square Enix
Developer Ouka Studios’ Visions of Mana is presented with the seemingly impossible task of living up to gaudy expectations.
Visions of Mana, after all, is the first mainline entry in Square Enix’s beloved Mana series since 2006. It also attempts to touch on the latest generation of hardware during a refreshing renaissance of JRPG greatness.
The effort clearly comes with spectacular visuals and character designs. Yet the promised richness of the gameplay systems and overarching narrative will decide a lot about whether the revival is a comeback or is quickly forgotten by players in favor of the modern franchise that has captivated the audience.
Visions of Mana is both still framed and mostly in motion, when battles later in the game aren’t filled with visual effects.
The game is vibrant, colorful, and expressive at every turn, featuring the expected creative JRPG character designs in an anime style, a wide range of soldiers and innovations that keep things interesting.
It’s a feast for the eyes that never falls short across the various biomes. Beyond the interesting characters and NPCs, even the enemies encountered receive a fantastic amount of detail. In motion, details such as hair and fields of crops impress with realistic movement, while shadows, even in combat, often cross a realistic line in a way players might not expect from a game with these stylistic choices.
The sound design is also a plus point and even something as small as ambient noise adds to the lived-in feel of the world. The soundtrack is decent too, the voice-acting is mostly positive, even if the dialogue the actors were asked to speak isn’t always that engaging.
However, the bulk of Visions of Mana’s strength lies, as the name implies, in the visuals. Being out in the world is captivating in a painted-to-life way, with beautiful skyboxes and horizons stretching far into the distance waiting to be explored.
Unfortunately, the actual travel around the game’s world feels mediocre, even with mounts. Make no mistake, exploration is encouraged for the sake of progression and the vastness of the world, but at the same time, the mounts can be clunky, some of the voice lines can be repetitive, and much of it comes down to collection quests.
Beyond traversal, players form a team of three of the five playable characters. Combat features the expected JRPG tropes – battles are fast and furious with plenty of systems to manage, a party and enemy weaknesses to handle, etc. Meanwhile, players build up another genre staple in the form of a Class Strike gauge for strategic big-hitting supers.
These battle scenarios take place in real-time, with players free to move around the battlefield and take on enemies. The controls and systems are fairly easy to learn and there’s definitely a good fun aspect to it. But the amount of particle effects on the screen can make it hard to see at times and, as players might expect, the camera can also become an enemy to the player, leading to frustration.
But Visions of Mana puts its own mark on the main games with some interesting twists that remind players of things like job systems found in other games.
The largest are elemental ships, which can be used both in the world and in battles. In the former, they allow manipulation of the environment through nature, such as strong winds. In the latter, they allow players to transform characters into new classes.
This provides remarkable depth as each character has different classes for each elemental vessel. Said vessels offer dramatically different play styles that would feel similar to the standard classes found elsewhere. For example, the wood vessel can act as a healer through plants. The fire vessel can deal major damage over time effects, while the wind vessel can grab enemies, setting them up to deal damage to others.
Players will also have to handle party management through the companion’s strategy menu, setting the AI companions to prioritize offense, healing, or something else. But players can also switch between each of the three party members in real time, so being stuck on the main lead isn’t a good idea.
Boss battles are a highlight. Many are creative and come with unique attacks that keep players moving and engaged, such as area-of-effect attacks that deal damage.
If there’s one great thing about Visions of Mana’s combat, it’s that the systems in place emphasize strategy and don’t reward mindless button-pressing, at least in part. And there are a few of those bosses No Level Checks – This means that players won’t be able to advance beyond a certain level by simply getting past them. There are a few skill and party-composition checks that are nice to understand.
Visions of Mana, which is designed to be a story theme, will not appeal to all players.
The protagonist Val is a spirit protector assigned to protect Hina, the Goddess of Fire. Together, they set out to find the Mana Tree, as she is one of the “gods” who sacrifice their souls to empower the world’s mana once every four years.
It’s an all too familiar JRPG tale, that much can be said at least, yet the story is straightforward, perhaps even a little flawed.
It’s not loaded with information, but at the same time, it would be nice to see the characters at least a little introspective and concerned about falling into the latest “chosen one must sacrifice themselves for the good of the world” JRPG trope, let alone the weirdly cheerful, happy protector of the girl being sacrificed who is the main character. This… happens sometimes, but is quickly ignored and seemingly forgotten.
In addition, the game tries to establish the character fly The past, almost a blur. It’s as if, for some party members, there was a good idea for a well-rounded character, but the game ends their development in a hurry so that the player can then assign their own versions of the characters to their party members by the time they join.
And yes, some players will love its innocence, this world where people and nature are so interconnected that this is just the way things are. AreIt’s perfectly valid to want to engage with baseline positivity and enjoy the journey, but most players in 2024 won’t be able to do that.
The overall game progression is a bit complex, both in terms of execution and how confusing the basic plot screens can be. Progressing through the story unlocks moves and abilities, but the former can be learned through the basic plot and the latter have class-specific effects when using the appropriate class.
Likewise, sidequests are nothing more than collection endeavors, yet they’re crucial to finding and/or powering up a suite of moves and abilities. Having a reason to get out in such a vibrant world is always a plus, but the actual tasks handed out by NPCs mostly stay in the collection area and not much else.
On the menu, Visions of Mana has a lot of great options, as well as a well-featured guidebook that reviews the game’s mechanics. It also has a great quality-of-life feature that will make it easier for more casual players in the form of a summonable path that will lead them to where they need to go. However, in terms of performance, things can get choppy.
Visions of Mana isn’t the triumphant return to a great series that some had hoped, but it’s also not fair to brush it aside.
The story is probably the most polarizing part of the game, while the rest filters into an expected column for a JRPG of this kind. Some players will be very concerned about the lack of nuance in the narrative and characters most of the time, while it won’t affect the experience for others.
Otherwise, there’s a vibrant world with a fun combat system and some interesting, if not predictable depth to the systems that make it all worth it. Visions of Mana slots nicely into the middle of the pack in the long-running list of modern JRPGs.