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.

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.

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.

Much of the story takes place on Fa'Diel, a continent composed of the five nations of Jadd, Topple, Ishe, Wendell, and Lorimar.

The pair rush to the Tree of Mana, thinking that Stroud intends to attack the legendary beast that lies sleeping underneath its roots.

After she runs away, Keldric meets a masked stranger who tells him that he was the one to close the portal centuries ago, sealing up the Maiden who had opened it, Anise, inside.

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".

[9] 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.

The main objective of the development team was to convert the entire Mana world into a 3D environment, rather than just starting from scratch graphically and adding new elements to the gameplay.

[13] After seeing the Havok physics engine in a demo of Half-Life 2 at E3 in 2004, Ishii decided to use the system in Dawn to give players a visual link between environments, objects, and characters.

Sakamoto drew inspiration for the theme song from the image of the Mana tree shown at the title screen of the game.

[16] The album Seiken Densetsu 4 Original Soundtrack -Sanctuary- collects 106 tracks from Children of Mana on four discs and is nearly four and a half hours in length.

The thirteen-minute disc contains five orchestral and piano songs, all composed by Ito, three of which did not appear on the full soundtrack album.

[5] Joe Juba and Matt Miller of Game Informer said that the environments are "pretty bland", but praised the rest of the graphics heavily.

[22] Michael Beckett of RPGamer said that "Dawn of Mana's visual style is highly impressive" and especially praised the character design and color palette.

[8] The music was also praised; VanOrd called it "the highlight of the sound design" and the GameTrailers reviewer claimed that Dawn of Mana had a "lush soundtrack filling every moment of the game".

[3][7] Beckett also praised the music, and noted the callbacks in the largely orchestral score to previous games in the Mana series.

[5][7] The GameTrailers review added that the way the character's levels and abilities reset in each area "zaps the sense of accomplishment from the game as a whole".

[4] Graziani of GameSpy felt the targeting system was one of the worst parts of Dawn of Mana, along with the camera system—a complaint also raised by Haynes.

[5][6] Beckett of RPGamer called it "a somewhat trite tale of boy chases girl" and noted "a general lack of closure to the story".