find it. I am not sure who actually came up with the recipe, but it’s one I’ve seen used by speedrunner Malchar, so it might be his.

VinekRock 2H Axe [ Toggle ]