I’ve been itching like a kid with severe allergies for a new Japanese roleplaying game to sink a few dozen hours into. Other than Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth and Unicorn Overlord, the genre has had a rather sparse 2024 outside of some disappointing titles such as Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes and a handful of great remakes like Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door.
The next big JRPG is Visions of Mana, the latest entry in Square Enix’s hit-and-miss action-based series that began way back in 1991 with Final Fantasy Adventure and Secret of Mana in 1993. Its announcement trailer, shown at the Game Awards last December, made it look like a delightfully colorful adventure, yet given that the series hasn’t had a good game since the 1990s, I’m rather worried it’ll be a mediocre quest that fails to satisfy my JRPG itch.
Thankfully, Square Enix just dropped a demo for Visions of Mana, so I sat down for about 2 hours to play through an expansive area, learn about the cast, get a tantalizing snippet of the narrative, and see whether or not I should have Visions of Hope that it’ll be any good.
Unfortunately, once the demo ended, I came away exactly as skeptical and unsure as I was before I played it. Let me explain:
I have a love-hate relationship with JRPGs. They frequently fall back on annoying tropes that get in the way of strategic combat and ridiculously epic narratives set in fantastical worlds, and Visions of Mana looks poised to trip right into that hole.
The Visions of Mana demo takes place in three areas: the icy-cold Rime Falls, the vibrantly green Fallow Steppe, and a cozy little port town bespeckled with blue-leaved trees. Despite some draw-distance issues, both areas brought to mind the colorful pastures of a game like Genshin Impact or Immortals: Fenix Rising. Say what you will about either of those games, but they’re both visual treats.
If Visions of Mana matches the 2020 Trials of Mana remake’s 20-hour runtime, I could see myself getting quite a lot of enjoyment traveling to vivid locale after vivid locale alone.
However, if the rest of the game has as much inane chatter between overly stylized anime tropes for characters, I might not make it that far. When the demo opens at Rime Falls, the four protagonists discuss the cold, snowy weather for a little bit too long. These protagonists are Earnest Hero Who Protects His Friends (Val), Naive But Kind-Hearted Healer (Hinna), Calm And Collected Veteran (Morley), and a Whiny Comic Foil (Careena).
There’s obviously time for their character arcs to subvert expectations here in some way, yet I’ve found my enjoyment of plenty of RPGs sapped by thin but recognizable archetypes like this. The rest of the demo didn’t dissuade my fear that this would be the case either, with a little skit near the end of the demo where Careena is accused of stealing from a local magistrate, prompting her to throw a tantrum while Val and friends follow a quest marker to solve the problem.
Neither Careena’s fit nor the 30 seconds it took me to walk across town and press a button made me excited to play the full game, nor did the sidequests I took part in, which were standard fetch-quest fare, complete with requiring you to return to the quest giver for your reward no matter how far away.
That said, as the party boarded a boat to travel to another area, they spoke a little bit about how they’re on their way to sacrifice themselves to the Mana Tree in order to protect their individual peoples, with Val serving as an honor guard of sorts. That tickled my penchant for overly dramatic setups, and I do hope they roll with themes of sacrifice.
I did also see some promise with the action-based combat. As much as I prefer my JRPGs turn-based, Visions of Mana’s combat is rather kinetic, making every whack with Val’s greatsword on Rabites and Beelancers a weighty, satisfying experience. More powerful elite-type enemies felt a little bit too much like damage sponges; however, there’s a lot of different classes to unlock and switch between. It’s not something I got to experience in the demo, but it gives me hope that proper builds would lead to melting these foes.
When the Visions of Mana demo concluded after defeating a kraken—because would it even be a JRPG if you didn’t get assaulted by a kraken while sailing?—I came away just as uncertain about Visions of Mana as I was when I first saw the reveal trailer all those months ago. Vivid environments and some satisfying combat can certainly carry a game, yet at the same time, asinine dialogue and boring quests can completely derail a JRPG. Either way, I’m looking forward to finding out which way Visions of Mana swings at the end of August.
Visions of Mana will be available on August 29.
Published: Aug 1, 2024 10:49 am