Set in a high fantasy universe, Children of Mana follows one of four young heroes as they combat an invasion of monsters and learn about the cataclysmic event that killed their families.

Unlike earlier Mana titles, Children is a heavily action-oriented dungeon crawler, in which the player progresses by completing randomly generated levels.

Both the main plot and side-quests require the player to fight through dungeons and defeat boss monsters before returning to the central Mana Village.

Children of Mana was designed by series creator Koichi Ishii, directed by Yoshiki Ito, and produced by Takashi Orikata and Katsuji Aoyama.

While critics praised the graphics and music as beautiful and unique, they found the combat simplistic and repetitive, and the story insubstantial.

Unlike previous games in the series, the main character typically has no companions; however, there is a cooperative multiplayer option for up to four (local WiFi; progress saved on only the host's machine).

[1] Children of Mana takes place in the world of Fa'diel, split into the five continents of Jadd, Topple, Wendell, Ishe, and Lorimar, as well as the island of Illusia.

Several years ago, an event known the "great disaster" took place at the base of the Mana Tree and many people died.

[4] One day, following a flash of light, the stone at the base of the Mana Tree cracks, distorting time and space.

Upon returning from the Mana Tower, the hero discovers that three mysterious pillars of light have struck in the lands of Topple, Jadd, and Lorimar.

In 2003, Square Enix began a drive to begin developing "polymorphic content", a marketing and sales strategy to "[provide] well-known properties on several platforms, allowing exposure of the products to as wide an audience as possible".

[5] The first of these was the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, and Square Enix intended to have campaigns for other series whereby multiple games in different genres would be developed simultaneously.

These games, as with the rest of the series, would not be direct sequels or prequels to one another, even if appearing so at first glance, but would instead share thematic connections.

[8] Children of Mana was developed by Nex Entertainment, who had previously created dungeon crawl games in the Shining series, in collaboration with Square Enix.

[7][9] It was designed by series creator Koichi Ishii, directed by Yoshiki Ito, and produced by Takashi Orikata and Katsuji Aoyama.

Despite this, he chose not to utilize the DS's Nintendo Wi-Fi functionality in order to effect an experience in which players would interact with people in the near vicinity rather than remotely, in congruence with the local multiplayer found in Secret of Mana.

Due to the limitations of the Nintendo DS hardware, Chris Greening of Square Enix Music Online said not all the synthesized instruments are "especially aesthetic or realistic".

"[3] Raymond Padilla of GamesRadar praised the "beautiful and unique art style", and 1UP.com's Jeremy Parish said the graphics are "almost painfully cute".

[3][17] GamePro concluded that "the downfall of Children of Mana is its repetitiveness," and Chandran felt most players would be sick of the gameplay before finishing half of the game.

[1][19] The reviewers from the Japanese Shūkan Famitsū magazine, while giving the game an especially high score, noted that the gameplay could be considered insufficient compared to prior titles in the series.

[2][17] In addition to the general dungeon-clearing gameplay, the combat itself was criticized by reviewers like Padilla, who said that "the weapon use is the most disappointing facet of this game.

[1] Chandran and GamePro both criticized the "sparse and slow" story, while Fahey dismissed it as "a gossamer-thin layer which tries and fails miserably to hold everything together" and nothing more than several role-playing game clichés stuck together.