#let's play the secret of mana remake

[waleedgamil]

MOVIE : Secrets at the Inn

watch full movie for free : https://bit.ly/47hG5SS

#secrets inn lake tahoe #secrets in the ice #secrets #secrets in the ice clips #theme park secrets #secrets in the ice epiosdes #secret #secrets in the ice full episodes #the village inn of secret dreams #let's play the secret of mana #let's play the secret of mana pc ps4 #let's play the secret of mana remake #secrets inn #secrets of eden #travel secrets #secret location #america's secrets #uncovering secrets #secret exit #secret ending #secret of mana pc #Youtube

[memorydragon]

Since I've now played through the remake eight times now (this is normal) I felt like I should say a few words on Trials of Mana, or Seiken Densetsu 3/Secret of Mana 2 as we called it back in the day.

First of all, let me say SD3 is one of my top two games of all time (the other being Tales of Phantasia). I have played this game an unholy number of times in my youth. I've had the Trials of Mana remake for a while now, tbh, but have held off on playing it because I didn't want Remake Disappointment. But coming off of three games in a row that ended on a downer (I'm looking at you, Kiseki) and a really rough semester, I finally decided to give it a go.

On the whole, I have to agree with the review that I read before diving in. Which is to say, it's a very faithful adaptation. It has everything that made the original fun and enjoyable. I do kinda wish they'd actually put a bit more effort into additional content (because there is so much they could have done and it would have been amazing), but overall very satisfying to play through.

I will say I am delighted that my fave was turned into a bisexual icon. He and Angela are both very bisexually color coded and my headcanon is that they are bi besties who wingman for each other and chat under the sacred bi tree about mutual crushes. ("He's hot." "He's not the smartest around." "Yeah, but you have to admit those muscles." "You're bringing me around to himbos." vs "Do you ever just look at Riese and think damn." "All the damned time. She could have her wicked way with me any day." "She's Riese, she's too kind for wicked." "I know. T_T" ) Like, if I could find the way to transfer photos from the ps4 without massive amounts of headache and digging, there's one screen cap for when I got an achievement of them in their dark classes still matching and it was like, yes, good.

Hawkeye is still my absolute fave, especially since they animated him with dancer warmups and very bisexually. He has soulful sad eyes. He hits fast. His beaming smile at friends is sweet. He's a treasure hunting thief. He was most definitely sleeping with Eagle He's out for revenge but ends up pitying Belladonna.

And honestly, let me just say that Fairy just kind of going 'oh, well. I don't have much choice, the MC is the only character around' as the way of picking the chosen of Mana still tickles me. Like, not even giving them a choice about things, just there's only one person here and now you're the chosen one.

I do like the voices, both english and japanese. Charlotte is still.... unfortunately translated, but the fact that their actor pool is all from New England is hysterical. Like, the Wiki says Angela has a valley girl accent and I'm over here like, um... I can see how you think that, but she's very definitely still a New Englander. No one says 'on' like that in California, I should know. That's where they put me in speech class.

Overall the game is easier, not just because they give all sorts of tips that I would have loved to know the first time I played. (The first time I played was... well. This is a game that very much needed the manual it no doubt came with, but I was emulating an english translation that didn't come with the manual. And I still persisted in playing.) The two main differences is that now the game lets you powerlevel your way through things and full screen class skills can be avoided. The former was Weird, because I played the original an unholy number of times and had every level and seed acquiring down to an art, and suddenly I'm several levels above where I should be, but it's keeping the skill points for later. That took a lot of adjusting to, but I managed, and now am usually past 38 even before I get to the first mana stone. XD Kinda makes me miss using the second class changes, but oh well. Full screen skills being avoidable is part of a 3d environment, which is honestly nice. It does make beastmen/swordsman and other monsters much, much easier though. It's no longer Kill Immediately and aggressively before they use their tech and shred your party.

The trap door monster in Laurant is much more of a bitch though. Fuck that thing, 3d made it so much worse.

The post game content is a bit monotonous, but not terrible. What I wish they'd done more with is the personal quests and at least a bit more interaction between certain party arrangements. Mainly along the shared quest lines. The all girl/all boy party was a fun touch, but I'd I wish they'd even done a bit more with that. Just more interaction with the characters, since that's half the charm of the game was who is and who isn't in your party. Writing didn't seem to be the remake crew's strong point though. Honestly, being faithful to the original is probably way more than enough. It's just wishful that we could have gotten a little bit more than just a little bit extra.

The new techs and new game plus does make replaying through faster, which is sometimes great when you just want to play with combinations. They also let you reset your class with specific items, which is a fantastic addition. I don't use it much, but being reminded why Riese's light/light class had the worst summon, it was nice to be able to switch her around. I also like that you can change the outfits regardless of class, which is great when Angela's dark/dark class was honestly clashing terribly on top of being a bikini armor. Now when I want to use Ancient, I just switch to her more reasonable outfits.

Kevin and Duran getting boob armor for their dark ultimate class was amazing though. Hawkeye not having revealing outfits also gives way to lots of gender headcanons. I also now have a lot of polycule headcanons, because they absolutely are. Except Charlotte. She can cuddle, but she needs to grow mentally 50 years. Then she can be the hot half elf who hits up her silver foxes/cougars, but she does not act her age in the slightest and looks about ten so she's waiting until she does some growing.

Being able to fight the black rabite on all paths rather than only available for Duran/Angela main is great too. I mean, it's still traumatic in a deeply unhinged way, but again, the game is easier in the remake. That includes superboss. Though I did not appreciate being asked twice each time I go to fight it if I'm sure I want to fight it. Like, fuck you game. I've already got the psychological trauma of the original.

(It does make me miss my irc heyday, when I had my bot named BlackRabite and would occasionally switch over just to make it bounce.)

Rabites are still the Most Monster of all time. I love them. Even when they're murdering me or I'm murdering them. You can't actually kill the black rabite. It just bounces away when it's done messing with you.

Anyway, I've played through most of the classes now, though I think I'm still missing one of each for Riese/Duran/Charlotte. I actually did a no healer run this time, which was interesting. Way easier in this version, especially with certain shared techs, but it's nice to not have to plan a party on needing a healer. I'd probably have all the classes by now if I didn't like, use Hawkeye for everything, but hey. He's a fave. I did a Hawkeye-less run, of course, but still. He's going to be in my party the majority of the time, because I love my bisexual thief. (They made his ultimate class change item the Loyal sphere, which also hits mine and Riese's Loyality kink, just as she hits his kindness kink and yeah, I've got a lot of headcanons about Riese accepting her bisexual thief boyfriend and outside game canon incest is just going to happen. Sorry, square, you made that final scene of Eagle saying the memories they had together were his most precious treasure after you've made a prequel game I didn't play that made Hawkeye Flamekhan's grandson. I found this out through wikipedia (and will absolutely be checking out how to emulate gba now, because Hawkeye's mom sounds Badass) and only after you made me ship it, so now it's just Flamekhan who gets ulcers when he finds out with Jessica as a supportive sister-in-law because only he knows he disowned his badass daughter. He only has himself to blame, while Ignorance is gonna stay blissful. And while Jessica and Hawkeye are distancing themselves from the old man because they think he's being homophobic, Jessica takes over Nevarl. As she should. Queen of Thieves we all deserve.

(Falcon in the thereafter may have had a few ulcers herself, but then decided, fuck it. Her father was the one who said he didn't have a daughter first, so she doesn't have a father. She's got a cute son-in-law now instead of step brother and will have a cute amazon princess daughter-in-law soon, so her son is obviously doing well.)

I did warn you I have thought A Lot about this. XD

The one thing I kinda wish didn't carry over is the total play time, because I do really not need to know how many hours I spend on this game. But well, no one else needs to know. XD I also kind of wish the final class was more of a combination like it promised than just a few extra stats, but hey.

Anyway, in terms of a remake, I do highly recommend it. I enjoyed it greatly, and it's very New England english cast, which most people may or may not necessarily realize that all of them are from there, but those were the vowels of my people. Also, I'm more forgiving of Charlotte's manner of speaking now, because she's hilariously also strongly from New England.

Listen, when you're put in speech classes and told your accent is terrible as a child, it's only natural to turn to Spite. That's just how it is. XD

On a final note, they animated the merchants in the most unhinged manner possible, and I adore it. It's absolute madness. They went there and it's glorious.

#This is Mem's life #Gaming stuffs #Trials of Mana #seiken densetsu 3 #I really do love this game so much #anyway now to decide who will be my next main #I'm thinking Kevin without Charlotte since I haven't done that yet

[weaselbug]

I kinda wanna talk about the mana games

at least the ones i have played

secret of mana

while this game is good, but holy crap. so many issues with it, namely magic spam, its almost impossible to beat some bosses without not letting them attack you at all. but ultimately a good game, can get annoying at times, and not really a game i would plan on playing again. worth your time, but only once. and the story isnt amazing, but the world is so wonderful that i love it anyway.

trials of mana (secret of mana 2 if you're like me, and a huge nerd)

this game is great! first things first, a 3 choices. what characters do you want! pick 3 out of 6. which most combos are very good. although I wouldn't recommend picking three magic users. but go ahead most of the game is pretty easy, although still with magic spam, there is less of it, and very easy to run out of mana.

then there are the jobs, which there are 3 levels to, the first one you just have. but then you get to choose between light and dark, which then goes to another choice between light and dark. and a game with 6 different characters all with 4 different ending power ups, this game is great.

although there are some parts where the difficulty spikes for some reason, expecially a boss with a human sized person where he just one shots all your squishys (if you have any)

there is one point where you are stranded on an island and have to interact with a random rock to progress, so watch out for that. and it kinda has a problem with you going "where the heck do i go" the remake fixes this, but in like, the worst way possible, still doesnt tell you where to go, but just gives you a way point on your mini map. i dont know which one is better.

storys ok. they are all your tipical affair, "go slay a dragon" or "go save the kingdom" or "go save your brother" but honestly, i think its ok that its story is nothing to write home about, its just enough to get you to care. and thats all that matters.

technical problems: two stats just, dont work. that being luck and dex, they are mostly useless exept for the ninja character. then they unlock their spells, but thats it. and crits never happen, ever. so one of the final jobs for one of the characters is completely useless and you probably shouldn't pick it.

the music and world is great, that is what mana strives on, the world and music.

adventure of mana (final fantasy adventure)

this game is pretty good, for a game boy game at least, first off, this game is hard, not in the "oh man i gotta try again, i almost had it!" hard, more of the "fricken dang it! this game is too hard!" and there is one part which is getting pretty regular in these games, where you have to circle a tree like 3-5 times in order to progress. or have to wear silver armor to get into a cave.

and it has a system where you can choose to wait and charge up your attack to do a big attack, which is really fun and i love it. all mana games have this in common. which is one of the reasons why i love them.

legend of mana

oh this one is great too*.

oh so so many choices to make, im a simple person, give me meaning or non meaning full choices to combat and i am a happy camper. and this one has no shortage of them. first, choose your gender/character. then pick where you want to have your world, (some parts you cant pick cause they dont have enough sea.) then your off. but then you can choose between 11 different weapon types, which i wont list off here lol.

then there's the pets, which are fun at first, then you find the asterisk, which that every single system has one. first off, they have made every system overly complicated and over all, useless. why should i make a new sword when the store bought one is just fine, AND i have to put all the ingredients IN ORDER to get the right sword, and you have no idea what that is without a guide.

you can place down the worlds the way you want to, which is fine on a first playthrough, but you will be locked out of content if you do your placements wrong. but i found it fun to just go through the game as i wanted to, then go with a guide. and the story is really well written. made me care for all or at least most of the characters, and the world and music are beutiful as all get out. even listening to the abandoned city makes me almost cry.

but over all, the game was designed with the idea that you would replay it a lot, which is a fun idea. rouge likes (hate that name btw) are a testiment to that. over all, great game. just with a few blemishes, that might be a little ugly but oh well, the whole thing is pretty good. i just wish the pets were more enphsised and all the systems were made more impactful and easyer to understand.

#game design #legend of mana #trials of mana #secret of mana #adventure of mana #i just really like these games #and wanted to talk about them #they are so much fun #cant wait for the new one! #mana games

[korenlesthe]

Final Fantasy VII Remake is garbage Part 2

And here's why

(7:57:47) Totally not inspired by Hbomberguy Note : this is a continuation of a repost of my twitter post with a few fixes here and there.

Chapter 4 : I'm a writer (Alan Wake, a writer)

Again, I really like what they did with the "timeline mixing". What I'm not a fan of are the TURKS. Already in Advent Children (the og one, not the Complete), I had TONS of problems seeing Reno & Rude hanging with Cloud and co. Like, "Hey, let's totally forget that you murdered thousands of civilians with the pillar including our friends Jessie, Biggs and Wedge ! ❤️". Advent Children Complete did acknowledge Reno & Rude still feeling that they can't be forgiven for what they have done and hope that someday they'll find a way for a redemption. It doesn't fix everything but it is still a massive improvement.

But in FF 7R ? Reno & Rude feel a bit guilt and then its ok, because Tseng says something "deep" (lol no). It's supposed to show that what Reno & Rude did actually hurt them and it is really troubling them. But nah, Tseng says "Well if you haven't done this, somebody else would've done it, so you helped someone, actually !". Yeah, fuck off Tseng. Reverse psychology my ass. Oh and speaking of the pillar.

Chapter 5 : La mu-si-que ! Oui, la musique !

When my brother played Secret of Mana for the first time with me, we let the game at the title screen for a moment because we saw many nice animations or story elements by just doing this in games like A Link To The Past or Link's Awakening. I was in awe with the Secret of Mana's title theme and the beautiful (yet very pixelated and compressed) artwork revealed (and the music goes even harder at that moment). So I did this too with FF 7 the first time I played it and got to hear the Prelude. And off course, when the music goes for the second part, I loved every bit of it.

When I was told that The Prelude was a very recurring theme in the series, I wanted to hear all versions of it. It's that important to me. I LOVE this theme. And while it's rendition in the remake is good, it's nowhere near the impact it had in the OG game.

And then there's the covers in FF 7 Remake. All around the maps, you can hear and purchase covers from the original game. And wether you purchase it or not, you are forced to hear it whenever you get close to where you can obtain the song. And they SUCK. They suck so badly. The Prelude cover is horrendous. It makes the FF X Prelude look like it's good ! None of the cover works aside for "Oh you hear ? It's that theme butchered from OG FF 7 !". But you know, it's just my opinion, people love it, I don't. But there's something I'm sure people agree.

The fall of the Sector 7 plate is a big emotional moment in the original game. Seeing the plate fall is showing that despite all your efforts, you failed. Your friends died and all of the citizens under the plate and on the plate died too. The CG animation in OG FF7 goes with no music, just a cold, silent, horrible depiction of thousands dying. And at the end, you see the Shinra President from behind, looking at the devastation from his window while listening to an opera music, the ONLY music you hear.

It shows how massively separated from the horror he is. He is listening to music. Outside his office, the sound of people dying is covered by explosions and then a terrible silence. This is incredible, especially for a 1997 videogame.

So off course the remake completely fucks this. In the remake, you get to hear, from start to finish, a rocky techno shit while thousands of people are dying and Wedge is supposedly crushed to death with his cats. WOW, DUDE ! And this time you actually see the President's face and he is smiling. But you don't hear the opera song.

Conclusion

The Nomurism are so full of their asses they can't even be bothered to respect "Show, don't tell". You don't have to see that he is smiling, you know it just by seeing him watching this with the opera music in the background ! It was more than enough to understand that he enjoyed what happened. What he ordered. What he did. Fuck this remake.

The same exact thing happened with Crisis Core's depiction of Zack's death versus Zack's death in OG FF 7. The exact same thing. A totally Overdrive-Nomurism Cosmo Nevismitical moment, if you will. The man can't help but make overtly complicated stories, UI, menus with pompous terms, pretentious writing (oh look, people are playing chess in KH, wow, so original) and it's not helped when his buddy from FF XIII is giving 80% of the lore and plot in the Codex you have to read instead of, you know, SHOWING IT.

Advent Children was the moment I gave up on Nomura and also made me stop watching shonens because I felt like they were all doing the exact same thing (oh, a tsundere, oh a geek, oh a woman with massive breasts, oh a pervert, oh a weird man with opaque glasses reajusting it all the time and saying "Fufufu" like a creep).

So for all of this, I didn't liked FF 7 Remake, a game I did twice (Steam & PS5).

Final note : Look at the pretty keys ! / 10

#final fantasy vii #final fantasy 7 #ff7 remake #final fantasy 7 remake #Cloud #Gaming #Cloud in OneDrive #Cloud in DropBox #Cloud in Google Drive #Barrett à cheveux #Tifal #tu penses à tout

[game-boy-pocket]

Hello, do you have any recommendations for gameboy games (from any of the gameboy systems)? I'm going on a rather long roadtrip and I thought this might be a fine time to introduce my siblings to the Gameboy since we grew up on the DS.

I'm pretty terrible to ask this cuz i've always sort of looked down on the Gameboy and other handheld games for being a bit inferior to their console counterparts. That being said, i'm trying to get into the library a little more and I do have my favorites. You cant do better than Donkey Kong, AKA Donkey Kong '94, I think it may be the best game for the original Game Boy. It starts out as a remake of the original Donkey Kong Arcade game, but then it becomes a 100 level puzzle platformer that slowly introduces new moves and mechanics to you through little cut scenes every time you clash with Donkey Kong.

The Game and Watch Gallery games are fantastic little diversions if you enjoy setting high scores, they replace the generic LCD characters with Mario characters and give the games catchy music, but there's mockups of the original LCD games as well.

Speaking of Mario, I like both of his Gameboy outings. I'm less likely to reccomend Wario. The first Wario Land is a bit slow and floaty, there's a movement adjustment patch that makes it faster, but he's still floaty... Wario Land 2 is much better.

Balloon Kid is an expansion on the original Balloon Fight for the NES where you play a single player campaign adventure as a little girl named Alice who's trying to rescue her brother who drifted away on a Balloon. In this game you don't instantly die if your balloon pops, in fact you have to occasionally let go of your balloons to progress, but you can collect more balloons and press down to inflate new ones.

I could go on and on about popular first party Nintendo titles but the thing is you likely already know about those.

So third party games I have enjoyed include Tail Gator, a cute little arcadey style game where you just gotta collect all the treasure chests and avoid baddies and beat bosses, Bubble Ghost, a game where you play as a cute little ghost blowing a bubble through an obstacle course trying not to pop it, Final Fantasy Legend, the first entry in the Seiken Densetsu/Secret of Mana series, and Burger Time Deluxe, another arcadey style expansion on the original Burger Time Arcade game.

There's lots of other games I've enjoyed but haven't played more than a few minutes of.

[veritymysticmagic]

Squeeenix vent post thingy

Ok this is just a ah let me complain sorta post about how bad Square Enix is. I'm sure this will just piss of all the Square Enix fanboys lol

Now I will say every game dev has problems. Some more than others (I'm looking at you Atlus) but seriously Square Enix has soooooo many and it feels that alot of people, news outlets included, bend over backwards and do back flips to defend the studio.

They don't need your money and honestly they are the AAA game you're complaining about.

This list may change as I gather more info or hear more bs

Enix has stated several times that NFT gaming is the future, like you have to purchase your game as an NFT?? Like in an era where cloud services are trying to not let you own the game (DRM free discussion is a whole other thing) Square Enix is literally going full into it.

GOD AWFUL PORTS. For every one good port they have there are like four god awful ones. Remember the FF mobile ports? They were literally the best ports until the more recent remake ones. Secret of Mana? Awful port. Oh can we get a remaster of Chrono Trigger? Nah. (aside but Nintendo spearheading the remaster of Mario RPG was a very wise decision because Nintendo has a much better track record with remasters)

Pandering to "fanboys" by adding and CHANGING Cloud and Sephiroth in EVERYTHING. I get it FF7 is a very magical game. It was one of the first jrpgs I ever played back on the original PC (a story for another time) but the changes they did to Cloud to make him more edgy and appealing is just gross. Now they are making a Sephiroth game which ok but... it really weakens him as the main villain idk. Also the lack of anything for their other games really sucks. Which leads to the next point...

An immediate reversal of an old studio decision that coincides with what I think is the steady decline of the FF series. (my source here is Final Fantasy Union on youtube - great vids btw) Originally the rule was that no game story should be reused in another product ie. no side games. The reasoning was to ensure each game was its own product and not riding on what the fans want. This was until that developer left after the development of FFX. Once he left they immediately made X-2 a side game. Literally pandering to the fans. Yes this led to a better Final Fantasy movie in Advent Children (as opposed to The Spirits Within) but I honestly think this is the turning point of the FF games going into decline. Yes while 14 is considered incredibly amazing and yes it is good, the rest I feel have departed further and further from the original 10 FF games. This goes on to my next point

(eh may not be a negative) The change in Final Fantasy going from turn based JRPG to action based JRPG to just trashing that style and going straight into the DMC studio's style of game - ie Final Fantasy 16. I am of the opinion that the action based JRPG is not great as it tries to be two different systems at once. Yes Xenoblade does a great job of this but it may just be one of the few outliers. This has not been a JRPG style that has led to a lot of great games - if anything it feels like a one or two series and done sorta mechanic. And to the FF team's credit they immediately jumped away from it for FF16. What I don't like is that it kinda removes FF from its identity. Though this may be seen as a positive instead of a negative

Cloud Save PC ports. I am so sorry Kingdom Hearts 3 you don't deserve it. Speaking of Kingdom Hearts

Purposefully confusing story so that you buy more low effort media related to said story. Kingdom Hearts, FF 15, FF13, etc. etc. All of these games have purposefully confusing lore so that you want to buy more media to get more info. And usually this media is in the form of quick games, web books, dlc, and so on. Whether or not this extra media means anything or is any good is questionable and are usually only purchased by the die hards.

RELEASING AN INCOMPLETE GAME. Ok seriously this is the meat and potatoes and it all revolves around Final Fantasy 7 Remake/Rebirth. Yes that game. Yes the game that we have waited DECADES for. And I being a fan of the original Final Fantasy 7, I who went through the streets of Midgar and saw Jenova for the first time - was utterly disappointed. A game with that much anticipation and yet it was split into a TRILOGY to milk it for all its worth. As of right now what we have in FF7 Remake is just the first half of DISC 1 OF 3 from the original game. And yet this is ok? Its ok to remaster a game and not release the whole thing?? And it hasn't been a short wait. It has been 4 YEARS FOR THE SECOND TRILOGY GAME. Based on this that means we will need to wait 8 YEARS TO GET A GAME THAT IS ESENTIALLY A SUPER REMAKE. And honestly it did not get all things right. My greatest disappointment in the game is the change in how Jenova was presented to us. It is a shocking scene in the original game and to be honest it influences me as a writer to this day - it is completely stripped from FF7 Remake. Now you could say oh but Remake is a complete game, and Rebirth is a full other game. Its long enough to be considered a full game. But just the fact that it is a known and anticipated remake but not the full game disappoints me - and the fans who are waiting for the full game to just come out at a discounted price (btw this is exactly what happened when Kingdom Hearts came out as a pack deal). Meanwhile the fans who want the game at release are paying at least $60 x3 to get this game. That's a $180 game split into three. I bet the instant the whole game is released it will be in a pack deal for $80 and get even lower due to Steam sales. Also hilarious that they had to remaster a remaster by adding an interlude (FF 7 Remake Intergrade)

Now not everything at Square Enix is bad. Actually they did make some decent decisions such as

Leaving Dragon Quest TF ALONE. Unlike Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest does not have the issue of too many pander-y side games. Infact they have a great legacy of side games that are just solid (DQ Monsters, etc.)

Decent support but also not enough advertisement of their other IPs - They have alot of IPs that just fade into obscurity despite being good (Octopath Traveler, SaGa, the latter Life is Strange games) However these IPs suffer from poor ports or poor optimization (mentioned above under ports)

[veebs-hates-video-games]

I really came here to say something about Harvestella because it's surprisingly pretty great and not what I expected, but I think first I'll finally say something about a couple other things I played earlier this year and keep neglecting, and it's probably been long enough that they're not fresh enough in my mind to get their own full posts anymore.

Speaking of surprisingly pretty great and not what I expected, that describes Pixel Puzzle Makeout League too. It's basically what if a VN/dating sim (sort of? it's complicated) was also a picross/nonogram game. The puzzles themselves were generally pretty decent but not my favorites I've seen of that type. Perfectly fine though. The characters and unexpected direction the story went and narrative structure are great though. The ending didn't go even slightly where I thought it was going to, but it still satisfyingly wrapped everything up with an overall theme and message I was happy to see but did not see coming. I do wish there were a setting for the glitchy visual effects that were like halfway between "go so crazy you can't read the text on the screen" and completely disabled though.

And then Trials of Mana was surprisingly pretty great and exactly what I expected, or more like what I hoped for but was too cautious to actually expect. I played the original SNES version over 20 years ago when the fan translation patch was finally released, and I was pretty underwhelmed. I appreciate all the work they put into it, but it wasn't great (although the official translation of Secret of Mana was pretty rough too), and while the pixel art and music were nice the game overall didn't really do it for me.

The remake on the other hand fixes nearly everything. Some of the character designs are still a little questionable (but faithful to the original art), but beyond that everything looks great, and the new version of the music sounds great, and the localization is much better overall. The characters and story are still a bit on the generic side but fun in a 90s shonen anime kind of way and have their charm sometimes.

The gameplay might actually be the star of the show though. The original was fine but never really stood out too much to me over what Secret of Mana did, and neither of them feels amazing to play in their original form these days. This version streamlined some stuff while adding a lot more depth in other areas, and it just feels good putting together your team's skills and doing progressively more ridiculous things with them.

The post-game challenge stuff that's newly added in the remake really lets that stuff shine. It's funny that the superboss that was considered the hardest enemy in the entire series in the original version of the game went down so fast with my silly setup even on hard that I got the bonuses for clearing it within 30 seconds and without taking damage first try.

Anyway both games are a good time if you like the sound of a picross game with a surprisingly deep story or a well executed modernization of a 90s action RPG.

#pixel puzzle makeout league #trials of mana

[solorpgist]

#IFTTT #SoloRPGist

[gamingoddessreviews]

The HD remake for the PlayStation 4

#Gaming Goddess #Review #playstation #PS4 #Secret of Mana #HD #Remake #Lets Play #video games #pc gaming #games #gamer #gaming #classic gaming

[beards-play]

SECRET OF MANA (REMAKE) #14 – Rettet den Weihnachtsmann

Hohoho Freunde! Wir haben es geschafft den Weihnachtsmann aus dem Tempel zu retten. Nun gibts Geschenke!

#som #secret of mana #remake #2018 #square enix #rpg #rollenspiel #santa clause #action #youtube #lets player #lets play #1993 #remake secret of mana

[coolgreatwebsite]

Cool Games I Finished In 2020 (In No Real Order)

Oh, hey! Right! I have a website! I’m like a week late on writing this, but what’s a week on top of an entire year of not writing, right? 2020 was... well, we all know what 2020 was. For me personally, it was simultaneously the best and worst year of my life. The worst in both ways you can probably assume and ways you definitely can’t (neither of which I’ll be getting into), and the best in ways I absolutely never would have guessed. That uncertain job I mentioned last year got very suddenly much more certain, at a much bigger company, for a much larger amount of money. That allowed me to get my own place, making my weird living situation much less weird. Still haven’t gotten the majority of my belongings off of the east coast, but if the entire world wasn’t currently fucked up by a global pandemic I’d have sorted all that out too. What I’m saying is that, for the third year in a row, my life has been a complete whirlwind that has left me very little time to get comfortable with any aspect of it. But I did manage to play more video games than I did last year! Which is perfect, because it’s once again time for another one of these. Here’s a bunch of cool games I experienced for the first time in 2020.

Astro’s Playroom (PlayStation 5, 2020)

My one word description of Astro's Playroom is "delightful". It's just an absolute goddamn delight. A total surprise too! Included with every PlayStation 5, Astro's Playroom is, in my opinion, one of the best pack-in games of all time.

First off, it's an incredible tech demo for the PS5's new DualSense controller. It was easy to brush off Sony's talk about the controller's haptic feedback and triggers as some Nintendo-style HD Rumble bullshit, but it really is incredibly cool once you get your hands on it. The game is obviously more than a tech demo though, or else it wouldn't be on here. It also just so happens to be an extremely solid and fun platformer on top of that. Astro controls exceptionally well and the levels are all well-designed and fun, even the gimmick vehicle ones designed to show off different features of the controller. It also has an oddly compelling speedrun mode, made all the more compelling by the PS5 notifying you when your friends beat your times and the ability to load into it within two seconds from anywhere on the console. But the biggest thing for me and, call me a mark, because I am, is that the game is an honestly incredible love letter to PlayStation history.

For the first time ever, Sony has pulled off a nostalgia piece without it ending up as embarrassing garbage in the vein of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. There's a Nintendo-like joyful reverence for all things PlayStation oozing out of every single corner of this game. There are so many nods and references and gags for literally every PlayStation thing of note throughout the the last 25 years, and then on top of that there's a whole heap more for the things that AREN'T of note that only hyperdorks like me would get! A sly reference to the ill-fated boomerang controller? Yep. A goof on the fat PS3's Spider-Man font? You betcha. A trophy you can earn by repeatedly punching a Sony Interactive Entertainment sign until it breaks and reveals the Sony Computer Entertainment sign it was slapped on top of? Yeah buddy. It's deep cuts all the way down, even up until the final boss which had me grinning like a total dipshit the entire time. The game is endlessly, effortlessly charming.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo Switch, 2020)

Animal Crossing: New Horizons was the perfect game at the perfect time. That doesn't mean it's a perfect game, I actually have some issues with it, but it could not have released at a better time than when it did. It came out at the very very beginning of everyone going into lockdown due to the pandemic, and it was the biggest game in the world for a couple of months as a result. I played like 300 hours and that pales in comparison to the amount of time many others put into it.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the most different Animal Crossing game there's ever been, and I'm of two minds on it. Like, I loved the game, I played a ton of it, but it's lacking so much of the stuff that made me love Animal Crossing in the first place. The series has been slowly trending in this direction for a bit now, but it's not really a game that happens around you anymore. It's all about total player control. You select where everything goes, you customize every detail of everything to your liking, hell, you can even terraform the landmass to be exactly what you want. Your neighbors take a backseat in focus and end up as little more than decorations with limited dialogue and next to no quests associated with them. Series staples like Gyroids are missing in action. Facilities and services that have been around since Wild World aren't implemented. It's similar to past Animal Crossing games in a lot of ways, but on the whole it feels like a different thing.

But like I said, two minds. New Horizons strays from what I truly want from an Animal Crossing game, but I can't deny that the game as it is is a hell of a lot of fun. There's SO much you can do and SO many options, it's super addictive. Plus it implemented my long-requested feature of letting you effortlessly send mail to friends online! Too bad the actual online play is as cumbersome as ever.

In conclusion, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a land of contrasts. I'm kidding. It's good, but definitely missing something in a way where I can understand some people being disappointed in it. I had a ton of fun though, and I'm probably going to get back into it later in 2021.

Trials of Mana (Nintendo Switch, 2019)

Late in 2019, with the physical release of Collection of Mana for the Switch, I decided I was going to play through each game on it for the first time and finally find out what this whole Mana thing was about. I went into Final Fantasy Adventure (the first game in the Mana series, because every RPG had to be Final Fantasy back then) with zero expectations and found a totally serviceable little Zelda-like with light RPG elements. I enjoyed my time with it. I went into Secret of Mana with the expectation of it being a beloved classic and found the worst game I beat that year, hands down. That game fucking sucks. I get why it made an impression on people at the time, but it's just so so SO awful to play. Needless to say I was pretty disappointed. Honestly, I would have been disappointed even if I hadn't heard it was one of "the best games" for so long. It would have been a disappointing follow-up to Final Fantasy Adventure, a game that in and of itself isn't anything incredible. Secret of Mana is just that rotten.

I braced myself for more disappointment when (after a much needed vacation from the series) I started up Trials of Mana. This game had a reputation too, as a long-lost classic that never made it stateside. One of the best games on the Super Nintendo, criminally never released for western audiences! Like Secret of Mana before it, I'd heard nothing but effusive praise. Unlike Secret of Mana, however, I was very pleased to find out that Trials of Mana mostly lives up to the hype. From a gameplay standpoint, Trials is an improvement on Secret in almost every single way. It's not perfect. The menus are still kinda clunky, animations for things like magic and items are still frequently disruptive. But the main thing is it actually plays like a sensible video game designed by humans with brains. Attacking is responsive! Hitboxes aren't complete nonsense! You don't constantly get stunlocked to death! There are more answers to combat than casting the same spell for five straight minutes to kill your enemies before they get a chance to move! It's great!

On top of being an enjoyable video game to actually play, the presentation is top notch. Secret of Mana could be a pretty game with decent music in some spots, but Trials is consistently gorgeous and the soundtrack is across the board great instead of randomly having songs that sound like clown vomit. And while Trials of Mana doesn't have the deepest story in the world, it manages to avoid being completely paper-thin like Secret. The story actually kind of has a reason for being a bit straightforward, and the reason is that it has a really cool system where you pick your three playable characters from a pool of six. Each character has their own goals and storyline, some of which line up with other potential party members, some of which don't, and you'll even run into the characters you didn't choose as NPCs along the way. This and the relatively brisk pace of the game make it highly replayable.

I'm really glad that Trials of Mana made it over here in an official capacity, even if it was like 25 years late. It's as good as I expected Secret of Mana to be and singlehandedly saved my interest in seeing any more of the series. I'm aware the quality of what came after is very spotty, but I'll get to the rest eventually!

Final Fantasy VII Remake (PlayStation 4, 2020)

They (almost) did it. They (basically) pulled it off. They remade (a chunk of) Final Fantasy VII and (for the most part) didn't fuck it up. Ok, funny parentheticals aside, Final Fantasy VII Remake is astoundingly good coming off of over two decades of just absolutely dreadful post-FF7 sequels, side games, and movies.

Final Fantasy VII has been historically misremembered as this kind of miserable, angsty, brooding thing, both by fans and by the company that made it. FF7-branded media after FF7 itself is a minefield of changed personalities, embarrassing original characters, and monumentally lame stories. Final Fantasy VII Remake is the first post-FF7 anything that actually remembers the characters, setting, and plot of Final Fantasy VII and what made them memorable and special to people in the first place. Which isn't to say it's a slavish recreation! There's a ton of changes and additions, and I actually like almost all of them! Except for some really big stuff I'll touch on in a bit!

The combat in Final Fantasy VII Remake is great. I was super skeptical about it when the game was first announced, but they actually managed to make the blend of real-time action and turn-based RPG menuing fun and engaging. The characters all play super differently from each other too, which is a huge and welcome difference from the original game. The Materia system fits like a glove in this revamped combat system as well. The remixed music is good as hell, and the visuals are beautiful (outside of a couple of very specific spots that I'm kinda of surprised they haven't fixed in a patch yet). It's a well-executed package all around.

But alas, as always, there are negatives. For starters, this is only part one of the overall Final Fantasy VII Remake project. It goes up to the party leaving Midgar which, as you may or may not recall, is the first six hours of the original game. They compensated for this by fleshing the hell out of the Midgar section the game, ballooning the overall playtime to total of about 30-ish hours. The game feeling padded is a common complaint but for what it's worth, I didn't really feel it until the unnecessarily long final dungeon, There's also the previously mentioned and funny parenthetical'd changes and additions I don't like.

This is big time spoilers for this game so if you don't want that jump ahead to the next game on the list. The Whispers suck ass. Final Fantasy VII Remake should have been brave enough to be different without having to constantly derail everything in the most ham-fisted and intrusive way possible. You can have Jessie twist her ankle without making a spooky plot ghost trip her. I don't want to fight the physical manifestation of the game everyone thought they were getting as an end boss. If you're not doing a straight remake, that's fine, but have the fucking guts to stand by your artistic decisions without feeling the need to invent the lamest deus ex machina I've ever fucking seen. The last couple of hours of this game are 100% about the Whispers and are awful for it. It's a true testament to the strength of the rest of Final Fantasy VII Remake that this aspect didn't completely sour me on it. I can only hope that they stay dead and gone for good in the games yet to come and the remake can be different while standing on its own two feet.

I truly cannot wait for the next entry in the Final Fantasy VII Remake project. I'm excited for Final Fantasy VII in a way I haven't been since the late 90s. I have a bit of trepidation that they could royally screw it up. I mean, they already got kinda close, as I said in my last paragraph. But they got so much right in this entry that, for the first time in decades, I'm willing to believe in Square Enix when it comes to Final Fantasy VII.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (PlayStation 4, 2020)

My one word description of 13 Sentinels is "fucking crazy". I realize that's two words, but shut up. A bizarre hybrid of visual novel, adventure game, and strategy RPG, 13 Sentinels not only makes that work, but makes it work incredibly well. 

The story is fucking bonkers. It's told entirely non-linearly and is purposefully dense and confusing, but it does an amazing job of hooking you with a cast of likable characters and some impressively well-paced twists, made all the more impressive by the fact that you can tackle the story in basically whatever order you want. I'll say it again for those in the back, the story is Fucking Bonkers. Wherever you think it's going, it's not going. Where it is going is PLACES. Seriously, if you want a wild goddamn ride, this is the game for you. The presentation is also stunning. It's a drop dead gorgeous game with a really nice soundtrack. Easily Vanillaware's best looking game, which is saying something seeing as looking good is Vanillaware's whole deal.

If I had to levy one criticism against the game, it's that the strategy RPG portion is just kind of ok. It's enjoyable enough, it doesn't get in the way and there's not too much of it, but once it starts introducing armored versions of previous enemy types it's kind of done doing anything different. It is really good at getting people to out themselves as having no idea what tower defense is as a genre though!

Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition (Nintendo Switch, 2018)

I haven't really historically been a "Musou Guy". Not to say I've actively disliked them, they're just not something I've seeked out very often or played very much of. Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition kinda turned me into a "Musou Guy" a little bit? It's good, surprisingly-less-mindless-than-you'd-think fun.

I actually super don't care about the Zelda branding. I think all the fanservice stuff is meh at best. What I do care about is that there's a ton of character variety and a metric shitload of content. There's so many different characters and weapons for those characters that all play differently from one another and SOOOOOO many levels to play. Like the story mode is, again, kinda meh, the real meat of the game is the Adventure mode and there's a ton of it. It's 8 different world maps, each based off a different Zelda game, with each square of the map containing a little mini-scenario with unique objectives and rewards. There has to be at least 1000 scenarios between all the maps. There's so much. And that's not even getting into some of the other side stuff like the challenge modes and the fairy raising. It's a crazy amount of game in this game.

And again, it's not as mindless as it'd seem. It's not really a game ABOUT destroying 5000 guys, it's an area control and resource management game where the 5000 guys are one of those resources. Knowing who to send where and when to fight who is way more important than pressing the XXX YYY XXX YYY on the more than one million troops.

I'd say that if you're even cursorily potentially maybe interested in a musou game, this is the one to try. And if you like it, it could literally be your forever game. A sequel came out recently too, and I'm looking forward to trying that out soon.

Phantasy Star Online 2 (Xbox One, 2020)

Phantasy Star Online 2 finally came stateside in the year 2020, eight years after its initial Japanese release and initial American cancellation. It's no Phantasy Star Online 1, but it is a really fun game in its own right provided you can find the willpower to break through its clunkiness and eight years of confusing poorly tutorialized free-to-play MMO cruft.

The main thing going for PSO2, and this is a major improvement from PSO1, is that the act of engaging in its combat is fun. The combat is just feels really really good. There's a bunch of different weapon types and classes, and once you find the ones that really click with you you're in for a good time, whether you're izuna dropping dudes with wire claws or literally doing air juggles and rainstorm from Devil May Cry with the dual machine guns.

The other stuff around that combat is weird. I generally like it, but it's weird. The story mode is one of the most bizarrely presented things I've ever seen. It apparently used to be something you'd seek out in the levels themselves, but presently it's just a list of scenes you pick from a menu and watch with next to no context until it makes you fight a boss sometimes. There's some weird moments in there that MIGHT have been cool if it were presented in literally any other way?

The systems and presentation are also way more... I dunno, pinball? Pachislot? In very stark contrast to how chill original Phantasy Star Online was, everything in PSO2 is designed in a way to maximize that flashy light bing bing wahoo you got ~*~RARE DROP CHANCE UP~*~  feeling. Which isn't to say I don't like flashy light bing bing wahoo, but it's a weird different thing.

Was it worth the wait? Yeah, sure! For me! This is another one that I played like 300 hours of! I haven't even seen half of it, I fell off right before Episode 4 released because it coincided with my move! I'm gonna go back and see all that shit! PSO2's fun! A different flavor of fun than the original, sure, but fun all the same. Another one that I'm glad finally made it over here.

Riichi Mahjong (A Table, 1924)

Holy shit I fucking did it I finally learned how to play Mahjong and it rules.

It started when I picked up Clubhouse Games for the Switch. I saw that it had Riichi Mahjong and something in my brain snapped. For whatever reason, I decided that this was the time I was going to rip the band-aid off and figure this shit out. It wasn't too dissimilar to the first time I decided to try eggs, but that's a different and much stupider story for a different time. I did the tutorial in Clubhouse Games, looked up some more basics and advice because the tutorial wasn't super amazing, and I kept playing while being aided by the game's nice helper features like the button that pulls up recommended hands. I kept playing and... sorta got it. I learned the basic rules, but none of the strategy. And then I stopped playing for a few months.

In that few months, for whatever reason, a decent amount of people I know had their brains snap the same way? Like a more-than-two amount of people I'm either friends with or following online also decided to learn Mahjong. I decided to get back on the horse and downloaded Mahjong Soul and I don't know whether it was perseverance or the power of anime babes, but this time I got it. I still refer to a sheet with all the hands and whether they work open or closed, and I'm by no means a master player, but I actually honest to god understand what I'm doing and it's an incredible feeling.

Mahjong has such a huge amount of what I like to call "Get That Ass" energy. It is the energy you feel when you get someone's ass. In Mahjong you are either constantly getting someone's ass or getting your ass gotten. Someone puts down the wrong tile and you fucking GET THEIR ASS DUDE! They're got!! They're a fucking idiot that put down the wrong thing and now you have their points!!! Or you draw what you need yourself and you're a brain genius all according to plan and everyone gives you points because you're so wise!!!! It's great!!!!!

Mahjong has long been one of those games where I'd say "I'll learn this someday" and never reeeeally actually try to learn, and I'm so glad I finally took the effort to because it's good as hell. And, truth be told, it wasn't THAT hard to learn? Like you can get to the point where I was where I didn't know the strategy fairly easily in my opinion, and once you do that It's just a matter of continuing to play to understand the rest. I highly recommended that you also go out and learn it if you similarly revel in getting that ass, it's so satisfying once you do.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon (PlayStation 4, 2020)

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio took a big gamble with Yakuza: Like a Dragon. After seven games (more if you take spinoffs and remakes into consideration) they decided to focus on a new main character and, even more unexpectedly, they decided to change things up by turning the series into a turn-based JRPG. Their gamble paid off in spades. This is easily in my top 3 favorite Yakuza games.

The JRPG gameplay is surprisingly solid. There's definite room for improvement, but they nailed a bunch of it right out of the gate. Some mechanics are a little janky and I wish the job system was more fleshed out or just worked more like Final Fantasy V's, but they nailed one of the most important things and made the battles brisk and fun. It's a great foundation, especially for a team that's never attempted anything like this, and it's way more fun than the combat's been in any of the previous Dragon Engine games. I can't wait to see them iterate on it.

Everything else is top fuckin' notch. The music is great, the side content is fully fleshed out in a way it hasn't been since before they switched to the Dragon Engine, and I love the characters and story so much. Yakuza has a new main character in Ichiban Kasuga, and he's my son and I love him. Kiryu was great, and I love him too, but he was a bit of a passive protagonist. Stuff happened around him and he mostly just stoically reacted to it. Ichi is a much more active lead and it's great. He's a big lovable dope, and his tendency to keep an upbeat attitude and eagerness to leap into action is such a breath of fresh air. And it's not only Ichiban, since this is an RPG you have a whole party of characters and they're all great! Having them with you at all times bantering with each other and reacting to things is another great change of narrative pace, too. 

Yakuza: Like a Dragon just straight up rules. As someone who has historically not been too much of a fan of the Dragon Engine games, it's simultaneously a refreshing new take on the series and a fantastic return to form. I can't wait for what comes next. Wherever Ichiban goes, I go.

Moon: Remix RPG Adventure (Nintendo Switch, 2020)

After 23 years of Japanese PS1 exclusivity, Moon: Remix RPG Adventure finally got an English release this year for Nintendo Switch. I'm glad it did, because Moon isn't just the very definition of A Sebmal Game. It's the Sebmal Game missing link. In addition to being just a great video game, it helped me make a mental throughline for a bunch of games I love and a large part of my taste in video games.

To keep a long story short (seriously, I have a much much longer version of this saved in my drafts that I'll maybe finish someday), Moon turned out to be not the JRPG I assumed it was, given the title and basic story pitch, but a secret prequel to a game I love named Chulip. Moon's developer, Love-de-Lic, was formed by a handful of ex-Squaresoft employees, many of which worked on an extremely formative game I love named Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Love-de-Lic broke up in the year 2000 and its staff went on to form a bunch of different studios that ended up making a BUNCH of different games I love like Chibi-Robo, Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, Dandy Dungeon, and the aforementioned Chulip. These games, when you make the connection and line them up, all have a very distinct weirdness in common that makes perfect sense once you've realized many of the same people worked on them. Figuring this all out felt like snapping a piece of my brain back in place, and it was really crazy to come to understand exactly how much this studio that formed and disbanded decades before I'd even heard of them had impacted my tastes and, hell, my life.

So what is Moon, for those who don't innately understand what I mean by "a secret prequel to Chulip"? Moon is an adventure game where you explore a world with a day/night cycle, learn about that world's inhabitants, and eventually solve their problems. Think of it kind of like The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, but if the sidequests were the entirety of the focus with no Groundhog Day time reset mechanic and none of the Zelda stuff like combat and dungeons. You play as a young boy who, after a late night JRPG binge session, is sucked into the world of the game he was just playing. Everything is off from the way it was portrayed while the boy was playing the game, though. The hero he had previously controlled is actually a silent menace, raiding peoples' houses for treasure and slaughtering every innocent animal that crosses his path in an endless quest for EXP. The townspeople seem more concerned with problems in their day-to-day lives than the supposed world threatening crisis outlined in the game's intro. It's up to you as the boy to investigate this world's mysteries, help the townsfolk, mend the damage the hero has done, and eventually restore love to a loveless world.

Speaking of love, I fucking loved Moon. I loved the story, I loved the characters, I loved the music, I loved the way it looks (even though the Switch port is a little crusty in that basic emulator-y kinda way), I loved how constantly bizarre and surprising and funny it was. Like I said earlier, it's the very definition of a game made for me. It was essentially the progenitor of a long line of games made for me, and of games potentially made for me but I don't know yet because I haven't played them due to not understanding Japanese (UFO: A Day in the Life translation next please? Anyone from Onion Games reading this??). For as similar as Moon and Chulip are in their systems and pacing, I think I might actually like Moon better despite it coming earlier? It's not as full force maximum impact absurd as Chulip is, but it is a lot more playable and less obtuse once you get a grip on the time limit mechanic. You don't need a full strategy guide included in the instruction manual for Moon, and you don't need to exchange business cards with every single character to get information vital to finishing the game either.

I truly cannot recommend Moon enough if your taste in games ventures anywhere off the beaten path. Maybe this is a little conceited of me, but I assume if you're reading this article, let alone this far down into it, you relate to my video game opinions at least a little bit? You should play Moon. Everyone reading this sentence should play Moon. Moon: Remix RPG Adventure is my game of the year for the year 2020.

These games were also cool, I just had less to say about them:

Death Stranding (PlayStation 4, 2019): Death Stranding, much like Metal Gear Solid V, was a game I enjoyed for the gameplay and not much else. The story, characters, and writing were a huge disappointment for me, but man if I didn't enjoy lugging those boxes around and setting up my hellish cross-continental goon summer camp lookin' zipline network. Mr. Driller Drill Land (Nintendo Switch, 2020): I am a known Mr. Driller Enjoyer, and I enjoyed this Mr. Driller. Originally released for the Gamecube, Mr. Driller Drill Land is another long-time Japanese exclusive that finally came stateside this year and it's packed with new and novel twists on the Mr. Driller format. It looks super sharp, the music's great (also the credits music is the most impossibly out of place and extra as hell shit in the world and it's hilarious), and it's just a good ass time. The main campaign is pretty damn short, but if you're a post-game content kinda guy it has that and it's all super hard. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 (PlayStation 4, 2020): They finally made another good new Tony Hawk game, and all it took was perfectly remaking two of the best old Tony Hawk games! Plays exactly like you remember it with the added benefit of the best mechanics from up to THUG1, looks great, packed full of content, even has most of the music alongside some mostly crappy new stuff. It's the full package as is, but I do hope they end up adding THPS3 to it eventually. Mad Rat Dead (Nintendo Switch, 2020): Mad Rat Dead was a pleasant surprise that I only picked up because I saw a couple of people on my Twitter timeline constantly talking about it. A fun and inventive platformer where all your actions need to be on beat with the music. The gameplay feels great (aside from some not so great performance issues on Switch), the soundtrack is fun, and it's got a real good style to it. Demon's Souls (PlayStation 5, 2020): I love Demon's Souls and this is Demon's Souls. It plays exactly the same with some minor quality of life changes. I don't agree with many of the artistic changes, but there's no denying it looks incredible on a technical level. If you want to play Demon's Souls again or for the first time, this is a perfectly valid and fun way to do so. Groove Coaster: Wai Wai Party!!!! (Nintendo Switch, 2019): Groove Coaster is one of my favorite rhythm games, and they finally made an acceptable at-home version with Wai Wai Party. It's not a perfect replication of the arcade game control-wise, I have some issues with the song choices, and the pricing is frankly fucking ridiculous if you're not a Groove Coaster maniac like I am, but the same ultra satisfying gameplay is all there. You can even play it vertically in handheld mode! Flip Griiiiiiiip!

And we're done! Phew! Honestly didn't realize I played that many good games until I typed all this out. Thanks as always for reading this far. I'm gonna try and get back to regularly posting Breviews this year at the very least. Honestly don't know if I'll get anything else up on here, but we'll see. Here's to hoping 2021 is a little bit less of a nightmare!

#article #Year Wrapup

[solidandsound]

annual video game retrospective time~!!

Following the trend of the last couple of years, I bought only a small amount of new games this year and instead focused on clearing out older games from my backlog. Specifically, I decided to beat every game in my backlog that was released pre-2000. Thanks to this self-imposed challenge, I got to experience some true classics like Kirby’s Adventure and the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the first time.

I beat a total of 38 games in 2020! This is a smaller number than previous years, but I’m satisfied with it. There were a handful of time sink games I played that sucked up time I could have used for more, shorter titles, but these long games were soothing in this year of stress. (More on that later.) I’m also proud not to have added very many new games to my list this year, not counting things I got for free or as gifts.

Here’s what I spent money on this year:

the Atelier Arland trilogy and the Atelier Dusk trilogy (finished 4/6 of these so far). These games individually have their ups and downs but as a series I can’t get enough of them. They have such a solid, addicting core gameplay loop that I am happy to fall into every time, and their lighthearted tones were great for this hell year.

Pikuniku (actually, I was able to grab this one using gold points on the Switch, the equivalent of about a dollar). A cute game about kicking capitalists into orbit. What’s not to love?

SteamWorld Dig and SteamWorld Dig 2. It was about time I played more SteamWorld games after how much I loved Heist. This series just oozes charm.

That’s it!! A couple other games I played this year were new but either received as gifts or bought by my bf for both of us, but I refrained from immediately purchasing exciting new releases like The Last of Us Part II and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. Now, let’s talk about some more highlights from this year.

I got the Collection of Mana for Christmas 2019 and played through it in January. Final Fantasy Adventure was surprisingly solid for 1991, Secret of Mana was fun enough but by far the worst of the trilogy despite its popularity, and Trials of Mana was beautiful on every level. None of them are quite on par with Legend of Mana, but nothing is tbh, and it was a lot of fun to see more of the series finally.

Horizon Zero Dawn was great and surprisingly anti-capitalist. Prey: Mooncrash was a really inventive new take on a game I already loved. Chocobo’s Mystery Dungeon: Every Buddy was a good game to sink 100 hours into when the pandemic hit and I didn’t feel up to anything too deep. Pyre was an absolute masterpiece and my favourite of Supergiant’s games so far. Heaven Will Be Mine was a love letter to Gundam that felt made just for me.

Resident Evil. Specifically, the 2015 remaster of the 2002 remake of Resident Evil. Oh boy, this game. What a masterclass of survival horror. The first playthrough as Jill was so tense and spooky, and the second playthrough as Chris was a completely different experience, despite being mostly the same game, simply because knowing more of the layout of the mansion changes so much. I was so thrilled with this game that I jumped right into Resident Evil 0... but didn’t get very far. RE0 is superficially similar to RE but fails to understand what makes the latter so great. It’s a shame the franchise is so messy because I truly have no idea whether or not I should be trying, say, the RE2 remake, even though RE was probably the best game I played this year.

Shout out also to the games I played a lot of but didn’t beat. This of course includes the endless Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which I used as creative fuel to write over 100 poems in-game! I also played a ton of SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays. This is a huge game that will take me a while longer to finish, but I’m not in a rush. I’ve actually been using this game to exercise, doing jumping jacks and sit-ups during the game’s long attack animations.

As an added note, the PS5 came out this year and, shock! I did not get one. Yet. More and more I find frustration with our cultural obsession with newness, and not just in video games. It is good praxis, IMO, to insist that the newest thing is not the most valuable, and that something being new is not a good enough reason to acquire it. Sure enough, some of the best stuff I played this year was from over a decade ago. Good art does not expire, and the PS5′s best games will still be good when I get around to them, eventually.

And now I will go against everything I just said and beg you to please play my new game from this year. It’s free. Thank you.

PS. My plan for next year? Play every game in my backlog that released pre-2002! This should put me clear of the PS1 era. I may catch up to the present yet!

#i ended up getting a lot of more recent games for christmas #those along with the old stuff i plan to play #should basically get me through 2021 lol #i've already started Fire Emblem Warriors which is really fun #excited for TLOUII and the Trials of Mana remake #and to finally get into Yakuza #i love video games!!!!!

[lunamanar]

Off-the-Cuff First-impressions Review: Trials of Mana

I got Seiken Densetsu 3/Trials of Mana in the mail today and am surprised by just how excited I am about it. After the admittedly predictable letdowns of the Secret of Mana “remake” and the FFVIII “remaster,” not to mention the iOS revision of the former, you’d think I’d be jaded at this point. 

But! FFVII remake is Actually Good, and so far it looks like Trials of Mana is, while certainly lower budget, also Actually Good. The voice acting is kinda meh, but not bad enough to detract from the game in my opinion, and considering they are working with SNES-era scripts (the dialogue is 99% word-for-word the same as the more recent translation of the original SD3 game, so it’s going to be a bit stilted anyway) it’s really not bad at all. 

Besides, the actual meat of the game--the world, character and monster design, and the gameplay--is extremely solid and I have had very little trouble acclimating to it. It’s fun to play, it feels good to run around and explore the world and the battles are both very simplistic in a way that is familiar to an old fart like me and very satisfying in the way they function. One of the biggest weaknesses the original game had was absolutely horrendous input lag in some areas due to 1. the sheer size of the loaded map section, such as Rolante/Laurant, 2. The number of on-screen instructions the SNES had to process during battles, particularly during fights where you had massive sprites taking up the entire screen (the awful awful wall-guardian “Genova” [harhar] is probably the single hardest boss in the game purely due to input lag/drops; when you attack an enemy, even assuming your weapon swings when you tell it to, and that’s a big ‘if,’ the monster you are attacking is actually in a state which is several frames ahead of whatever state it visually appears to be in on-screen, making it extremely difficult to time your attacks properly to both defend and do optimal damage to what should have been a relatively minor “miniboss” fight). Trials of Mana, on the other hand, has none of those problems, simply thanks to more modern technology. So far every fight I’ve engaged in has been smooth and responsive as well as very visually appealing.

And wow is this game pretty. It’s not the most amazing example of the best graphical advances in gaming history, to be sure, but I genuinely don’t think that matters, as it’s still beautifully detailed and really does look like they took the original graphics and magicked them into more modern models. The re-imaginings of each area and monster are very faithful to both the aesthetic and the layout of the original design while at the same creatively expanding on them; I've had no trouble finding my way around familiar maps or identifying the bestiary, but I have found a lot of added depth to them, such as the ability to jump down on rooftops and find hidden nooks that were just static backdrops or otherwise out of sight in the original. The areas are more layered and interactive, but very importantly, nothing is missing. Not even the dogs and cats, who still bark and meow at you if you talk to them. I feel like I’m being allowed to see and explore the original maps from angles I didn’t have access to in the past. It really makes the 16-year-old in me unbelievably happy, to be able to finally, actually see and do these things I could only wish for back then. For people who have never played it, it’s probably a very pretty, if otherwise unremarkable experience, but for me it’s the granting of a wish I’ve had for a long time, but never expected to happen. 

Similarly, I think a lot of people will look at the plot for this game and go, “...what?” Because it really doesn’t seem to have been changed at all from the SNES version, aside from a few little tweaks to the dialogue here and there to ease the transition between some sections or correct for differences in game mechanics (of which there are only a few; again, this is definitely a remake--it remains the same game with the same mechanics at its core). This can lead to some pretty awkward interactions between characters, and at times it seems pretty clear that the voice actors weren’t given a lot of direction about the context of their lines. It’s not a bad story, but it’s a very simply told one, and feels more like it’s targeting 12~16 year-olds (which it probably is, to be fair) who might not care so much about nitpicking the semantics of the plot and character motivations. Which is to say, most of the characters who are not main protagonists or villains are painfully cardboard-flat. They do what they do and say what they say because it advances the plot for them to do and say those things. Elliot falls for a “trick” that I’m pretty sure most 4-year-olds would see through. The Bad Guys are 1-dimensionally evil, wanting to either destroy or take over the world, with the possible exception of Lugar and Koren who have slightly more complicated “I’m your rival” reasons. That leaves the complexity up to the protagonists to shoulder, and while I haven’t played that far into the game yet, thus far is is beat-for-beat and shot-for-shot the same as the original, so I expect that character-building will be left largely up to the player to mentally write in, especially since the game features light/dark class-changes as a feature of its progression. (I do kiiiind of hope that your choice in class changes has a more material effect on the ending’s outcome, but I think that might be asking a bit too much from a remake of this sort.) But the somewhat archaic plot and character arcs are not surprising and for me don’t take away any of the game’s charm. Nikita is still the best, the shop owners still dance inexplicably, the fact you can play a werewolf is badass, rabites are still cute, Don Perignon is still kind of a jerk. I’m very nervous/excited to get Busukaboo and Flammie and hope they’ll be as much fun now as they were then. And the whole world is so damn pretty, I’m just glad to be there. 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the music. I’m not sure how much of a hand Hiroki Kikuta actually had in this remake, but the synth-orchestral arrangements of his originals are excellent so far. They’re both accessible/adaptable to the game’s sudden scene transitions (”Nuclear Fusion” starts and ends just as cleanly) while being a richer version of the themes, keeping close to the original sound while making better use of all the instruments that the SNES just wasn’t capable of emulating well. It blends very well with the rest of the game and I hope that continues to be true. 

I do have nitpicks; while I know it’s a popular mechanic, I don’t like the “shift-lock” sort of dash using the left analog stick as both directional and a button. I think the camera controls are solid, but I do wish there wan a toggle-option to have the camera just follow over your shoulder wherever you run until you either run into a battle or turn it off. The character models don’t seem especially affected by anything except the most intense/pervasive lighting and sometimes feel oddly out of place, like I’m watching one of those old movies where an animated character comes into the Real World. Some of the monster designs seem cute-ified more than I’d like. And I can’t help but think that if the game can be this nice as a third-tier title for SE, what could it have been if they’d but the resources behind it that they obviously did with FF7? I understand why they didn’t, but it’s hard not to wonder what it could have been if they had.  Seiken Densetsu is one of the most fraught series in the history of home video games and the fact that it’s even still around is something of a miracle, in my opinion. After the last...four?...titles following Legend of Mana, and the disappointment that was SD2′s (second!) remake, I really didn’t go into Trials of Mana with high hopes. I have been really, honestly pleasantly surprised. Even if you’re a diehard old-schooler who really doesn’t like modern JRPGs, if you have any nostalgia left for this series, you should give this one a go. I think it translated really well to 3D models, and what little it loses in the switch, it makes up for in playability. It’s not hard to pick up, it’s easy on the eyes and ears, it’s less grind-y than the original, and it doesn’t try to be more than what it is. I’ll probably always prefer the original, of course; there are too many memories attached to it for me, too many things that were groundbreaking at the time that are now old news or completely obsolete nowadays, and the new game certainly doesn’t push any modern boundaries. But it’s worth checking out, and especially if you’ve spent 20 years feeling let down by the Mana series, this might actually be the game you were hoping for, albeit maybe a decade late. 

#other games #seiken densetsu #seiken densetsu 3 #sd3 #trials of mana #sd3 remake #long post #i have not proof read this at all #wysiwyg #opinion

[yamasbatcave]

Please play Trials of Mana. It deserves it.

The reveal trailer from E3 2019. The background music is called Meridian Child and it's a great example of Hiroki Kikuta's brilliant composition from this game.

Trials of Mana is a JRPG coming out in April 24th for PC, PS4 and Nintendo Switch. It is a remake of a game of the same name that was originally released on SNES back in 1995.

And let me tell you why this remake is a big deal and why you should play it.

(a very long and rambly post ahead)

What is Trials of Mana?

Let's start with the history of this game.

Some of you might have heard the original Japanese name of this game: Seiken Densetsu 3. It is the third in the Seiken (Mana for international people) series, with the two first games being Final Fantasy Adventure, known as Mystic Quest in Europe (Seiken Densetsu) and Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2). Secret of Mana might be a familar name for you if you know anything about SNES era JRPs, as it is often considered one of the best of the kind - however, Secret of Mana had a very rocky development history, ultimately cutting out about 40% of the contents of the game for the release, and making it one of the biggest "what ifs" in the gaming history. If there was a way to describe Trials of Mana, it would be "it's like Secret of Mana, but better". Or at least that's how I felt when I played it for the first time, and I already thought Secret of Mana was great.

Trials of Mana came out in September 1995 in Japan...and the original game never saw an international release until in June 2019 as a part of the Collection of Mana for Nintendo Switch. There are people who's been waiting the original game to come out in English those almost 24 it took to happen, and not only it happened - the remake is coming as well, and judging from all trailers and clips I've seen, it's gorgeous. Not only that, but there seems to be a lot quality of life changes, which are very welcome: even though original ToM is an excellent game on it's own right, some parts of it haven't aged very well (some boss fights are very tedious or straight up brutal).

For over 20 years this game was unavailable for a wider adience, and I feel because of this too many people haven't got to experience this gem of a game yet. Now that there is a remake coming and it's going to be on most of the modern gaming platforms, I think this is the perfect time for people to play this game.

What makes Trials of Mana so great?

I can only speak for myself and how I feel about this game, but I am hoping maybe my love for this game will make people interested what it is about.

But first: do you need to play other Mana games before this? No. I said Trials of Mana feels like Secret of Mana but better, but aside from some things such as same/similar creatures and story elements, the stories are unrelated and worlds very different. Even the soundtrack, which is composed by Hiroki Kikuta for both of the games, doesn't use almost any similar leitmotifs aside from Secret of Mana's main theme, Fear of the Heavens (Trials of Mana uses this track as insert song under the name Angel's Fear, and some leitmotifs in Where Angels Fear To Tread).

But back to the original question: why I find this game so great?

The world of ToM is almost like from a fairy tale. Everything from the character and creature designs to the locations and environments in the vast world of the game and the music - there is just this feeling, this feeling no other RPG I have played have. There's so much weird beauty in it. It is the same thing that made me fall in love with Secret of Mana as well - a lot of it has to do with Hiroki Kikuta's soundtrack, which almost feels like it's telling a story on it's own. The music is just excellent and very diverse, and you can hear some examples of the remade soundtrack from this trailer (timestamps and originals provided below):

Axe Bring Storm 00:03-00:52

Nuclear Fusion 00:53-02:12

High Tension Wire 02:13-03:09

Meridian Child 03:10-3:53 (the part heard in the trailer starts around 01:44)

In short - the game is worth to play for the soundrack alone.

The original Trials of Mana has some of the if not the most gorgeus art on SNES. The game really pushed the limits of the console, and from what I've heard, this led to issues that made the localization hard if not even impossible (at least it was potentially one of the main reasons why the game wasn't localized earlier).

Here's some compilations of screenshots from the original game with the remake to see how much the graphics have improved in almost 25 years:

And lastly, have this (yet another) trailer and please give it a watch: I haven't talked on purpose about many things such as the playable characters and gameplay and such things because those are apparent in the trailers, so if you are curious how the game works, just watch 'em.

This is one of the games I've been most excited for this year, and I hope there are other people who are excited too and will give it a chance. It's very much worth your time.

#seiken densetsu 3 #trials of mana #secret of mana #seiken densetsu 2 #yama talks #long post #i lost my point somewhere in middle of this as always #it's just me fawning over the music and art and such

[killscreencinema]

Trials of Mana (Super Famicom)

Although I was never the biggest Secret of Mana fan, it was the game that ignited the spark of love I’d go on to have for JRPGs... you know, until they got kinda dumb.  Maybe they were always dumb, and I just outgrew them, but I refuse to believe that when games like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, Xenogears, and Final Fantasy Tactics exist.  I realize the latter game isn’t a “J-RPG” in the strictest sense of the word, but I think it counts.

Anywhoozles, even though I moved on from Secret of Mana pretty rapidly after getting a taste of the Final Fantasy franchise, I held enough affection for the series to be excited for rumors of a sequel possibly being released.  Those rumors were quickly squashed when it was revealed that the sequel, Trials of Mana (also known as Seiken de Setsu 3) would only be released in Japan.  We would later find out the reason for this was Squaresoft somewhat accurately surmised that American audiences were too stupid for their games, and because of that rational we also missed out on great SNES games like Live A Live, two Front Mission games, and Bahamut Lagoon.

Oh the many times I’d see screenshots of these mysterious games in magazines and lament on how unfair it was that we would be denied these games because, yes, most of the gaming audience in America at the time was too stupid.  Now “Secret of Mana 2″ as I’d refer to it for many years was next on that list of forbidden games.

Then emulators became a thing and, shortly thereafter, fan translated ports of those lost gems.  I never really dived into them, as I have a strange distrust of fan translations, but I finally got a chance to play an official port of Trials of Mana thanks to the Collections of Mana release for Switch.

So was it worth the wait?

Kinda.

Let’s get something straight right off the bat - Trials of Mana is a superior game in so many ways to its predecessor.  The sprite animation and character design is superb!  The graphics in general squeeze every bit of potential the SNES has to offer and then some.  The gameplay is much, MUCH tighter, with A.I. partners that aren’t complete buffoons and much more solid combat.  If anything, my only complaint is the combat is so fast and frenetic, it’s difficult to keep pace with what’s happening before your character is suddenly on the verge of death! 

I will say the soundtrack is a MAJOR step down from Secret of Mana.  Trials has some nice tunes, but none of which that touch the memorable auditory experience that is SoM’s soundtrack.  Fight me on this!  You know I’m right!

Another issue with Trials is the menu system is so clunky and tedious.  While it took some getting used to, I grew to actually rather like the ring menu in SoM.  It never completely takes you out of the game like the menu in Trials.  It doesn’t help that there seem to be lag issues with the menu too - yeah, LAG issues in a SNES game.  I thought that was weird too.  It takes several seconds for the menu to pop up and several seconds to load each sub menu.  It might seem minor but it begins to grind one’s patience, especially when you’re fresh from using the ring menu system in SoM like I was.

The story in Trials of Mana is much more complex (though that isn’t to say it’s good - in fact, it’s very convoluted), with several threads you can follow depending on which characters you select to be in your main party at the beginning.  The lead character will determine the “main story”, as well as who the final boss will be.  My party consisted of Duran as the lead, as he seems to be the main hero of the game; Hawkeye, because I need someone who is a more balanced fighter in contrast to Duran’s function as a tank; and Charlotte as my designated healer. 

I really enjoyed much of the game, but it eventually begins to drag, as the level grinding becomes incredibly tedious.  As the game progresses, you are given two opportunities to change Class, but you have to have reached a certain level first.  It is INCREDIBLY important that you change class as the earliest opportunity too, as the game’s difficulty becomes very steep from this point and changing class is the only way to level the playing field more.  The problem is the game doesn’t really give you enough experience points organically, as you play through the story, for you to reach the appropriate level for class change, forcing you to do one of two things: 1.) tough it out and endure the agonizing difficulty until you level up naturally, by which point it will be too late and the game will have moved on where you’d need to make the second class change to be on par with the enemies or 2.) spend time laboriously level grinding until you reach the level. 

Like I said before, I would advise changing class as soon as possible, so opt for the second strategy, as boring and monotonous as it is. 

There are many times the game’s momentum kind of grinds to a halt, not only because of level grinding, but by virtue of how the game was designed.  There comes a point towards the latter half of the game where 8 demi-gods escape from the Mana Sanctuary and spread throughout the world.  Your objective from that point forward is to hunt these bosses down and take them out.  Mercifully, the game marks their location on the map, although curiously the marks don’t go away once you beat the boss, causing me a lot of confusion as to whether or not I missed something. 

At this point of the game, I got kind of bored and frustrated.  For one, it is at this point it’s prudent to change class for the second time once you reach level 38, but I had just FINALLY class changed at level 18.  So.. I was a long ways off and these bosses are no joke.  So it took a lot of time and persistence before I finally started knocking these bosses off and beat the game, but damned if I wasn’t tempted to just quit.  It was sort of similar to how, in my playthrough of Secret of Mana, I got all the way to the final boss only to find out that you MUST level up the tree spirit enough to use Mana Sword or you’re fucked.  In that case, I bit the bullet, level grinded my tree spirit, and other spells just to be safe, went through the final dungeon again, and beat the final boss first try. 

I’m happy to say that by the time I reached the final boss in Trials of Mana, I beat him first time out too, because by then I was a goddamn hardened Mana warrior, but it wasn’t a very fun journey and not as satisfying as other games where “getting gud” is key to success. 

I realize that since American gamers have been able to play Trials of Mana, even before it’s official port and current remake, it has garnered almost universal praise and I understand why they would feel that way.  Despite its flaws, it is a great game and it’s a damn shame we didn’t get to experience it during the SNES’s golden age of RPGs.

#trials of mana #snes #super nintendo #super famicom #squaresoft #secret of mana #switch #collection of mana

[pixelgrotto]

A 24 Year Trial of Mana

Last month, the skies parted and pretty much every Western retro game enthusiast who dabbled in emulation in the early 2000s received a gift of mana from heaven - an OFFICIAL LOCALIZATION of Seiken Densetsu 3, the beloved sequel to Super Nintendo classic Secret of Mana that was never released outside of Japan. Finally presented to the rest of the world a whopping 24 years after its Japanese release in 1995, the game was christened with a brand new English title…Trials of Mana.

Anyone who was following me on Twitter at the time of the announcement knows that I lost my shit, especially when it was also revealed that Seiken Densetsu 3 - sorry, Trials of Mana - will be receiving a fancy AAA remake sometime next year. I’ll lose my shit all over again when I actually play that remake, and will surely cover it on this blog, but let’s talk about the original game first. Trials of Mana was, for so long, a lost gem of the Super Nintendo that was originally advertised in international magazines as a hot upcoming cartridge dubbed “Secret of Mana 2.” But it was never translated into English for nebulous reasons possibly related to a few bugs in the Japanese release, the death of the Super Nintendo and the oncoming trend of 32-bit consoles. Western RPG fans who had read those mags and dreamed of experiencing this oh-so-incredible-looking game (because ghatdang, is this game the epitome of SNES spritework or what) were left with nothing but sadness.

Until some time passed and the emulation scene began picking up steam, that is. In 2000, five years after the Japanese release of Trials of Mana, a group of talented ROM hackers banded together to release an English fan translation of the game. (The most famous of ‘em, Neill Corlett, now apparently works at Google in NYC.) The translation used the original Japanese name of Seiken Densetsu 3 and quickly became the only way to experience the game for an entire generation of kids.

I was one of those kids. I can’t remember when I first played the Trials of Mana/Seiken Densetsu 3 translation - or as we used to abbreviate it back then, “SD3″ - but I think it was in 2001. I was diving headfirst into the world of emulation, experiencing all of the rad games that I had missed out on because my old man had refused to buy me any 16-bit consoles, and I’d mightily enjoyed Secret of Mana. But SD3 blew its predecessor out of the water, at least in my eyes. There were six playable characters, multiple branching paths, a class system, a fantastic soundtrack, tons of giant bosses to defeat…and best of all, there was the feeling of being part of a secret, “underground” community experiencing a game that was only playable via a concerted fan effort.

Time passed, and the Mana series went through its ups and downs for more than two decades, eventually fading from prevalence but always maintaining fond memories in the minds of many, especially those who’d played the SD3 fan translation. One thing remained for sure, though - the original game was getting older with every passing year, and any hope for a re-release was now lost to the winds of time, withering like the Mana Tree. 

Or so we thought.

And that brings us to today. No longer confined to the niche corridors of the interwebs, an officially sanctioned translation of Trials of Mana is a thing, released via a collaboration between Square Enix and Nintendo as part of the Collection of Mana anthology. I’ve played and beaten it, and it felt something like revisiting an old friend’s house, marveling at the changed interior design, but then snuggling up on the sofa with a warm cup of hot cocoa. The new translation is some good stuff - it’s presented via a slightly squished font that looks like something from an old DOS interface, but once you get used to it, the huge differences between a script translated by professionals and one pieced together by kids on the internet becomes apparent. Everything is wordier, but in a good way, and certain names have been translated to be more in line with Heroes of Mana, the not bad 2007 strategy game that served as a prequel for Trials. Some of these names are ehhhh - for instance, the giant turtle who ferries you between islands will ALWAYS be Booskaboo, as he was called in the fan translation, and NEVER Vuscav, which is his totally boring name in the official one. Others, such as calling the God-Beasts the Benevedons, work just fine.

Elevated translation aside, Trials of Mana is just as solid as it ever was back when all of us were exclusively calling it by its Japanese name. Some may argue that the game does contain a little too much grinding, which is a fair criticism, especially near its ending where you’re forced to spend extra hours farming for item drops to achieve the final classes of each character. Others may point out that predecessor Secret of Mana had the more compelling battle system, since all the characters in that one weren’t limited to a single weapon. These foibles aside, however, I still believe that Trials of Mana is one of the finest examples of the classic JRPG setup - that of a plucky group of teenagers running across the world to stop collectives of colorful villains from causing its destruction - and something about meandering through its vibrant towns and whacking away at its cuddly baddies is just comforting.

You should absolutely play Trials of Mana if you have any interest in this sort of JRPG, and while the OG fan translation will never die, I’d say that the new one is the way to go if you can get a copy of it. Sadly, it was only released for the Switch due to Square having to contact Nintendo for assistance with the game’s source code - a fine example of how big companies suck at video game preservation - but since the new translation is actually a hacked ROM, those in the know can probaaably find a version of it floating online…which can even be run on real hardware. If you go that route, though, then at the very least buy the upcoming remake of the game, which looks like an incredible example of a modern Mana title finally getting a big budget. Because efforts to dig up and re-release gaming history like this in an accessible form should be rewarded and supported…and gosh darn it, despite all odds, retro gaming fans received mana from heaven. After 24 flippin’ years.

All screenshots taken by me.

#pixel grotto #video games #favorites #secret of mana #trials of mana #seiken densetsu 3 #mana