An excellent remake to a classic we never got to experience in the day.
All the way back in 1995
a game came out by the name of Seiken Densetsu 3 for the Super Nintendo. Called
Secret of Mana 2 by fans of Secret of Mana, it’s a game that was never released
outside of Japan, despite however much we wanted to play this. However, fans found
a way and translated the game themselves, meaning the game was available to us
in, well, let’s call it less than legal circumstances.
After years of Square
Enix ignoring this particular game in the Mana series, all of a sudden they
announced that not only would they translate the Mana Collection for the West
(thus giving us our first actual release of Seiken Densetsu 3), but also
completely remake it as Trials of Mana. So here we are, almost 20 years after
the game originally released, and we can finally play it. So the obvious
question is, does it hold up?
Yes, it does, and then
some!
The original game didn’t
age all that gracefully unfortunately. It was a game where you were expected to
simply outlast the enemy, as dodging mechanics were not all that common in
games at the time. Many features this game introduced, like changing classes
and leveling up, were implemented in a way that made you feel like you simply
had to gamble and hope your choices wouldn’t leave you severely under-powered for
the enemies in the game. At the time, this was acceptable. Now, we expect more.
Fortunately, the
Trials of Mana remake does its utmost best to take care of all these weak points
and bring the game more into the modern age of gaming. For instance, players
are much better informed of the impacts their choices will have, and leveling
up gives you ability points now you can freely assign at any time you wish. The
game also introduced plenty of extras, like finding lil’ cactus from Legend of
Mana to get super useful bonuses, a completely new end-game dungeon as well as
a major overhaul to the original’s item seed system, which this time around is
actually useful!
However, the biggest
change is absolutely its battle system. Enemies clearly telegraph their attacks
to allow you to dodge them and the biggest problem, that you had to tank all
enemies’ special skills, is taken care of by clearly showing the range of their
attack and allowing you to dodge them. Screen clearing attacks give you a window
of opportunity to interrupt them, which even gives you some nice advantages in
case you succeed. Depending on how the battle goes, you can even get bonuses,
making the battle system far superior to the original. It does make the game a
bit easier overall, but considering just how much improved because of it, I really cannot say
I mind.
Other than that, the
remake is very faithful. All areas you could visit in the original game are
here as well, and the ability to choose between 3 story-lines like in the
original is once again a big deal in this game too. Enemies and NPC's are lovingly modeled using their original designs. There are some changes to the
levels themselves, since they went from 2D to 3D, but the level design is
pretty good. Some levels even introduce some new gimmicks, giving some much
needed variation.
Of course, there are
some weak points as well. Character expressions and those animations are rather
lacking, especially during the moments they are supposed to show emotion. There
is also a skip text option, which during cut-scenes tends to skip entire chunks
of cut-scene, leaving you with not knowing what just happened because you
thought it was just another text box. All in all however, these weaknesses tend
to be minor.
Conclusion
Trials of Mana is a
most excellent remake. It improves on all the areas that needed improving,
keeps faithful to the parts that need to stay faithful, all while giving us
plenty of extras to play with. For anyone who loves the Mana series, or action
RPG's in general, this game is a must have. I highly recommend it.
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