With Duran healing her and Rieze buffing her stats, I could make short work of almost anything that wasn’t expressly immune to magical attack, even bosses.Īs satisfying as the combat in Trials of Mana feels, though, the narrative hasn’t quite held up as well in my jaded eyes. Angela was a magical powerhouse, basically capable of spamming high-power spells non-stop, and never worrying about running out of MP. By the end of the game my work had paid off handsomely. Further class upgrades are influenced both by the previous choices – choosing one class locks you into a different set of choices unless you reset your progression with a special item – and the acquisition of certain items.Īll this allows for a healthy amount of customization even within the relatively static classes themselves, as well as for a satisfying sense of min-max power growth. These upgrades are further gated by allocating Training Points earned by leveling up. Leveling up past a certain threshold unlocks two more upgradeable classes, each with a different play style.įor example, upgrading Duran to a Knight gives him the ability to equip shields for a defensive stat boost and adds a healing spell to his move list, but opting instead for the Gladiator ups his damage output and unlocks spells that add elemental damage to his normal attacks. As with the older game, all six playable characters in Trials of Mana have a specific class. Undergirding all this is a simple, but well-tuned progression system based on customization and classes. Boss battles merge this lightweight character action with MMO-style raid logic that hinges on keeping party members safe from the dreaded red circles and rectangles while maintaining the presence of mind to exploit elemental weaknesses and keep everyone healthy. In standard battles, things move quickly, with characters doing a good amount of damage (provided they’re in the right level range) and the system rewarding more experience points and cash for ending fights quickly. With simple, snappy combos, instant dodge-rolls, and quick access to special moves mapped to the shoulder and face buttons, Trials of Mana‘s combat feels responsive and breezy. The zones are emblematic of where Trials of Mana‘s upgrades work best – its snazzy new action combat system. That made my party – Altenish mage Angela, hot-blooded fighter Duran, and polite Amazon Rieze – much more survivable in most situations – though I still had to flip back and forth between characters sometimes to ensure they’d stay out of the boss monsters’ danger zones. That tab allowed me to modify the whole party’s behavior, including sliders that adjusted how often they’d use magic, healing items, and special moves. It took me a few hours to finally notice it, but a little bit after I complained about the NPC AI in the previous piece, I noticed the “Strategy” tab in the options menu. Trials of Mana (PS4, PC, Nintendo Switch) Now that I’m done with it, the question remains: How did Square Enix’s attempt to bring the legendary Seiken Densetsu 3 to modern platforms and contemporary audiences (read: people like me) work out? Does Trials of Mana pass its own trial? I’m one of those “new people.” As I mentioned in my initial impressions of Trials of Mana, I have effectively no experience with Secret of Mana or its SNES-era sequels, knowing them only as Squaresoft games considered by many to be timeless classics. How much of an old game’s ideas or mechanics do you preserve? What do you update, reinvent, keep as-is, or discard outright from an old game that won’t betray its essence, or rile up its fans, while still making it appealing to people new to the experience? After all, the stated purpose of most remake projects is to bring that old experience to new people. Remakes, no matter their quality, are always a tricky business.
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