Infinite Mana Review
first,I did not finish this game and I do not typically put out a review for a game still in progress, but I wanted to get something out before the official release date so you guys could have some idea of the game going in. That said, I have spent quite a bit of time in this title, 25 hours and counting, so barring the game just falling apart I the latter end, I don’t see my opinion changing. (don't pay attention to the hour counter, its way off for some reason.
Infinite Mana is an indie title set to pay homage to the greats of the past while carving out its own place in the genre. This is a 2.5D Turn-based RPG, with some cool world exploration and an interesting combat focused on weakness identification, similar to something like Persona or octopath traveler. It has a very unique story, and an intriguing way of presenting it, so that alone might be enough for some of you to consider this one.
Ok quick baseline. Music is top notch, visuals are pretty unique and interesting. Characters are well written and the story is innovative. It’s far from perfect, there’s definitely some hiccups here and there, some missteps and questionable choices, but none so calamitous as to ruin the experience. Also, if you know me, you know how much I care about movement speed and I’ll tell ya, you are flying in this one and I love it!
I primarily played this on steam deck, but unfortunately the frame rate chugs in the open zones. It does fine in smaller caves and such, but in towns or open areas it’s really rough. That doesn’t really entirely go away on desktop either. I run a pretty decent PC, more than enough to handle something like this but it had moments where it stuttered and frame rate went off a cliff. Much less on desk top, but still there.
The story follows the protagonist, who you name, he or she is called a “wanderer “ and you get these really interesting mechanics called glitch techs. I don’t want to dig into that too much, but essentially stuff in world will be all distorted, and when you try and fix it, you might end up in a totally different looking area, art style, or pixel count. Really interesting stuff. Think like the switch from 8-bit to 16-bit in the messenger or the change in game style we’ve seen for the plucky squire. Along with that, you start to get a sense that you aren’t from this world, or at least that you have something hidden in your past that makes you different from everyone else.
The overarching plot is pretty interesting. Without going into spoilers, there’s a big bad empire that seems to be doing some pretty heinous acts. You and your first party members were taken by them and your memories wiped. As the story unfolds you and your group move along the path to take them down. As you do, there are these glitches in the world that open up a deeper story. But I’ll leave you to uncover that on your own. Overall, I like the story, but it probably isn’t what pulls me through the most. I am intrigued by the odd glitch stuff, and what that might mean later on, (I have my guesses, but we’ll see if I’m right or not), but the relationships between the main character, Zwei, and Troix, the other characters you meet and how they all fit, and especially the lore of the world. The amount of lore in this game is insane.
gameplay. There is way more here than I expected. Guises, which are essentially this games class system, is one of the main systems you will interact with. You start with four, and then will pick up others along the way. Some you’ll get through the main story, others you will find through side content or random other places. You can have any number of characters be that class, all could be the same class or each different. They have an associated skill tree, but if you battle somewhat regularly it does not take long to fill it out. Though some skills are locked behind things in the game, and not just story content. Some of it is doing side content, or finding some random bird on a beach, or petting an animal. Really cool stuff. I loved combing through areas to try and find things that would either unlock a new guise, or unlock skills for the ones I had. Each class also has effects in the real world. A thief will allow you to steal from people, the trickster allows you to try and trick people in conversations, beast master allows you to talk to animals. Et cetera.
Combat resembles something like octopath traveler, where you have different kinds of attack: i.e. slashing, piercing, and crushing, plus a variety of magic types. Most enemies have a weakness to one or more of those attack types, and a strength against one or more as well. So most of the combat is about finding those weaknesses and strengths, and then attacking accordingly. One thing that was interesting though, at first, magic is super weak. So any physical attack, even from the mage class, would do equal to higher damage. But there is a skill in that class that allows you to cast the basic spell twice for one attack, and then it’s broken. I almost never use the higher grade magic, because it doesn’t do anywhere close to the same amount. Just double cast low level magic that hits their weakness, and you will absolutely destroy stuff. I had everyone level up the mage and the healer, and then you keep those two classes while allowing two other party members to master other classes, then switch. Pretty OP strat honestly. Later classes (or guises) will open up other cool options as well, but those two pretty much stay in my party make up at all times. The other part of combat is this timing mechanic. So when you use a standard weapon, a sort of target appears with a red circle closing in on the white cursor in the middle, if you time it right and hit the button again when it gets inside the cursor, you do max damage, and then slightly less the farther out from that you are, the least if you completely miss. Sometimes it feels like hitting the button right when magic hits that it does something, but I’m probably just hallucinating, so I wouldn’t worry to much about that. Either way, its a good, simple way to help keep you engaged in combat. I don’t think that if you hate turn-based, this is the one to change your mind, it isn’t some super fresh take, but if you enjoy turn-based at all, this one has enough to it that it should work just fine.
To bring this altogether, I think the best of Infinite Mana is the believable world, and the music that helps bring you there. It’s weird and quirky, but I think in mostly really cool ways. But the world just feels lived in, people feel like they’re living there, stuff is happening every day. The mystery is interesting, and could definitely be something that hooks you, but I think that wouldn’t have the chance without the world building. In the developers own words, “this is a slow burn RPG” so don’t expect to just tear through it.
If you enjoy these throwback RPGs, turn-based combat, and interesting characters, then I definitely recommend Infinite Mana.
