Legend of Mana Remastered

Legend of Mana never reaches any grand heights with its gameplay or storytelling, but there’s enough going for it to keep you invested. It has an undeniable charm thanks to its gorgeous visuals and great soundtrack. It's a solid adventure that's been wonderfully updated to please new and old fans alike.

Legend of Mana Remastered rounds out the 90s Mana titles to be brought onto modern consoles in a true-to-form remaster. Updated visuals and new features are certainly a nice touch, even if the narrative can be a challenge to earn. While the game shows its age in places, fans of the genre and Mana series as a whole will love returning to the world of Fa’Diel, or experience it for the first time.

Legend of Mana is vibrant and flexible in all the right ways for my preferences today, and I certainly fancy the game personally. The sheer slowness and obtuse nature of it may be too much for some players. There's a lot to see in Legend of Mana, but the experience never feels fleshed out. Fa'Diel is beautiful and enticing and hard to forget, but not because of the gameplay that binds it together.

For better or for worse, Square Enix wanted to make sure the Legend of Mana HD remaster was as close to the original as possible. Thankfully a beautiful world and good story help make up for the lack of guidance or varied combat. It may not be the most welcoming to newcomers, but fans of the original are in for a wonderful trip down nostalgia lane.

Legend of Mana will continue to divide, but if you haven't, now might be the time to let yourself be wowed by its enchanting art direction and endearing world.

Fans of the Mana games will enjoy many staples of the series developed in original ways in Legend of Mana Remastered, and newcomers will encounter a beloved classic that includes an unconventional adventure and a remarkable soundtrack. I love the game and recommend it without hesitation, but there’s always going to be a sense of a missed opportunity for Square Enix to have given it the full remake treatment, with the voice acting, 3D visuals, and a more-polished battle system that Trials of Mana received.

The Legend of Mana of 2021 is as close to the original version as you could hope for while still bringing this classic original PlayStation JRPG into the modern era. The sprite work is timeless, and the newly redrawn widescreen backgrounds are just perfect. Legend of Mana is a game I just want to look at and absorb into my eyes as much as I want to play it… maybe even moreso, because while combat holds up, the old-school structure of its story makes it a little tougher to recommend unless you’re going to play with a walkthrough guide open on your phone the whole time. I enjoyed my time with Legend of Mana, don't get me wrong, but wandering through its world from one unconnected quest to the next makes reaching the end feel like a very long guessing game – and there’s little or nothing that can be done to remedy that without fundamentally altering the DNA of Legend of Mana.

Legend of Mana is back from the first PlayStation era with hi-res backgrounds and some minor changes to gameplay. It's not as good as it was back in the days but still it's an enjoyable JRPG experience.

The remastering process didn't address the shortcomings of the gameplay of Legend of Mana. Yet, its vibrant world, full of memorable characters drawn to life by astonishing visuals and new orchestral scores, is as good as ever.

A timeless classic marred by conflicting visual identities and a disjointed formula, Legend of Mana is an experimental PS1-era title that planted the seed for many of Square's greatest RPGs to come in future years.

A collection of small quests, no story is given the attention it deserves, the one glaring fault of a beautiful game with a clear desire to innovate. [Issue#4, p.80]

Needless to say, you probably won't be playing Legend of Mana for the plot, but there's a charm to how carefree the game feels. You'll stumble across character-driven side quests that open up new paths through the world, and there are loads of different locations to discover and explore. Honestly, it's a difficult game to explain in just a handful paragraphs, but know that there's fun to be had in its lack of structure.

Ultimately, Legend of Mana presents a fun and enchanting world to explore. The gameplay is simplistic and clumsy, but the tedium is alleviated somewhat by M2's modern additions. If players avoid getting bogged down by the unnecessary side systems, they may be able to capture Legend of Mana's lost spirit of adventure.

Legend of Mana is an intriguing curio that still feels original. Its open structure and focus on vignettes over epic adventure are brave decisions and a clever departure from tradition, while the visual overhaul in this remaster gives it a modern sharpness. It remains, however, a very difficult game to find your footing in, with deliberately confusing quests and poorly explained systems. And the combat never grows with the complexity you might expect for an action RPG. A good remaster of a game that really needed a more comprehensive remake to deliver on its promise.

It’s hard to fully condemn Legend of Mana Remastered, because the original game’s choices are unusual, and some players will certainly find merit in its hands-off approach to steering the gameplay. Others, however, will undoubtedly find the lack of direction infuriating. So, Legend of Mana Remastered won’t be for everyone then. Its combat and lack of engaging narrative holds it back, but its soundtrack – both the original and rearranged version – is truly a standout feature.