Exciting News: The Rebirth of a Popular RPG Series With a Game Similar to Genshin Impact

It is easy to define what makes the strength of the Mana series, initially a spin-off from Final Fantasy. After a first opus released on Gameboy under the name Mystic Quest, it was indeed the second episode, Secret of Mana, which acted as a tidal wave for Western players. Although Japan and the United States (to a lesser extent) saw many JRPGs arrive on their consoles, France was much less fortunate and Secret of Mana was one of the pioneers. Incredible artistic direction, superb visuals, legendary music, an original combat system mixing Action and RPG and even the possibility of playing with three players, its qualities were at their zenith. But behind the infinite memories that this opus will have left to players, the sequel was more complex: Seiken Densetsu 3 and Legend of Mana were not released in France at the time and between the spin-offs and the somewhat subpar episodes, the series has lost its aura.

Can Visions of Mana be seen as a savior? Possible. The first good news comes from the presence of Koichi Ishii, creator of the series, who marks his return after 17 years on other licenses. This is no coincidence since Visions of Mana clearly presents itself as a return to basics and it does not hide it. From the title screen, which sees the main characters facing the gigantic Mana Tree, we immediately understand that it is Secret of Mana fans who are in the nostalgic sights of Square Enix and Ouka Studios. Good choice, especially since the feverish remake of the flagship episode of the saga definitely did not pay homage to it.

The initial pitch is very simple to understand. Every four years, souls are elected to serve as offerings to the Mana Tree in order to regenerate it, thus protecting the world from the invasion of darkness. They are then accompanied by a guardian of souls to ensure that they arrive safely. This soul guardian is Val, the main hero of the story, who will quickly find two companions on the way to experience the adventure for three. Note, however, that unlike Secret of Mana, this is indeed a single-player game. On their journey, they will visit new areas, face terrible monsters and of course, find powerful elemental avatars who will grant them new powers.

In fact, Visions of Mana offers large open areas in which you can walk around freely. Points of interest allow you to identify chests, quests, teleportation points, but also elemental channels which unlock passages. So, by using the wind elemental on an appropriate channel, we trigger a mini-tornado that helps us reach inaccessible places. If, like me, you are too lazy to walk all this way with your little legs, you can also ride on the back of Pikul, a sort of giant Japanese spitz. In the mind and in the universe, we have the impression of playing a less vertical Genshin Impact, to take an example from a popular game. It's pretty, even visually successful, so much so that we took pleasure in surveying the large area that we were allowed to visit. However, it is worth noting a very classic aspect in the structure, notably with some go-defeat-the-enemies-over-there style quests which could prove difficult for seasoned players if repeated over the long term. It is not with a one-hour gaming session that we will be able to tell you that. Only one certainty, Visions of Mana wants to be accessible, perhaps not to those who are new to video games, but at least to players who only play occasionally.

So let's come to the main course, the fights. Each of the three characters has a normal attack, a powerful attack with a cooldown, and three skills that require MP to use. Resolutely action, Visions of Mana allows you to switch from one character to another in one touch, which gives us access to a variety of attacks, while strengthening the tactical aspect, choosing to concentrate your forces on a single enemy per example. Here we find the touch of Square Enix and in spirit, the gameplay is not very far from the Final Fantasy 7 remakes except that there are no ATB bars, thus definitively moving away from the semi-tour per turn that we could find in Secret of Mana in particular. Instead, we find the famous Ring System, the active pause which allows you to choose objects or skills to use in the middle of combat thanks to a ring menu, an invention of the series for those who didn't know it. Without a doubt, the fights are a success especially as the possibilities are multiplied by the class system.

Indeed, each elemental that you collect can be combined with one of your three characters to unlock a new class, with its own skills and attacks. The fun part is that the class unlocked depends on the character. Thus, each elementary opens three different classes and if we are to believe the habits of the series, we could at least count on 8 elementary. This therefore opens up many combinations to which must be added the possibility of boosting your weapons with passive skills of your choice via a crafting system.

Obviously, this short game session does not allow us to form a concrete opinion on Visions of Mana, but we were pleasantly surprised by the general experience. It's clean, permissive, very easy to use, everything we expect from such a cute A-RPG in short. The music is not to be outdone, with Hiroki Kikuta returning to composition, who has already created one of the best soundtracks of all time with Secret of Mana. He is certainly not alone, but this remains very good news.