Only exposure I’ve had to somewhat overlooked Mana series so far has been Legend on PS1, and having now played this Trials of Mana remake I wish I was there for the original back in the day. Not because the remake is bad in its own right or anything like that, however. Rather to see what lasting impact it may have left on audiences of the time.

After watching a mercifully short into stating the Tree of Mana is not doing so well, and it dying would lead to magic disappearing from the world, you realize something is amiss here. You get to choose your own party from six available characters. By “choose” I mean a lead, who will determine which storyline you’re on, and two others. Storyline? Yes, that’s what makes Trials stand out – there’s the main story, but characters are divided into pairs so two characters share a common antagonist and their associated bits of the game. Striving to make a sensible party I chose Duran the warrior, Angela the magician and Hawkeye the thief. Little did I know two of them were on the same page in wanting to deal with the Crimson Wizard who has affected their kingdoms negatively. Every character gets a short prologue establishing their motivation, and then you proceed to recruit the other two somewhere along your journey.

Certainly a refreshing setup which also makes it somewhat difficult to talk about the story, given I’ve only played the route where Duran + Angela get the spotlight. No matter who you picked you’re approached by a distressed Faerie suggest you help each other out. Getting more than a simple passage through a sealed cave you end involved in a world-ending threat. Game did get a good chuckle out of me when Duran set out wanting to get stronger after his king tells him “you gotta change your class, boy”. I expected some narrative fluff, but he straight up tells him how it is. Angela and Hawkeye, comparatively, leave their kingdoms under much greater duress.

This is where you could raise a valid question of should a remake stick to the original in aspects where it could perhaps improve upon? Because you can definitely tell Trials is remaking a SNES title. This translates to a condensed 20-ish hours long experience that could have perhaps ended up inflated into some open world monstrosity, but at the same you also get barebones, well, everything, in the narrative department. Characters are just archetypes with hints of something under the surface while story is the definition of formulaic. That’s before it gets repeated with you re-visiting the same locations, mind you. Entire affair has you being lead by the objective marker even when you have the perceived freedom to choose your next destination. I would like to point out this is not necessarily bad, and is actually quite a change of pace compared to modern games where everything has to be convoluted and over-designed, but you either like or can’t stand that simplicity so know what you’re getting yourself into.

Before I get to combat it should be pointed out game is presented as locations on the overworld which you eventually get to travel across. Takes a good while before it opens up and until then you’ll be trudging along figuring out how separate locales connect. You get your typical towns to rest and shop for weapons/armor/items at contrasted by adventure fields where combat is met. I found these to be designed just right. Not too big and not too small. Corridors they are, but with enough leeway and enemy density to not make you groan.

There are two standouts when it comes to collectibles in the game: Li’l Cactus who hides herself in almost every location prompting you to get her stamps for rewards and seeds. These seeds you plant in pots at the Inn and they instantly grow to sprout items for you. With seed quality and pot level in mind you can keep a steady supply of curatives, and even some gear on the ready. I saw it as more of a bonus than something you must do or you’re missing out. Except those ??? seeds which you need to to change classes. Speaking of….

Remembering I didn’t play the original, combat changes are not exactly something I can comment on, but had you told me this was a 1:1 adaptation you would’ve easily fooled me. You get your light and heavy attack, but besides mana key resource you manage are CS crystals you use to fire off your Class Strike ability. You get them by, shocker, collecting blue crystals enemy spew out when hit. Mana is something you restore with items, all healing goodies in the game are candies of sorts, but CS you re-fill by being aggressive and fighting enemies. It’s a free-flowing resource meant to be used. In terms of how you actually get to customize your chosen heroes it comes down to stats. You get a varied number of points upon each level up and allocate them. Not as simple since every character can invest into every stat, but each character gets different active or passive skills out of. This means STR is not necessarily useless to Angel the magician even though it won’t turn her into a threat-gobbling tank like it will to Duran. Or how SPR gives Duran of all people healing capabilities not even a magic powerhouse like Angela gets. It’s worth considering how to spread your points.

Except that can be somewhat difficult as you can’t see the entire stat ability list given it gradually reveals itself as your character progresses. I’m talking about changing classes. Every character gets a choice between Light and Dark, first change at lvl 18. This is the big character-defining moment you’ll get to do once again at lvl 38, although then it will require a specific special item acquired from aforementioned ??? seeds. Better pray you get the specific one you want. Not only does a new class change your character’s appearance, so far only weapons would be shown, but also open up additional CS’ and grant new active abilities. Thankfully, you can reset, but item involved is even scarcer than some class ones. It’s not DLC per se, but remake adds post-game content which includes one final class change and overtly long dungeon that reeks of tacked-on.

In case the above has you looking for guides, don’t. Silver lining is that Trials of Mana is an easy game on default difficulty. I died only two times: because my entire party got petrified in ten seconds and when party AI was so set on bailing they would walk into all the telegraphed attacks of a certain pattern-based boss. Yes, real final boss of the game is your companion AI. Original game apparently had co-op which is sadly now gone, but you can switch between three characters as well as given direct commands for items/abilities. Even with a tactics-like menu where you can determine their behavior, there is still no way to tell them directly to MOVE WAY FROM DANGER which becomes bigger and bigger problem as you keep playing. Enemies will telegraph their attacks in combat arenas and it’s no problem for your character, but its a total toss of the coin for your companions.

I would usually squeeze the production stuff in the final paragraph, but it warrants separate discussion in this case. Let me be perfectly clear on something. I’m not the kind of “subs vs dub” kind of guy and people should be free to play games however they wish, but what went happened with English VA? Did they use the game to debut a lot of would-be voice actors? Have open table for amateurs? Mana spirits got hit especially hard, but not even some of the main characters were safe. Let’s just say I lucked out picking Duran. If this is a breaking point for you just remember that Japanese VA is included.

Lastly, production proper. For a game that was never localized back in the day and remains fairly obscure as Seiken Densetsu 3 this is a mind-blowing effort which seemingly came out of nowhere. I guess the Japanese audience really likes the original. We’re not talking AAA values here and people can debate “anime” visuals, but quality is consistent throughout while maintaining the chosen aesthetic. Soundtrack is somewhat lacking which can once again be attributed to it being an orchestral version of the original. You can actually toggle the original in the options if that’s your thing.

Final Thoughts and Rating?

Remaking a SNES action RPG was never going to be straightforward, and Trials of Mana has its ups as well as downs. Marketing itself on choosing a party of three out of six characters upon which certain storylines will turn out differently, this is a game that warrants multiple playthroughs to see every minute change. Not even dubious English voice acting could sway me from the class changing mechanic as you pray to RNG gods those ??? seeds sprout you the items you need. Is there something wrong with a game that sticks so closely to the original? At least narratively, that is. Trials of Mana ends up being a game with now formulaic story, archetypal characters and barebones combat... all of which somehow works because game knows precisely what it’s modernizing and how to go about it.