As fondly as I look back on Secret of Mana, Trials of Mana (aka Seiken Densetsu 3) never really did much for me. I had tons of nitpicks about the action, the story felt a bit underwhelming. Sure, it was a technical tour de force back in the day, and I think it still stands as one of the best-looking pixel art games ever made, and its OST was and remains very good. But so many tiny thingsAs fondly as I look back on Secret of Mana, Trials of Mana (aka Seiken Densetsu 3) never really did much for me. I had tons of nitpicks about the action, the story felt a bit underwhelming. Sure, it was a technical tour de force back in the day, and I think it still stands as one of the best-looking pixel art games ever made, and its OST was and remains very good. But so many tiny things annoy me about it. How does the remake fare?
The story is an exact play-by-play retelling of the original, with all its backtracking, macguffin searching, and lack of agency intact. It's too bad that the story wasn't streamlined, because it feels like padding nowadays. There's not much character growth, the bad guys are bad because, uh, *checks notes* because they're bad guys. Motivations are kinda flimsy, and connections between characters and arcs are tenuous at best. It's kinda bloated. The whole Domperi arc could have been removed. The group doesn't really "search" for Shade as much as they run into him by accident. The volcano arc is completely unnecessary. The story seems epic at first, but compared to Secret of Mana, it's kinda bland. SoM is full of tragedy: Randi's exile from Potos; Dyluck's story; heck, even Geshtar's return as an undead warrior is pretty dark. Trials never really hits as hard.
I never liked the enemy leveling system in Trials. I understand that it's somewhat necessary for the non-linear part of the game, but I just don't want to fight level 40 rabites, I'm tired of seeing those guys. It never feels like the characters are getting more powerful, because I'm stuck facing the same enemies over and over again. The action really frustrated me in the original, and it's somewhat improved here, but it kinda falls flat as an action RPG. A lot of times it just feels like I'm waiting for enemies to die. Dodging doesn't feel good, attacks don't feel very snappy, and hits aren't satisfying when they connect. Enemies are hp sponges, especially some bosses. Considering how much fighting there is in the game, I want and expect better mechanics than this.
So the story's kinda bland and the action kinda weak... why am I playing this again? For the graphics maybe?
Visually, Square did this game dirty. From arguably the best-looking 16-bit game ever to borderline PS2 era graphics. Characters look like plastic, some enemies look awful (Molebears, what have you done to the molebears?!?!). Lighting is flat all around, so most locales feel bland and lack personality. I couldn't even tell if it was day or night in some areas. I've been told the models are "aCcUrAtE tO tHe oRiGiNaL sOuRce mAtErIaL", but that seems like a cheap excuse for making stuff that looks bad, while completely missing the point of the original concepts.
The music is still good, I mean, it's hard to ruin one of the best OSTs of the 16-bit era. I think Secret of Mana's music is better overall, though.
I was still considering looking past some of these transgressions, but the cut scenes really hammered in the final nail in the coffin. The voice acting is possibly the worst I've heard, period. It runs the gamut from incredibly stiff to ludicrously hammy. Charlotte is probably the worst, with her "accent" coming in as offender number one. She's a 15-year old in the body of a 6-year old who speaks like a 3-year old (change all letters "r"s and "l"s into "w"s, example: "I'm weawwy sowwy to have to wwite wike dis").
Why
WHY
After playing FF7 Remake, Trials of Mana was interesting to play because it kinda fumbles for completely opposite reasons. FF7R takes tons of liberties with the original, adds lots of content, but almost everything good about it is pulled straight from the original, and most if not all of the new stuff is awful. Trials, on the other hand, has a lot of the same pitfalls as the original. Action that's a bit weak, and a story that's not great. The QoL improvements make the game much more playable though, and the last stretch of the game felt snappier than the original, so there are improvements.
The Mana games have a specific vibe and whimsy to them that is hard to find elsewhere, and that's kinda sad. I find it depressing to see a classic flagship game with tons of potential be wasted on what is essentially a budget title that panders to the fandom, but you know what they say: "CAPITALISM, BAYBEEEEEEEE"… Expand
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