Trials of Mana 3 Review

Trial of Mana is a full 3D recreation of the third game of the Mana series, released in Japan as Seiken Densetsu 3. Despite her fresh new look, she's still very old-school and doesn't shy away from the 1990s-style dialogue, the provocative musical jams and comic-book-like world that made the series stand out as a franchise in Squares RPG cast in the 1990s. It is a 3D remake based on the action role-playing game from the heyday of the Super Famicoms.

Trial of Mana is a Square Enix action adventure JRPG with six different main characters and a story that varies depending on which one you choose. It is a remake of Seiken Densetsu 3, a game that was not released outside Japan until 2019, 24 years after its original release. The original game is a forgotten classic, known for its twisted plot, class system and beautiful graphics.

Overshadowed by Square Enix's other large role-playing franchise, the Final Fantasy - franchise, the second entry Secret of Mana (or Seiken Densetsu 2 in Japan) of 1993 received a disappointing 2018 remake. Western fans have played for nearly two decades, but the unofficial translation of Seiken densetsu 3, the 1995 Super Famicom sequel to the action classic Secret of Mana was not released until June 2019 as part of the Mana compilation. Earlier this month, a second high-definition remaster of a 1990s Square Enix role-playing game was published, faithfuler to the original than Final Fantasy VII.

Square Enix has brought this charming and beautiful 16-bit game into the modern age, doing a fantastic job of moving from 2D to 3D and recreating the feeling of the original. Steeped in vibrant colors and the charm of an old-school video game, Trials of Mana deserves much more praise and attention than ever before. That fidelity, however, is a double-edged sword, as the game throws JRPG tropes at you in the mid-1990s, making the locations and story feel old-fashioned despite modern graphic reworking.

Trial of Mana is a respectful top-to-bottom remake that offers players improved graphics and a familiar combat system. Each area has been faithfully recreated, and the game feels like a love letter to fans of classic JRPG storytelling.

Although the remake Trials of Mana is tied in some ways to its roots from the SNES era, it remains a solid remake that offers players an alternative way to experience a not-too-long Japanese exclusive game. For purists who wish to go back and play the 16 bit localized version as part of a mana collection this is a more than acceptable option available to a wide audience today.

Trial of Mana is an exciting new step for the Mana series that breathes new life into a masterpiece of this era. Even if the 3D of its artistic direction is not breathtaking, its repetitive moments, its tracking system and its demolition structure make every fight a real challenge and not just a chaotic battle between luck and numbers. Trials of Mana features an imaginative and memorable story from the original game, combined with a flashy new real-time combat system, muddy textures and a lack of co-op that could tarnish the experience - Trials of Mana is an outstanding action RPG - remake that starts impressively.

At normal difficulty, Trials of Mana offers up to 20 hours of gameplay, including new chapters. Part of this is important because your choices ultimately determine the entire story and gameplay of your time with the game and the system encourages multiple play-throughs, with each hero and companion coming up with something new to the table.

At certain points of the game, players can change character professions and choose between branches of dark and light classes, each of which has its own focus and special abilities.

The story is sometimes whimsical and silly, but works well with the original presentation of the game base. The remake doesn't quite do justice to what the original team tried to do, but Trials of Mana does. You wouldn't expect the remake of Final Fantasy VII to be as modernized as Secret of Mana, but this one looks pretty and colorful most of the time.

The most fun I have had in a long time with a mana game is smooth combat, amazing bosses and a cool way to boost your character. Trials of Mana is a linear, no-frills RPG remake that stays pretty close to the original story structure. It's an improvement on the remake, but still has many of the same problems I noticed in the original, such as poor AI, questionable language performance and technical issues a lesser extent.

For a long time, the game known as Trials of Mana was a $23.99 fish that eluded Western players. The first game in the mana series, known as the Mana Adventure, has made it as a title in Final Fantasy Adventures.

Frame dings are not present during playback on the standard PlayStation 4, but there is a noticeable lag in character rendering, with armor, hair and other details having to be rendered for seconds, especially during cutscenes that show fast-tracked shots from one character to another.