Visions of Mana review for PS5, Xbox Series X, PC

When people start listing their favorite SNES-era RPG’s, chances are SquareSoft’s Secret of Mana is likely going to be somewhere near the top. It’s certainly one of my favorites on a system that had plenty of quality RPG’s to choose from. Secret of Mana’s world, combat, and music made for a grand experience, and it even offered co-op throughout the adventure which was a neat and underutilized idea in other RPG’s of the era. 

Since its release in 1993, SquareSoft, now Square Enix, has certainly tried to keep the series alive with varying degrees of success. However, there have only been a few of mainline follow-ups, with most of the other games that sport the Mana name being offshoots of a sort, like Legend of Mana or Children of Mana, which shy away from the action-RPG elements and tried to do something new or outside of the norm for action-RPG’s. There have been a whole host of mobile Mana games, a remake or two, and even the long-awaited western release of Trials of Mana in recent years. 

Unfortunately the quality of a lot of those Mana follow-ups and spin-offs has been questionable more often than not. So while I was excited to see Square Enix revisit the series with this release, Visions of Mana, I certainly had my expectations in check. Having now played through Visions of Mana for this review, I think that my expectations were also mostly met. It’s not an amazing RPG, and certainly doesn’t have the budget of something like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, but at the same time I felt compelled to complete the journey, and ultimately enjoyed playing through it. I wouldn’t whole-heartedly recommend it to everyone, but I think if you’re curious about it or have some affinity for the prior games in the series, you’ll likely get some enjoyment out of it. 

If you recall a couple years back Square Enix put out a handful of RPG’s that I’d argue were kind of mid-budget, like DioField Chronicles and Valkyria Elysium, and I think Visions of Mana slots into that level of quality as well. It definitely does its best to echo Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana, offering a similar, simple combat system but in a 3D, fairly open environment. You can swap between party members on the fly, even in the middle of combat, and series staples like enemy types (Hello Rabites!), the inventory wheel, and even the occasional, maniacally dancing merchant appear here. It all feels very familiar to anyone that has experience with the older Mana games, which is probably the best approach if you’re trying to get people excited for a new Mana game. 

There’s also a number of newer mechanics and ideas present too, which are solid additions. The basic gist of the plot, without giving out story details, is that the main character is tasked with being the Soul Guard for the Alms, which are individuals selected by a fairy who are required to make a pilgrimage to the Tree of Mana in order to appease the elemental spirits and keep their villages and homes from harm. What this means for the mechanics of the game, is that you’ll amass a party of characters that are generally focused on different elements, such as fire, wind, water, and so forth, and will have abilities or skills in line with those elements. However, you can equip an elemental plot to any character, which in turn will change that character’s class, possibly changing their weapon type as well. This allows for a decent amount of diversity, and essentially works as a job class in Vision of Mana. Each element has its own set of skills and abilities to unlock, some of which can carry over from class to class. 

While I like that the game implements some sort of job system, unfortunately the combat rarely feels like it takes advantage of your party’s diverse skill options. Most combat encounters are pretty basic, run up on a group of enemies in a field, enter combat, and have a limited field of movement to hack and slash your way to victory. Party members are AI controlled, and do well enough, but you can also switch between them in battle if you’d like more direct control. However, your ability to reliably dodge enemy attacks is pretty basic, and enemies don’t offer up much of a challenge on the default difficulty. Boss encounters are kind of basic, and feel more like damage sponges than any real type of threat to your party. While you may have a variety of spells at your disposal, you’ll rarely feel the need to employ them. As such, combat starts to feel like a chore, even early on, and there’s enough of it present in the game that it’ll start to drag down some of your enjoyment. 

Still, the charm of Visions of Mana manages to shine through. It’s not the most visually impressive game on any platform, but the colorful art style feels Mana appropriate, the soundtrack is solid if not quite as memorable as prior series entries, and the explorable world is larger than you’d expect, with lots of little chests and other items to find scattered about. I definitely did not hate my time with Visions of Mana, but it’s also not a game that feels like it’ll garner much mass appeal either. If you’re like me, and have fond memories of Mana games prior, then it’s worth checking out. For everyone else, there are plenty of RPG’s on the market that are more worth your time.