After playing extensively over the past few days, Visions of Mana has me captivated to a degree that not many other games this year or in recent memory, made me feel. To say that this is one of my happiest moments of gaming this year is a stone-cold fact.
I’ve been playing Mana since the SNES days and to see its return to modern audiences while appealing to old gamer heads like me is just awesome to see. Based on what I’ve played and where it’s heading, Visions is turning out to be one of the better JRPGS to be released not only for this year, but in the past few years!
Your adventure begins as you play a soul guard named Val, who accompanies Hiina, the chosen alm of fire, on a pilgrimage to the Mana Tree. A journey that all alms must complete to ensure the fate of the world and the Mana Tree are protected.
It is a simple story that really delves deeply into the personal relationships of your characters. I am loving the characters that are joining me on my journey, the game does such a great job in developing these characters and the relationships that they have with each other as well as detailing the burden of responsibility of sacrifice needed in the journey ahead. It’s a bit of a slow burn. The story eventually takes some longer strides as you progress in the main story, but I have no clear issue other than it being very safe.
The voice acting is fine, but admittedly, it’s sometimes borderline cringe. At moments I had to pause and reflect to myself that these are how most JRPGs characters sound like, they are unique to the JRPG genre. Being a traditional JRPG doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad thing. In this game, tradition fights with modern-day sensibilities and voice acting are one fight that really doesn’t do much to evolve the genre. One thing I’ve learnt about this game is that it doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel to be a great game.
The presentation of the game is just stunning as you explore the beautifully detailed and varied locales. The game itself isn’t necessarily open world, however it is open when you visit a new area and there are many areas that you visit that vary from small sections to big wide and open environments. It’s one of those situations where you can either make the most of your time with the game and go hard with exploring or you can go less and mainline it to the next story moment. Either way, the game provides enough opportunity for both playstyles.
I also want to highlight the choice at the beginning of the game, I highly encourage the choice of Performance mode, reason being is the inconsistent frame rate, with performance mode I noticed it was a lost smoother yet still being able in maintaining its sharp and beautiful art style. It felt just like I was playing an Anime, and I think that this art style is a great direction for the Mana series.
The different locations on offer is what drew me heavily into the game; the vistas and areas are fantastic, even in moments where all you do is take a moment, chill out and look around the beautifully crafted world. It’s rich in colour and variety, heavily adding further context to the world-building, which I feel the game does exceptionally well. It’s full of JRPG goodness, even if it’s all a bit familiar.
While I have fawned over the beauty of the game, there are quite a few things to do within the world. As you travel around, there are hundreds of treasure chests or little highlighted treasure spots, that litter your mini map. One can tackle the main objectives and mainline the game or get lost in the absurd amount of side quests that you can complete and just maximise your time with the game. Mini games and side quests are not to the degree of FF7 Rebirth‘s insane amount of side content, but there is enough available to you if you choose to adventure off the beat track.
I mentioned the influences of Final Fantasy, specifically the newer FF7 instalments. Vision of Mana keeps the combat action focused and real-time, heavily inspired by the FF real-time battle system and its own history with real-time battle systems. You can see the monsters in the world, and as you make your way through the story, you simply attack them, and battles take place in a small cordoned-off ‘bubble section’, using a mix of light and heavy attacks, magic, items as well as special flashy attacks akin to the limit breaks to defeat your enemies.
Each character can be fitted with weapons and gear, but gear can be locked behind a job class system that allows a great degree of flexibility. Changing classes is simple and effective as you try and mix and match what works best for your small team. Each class then has its own skill tree, which you can upgrade. What I loved about this is also how the designs are a throwback to the 16-bit games; it’s fun to see and just another reason how the game is very respectful of what came before. As a Mana fan, there are many throwbacks and easter eggs for nostalgic Mana fans like myself.
The battle systems may seem complex, but they are easily explained and highly addictive to unlock once you are fully invested in the story and levelling up for that next upgrade. Like any great RPG, if the battle and upgrade systems are solid, which they are, then you’re in for a damn fun time! Mana delivers this on a continuous basis.
Nostalgia is a key word here, when I play this game, it makes me feel like I’m playing the original mana game for the first time, the combat is addictive, the visuals are gorgeous and the story while not its strongest point, is simple and effective. The strongest compliment I can give it is it makes me want to come back and play this game every moment I’m not playing. An exceptionally well-made JRPG and a perfect entry into the Mana series for those looking to finally dive headfirst into this great and beloved franchise. The Mana games are finally back, and Visions of Mana is what I hope will be the first of many to come.
My journey isn’t done with this game, and I know that I have quite a bit more to go. It is a little bit bigger than I expected, which is a good thing because I genuinely don’t want it to end.
