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Collection of Mana Discussion (Nintendo Switch) [game]
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06/11/19, 20:11 Edited: 06/11/19, 20:12
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Zero said:AW YEAH! Haters of Mana aside (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) |
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My physical collection came in (previously I was playing it on my sister-in-law's digital version) and I've finally finished Final Fantasy Adventure! So, it's an interesting game for sure. I think I largely agree with @Zero's overall thoughts. Let's start with the bat: the dungeons can feel like a slog, especially after the rather varied first third or so of the game. There are puzzles that are supremely obtuse, and this is coming from a Legend of Zelda (NES) fan. Things like buttons not having consistent properties, having to step on buttons in a specific (arbitrary) order, having a finite number of mattocks to break walls that are sometimes arbitrary (although I later found out that you can do the Zelda trick of hitting a wall with your sword to see if it's breakable), and the always-annoying risk of running out of keys mid-dungeon. This means there's the strong possibility of a lot of backtracking to all but the most prepared players, and the dungeons are also lacking a clear flow--they're full of dead-ends and same-y rooms, and your map gets reset if you save and quit. In addition, the enemies are placed haphazardly, making rooms feel crowded, the hit detection is spotty and there seems to be a bit of randomness in how many hits each foe can take, even accounting for the stamina meter at the bottom. You can also just walk past most enemies since there are very few doors that require room clears. Many foes are resistant to most of your weapons, and sometimes what a foe is vulnerable to doesn't feel intuitive to figure out. There's also that Link's Awakening problem where there aren't enough buttons, but it requires far more switching here, due to magic and items (including Keys!) sharing a single button. By the end of the game I was ready for it to wrap up. Sounds like a huge, primitive headache, right? HOWEVER... FFA also does a lot of stuff really well. For starters, it's massive for a Game Boy game--this came out in 1991, two years before Link's Awakening, but a lot of moments are definitely channeling the Zelda series, occasionally to the point where it feels like a Game Boy sequel to Zelda 1. It's got an overworld that's exactly as big as LA's in terms of number of screens, and plenty of dungeons to boot (I might say too many dungeons!). There's a rather crazy amount of enemy variety; there are over 70 baddies in the game, which is kind of bonkers! Even more impressive is the rogue's gallery of over 20 bosses, most of them quite challenging and rewarding to beat. The weaponry is really varied too, and the spellcasting works pretty okay. The soundtrack is really quite good. Some of the dungeon themes grate a tad, as does the "status ailment" music, but most of the OST is adventurous, emotional and well-written. One of the better Game Boy soundtracks for sure. And the story! Pretty simple, kind of poorly translated, but surprisingly effective. There's this one moment with Medusa Tears that'll hit you right in the heart. And that ending is seriously bittersweet, with extra bitter. So overall, this game kinda reminds me of Lufia 1 in some ways. Sort of archaic and can be annoying to deal with, but when all is said and done, I have good memories of it thanks to an engaging story, a lovely soundtrack and a lot of ambition. Onward to Secret of Mana! |
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Finished Trials of Mana. OVERALL I'd say it is a solid Secret of Mana sequel, that does a few things better than Secret of Mana, while also feeling like it doesn't live up in some ways. It's honestly hard to compare the two though. Secret of Mana was literally my first RPG ever, way back in what... I didn't play it RIGHT when it came out, but soon after... maybe 1994 or 1995? So here I am nearly 25 years later playing the sequel. How crazy is that?! But yeah I mean, my first ever RPG will always be full of nostalgia. And playing an RPG years after it was made will always feel a little antiquated. So, tough to compare. But I'll try. First things first, what does it do better? For starters, they removed the the thing for basic attacks where you have to wait for a meter to refill to get a good whack in. Now you can just whack away at an enemy as fast as you can jam the button (more or less), and it fills up a special meter, which you can use for a super attack. Makes the basic combat much more satisfying. Another thing it does better is it introduces some choice of characters (each with their own class) at the beginning of the game, and who you choose affects the story. There is also a class upgrade system for each character type, where after awhile you can upgrade to one of two new classes (light / dark), and then later on you can upgrade again, making a total of 4 final classes (light / light, light / dark, dark / light, dark / dark). I checked a guide to see what the pros and cons of each was, since the game tells you NOTHING. Where it falls short feels a bit subjective to me, but in my eyes the music of Secret of Mana was super important to the experience, and the music in Trials, while solid, just doesn't feel as good for the most part. I'd probably also say the story didn't grab me as much, although this is probably SUPER subjective, since Secret of Mana was my first ever RPG so I was probably just stunned by a game with a long story, period. And then there is a bunch of stuff that probably holds true for both games, but I notice more now than I maybe did in the past. For one, like 95% of the battle system is just jamming the attack button. There really isn't much variety. You can do some spells and such but they tend to take more time than they are worth if you're not fighting a boss. Mapping spells to a button instead of having to go into a menu to do them might have solved that. I'd also say, there are big chunks of the game that have almost no real story. Go see the 8 things. Go destroy the other 8 things. Etc. Once you start one of these things, it's going to be a long time before you get any real story motivation again other than just cycling through them all. I also got lost a lot and had to resort to a FAQ, there are only so many places you can walk to on the map, but there are a lot of different ways to transport and it gets confusing keeping track of how to get around and where you need to go. Often a character would just say "go back to Town X" and I have no idea which of the many towns I have been to that is or how to get back to it. Finally, if you pick the wrong characters, which I think I did?, you might need to level up a fair amount. Not a ton, but a few times I definitely needed to level up to stand a chance. Kind of true of most RPGs but still worth noting. But still, it's a fun game, it has great retro graphics and a solid (if not as good as the original) soundtrack. Nice characters. It has multiplayer. It's not overly long like a lot of modern RPGs are (it took me about 25 hours to complete.) For a big Secret of Mana fan it was nice to finally get to play the follow-up. Didn't blow me away, but was nice. PS. I probably wasn't SUPPOSED to do this exactly, but I needed to test out our school's new eSports table so I actually beat the final boss at work, lol. |
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Late to the party, but I came in here to post my thoughts. I've never played a Mana game. I've been eyeing up Secret of Mana for close to a decade, but never bit. It just gives me this strong sort of 7/10 impression where it feels like I know exactly what to expect; nothing will be particularly bad or great. But then I saw Seiken Densetsu 1 and 3. 3 is this artistic spectacle that does amazing things within the limits of the Super Nintendo. Meanwhile 1 is this charming, ambitious little GB title. And I'm always interested in games that push the limits of these older systems. So I'm on board. I was gonna pop in to post my thoughts now that I'm half way through the first game. But Tbun perfectly described what I was thinking. I will note, though, that this game feels like the missing link between Link's Awakening and For Frogs the Bell Tolls. Speaking of, has anyone played that game? It's pretty simple, but has this really goofy likability that won me over. @Secret_TunnelI hear Alundra on the Genesis fits the Zelda-y sort of mold with some RPG elements. I haven't played it though, so take that with a grain of salt. I thought Battle for Olympus on the NES was gonna scratch that Zelda 2 sort of itch, but that game did nothing for me. @TriforceBunI found a really great video review of the SoM remake, if you're interested. Basically, the jump to a cheap 3D style lost a lot of the care and artistry that went into giving the original its unique identity. Kind of like if you were to change the art style of Wind Waker and redo the soundtrack in a bunch disparate genres. I personally have no interest in the remake. The original is an audio-visual spectacle that's unlike any other SNES game I've seen. It looks so damn impressive. I can't wait to play it once I get through the first 2 titles. |
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I preordered the collection back when it was announced, paid full price for it, then didn't play it until it had been discounted for less than half price multiple times, because I'm a dummy. Still happy to have supported the Mana series, I guess.
I grew up with Final Fantasy Adventure, so without being blind to its flaws, I know them well enough to navigate past them almost intuitively. It was great playing it again after not touching it for so long, and I'm glad to see newcomers seem to feel it mostly holds up.
Karen and I just played through Trials of Mana (we played Secret of Mana on the Virtual Console so we skipped it on this collection). It's a definite improvement, gameplay-wise, compared to Secret: the weapons and spells leveling up with use was a good concept on paper, but in practice forced you to spam the same spell over and over again near a town, just so it would be effective when you needed them (i.e. only against bosses). Trials does away with that mechanic, for the better.
I also found the navigation annoying, as we were often unsure where we were supposed to go and, when we did know, seldom knew how to get there. The game desperately needed a map accessible at all times. But ultimately, we'd manage to find our way eventually, and resorted to guides less often than you'd think.
I think the bigger sin of this game is that it fails to tell you how much your choices at the beginning will impact the rest of the game. The latter half can be much more difficult depending on your party composition. Also, your characters change classes twice in the game, and the second time is determined by a random drop. We tried farming that drop for a while, realized it would take forever to get the classes we actually wanted, so we made do with what we had and headed for the final boss. I'm still kind of bitter about it: it's not so much that the game was so much harder because I didn't get the character classes that I wanted, but more that it's a really dumb design decision that could been avoided so easily.
Overall though, it was a blast. In these times "social distancing", if you're stuck inside with someone willing to give an action RPG a shot, you could do a lot worse. It's not the ideal co-op experience: if one or both of you play as a spellcaster, you'll constantly interrupt the flow of the gameplay. Thankfully, Karen showed a lot of patience despite me playing as Angela, who is useless without spells. In hindsight, I would have formed a party of three brawlers. |
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I have some really mixed feelings on Trials of Mana. I feel like technically, it's definitely better than Secret of Mana. I played the original version of ToM back in high school when this game's (Seiken Densetsu 3) fan translation hit the emulation scene. It's been really fun revisiting it. Here's my thoughts on its pros and cons. I'm about 11 hours into the adventure. I just saw the cutscene on Oblivisle and I believe we need to head back to Laurent to regroup.
+ The graphics are definitely better. This is a top tier SNES game. The backgrounds are richly detailed and dense with color. It's sometimes hard to spot where tiles have been repeated. Special effects look really fantastic, using a mix of some kind of particle system and some pre-rendered effects. + Sound effects are great and reminiscent of other late SNES games like Chrono Trigger. + Music instruments are more varied than in Secret of Mana. This generally benefits the game, though many songs sound kind of 'soft' due to certain instrument selections. + Other touches make a lot of sense. I like the little round, yellow guys that let you skyrocket into the air, giving you a sense of where you are on the map. Secret of Mana's cannon system was always very disorienting. + The music is really good. I still think Secret of Mana has a better soundtrack, but this game has some great tracks. + The hit detection is way better. Enemies actually flash when you hit them, which is a godsend compared to Secret of mana. + You don't have to level everything up in this game, which is a relief.
But here's where I get a bit mixed on it:
- The story is somehow...worse than Secret of Mana? I mean, Secret of Mana has a really simplistic story, obviously, but I think that's what makes it work. This game's story has you keeping track of all the countries and their relationships to each other, and you don't really get the FULL story unless you replay the game multiple times. It's a little overwhelming, and generally makes me not care much about certain nuances of the story. - As said above, the music is really good, but I don't think it's as good as Secret of Mana. Mostly because of one thing - there's no ONE song that gets me really pumped. I kind of miss the other game's overusage of slap basses and snare drums, lol. - The progression of the game is a bit weird. This game feels more strictly linear than Secret of Mana. You basically go from a town and directly follow a path to the next boss fight. SoM at least had some kind of exploration, or maybe it was just better at creating the illusion of exploration. and STILL, in Trials, I find myself getting lost as to where to go next. Like its predecessor, it trips up on an old school gaming trope: You've done what you're supposed to do, but just haven't talked to the right NPC, or talked to them enough times, to trigger the next event. For a game released in like, 1995 or whatever, this is disappointing. - Combat is better, but also somehow worse? The hit detection is definitely better than Secret of Mana. However, I don't think I like how slow my characters are in battle. And since my AI characters are actually better than they were in Secret of Mana, this leads to our characters ganging up on enemies, making it sometimes difficult for me to tell what's going on. I often lose myself in the heat of battle. I also kind of liked charging up my weapon in SoM, which lead to lots of different attacks. It took forever, but was ultimately satisfying. - Maybe I didn't notice this in Secret of Mana, but I sometimes find it hard to tell when there's a door at the bottom of the screen, because my character's healthbar completely covers it. This leads me to another thing... - I think this game has WAY better art than Secret of Mana. The bosses especially, are breathtakingly good looking. HOWEVER, I do think this comes at a sacrifice - map readability. Sometimes I just have a hard time seeing what's a door, or what's an exit, or what is a tunnel. A couple of times throughout the game, I've gotten lost because I didn't realize there was a door on a certain screen. Square has gotten REALLY good at painting pixel art rocks with this game. So good, that the art sometimes just makes things a little difficult to see. - The character class thing is kind of confusing and overwhelming. I know this is just because of what era this game is from, but the game expects you to make some BIG decision making, without any idea of the ramifications of your decision. Should Angela become a Sorceress or a Mysticist? How the hell should I know? I just have to pick which name sounds cooler, I suppose. This is definitely a game that you'll have to do some research on while playing, which is unfortunate. The thing I like about Mana is that it was always kind of like...the simple man's approach to RPGs. - The menu system is a major step down from Secret of Mana. Not only does it take longer to enter the menu screen, but it takes forever to navigate, and you have to keep switching characters inside. It's nice to have more info on how your stats change, but I found the ring system in SoM much better. - I feel like this game could use a better fast travel system. I know you get the dragon at some point (I assume), but they really expect you to hoof it through some sections multiple times. I wish there was some better solution for this. The turtle is a fun addition, but it's very annoying when you land on a beach by accident, and then have to call him again. - The world map - Again, I still don't think this game is that successful with helping you to orient yourself in the world. When I play Final Fantasy 6 or Chrono Trigger, I know that map like the back of my hand eventually. I'm over 10 hours into Trials of Mana, and I honestly couldn't tell you how to find Jadd, Valsena, Altena, or half of these other locations. I blame this mainly on the fact that the game has you traveling via boats very early in the game. Since I can't 'retrace my steps' like I could in a Final Fantasy game, I'm kind of left in the dark as to where I am on the world map. This isn't the biggest complaint, but for a game like this, I think a connection to the world is kind of important. - Charlotte - I didn't pick her in my party, but even her minor appearances in the game are pretty annoying. - Villains - Secret of Mana was pretty simple here. You had your generic Empire guys like Geshtar (not to be confused with the guy from FF6),and Thanatos, and you kind of had some familiarity with the bad guys. In this game though...there's like, the Crimson Knight, Belladonna, the jester/skull guy, etc. I don't really know who half of these people are, and constantly forget their place in the story. And even playing as Duran, you'd think I'd have more of a through line with the Crimson Knight, but we've barely done anything with him all game. Our rivalry with him has turned into an afterthought, to say the least. - Even though you don't level up your magic like in the first game, it's a bit disappointing that your spells never really change, at least for a good portion of the game. My Gnome spell is the same as it was 5 hours ago. Maybe it levels up upon a class change, but so far, it seems to be the same as it was. This is one area in the game where gameplay is simpler, but somehow less satisfying.
I know that most of that is pretty nitpicky, but still, I feel like a lot of little things can effect the experience as a whole. Secret of Mana has really shitty hit detection, boss battles that go by in the blink of an eye, and an unforgiving safe system. I know it's mostly nostalgia, but I still think it's actually a better game, even though Trials of Mana does most things "technically" better.
At the end of the day, this game is really good, and I am generally disappointed that we haven't had more games like it over the past 20 years. I love action RPGs that are simple enough that I can jump into a good time, but are complex enough that I still need to apply some strategy to be successful. These games are really special because of that. I feel like most other attempts at this style of game (even in the same franchise), have just become more simple dungeon crawlers. I miss when these games were big, globe trotting adventures with fun characters and a decent enough story. |
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