Part 90: Bonus - Save Game Bonuses

So Legend of Mana has some neat little bonuses if you have saves from certain other Square games. They're nothing huge, but they're neat enough to show off.

To get these, you have to load your game, then go to the save screen and highlight the save you want. Otherwise you won't get the bonus from that save. Also, the save file should be on the same memory card as your LoM save.



The first bonus is rather minor, and you get it if you have a FF8 save file, which is kinda likely if you were playing this when it came out and are a big enough Square junkie to be playing LoM. I'm sure many people stumbled onto this one on their own without even knowing it was a bonus!



All this save does is change the first monster you get from the Monster Corral quest. Instead of a beast egg, we now have an Aerial egg.




Other than that, the quest proceeds as normal.



The only difference is that instead of getting the Mana series mascot, a Rabite, instead you get the FF series mascot, a Chocobo.




Unlike the Rabite's rather redundant HP Recovery syncho, the Chocobo will instantly recover status effects, which is not too shabby in the early game.

Of course, you can still obtain a Chocobo later on, just like you can a Rabite. In the end, it's really a matter of preference, as you'll probably ditch both for something much better later on anyway.



This next little bonus requires a SaGa Frontier 2 save.

Now, there's a save on GameFAQs in the LoM section that has all three saves to unlock these bonuses. However, there's a problem in that the SaGa Frontier 2 save on that one is actually a European save, which means it doesn't work with this game. So it took me a few tries to learn this, and I just ended up downloading and importing a NA SaGa save that worked just fine. Just something to keep in mind if you end up wanting to do this yourself.



Anyway, remember the Deathbringer 2? You have to visit between slaying Jajara and finishing the Dragon Arc to fight him. With a SaGa Frontier 2 save, a bit extra happens.



This time, instead of the battle immediately starting, you run into these two guys.




This is what I've become, but I still want the same thing.






New master!! Come and thrash this punk!!





So you get a short little cutscene that's a nice little callback to the boss in Niccolo's Business Unsual before fighting Deathbringer 2.



With a SaGa Frontier 2 save, the fight is much tougher. He has a lot more health and hits pretty damn hard. Took me awhile to beat him, and the fight was rather tedious.



However, once you slay him, this time you get a prize. From what I hear, this is the strongest sword from SaGa Frontier 2.




It's pretty decent for when you get it, as AltenaAlloy's a pretty rare prize from quests and it gives a few minor stat bonuses. Of course, you can temper something much better, but until you get the materials and Lucre needed for that, this will suffice.



Our last bonus comes from having Chocobo Racing data.



This one's pretty simple, as we simply need to go to Polpota Harbor at any point after finishing Catchin' Lilipeas.









In it, we watch Skippie dash around before dropping an accessory.




This ring doesn't list it, but there's a bonus which lowers the time needed to revive your character after being knocked out. That said, if your main character is knocked out, chances are you've already lost the battle, so it's pretty useless. You can also temper the effect on a ring that doesn't suck. Overall, pretty lackluster.

Overall, the bonuses are pretty minor, and nothing you can't replicate yourself. But they're still pretty neat, I guess. Meh.