For those who have wanted to experience Seiken Densetsu 3 since 1995, you have very few options. You could have pushed through the original Japanese release with some form of a translator, loading up a translated rom by a fan, or eventually played the title through last year’s Collection of Mana on the Switch, a port that finally happened some 25 years later. And yet, a year later, we have a remake in Trials of Mana that debuted last month on the Switch, one of two classic 90’s remakes to see a release. While Final Fantasy VII was remade to adopt a more modern sense of gameplay and storytelling, Trials of Mana feels dated right out of the gate. Now, don’t get me wrong, the game can certainly be entertaining, but it also doesn’t help that Dragon Quest XI copied its almost exact storyline just a few years ago, and just last fall on the Switch.
Dragon Quest XI’s story was this; you play as a chosen one who sets off on an adventure to obtain a mystical sword at the base of a tree, in a location high atop the world. You’ll partner with a few companions as you attempt to stop evil from getting their hands on it. And while I won’t spoil its endgame, which is new to this version of Trials of Mana, they flipped the inspiration and pretty much adapted how Dragon Quest XI chose to run theirs in almost every way. Now, I understand that the original Trials of Mana came out in 1995, but much could have been done to enhance the story and avoid these comparisons as this is also the exact story on display here. Yes, Trials of Mana did it first, but they had a chance to do it better and they didn’t. The story still has a few twists and turns, but they don’t impress as much as they could have, especially being released 25 years later. Sure, you have the unique perspectives of each of the six characters, but by and large, the story is very similar on additional playthroughs.
Trials of Mana has you picking a hero out of a total of six characters, each steeped in the cliche roles we all enjoy in JRPG’s. You’ll then equip two additional characters to join your party, all without knowing much about them other than their class. This forced me to restart my game entirely as I just couldn’t stand Charlotte, the game’s only healer. Her “bwaby tawking dwove me mwad…” and I just couldn’t deal with her dialogue and voice acting. I opted for Reisz as my main, with Angela and Kevin as my backup companions, wishing I had picked Duran instead of Kevin, but this revelation was several hours in and I wasn’t about to restart the game yet again. Right off the bat, the voice acting is atrociously bad. I grew up during the time when voice acting first found its way into the industry and this is some of the worst I’ve ever heard. I’ll post this clip here from my own playthrough and frankly, I laugh my ass off every time I see this. It’s awful and is a great example of what you’ll expect here almost consistently.
#NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/0Swfxb91Q8
— ASG-Screenshots (@AsgScreenshots) May 6, 2020
The best way Trials of Mana could have dealt with choosing the party this time around would have been us picking our main character and then meeting the rest in the first town. Most of them are there anyway and this would have prevented a great deal of time spent replaying the opening chapter all over again if one voice or personality clashed with your team or drove you insane, such as Angela’s high pitch squeal whenever she jumps, or Kevin’s method of stilted dialogue delivery. If I had the chance to pick my team over again, I likely would have swapped out Kevin for Duran and still stomached Angela’s squeals as her magic abilities are jaw-droppingly fun. Again, this IS a fun game, I just have plenty of issues with it.
Now while Dragon Quest XI and Trials of Mana share in its story and some endgame moments, not to mention the mini-medals and Lil’ Cactus collectible stamp sheet, the overall gameplay is thankfully different across all fronts. Whereas DQ11 was turned based, Trials of Mana is a real-time action RPG where you’ll run around attacking enemies on the battlefield at your discretion. You’ll equip armor and weapons, upgrade your stats, unleash a series of flashy class attacks, or wield a vast array of magical spells. Combat is easily the game’s finest asset and considering you’ll be doing a lot of it for nearly 30+ hours, it should better be. In regards to how combat has changed since the original, there are some noticeable improvements to the sprite-based combat towards to the full 3D antics you’ll get into here. You can jump to attack airborne threats, lock on to enemies to prevent the camera from not really knowing what to do in most encounters, to being able to perform light and heavy attacks, letting you bash in some energy shields with a nice charged attack. You can dodge roll as well, allowing you to escape some last-second strikes. Best of all, combat feels enjoyable and you’re always able to attack or heal without having to wait for cooldowns.
You can freely swap to each of the three characters during battle, performing their special attacks or using the D-pad to bring up a scroll wheel of items and spells. While not a big issue, I do wish you could swap during special attacks to rig up some character to character combo’s, but since combat comes to a halt during these moments anyway, it’s something that just isn’t feasible. The AI built into your teammates is decent enough, but you can set up behaviors for your companions, such as how often they consume healing items or if they hold onto their special energy gauge long enough to perform the correct attacks. It’s not as in-depth as Final Fantasy XII, but it gets the job done.
As you level up, you’ll earn skill points which can then be placed into different stats to unlock more spells, abilities, and perks. You’ll only be able to equip a few at the start but as you unlock more classes, you’ll unlock more space to equip more of these abilities. Eventually, your character becomes a powerhouse and is able to hold their own in battle, especially if you’ve chosen, like me, to leave Charlotte out of your party. There is a wide range of buffs and debuffs to equip to make you almost indestructible, with the quick ability to snack down on some chocolate to get your health back up. Combat is certainly fun and while other games have recently done the real-time thing a bit better, I still have to give props to how fun it is to throw down here.
There are 9 different classes for each character, that are tiered one through four, with even the characters themselves saying “Class 4” despite it sounding like its breaking the fourth wall, pun not intended. Now, the problem with your classes is that they are built around no clear understanding on how to reach certain end goals for what class you eventually want further down the road. Even trying to evolve to your third class is largely RNG as you’ll require “??? seeds” to transform into one of the available classes. The seeds are somewhat hard to come by as you’ll likely find a dozen of them out in the world and the rest can be farmed from tougher enemies. For that, I recommend the Queen Bees in the Woods of Wandara. After you’ve gathered those seeds, you’ll need to plant them in a pot at an Inn and let RNG dictate if they turn into the class item you need for the class you want. Unfortunately, these seeds are item locked on pick-up, meaning you can’t keep loading the same save and expecting different results; I tried reloading my save over a dozen times and still got the same result on every single seed. This method prevented me from getting any class item for Reisz even after planting down 18 seeds with getting 3 to 4 duplicates for class items for the other members of my party. I eventually got a class item for her on my 19th seed, but it wasn’t the one I wanted and decided I would just carry on via a class I didn’t want for her. Thankfully, the fourth class item is a guaranteed drop and involves a very simple series of quests. It’s worth noting that the fourth class is exclusive to the remake and was not part of the original.
One of the disappointing parts of the story is that several villains are introduced to create this sense of the cards being stacked against you. You’ll see half a dozen villains all being set up and featured as you keep pushing through the story. Now, with their being six characters, each character is paired up with another in order to dictate which of the final three bosses will be yours. This also changes which groupings of villains are there at the end, meaning several characters who will torment you in some form or fashion will be instantly written off in order for you to push through the game again as other characters to eventually get your revenge. It just comes off as feeling lazy and passionless. Say what you want about FF7 changing its story and diving deeper into certain characters, but it works, and you can feel how passionate that development team was in recreating that world.
Now, one thing that does work here is the banter between certain teams, voice acting aside. I enjoyed the fact that there were custom conversations based on my team choice. Each pairing of characters with others and pushing through the story will unlock more dynamic group chatter and frankly, I love when this happens. Hearing this type of stuff reminds me of games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age. Again, the voice acting is often appalling, but I have to give kudos to the team for going the extra step here and offering this added layer of depth.
Now, another few issues I have with Trials of Mana is that near the start of the game you’ll encounter your first Elemental Spirit and it’ll be told to you that you’ve unlocked the capability for new spells and attacks, but these are not accessible until much later on in the game, but it doesn’t tell you this. It’s rather confusing and a simple line of text could have made all the difference. Also, while you can equip weapons, armor, and various trinkets, you’ll only find a single new weapon as you discover new towns. Instead of a variety with different stats, these feel more like end-chapter rewards than anything resembling any sort of freedom around customization. The stuff you’ll find as the story progresses will get all-around better and even when you find shops later that have two options for you, one is clearly better than the other with no reason whatsoever to buy the second option. While you’ll find the odd weapon out and about during combat via chests that are scattered around, it’s very rare you find a weapon drop and instead some piece of candy or chocolate, both adequate healing items you’ll horde plenty of.
One of the new changes that may or may not upset fans of the original is the inclusion of a waypoint system. In the original, you found your way by reading the dialogue, listening for clues, and sometimes, lucking out that you interacted with that one rock at that right time. Here, your destination is spelled out for you, taking away all guessing and allowing the game’s progress to be illustrated to you. Personally, I loved this direction as it allowed me to stay focused on what I needed to do, but I do wish there was a way to disable it to allow those that want that sense of adventure to be something they can experience.
Visually, Trials of Mana is decent enough with some alright animations and character designs. I still find it a bit odd that enemies almost glow off the environment, and ignore any shading or time of day color to them. It makes them stand out, but it just looks odd seeing bright colorful creatures in dank and dark caves. The soundtrack is decent enough, with a few pretty decent tracks, I just wish it didn’t feel so repetitive in some locations. I played through the adventure about half and half with it being docked and handheld and apart from some blurry textures, the game ran very smooth across both formats. The blurry textures are not as noticeable when played in handheld, so I’d recommend keeping your Switch in your hands for this one.
Trials of Mana is what happens when you ignore that time has gone by and you produce a shot for shot remake. Sure, it can satisfy those that want that, but it makes it hard for newcomers to get attached to it in the same way, especially releasing it a year after the original hit the west. It’s also unfortunate that Dragon Quest XI pretty much took the entire story and ran with it years ago, making many of the events of this game far too predictable when certain events start playing out. I think the characters here are ok, with no one really standing out as being memorable and that’s unfortunate. While much of this review has been nagging on poorly implemented aspects of the game, the combat is still really fun and engaging, and can certainly make other parts of the adventure a bit easier to swallow. Frankly, I’d still recommend Dragon Quest XI, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, or YS: Lacrimosa of Dana over this game in a heartbeat, but given it has a somewhat budget price and a demo to at least try, It’s still a title I can at least recommend, sort of.
Trials of Mana was purchased by the reviewer and played on a Nintendo Switch.
All screenshots were taken on a Nintendo Switch.