Sword of Mana? Or Fire Emblem?
 

Which one do you think is better?

Fire Emblem all the way. Sword of Mana got frustrating pretty quickly. And not the good kind of frustrating where when you finally get past a certain part you go "YEAH!!!" Instead, I found myself gritting my teeth and getting ready for the next tough spot. Fire emblem has a large cast, and multiple endings to boot. Well, sort of. The various endings don't relate to the main plot much, but rather to the relationships between the characters. I've played FE maybe 4 or 5 times now, and I've only played SoM once.

Sword of Mana has real time combat, Fire Emblem is tactical turn based. Whiever you prefer pick. You either pay attention all the time and move your guy around slashing, or tell a bunch of poeple to go do something, then sit around while the computer moves.

As for frustrating, Fire Emblem gets much more frustrating since there are no generic characters, only masses of story characters. And when one of them dies, they are gone and out of the story for good, which is very frustrating and causes many people to restart missions over and over.

This is me playing Fire Emblem:
"Yes! Take that you stupid General! Fear the power of my FalcoKnight! What Sniper? NOOOOO! My FalcoKnight! NOOOO!"
Play that senario about 15-20 times before the end of a mission and you have Fire Emblem.

Sword of Mana is an entirely different kind of frustration:
"Okay I just got the pendant back... What know?" Four Hours Later "WHERE THE HELL DO I GO!"

Moral: Buy Breath of Fire 2, much better game.

Fire Eblem has much better and smoother gameplay.... I just wish it was longer.

When you play as Hector it is a bit longer.

Fire Emblem, definitely. Even though both are pretty good games, I haven't had more fun yet more sheer frustration with a game since the N64 days.

Fire Emblem. Why?

Pros of Fire Emblem:
-Deep Story
-Something that folks have wanted since SSBM came out
-Characters that you'll actually give a damn about
-TONS of replay value
-Plot is fairly easy to pick up on (Unlike Tales of Symphonia, which I still love, just so you know)

Fire Emblem Cons:
-You'll be repeating levels a lot just for the sake of one character
-Difficulty doesn't stay in one place for very long (Sometimes it's real easy, other times it's impossibly hard)
-The tutorial is WAAAAY too fricking long. TEN EFFING CHAPTERS LONG!

Sword of Mana Pros:
-A continuation of the ever-popular Mana Series
-Live Action RPG
-An easier to grasp Magic and Weapons system
-Pilexated nudity at the end (Had to put it in)!

Sword of Mana Cons:
-Rather Linear
-If the main hero dies, regardless of Ally's health, you lose
-WAY too easy

Actually, Sword of Mana is a remake of the first Mana game (Final Fantasy Adventure here in the states), it's not really a continuation at all.

Whatever, it's still part of the Mana Series, you can't deny that (Not that you would...).

I haven't played Sword of Mana or the original GB version, so I can't really say.

But I'm a Fire Emblem junkiee who has loved all Fire Emblem games I have played (3 of them I believe).