Legend of Mana is just as obtuse today as when it originally came out in North America 21 years ago. For those coming from the Trials of Mana port or remake who haven’t played it before and expected something a little more obvious out of the Legend of Mana ability and technique systems, there’s a bit of catching up to do.
Abilities are the movement skills you can equip two of at a time in the skill menu and are bound to two buttons or keys. What they are depends on your platform, so here’s a picture just pointing out what we’re talking about here.
Abilities are learned via having requisite abilities equipped during combat, with each battle win adding a hidden value to that ability’s counter toward learning a more complex ability. For instance, winning a few battles with Defend equipped will prompt you to eventually learn Counterattack after a battle.
The exact requirement values are never seen, but they are not particularly high. You may need to have an ability equipped for maybe 20 battles, at the most, to learn a new ability.
When trying to learn an ability with two requirement abilities, you do not need to have them both equipped at the same time. The hidden values for each ability are stored even when swapped out.
You want to unlock all of these not just to use them individually, but also to unlock special techniques for your weapons.
Legend of Mana Ability Unlocks
You start Legend of Mana with eight abilities to choose from, with some more obviously useful than others.
- Jump — Available by default
- Defend — Available by default
- Retreat — Available by default
- Lunge — Available by default
- Crouch — Available by default
- Cheer — Available by default
- Spin — Available by default
- Push — Available by default
- Somersault — Requires Jump and Lunge
- Back-roll — Requires Jump and Retreat
- High-jump — Requires Jump and Crouch
- Double-jump — Requires Jump and High-jump
- Counterattack — Requires Defend
- Grapple — Requires Defend and Push
- Defensive Lunge — Requires Defend and Lunge
- Whirl — Requires Grapple and Spin
- Bash — Requires Push and Whirl
- Tackle – Requires Push and Lunge
- Back-flip — Requires Back-roll and High-jump
- Counterstrike — Requires Counterattack
- Moonsault — Requires High-jump and Somersault
- Evade — Requires Retreat and Lunge
- Toss — Requires Bash and Crouch
- Flip-kick — Requires Back-roll and Back-flip
- Taunt — Requires Cheer and Retreat
- Slide — Requires Crouch and Lunge
That’s all you really need to know about the abilities, though their true strength lies in special technique unlocks. You can read up on which abilities you need to focus on for different techs in our Legend of Mana techniques unlock guide.
