So After I finally did all the post game stuff in Trials of Mana like unlocking Class 4, Best Gear, a bunch of chain abilities (universal skills any character can equip and it effects the entire party), maxing out characters and unlocking new game plus I kinda don’t wanna play through it again. Or at least not for a while.
I just tried to start a new game plus with Kevin as my main protagonist and remembering all these issues I have with the story, world and pacing I decided not to go forward with the play through.
I feel like the concept of the game (playing through all 6 heroes to get the full scope of the story and world) was such a revolutionary concept at the time but now-a-days with how the game paces itself with the perspectives it feels like a horrible disjointed mess to the point of unplayable at times.
Despite not even putting in 45 hours into the game I had to take several breaks due to how frustrated I was to the disjointedness and aimlessness of the story and pacing.
I’ll meet people at random or events will happen with absolutely no context or reason why they’re happening and you just kinda have to accept it. There is no real lore behind Mana being in the world, why it’s in the world or why it’s important except Faerie constantly yelling at you about it being important. Also the plot twists towards the end were eye rolling due to not being explained, foreshadowed or even elaborated on why they happened.
The world also doesn’t even feel like a world until you get your first form of fast travel, the giant Kappa. Even then your exploration doesn’t really get better until you get your last traveling mount.
I know all this would likely change as I played more play throughs but I’m so frustrated and but also disinterested in the story that I don’t care to find out.
Lastly, I feel the characters are very wooden. I think this is due to how lazy Squee was with facial animations and how bad the biggest majority of the voice cast seemed to have little to no direction on how these characters should act. However, the few times they did show personality and the VA’s did show range in their acting it was really great. I absolutely love whoever voiced Charlotte.
All that said: here’s what I did like and the in-betweens
I really, really, really like the combat system. It flows perfectly when going in and out of it. Hitting feels good due to dynamic camera when you activate a class art as well as the Switch’s HD Rumble. Magic feels important due to casting time and you being vulnerable while doing so. The combat was easily my favorite part of the game. I played as Duran as my main protagonist but I consistently found myself switching to Hawkeye and Reisz due to them being just as fun to play.
I found the Item Pot mechanic very interesting. Getting various upper tier and ultimate equipment through it was a nice way to make getting these items not a total fucking chore via side quests, fetch quest and mini-games.
However, I really do wish there were some sort of side-quests, Fetch quests or something important to do outside of the main story. There are some like finding the right NPC’s to give you chain abilities, and the li’l cacti that you find to unlock perks like free inn stays, discounts at shops, etc and one Uber boss. But that’s about it.
All-in-all I don’t feel like the bad outweigh the good. Cause the game is there. It’s fun. It’s very engaging through the games character building mechanics and battle system mechanics. There is a lot going on, but also not enough to keep me wanting to play the game. Namely the disjointed story, lack of lore and pacing.
I think I feel so disappointed or underwhelmed with the game since I’ve never played the game in its entirety until now but have known since I was a teen that this is such a beloved game. Its consistently in top 5, top 10 lists of SNES RPG and RPG’s in general. So to get what I got while being great I was left wanting so much more despite loving what I got.
Verdict: low 7.
Edit: I’m actually going to start it when I wake up but I decided this will be my next game
I’m going to try to make it a habit of playing a short to medium length non-rpg “cool down” game in-between each rpg (or time heavy game in general) I play so I’m not continually playing time sinks and so I can shrink my backlog quicker.