MANA’s last remake left something wrong in my mouth. Although I can not claim that it did not have an impact on my expectations for this game, I can say that Trials of MANA was a pleasant surprise. Many chains attached to the previous entry have been removed. We may still work with thin characters and six disparate stories, but the mechanical end of things is healthy. If nothing else, this remake managed to revive my interest in the global MANA franchise. Maybe there is still gold in these hills, after all?
My derogatory remarks on the narrative (s) are well deserved. The secondary characters are thrown on you permanently, to disappear in less than three minutes. There is a long list of bad guys who are useless. Many of them interfere with mid-term for… Reasons? They fall literally at the end of most dungeons, declare themselves super mapleficated and disappear. It’s really confusing. Each character also receives a McMuffin, someone in his life who dies, is kidnapped or betrays. They spend so fast that I have never bothered to learn none of their names. You collect eight MANA spirits to access The Sword, only to discover that the bad guys still opened this door. Then it’s gone to fight eight other bosses before the Main Event. Fortunately, the fight is very fun.
Finished attacks that hit you because they have always been made. Es quit and attack are manual, which means that your survival is related to your skills. As well as the work of the IA, of course. But I can not ignore the flower of satisfaction that avoids an incoming movement. Secret of MANA was completely cursed in this regard, and I’m glad the series moved in the right direction. In fact, if you are quite attentive and intelligent, you can escape most of the attacks that go to you. The anticipation of the typing area for your own movements is intuitive, and you can choose from a wide variety of movements. Between all this and the fast menu, battles are a great improvement over the last entry. I can not compare this properly with the original SK3, but I can say that the fight seems unrelated with the 16-bit sensitivities.
Your group is chosen at the very beginning of the game, which seems unfair. You should have the chance to meet these people before hugging your wagons and head west. In fact, I restarted my game after a few hours with my original programming. Kevin and Charlotte are downright unbearable. Why can’t Kevin speaks in complete sentences? It has nothing to do with its lineage. It is only a man half-stupid, and men of blood are perfectly eloquent. Charlotte’s need to insert w in every word does not need an explanation, I just leave it in my life. Fortunately, my second selection was much more enjoyable. Everything was fine, until the battles harden. It turns out that the AI will not use healing objects unless you maximize these settings and completely prevented them from attacking. Even that was not enough to make me cross really unpleasant fighting.
In a tragic turn, Trials of MANA will limit the amount of objects you can bring to the fight. This means that if you have 30 cups, you can only take it in a given meeting. When combined with the trend of the AI to take your orders as a gospel, things can become quite hairy. There have been a number of fights to which I survived by a handful of points of life…. at the sixth attempt. Although some regular battles require little reflection, rest assured that most boss fights will not bother you. We can not say as many of the many shopping outings of the game.
I have already addressed this topic before, but buy new equipment in these old games can be a huge brake. Each new city means three new sets of weapons and armor. No decision to take, you simply need the good sum of money. The equipment must be fun, a secondary set of choice that add a variety to your individual game. Either give me difficult calls to do on what to buy, or completely delete the mechanic. Maybe attach another set of upgrade trees to the equipment you have? Add a little spice to this sword? Although shopping is mortally boring, other items seemed more modern.
On our last trip around MANA Tree, the tunes were… a little serrated? Like a loudspeaker blown in an old Pontiac. Nothing this happens here. I took advantage of several occasions to switch between the old and the new one. Each time, the new compositions seemed more comprehensive, more powerful. It may be the absence of nostalgia, but I did not feel any desire to return to the original band of SNES. The other exemplary upgrade was graphics. Real care and attention have been granted to each of the models of characters. The outfits of everyone become more and more elaborate with each class change, and weapons even reflect your endless races. The art of bottom is a little more basic, but not to the point of being distracted. The whole of the aesthetic has made a real step forward.
Each MANA game after secret of MANA felt diminished, in comparison. The weather even revealed the many defects of this gem, but there is still a bar that has been fixed. Trials of MANA reaches this bar, maybe even seizes it. The graphics are charming, music is convincing and the fight is engaging. It’s a strange and beautiful action RPG with enough square brackets to keep me on the wire until the end. The story can be slim, the characters can be flat, and their dialogue can be clumsy, but the core remains intact. Whether you have played the original or not, Trials of MANA should be on your RPG radar.
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