Visions of Mana

Le jeu est beau Et c'est a peu prés tout, l'histoire donne de l'espoir au début mais fini dans la Japoniaiserie. La difficulté n'est pas au rendez vous. Les combats ne sont pas si techniques que ça. Les musiques ne sont pas a la hauteur de son héritage. Les personnages sont encore plus lisses que ce qu'on a pu avoir par le passé. L'open World, une fois de plus, ne sert a rien a part remplir le monde de quête Fed-Ex inutile aux récompenses tout aussi inutile. Je l'ai terminé, en ayant vaincu tout les ennemis possibles dans la difficulté maximale disponible sur une première partie (Difficile donc) et j'ai roulé sur le jeu sans trop forcer. J'aime aller au bout de ce que je commence et je ne peux pas nier que j'ai passé quelques bons moments mais ils sont trop rares pour recommander le jeu. Si vous ne connaissez pas la série des "Mana", je vous conseille vivement de vous faire l'épisode sur Super Nes (Secret of Mana) et d'enchainer sur Trials of Mana qui, eux, sont très bons.

美術 ★★★★★ 音樂 ★★★★★ 劇情 ★☆☆☆☆ 操作性 ★★☆☆☆ 戰鬥爽度 ★★☆☆☆

Recently replayed Trials of Mana, and decided to give tis a go because it was 50% off and the reviews I saw online were overall very positive. Man, I feel baited. I've gotten to the earth dungeon, so not super far, and I may finish it because I already bought the game, but we'll see (it might not be worth the time, not sure yet). TEDIOUS is the word here. The story opens with a familiar tale, and if you played FFX or tales of Symphonia, you already know how this goes. A soul guard goes on a trip where an alm sacrifices themself. This is revealed in the opener so no raising of stakes beyond every party member but 1 dying in the end (although I'm sure you avoid that, like any other story like this). Only one interesting thing happens in the first 10 hours, and honestly, actually, Characters are dull n general and do nothing but repeat themselves. You will hear the main character say he's the soul guard, and what the role of the alms are in every. single. scene. The localization is just really bad I feel, and beyond that, you have things like married people saying "partner" instead of husband or wife, and one character disguising themselves as "masculine," instead of dressing as a man/male when she put on a mustache to appear like a man. Weird. Common things that are just weird enough to immediately stand out as odd phrasing. They also do the poor localization thing where they remind you of something that just happened with phrasing implying it was ages ago, so they probably directly translated the text without actually knowing what was happening in the scene? I don't know, but it's bad. Also Nikkolo is in his rabbit form from later mana games but talks like a cat. The gameplay is dull too, with each character having 3 weapon archetypes split among 8 classes. the classes are dull with a few active abilities, that they share between each other once unlocked, and a bunch of passives, unique to that class. The passives are essentially the ones from the Trials remake, but you can't mix and match, so they're much more boring. Combat is literally monster hunter animations and clunkiness, with the second lance model even being the sonic OC version of the bone lance, but instead of fighting a giant monster, you're fighting rabite packs. It's not as refined as monhun either so you have all the clunk with none of the upside. Dungeons are 3 rooms with a couple packs, and most of the interactivity is running around FAR too large of open fields, running between teal targets on the mini map to open a chest or beat some time trial challenge, neither of which reward you well. Encounters are mostly on the main roads in the open areas, so you not only will easily avoid them, but it's optimal to clear out a zone of chores without ever initiating combat. Yeah I dunno, I thought I would have less to say, but I guess it's worse than I initially thought. Trials has some cringe voice acting, but it's cringekino and has MUCH better gameplay and class design. This story is better told in either FFX or Tales of Symphonia, so play those for story. Unfortunate that they did so well with the Trials remake and Legend of Mana remaster, then took a giant step back for this poo.

Over the course of playing this game my cat passed away. Given the themes of the game it stands to reason I would become even more emotionally invested and relate to feelings that the story tries to portray. It's nothing extremely unique or special, but it is fun, charming and incredibly pretty to look at, I would stop to take in my surroundings and screenshot things very frequently. The combat, again, isn't unique or boundary pushing but it is enjoyable action combat with your AI controlled party who at times are stupid, other times pretty smart, seems about 50/50. Music is pretty damn great overall as well and the voice acting is good enough for me to not switch it to another language. But, the real core of this game is the story, as is any other good JRPG. Pretty paint by the numbers fantasy save the world story and definitely even more so in the scope of the Mana series as a whole, but it's just so charming and kind hearted. Love and loss, coming to peace with yourself, learning who you truly are etc... the story tackles these subjects in a way that's not too on the nose but not too obtuse either. I really enjoyed it. Of course it's not truly perfect, no game or other media really is, though it is now one of my favorite games and a treat to play. This cast will remain with my in my mind and heart for a while to come.

Overall, the game is just not worth it: the story is too stupid to be taken seriously and too morbid to feel like a lighthearted fantasy adventure; the class system is too linear for it to feel rewarding to experiment with builds and the combat would've been better off if they didn't split each characters' moveset in three weapons; the open areas feel like slop and unrewarding to explore; what a disappointment.

I’m not a Mana series veteran. If you count the Trials of Mana (on SNES) and it’s PC remake, this is only my third game in the series. And yet, Visions feels like the most complete and polished of the bunch. It’s not perfect, but you can tell that devs put alot of heart into it, and I hope it’s not the last Mana game we get. Let’s get the biggest issue out of the way first: pacing. The story takes a while to get going. For the first few chapters there’s almost no urgency, and your combat options are limited. The early fights feels stiff, and the plot drags with stakes somewhere in the backround. Some cutscenes drag like the writers wanted every party member to say something even if it adds nothing. You’ll hear the same point repeated in cutscene, then repeated it in next cutscene then repeated again on the field. There are some twists and some suprisingly dark themes later on, as the whole “human sacrifice for the greater good” angle hits harder than you’d expect from such a bright, cheerful-looking game, but the story keeps loosing momentum between those moments. Combat also starts basic but once you get more charactres and spirits, it really opens up. The beloved job system from Trials is back, and it’s greatly improved. Every charachter has eight classes to pick from, with absolutely fantastic looking costumes and abilities. Partybuilding and customization are great here, and trying out different setups is half the fun, as you can switch beetwen classes freely. By midgame, the stiff early combat is mostly gone, replaced by a slightly chaotic, but satisfying action JRPG system, where it is important to exploite enemy weaknesses. On Normal, the difficulty felt just right, not brain-dead, not punishing, but enough to make you think about team compositon. Visions looks gorgeous. And I really mean gorgeous. The color palletes are vibrant without being overwhelming, the vistas are often breath-taking, and dispite all the variety it stays visualy coherent. I love how certain areas change during story events, and how you can often see one region from another, it gives the impression that this is a real, interconnected world. The art direction is whimisical and fairytale-like, with towns and zones that all have their own personality. It’s clear the devs poured alot of heart into the little details. I love the silly touches, like how each charather uses the classic Mana series “drum” item differently with unique animations. Voice acting is also stronger than I expected (certainly better then in Trials). Some performances are really good and add life to the cast. Exploration is fun thanks to a double jump and near unlimited air dash avaliable from the start. It’s a mostly linear game with some optional sidequests and, later on, a small ammount of freedom to tackle objectives in any order. Sidequests are mostly filler MMO-slop: fetch this, kill that, with mostly forgetable writing. Dungeons have some spirit element gimmicks like activating moving golems to clear the way or reflecting beams to uncover platforms, but they barely qualify as puzzles. And also characters will usualy spoil the solution to the puzzle, or say things like: "Oh, we can use X to do Y!" but you’ve already encountered this mechanic like 20 times. It’s almost insluting to the player. Modern conveniences are here: there is autosave, fast travel, minimap, scene skip, all the stuff that should be standrad by now. There are mounts too, which help with traversal in the open areas. And when the game clicks, the class system opens up, the story finds it’s footing, the party banter hits right, it really captures that old-school Mana charm in a quite modern package. And then once you finish the main story, there’s still quite alot to do: new bosses, new dungeons, more gear to chase, extra sidequests, and option to power up your characthers even further. On top of that, there’s a new difficulty mode and New Game+. Visions of Mana is not groundbreaking, and it drags it’s feet far too much in the early hours. But it has undeniable heart, and by the end I was glad I stuck with it. If you want a comforting, modern action JRPG with some classic Mana flavor, it’s an easy recomendation. For me, it’s a solid 7/10.

I'm not sure why this game has such polariziing reviews. As a Mana fan, this is one of the better games in the series. The world is gorgeous and has fully brought the dreamscape the Mana franchise is known for to life like no other. Vegetations swaying in the wind, pollen flying in wonderful crimson pastures glistening under a golden sun, waters teeming with fish, all of this accompanied by a top-tier quality soundtrack that is always a hit in the series. The world is full of life and vibrant, despite not featuring a day/night cycle or dynamic weather. The combat is fun and can be decently challenging on Hard Mode with tons of build options, spells, abilities, and bonuses to choose from. There are 8 elemental vessels across 5 characters, for a total of 40 classes, plus the 5 base ones. Although each class doesn't have as much depth as each individual one from Trials of Mana, they more than make up for it with the addition of new game mechanics such as the elemental breaks and each character having 3 different weapons that play differently from one another. Yep, this means 15 different weapons, not just 6 like with Trials remake. The story is nothing to write home about, but it's serviceable and not terrrible like everyone would have you believe. It's not any worse than your typical JRPG like DQ XI that for some reason gets a pass for butchering entire character arcs in Act III. There are genuinely touching moments and the characters are endearing, and unlike DQ XI, they faces real consequences for their blunders. Not the highlight, but engaging and interesting enough to not take away from the exploration and gameplay. The writing, however, is so-so, having many unnatural and stiff moments in the dialogue and awkward NPCs converseations. However, the main cast has much better voice actors than any Mana game prior and some like Morley are very good. Careena with her weird accent puts me off though. One last thing is that the pacing of the narrative and cutscenes are off. You'll often get a short cutscene, only to walk three steps and get another one. Why not just roll them all into one? I don't know, but this does have the benefit of letting you leave at many moments instead of being forced to follow the plot when you don't want to. The main problem with the game is the lack of worthwhile rewards when it comes to exploration. You'll quickly gain a bonus that shows every chest and elemental rock on the map, turning the exploration into a tedious checklist. The content of the chests is almost never anything special, being limited to common items you find in shops such as candies or chocolate bars. There is the occasional Ability Seed or Elemental Plot expander, but those are uncommon. The side quests are also your typical boring and lazily written JRPG side quests. Talk to X or Y and they tell you of their plight and you have to go kill X number of monsters or fetch Y ingredients. Very uninspired, but again, if you've played Tales of Arise or Dragon Quest XI (this comes back a lot, doesn't it?), you know what to expect. Overall as a game, I give this a 7/10. As a modern JRPG, it's a solid 9/10. For comparison's sake, I give Tales of Arise a 6/10 as a game and 7/10 as a modern JRPG. Trials of Mana 6//10 as a game and 7/10 as a modern JRPG. DQ XI 7/10 as a game and 8/10 as a modern JRPG. It's a love letter to the fans of the mana series. Everything it is known for is delivered there in spades.

The game lacks the depth of the early games, overly relies on non interactive cutscenes, and provides no mechanical depth. You are either overlevelled or underlevelled for an encounter and that is all.