Trials of Mana

This is how you do a remake, not final fantasy vii, resident evil 2 or 3 (even though they are good games, not final fantasy though) Staying faithful to the original while improving on the gameplay mechanics and making quality of life improvements, as great as the original Seiken Densetsu 3 is, it’s hard to go back to it because how improved the remake is mechanically, no more crappy inventory menus, no more guessing where you have to put your points after leveling up, you can reset your classes, you can avoid moves now unlike the original, even though it’s easy as hell with Reisz and Hawkeye on hard mode, update now expert mode is added and yeah it’s harder than the original, absolutely harder. The combat is fast and fluid like Ys VIII, and going through the menus isn’t as clunky as the original but it isn’t snappy as Ys’s combat. The music is god tier, it improves on the og’s music while it stays faithful to the songs and not straying from the feel of the songs. Now for the negatives, the AI is inconsistent, they can help you in a pinch or straight up give up on you that gets them killed in a boss fight, but now on expert mode they are useless, this is the only time I think multiplayer would be very helpful. The voice acting is bad , but you can fix it with switching to Japanese voices, better than the English voices but it’s a very average Japanese dub. Texture pop in is a problem in both in game and cutscenes. Overall this game is a masterpiece for me and highly recommend it if your looking for a great action rpg or a remake that doesn’t cut stuff out.

Edit:in terms of Japanese voice acting it’s not Yakuza series level of voice acting but it’s more bearable than the English dub, but the Japanese has a fair share of terrible voices, the most egregious for me is Von Boyage and Von Jour, I recommend to mute them because they are very ear grating, also the npcs like the beastman, Altena soldiers, Laurent soldiers have generic voices, but the Kings and queens of each respective city are great, and 6 out of the 8 mana stones voices suck, except for Luna and Shade, they are fantastic, and charlotte because of saying “Ichi” every damn sentence, but the most important is the main characters sound great and villains and they all sound great, especially Angela and Biju.

A fantastic remake of a fantastic game!

Didn’t hold my attention. The combat is okay but the awful voice acting and short dialogue kind of ruined it for me.

Childish, constanly trying to leave are of battle after activating enemies you dont want to fight. Go here go there talk to that person for no reason. No more tries.

Feels like a beloved PS2 classic except no one talks about it and it only came out 4 years ago. It is a wonderful experience that I highly recommend, although I wouldn't blame you if you were turned off by the trailer (because I was too). The only reason I bought this is because it was on sale for 60% off on the PlayStation Store, the cover art was cool and it had a free demo which lets you carry your progress over to the final product. Before I had even finished the demo, I bought the game and I haven't wanted to stop playing it since then.

The basic premise is that the 3 characters you select at the beginning are the chosen ones and they must recover the legendary sword to save the eight crystals and the magic tree or something - this is an incredibly original concept, I know. The main difference between this game and every other horribly generic JRPG is that the word “mana” is attached to everything; the mana sword, the mana stones, the mana tree, the mana energy, the goddess of mana, the mana of mana…
Seriously though, none of this really manas because the way the characters interact with each other and the way their individual stories intersect is very entertaining.

The world is absolutely oozing with charm, strong art direction and fantastic music. Combat is satisfying and fast - actually, everything is fast. There are no stupidly long cutscenes or filler side quests so the adventure moves along at a breakneck pace and it doesn't slow down until chapter 5 which, admittedly, is a bit of a slog. Even so, I felt that Trials of Mana respected my time, especially when compared to most other games in the genre, and it never gave me an opportunity to become bored.

My only real complaint is the English voice acting, which can be easily changed to Japanese in the settings (thank God). I usually prefer all of my anime to be dubbed but I just couldn't stand this. Calling the voice actors "actors" is incredibly generous because it sounded like they were just reading lines from the script with zero emotion at all. Other than that, I loved this game. It didn't change my life or anything but I had a blast from start to finish. I'm keen to replay through the story with a different party (although I probably still won't pick the annoying toddler character) but maybe I should wait for Visions of Mana instead 🤔.

Art style and story are great so far. A little more adult than I was expecting lol