March 28, 2024

Sapiensdigital

Sapiens Digital

Trials of Mana (for PC) – Review 2020

Trials of Mana is a 3D remake of a sprite-based action-RPG from the Super Famicom’s heyday. Despite its fresh new look, Trials of Mana is unabashedly old-school and doesn’t shy away from 1990’s-esque dialogue, toe-tapping musical jams, and vibrantly cartoonish world that made the Mana series a stand-out franchise among Square’s RPG lineup during that era. The remake also adds a post-game story arc and dungeon to keep you busy beyond the main 15-hour campaign. Trials of Mana has a few faults, mainly spotty voice work and no co-op multiplayer action. Nonetheless, Trials of Mana is a top-notch PC game that oozes charm and has enough content to keep you playing for quite a while.

Trials of Mana's combat

Legacy of Mana

Trials of Mana is an action-RPG with an interesting history. It is the third game in Square’s Mana series, and launched exclusively in Japan in 1995 as Seiken Densetsu 3 for the Super Famicom. Unfortunately, Western audiences would not get an official release until summer 2019, when Trials of Mana was bundled together with several other titles in the Collection of Mana compilation for the Nintendo Switch. In 2020, the game finally reached PC, but in remake form.

Trials of Mana follows six protagonists who are swept up in a worldwide conflict that jeopardizes the future of Mana, a magical resource that powers the natural world. You select a protagonist at the start of the game, and experience the story through that character’s eyes. You also select two secondary protagonists, whose stories you learn as you make headway through the campaign. These three serve as your playable characters throughout the game. You encounter the other three heroes as NPCs during the journey, but you are never get to play as them and see how their stories unfold, unless you start an entirely new game. This encourages multiple playthroughs, as the characters you choose affect your starting region, various story beats, and which of the three final dungeons and bosses you encounter at the game’s climax. The game is robust but not particularly long, clocking in at about 15 hours. So, starting over for a fresh experience feels rewarding, particularly since the characters all have very unique combat abilities to learn and master.

Trials of Mana has many character classes

A Magical World

Trials of Mana isn’t graphically impressive by modern standards. In fact, some of its graphics can look a bit dated, like the simplistic, diorama-like world map. Still, the game’s visuals are elevated by a cartoonish and charming art style. Environments are sprawling, painterly backdrops, crammed with visual details in the foreground and backgrounds that make the world feel surprisingly expansive. Character models are vibrant, and incorporate just the right amount of detail to make them pop out in each scene, without looking garish or over-designed. Sure, some of the more fan-service-heavy costumes, which include bikini armor and liberal boob-windows, may raise an eyebrow here and there, but the overall aesthetic is fantastic.

This overhaul goes well beyond the graphics. Trials of Mana does away with the original game’s top-down camera in favor of a behind-the-character view. This makes combat much more dynamic, particularly when the stylized camera pans during Class Strike attacks (more on this in a bit). It also makes exploring much easier, as you can now freely manipulate the camera to see where you need to go. The Super Famicom original had some tough-to-spot doorways and screen transitions, which is no longer the case thanks to the new camera and liberal use of objective markers. What’s more, this Trials of Mana remake also makes much better use of its maps than the original game ever did by adding more loot items to find and injecting secret easter egg hunts into virtually every zone.

The remastered soundtrack is fantastic. The original Super Famicom musical compositions are an eclectic array of tunes that range from bouncy to serene, depending on the scenario. The remastered version of these tracks are amazingly faithful to the original score, but they have been overhauled using actual instrumental synths to replace the older soundtrack’s muddier sounds. That’s not to say the original was bad in any way: the music is extremely catchy, and Trials of Mana doesn’t force you to stick with it, in any case. You can select between the remastered soundtrack or the original at any point from the options menu, which is a wonderful touch that I made use of throughout the game. I lean heavily towards the remastered tracks, but the OG tracks are still damn good.

Trials of Mana also features voiced dialogue for story scenarios, and in truth, this is an area where the game falters a bit. The story is quite whimsical and silly at times, which worked for the original game’s sprite-based presentation. Unfortunately, the higher fidelity 3D models and camera transitions make those same moments awkward. Story scenes are extremely slow-paced, and all too often the voice actors speak slowly or pause excessively to match the scene. That said, Trial of Mana’s voice acting is leaps and bounds better than the atrocious voice work in the Secret of Mana remake.

Fighting Fundamentals

The combat is another area that sees extensive improvements. Trials of Mana has a two-button combo system that lets you chain basic attacks. This involves tapping light attack a select number of times before ending with a heavy attack button finisher. Combos get longer as you unlock new class upgrades, and each one has a specialized function, be that a strong knock-back blow, an area-of-effect crowd attack, or a high-damage, single-target ender. In addition, jumping attacks are vital for controlling aerial enemies, and dodging is critical for avoiding attacks. Lastly, you can press down on the D-pad to open a magic menu that gives you even more offensive options in a skirmish. It is certainly overwhelming at first; though the combo system may not be as in-depth as Bayonetta or Ninja Gaiden, there is still a lot to take in and understand. This gives Trials of Mana a degree of complexity that is very satisfying to master. 

Playable characters have unique class specializations that define how they fight. For example, Reisz is a spear-wielding Amazon, and her advanced classes riff off the Final Fantasy games’ Valkyrie and Dragoon abilities. That is to say that she has many jumping attacks and party-buffing skills. Each class also has a unique super attack, called a Class Strike, that is fueled by a meter that fills as your fight. In the game’s early moments, you’re limited to a single Class Strike per character, but as the story progresses, you gain access to higher tier classes and new Class Strikes. Some of these attacks are extremely elaborate, screen-clearing attacks, which make them invaluable in combat.

Trials of Mana's abilities

Some Problems

The combat system is extremely fun, but not without its flaws. One gripe is that Class Strikes can miss their targets, particularly those that attack an area in front of your character. Building meter for these attacks takes time, so whiffing is extremely costly. In effect, you waste your meter on an attack that didn’t connect. 

The camera presents another challenge. The third-person look is great overall, but it is also much harder to keep track of your allies, which was obviously not the case in the top-down, 2D original. As a result, your allies get jumped off-screen all too often. This isn’t much of an issue during your average skirmish, but it can become a huge problem during tougher bosses or fights with multiple enemies, because you are usually too busy fighting your share of mobs while your party members get clobbered out of view. For example, one particularly nasty boss riddles the arena with traps and additional enemies, and I could not keep my party alive regardless of whatever ally AI settings I tweaked. Ally AI is good at making your party members avoid damage and target enemies’ weaknesses, but tougher fights are where it starts to show its flaws. Sadly, that’s when you need your allies the most. 

Magic Machines

Trials of Mana runs at a very stable frame rate most of the time, with only the occasional stuttering during certain story scenes. The frame rate can be locked at 30, 60, or 120 frames per second (fps) and the game comes with many settings that can be adjusted to your liking. 

You can shorten Class Strike animations, turn off the mini-map and mission objectives, adjust the camera speed and zoom, and customize the controls for both keyboards and gamepads. As mentioned, there is also the option to use the OG Super Famicom soundtrack instead of the remastered one. 

To run Trials of Mana on your PC at a minimum 60fps at 720p resolution, your computer needs at least a 2.5GHz AMD A-Series or 2.5GHz Intel Core i3 CPU, an AMD Radeon RX 460 or Nvidia GTX 760 graphics card, 4GB of RAM, and 20GB of storage. That’s not too demanding, and my desktop gaming PC had no issues playing the game whatsoever. 

Trials of Mana incorporates Steam Achievements and Steam Cloud Saves, as well as Steam Trading Cards. It is a single-player experience, unfortunately, which is the only other real downer about the release, as I would have loved some online cooperative gameplay, or at least the option for offline couch co-op. 

A Proper Remake

Trials of Mana is a great game and an excellent remake. It remains faithful to its roots, while greatly improving and expanding upon the groundwork laid down by the 2D original. Were it not for the irritating AI issues that crop up, and the lack of any form of multiplayer, the game would easily rank as one of the best remakes in recent memory, and even then it’s still a damn good one. Trials of Mana is packed with nostalgic charm, great action, and plenty of replay value, making it a solid title to snatch up if you’re on the hunt for an action-RPG.

For more Steam game reviews and previews, check out PCMag’s Steam Curator page.   

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