Visions of Mana

The latest entry in the Mana series and its first new mainline title in nearly two decades, Visions of Mana blends open world exploration and action-based combat with many monster designs, artistic elements and gameplay traits that invoke its predecessors.  But does this vision prove a worthy new entry to a fairly overlooked Square Enix franchise, or does it just lose sight of itself?

The Mana franchise was always a low-key favorite among Square fans, though sales for the series remained relatively low after Secret of Mana and it never saw much priority from Square Enix as a result.  However, after the mobile spinoff Rise of Mana and the remakes of Secret and Trials proved to be successful, series producer Masaru Oyamada decided it was finally time to reinvigorate the series with an entirely new entry.  

Of course, making something that appeals to long-time fans while having an identity of its own is no easy task, but Visions certainly tries its best.  A lot of monster designs are taken straight from earlier games in the franchise, and the game features a class system somewhat similar to the one seen in Trials, with each characters' appearance, equipment and movesets changing depending on what elemental they have equipped.  Visions retains the franchise's very colorful graphics, imaginative environments and expressive character designs as one would expect, and Hiroki Kikuta, Tsuyoshi Sekito and Ryo Yamazaki return to compose the soundtrack.  

The game isn't a total retread of older elements, though.  While still focused on action and exploration, Visions opts for a semi-open world style of design.  While not completely free-roaming and it still retains a linear structure, there are quite large areas to explore between each major objective.  This means there are quite a few collectibles to find, optional objectives to complete for extra rewards and hidden areas off the beaten path, some with enemies that are many levels above your party and can easily wipe you out if you're not careful.  Chests and other useful points of interest are marked on the map, though it still takes a bit of searching to find them owing to them often being hidden by terrain or placed just out of reach until you unlock a later ability.  Save points double as fast travel points which you can zip to at any time out of combat, which cuts down on quite a bit of tedious walking from point to point as you explore.  You'll also have to return later on once you unlock new elementals to reach certain areas if you want full completion, as you often won't be able to reach certain items or open certain challenges your first time through.

Combat in Visions is fairly simple but serviceable, with a light attack, a slower but stronger attack and a dodge button, with skills accessible either via hotkeys or by pressing left or right on the D-pad to pause the action and bring up a "ring menu" of every skill/item available to your character.  You can add new moves to your repertoire or upgrade your stats by purchasing class upgrades or equipping seeds.  You also get something akin to a limit break in the form of a Class Strike - by dealing out and taking damage or smashing blue puts you fill up the blue meter at the bottom, and once it's filled to 100%, you can press L2 to unleash a powerful attack accompanied by a flashy animation for hefty damage.  Completing battles efficiently (in a short period, without getting hit or using a Class Strike) earns small experience bonuses after the fight, which can be handy.  One annoying thing is that the player cannot manually control the camera during battles and has to wait for it to slowly recenter onto a locked-on enemy, which can be annoying with faster enemies that tend to zip around the combat zone.  Said combat zone also tends to be just a bit too small and running from battle entails pressing up against it for about two seconds; on more than a few occasions I tried to dodge away from attacks and ended up accidentally fleeing a fight.  Bosses have multiple targets, with one usually designated as a weak point - striking there will deal extra damage and, after enough hits are landed, will stun them for a short time.

As an RPG Visions of Mana of course has no shortage of cutscenes, though they are surprisingly well-animated and staged, showcasing a lot of the series' glitzy presentation. Dialog in the game is surprisingly plentiful and pretty cheesy, but the voice acting is well directed.  Een though it's an easy story to follow, they still see fit to give you a glossary, a brief summary of each major plot scene and profiles for every major character in the main menu.  On a technical level the game runs well; I did encounter some occasional bits of hitching and frame-dropping but it doesn't hinder the experience much.

All told, Visions of Mana is a passable but not particularly interesting game.  While everything here functions, nothing about it is particularly deep or innovative; but then again, Mana never really was.  It's certainly got enough pretty graphics and music to retain its familiar following and if you're somehow still not bored of open world design and doodad-gathering there's plenty of that, but if you're not a devout series fan, this one probably won't do much to change your mind.

 

Developer: Ouka Studios

Publisher: Square Enix

Released: 2024

Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, XBox Series

Recommended Version: I have only personally played the PS5 version but all of them seem to be more or less identical.

Trials of Mana (2020)

A remake of the much-acclaimed sequel to Secret of Mana, released not long after the maligned remake of its predecessor.  But does this one manage to succeed where its predecessor remake failed, or is this one trial you shouldn't undertake?

As I spoke about on this site a few years ago, I wasn't really impressed with Secret of Mana in either of its forms.  While the game looked great and had an excellent soundtrack, it just didn't play very well, with weird hit detection, a plethora of bugs and partner AI that could charitably be described as "braindead", constantly running over and over into the same attacks and getting caught on scenery.  I had hoped the 2018 remake would improve upon its design, but alas, everybody I spoke to regarding it unanimously decried it as a downgrade from a game I already didn't like and told me to avoid it.  I never did give much thought to its 16-bit sequel, either, but when a remake of that game was announced as well, I was naturally skeptical of it too.

Thankfully, though, the Trials remake proved to be a much better experience than either version of Mana ever did.  The gimmick, as in the original release, was that it features six playable characters in total.  You pick one as your main character and two others to join them over the course of the journey.  Each character starts with a separate story, and though they converge into one common questline, they will have subtle differences and even three separate final bosses depending on your choice, which lends the game quite a bit of replay value.

Each character is also considerably more distinct than those seen in earlier Mana games.  Not only do they each get their own weapons, but they can go down a number of upgrade paths, unlocking new classes as the game progresses.  Leveling up while in a class earns "training points" that can be allocated to one of five different stats, and hitting certain milestones will unlock stat bonuses, combat skills or passive bonuses like a higher chance of landing a critical hit, get more item drops from enemies, or adding poison to a strong attack.  Interestingly, though, not too many of these skills are restricted to a specific character; nearly all of them can be passed to any character in the party, though only one character can have any given skill equipped at a time.

As in the first game, the player only actively controls one character with the other two being AI controlled; you can tweak their AI to a degree in the menu, or switch at any time via the L2/R2 buttons.  Interestingly, the game does away entirely with the "stamina bar" mechanic of the old Mana games; instead, combat operates on real-time, though the game does cordon you into a small area to face enemies (though you can flee combat by running against the boundary wall for a few seconds if needed).  Instead of one simple melee attack, the player can perform strings of weak and strong attacks, or hold the strong attack button for a moment to do a charged strike that stuns enemies and breaks through their shields.  Hitting enemies causes them to drop blue crystals which fill up a character's power bars; one can then spend these to perform their Class Skills - powerful attacks that deal heavy damage.  Another interesting change is that enemy special attacks have a visible area of effect marker on the field, giving you a chance to evade them before they launch - invaluable during boss fights where attacks can be devastating.  You'll also earn small XP bonuses after battle for meeting certain requirements, like defeating enemies with a Class Skill, winning without taking damage, or finishing a fight in a short time.

The series' iconic circle menus do return as well, serving as a means to let you access items and skills while in the field.  They no longer require the action to be paused, however, instead being accessible in real-time by pressing up or down on the D-pad.  Conveniently, one can also map Class Skills and Items to hotkeys, accessible with a combination of L1/R1 and the four face buttons, making commonly-used ones much quicker to access.  Another welcome UI upgrade is a waypoint system, showing you exactly who you need to talk to in order to progress the plot - particularly useful as this often entails talking to a lot of mundane NPCs in towns before you can move on.  One can also revisit tutorial tips and get a quick plot summary from the menu if needed; useful if, like me, you tend to spend a good bit of time away from games and need a refresher when you come back.

Trials of Mana's remake also carries on the series' high standards for presentation, with a colorful, cartoony style that manages to feel like a charming storybook fantasy world without being overbearing.  The remastered soundtrack in the game sounds great and perfectly complements the mood of each area, and one even has the option to use the original SNES music instead of the arranged versions if they wish.  Even the voiceover is surprisingly good, with more than a few prominent professional VOs lending their voices to the cast and even a lot of minor NPCs having voice work done.  One small annoyance is the game's relatively long load times; it took about 15 seconds to load areas at times on a PS4 Pro.

At the end of the day, Trials of Mana's remake is a pleasant surprise.  It makes substantial design improvements over the original game it was based on, overhauling its gameplay for the better while retaining its positive points.  The end result is a game that I imagine will satisfy fans of the 16-bit Mana games, but it also has enough of a mechanical overhaul to grant it appeal to even non-fans like myself.  It may not be the world's deepest action-RPG, but it's the first Mana game I've legitimately enjoyed playing, and that definitely earns it a special place in my book.

Developer: Xeen
Publisher: Square Enix
Platform: Playstation 4, PC, Switch
Released: 2020
Recommended Version: All versions seem to be pretty much the same, though with some slight graphical downgrades for the Switch version.

Secret of Mana

Square's highly acclaimed multiplayer action-RPG for the Super Nintendo, which retains a considerable cult following to this day and even had a recently-announced remake.  But does this title still retain its magic twenty years after the fact, or has it just been left in the dust by similar games in the intervening years?

Secret of Mana, as it was known in the US, was actually the second game in the Seiken Densetsu franchise, the first of which appeared on the Game Boy (and was known in most regions as "Final Fantasy Adventure").  While primarily inspired by the dungeon-navigating gameplay style of Zelda, the game took a slightly more RPG-ish approach by giving the player a power meter that would slowly fill over time - the longer they waited between attacks, the more damage they would do.

Secret of Mana continues this trend, though in a slightly modified format.  Attack damage is now governed by a percentage meter that empties after each swing, but quickly refills over time.  Attacking when at less than 100% usually results in only single-digit damage, though, so this mostly just serves as a means to prevent the player from getting up close and mashing enemies to death in any kind of timely fashion.  Later, as the player acquires orbs and powers up their weapons, they can also hold the attack button down to do a charged attack for extra damage, building up to eight levels to unleash a long combination of attacks.  These tend to be just a touch impractical beyond the second or third stage, however - the extra damage you do with a level 8 charged attack generally isn't enough to make it worth the long wait (and level 4-5 attacks generally hit the damage cap anyways, making anything higher than that all but useless).

Despite its actiony appearance, however, Secret of Mana is still very much an RPG at its core.  All of your attacks are governed by invisible dice rolls, meaning that an attack that clearly makes contact on your screen can still "miss" and inflict no damage.  Spellcasting doesn't incorporate any kind of ability to dodge or evade, either - if an enemy targets you with a spell, it hits; no questions asked.  Collecting healing items and powering up your character remain integral parts of the experience, which gets more than a bit inane when you have roughly ten different weapons to use, all of which can be upgraded eight times each.  To say nothing of the may times when you're forced to use a specific weapon to bypass an obstacle (such as cutting down a bush with your sword or crossing a gap with the whip), forcing you to quickly switch to it, use it once, then switch back to whatever weapon you were trying to power up beforehand.  Spells must be powered up through repeated uses as well, which only leads to even more grinding as one needs to purchase MP-restoring items to continually cast them in order to raise their power level.

Naturally, the leap to the Super Nintendo meant that Secret of Mana could provide a much nicer visual/audio experience than its Game Boy predecessor, and indeed, this is one of the game's highest points.  The visuals in Secret of Mana are downright stellar, with brightly colored sprites and many frames of animation for the three main characters.  Music in the game is nothing short of stellar as well, with every area having a very distinct sound and some very catchy, memorable themes for boss battles and victories.

Being on a console also comes with another benefit; namely, multiplayer.  In fact, with a multitap, all three of the game's main characters can be commanded via an actual player, turning it into a cooperative multiplayer experience, akin to a more RPG-flavored Gauntlet.  This is much preferable to playing the game alone, as the party AI in the game is atrociously bad on any settings, constantly being hung up on scenery and running headlong into the same enemy attacks over and over again, dying and forcing you to waste resources reviving them.

Even with the multiplayer option, though, I never found Secret of Mana to be a particularly fun game to play.  While the buggy hit detection is forgivable to a degree, the sheer amount of padding in the game's design makes it a very tedious affair as a whole.  This comes into play with the aforementioned emphasis on grinding, but moreso in the game's dungeons, which primarily consist of long corridors full of the same few enemies.  Backtracking through previously explored areas is all too frequent, as are boss fights; in fact, nearly every boss in the game has at least one palette swap, which before long just makes the player feel like they're being put through the same tasks over and over again just for the sake of having a longer game to play.  In an era where RPGs were tending  toward becoming more concisely-designed, well-paced adventures, it's more than a little disappointing to see Mana go down this route.

In short, while many regard Mana as a classic, I can't say that I ever had all that much fun with it.  Its padded feel and the overall clunky, grind-heavy nature of its design make it much more of a chore than an enthralling adventure.  While it was one of the first games of its kind that could be played with friends, the release of Diablo only three years later, and the release of many similar but better games since (Torchlight II being a personal favorite), relegate this one to little more than a historical footnote in my book.

Developer: Square Soft
Publisher: Square Soft
Platform: SNES, Wii Virtual Console (Emulated port)
Released:  1993
Recommended version:  N/A