Things about Trials of Mana

I have played Secret of Mana a lot. It’s one of the two games I remember completely falling in love with as a kid. I have so many memories of playing that game and thinking about playing that game. It’s pretty much the first thing I think about when I think about summer; as soon as I finish mowing the grass I can go back in, where it’s cool, and play Secret of Mana.

For some history, if you need it, Secret of Mana is an Action RPG for the Super Nintendo, published in North America in 1993. You play as 3 heroes and can play with two other people (if you have the extra attachments for the SNES). You have to journey the world powering up your sword to defeat evil (as you do). It was originally published in Japan as Seiken Densetsu 2, the sequel to Seiken Densetsu, a GameBoy game (which was published in North America as Final Fantasy Adventure)

I don’t remember exactly when I first heard about the sequel to Secret of Mana (which at the time everyone was calling Secret of Mana 2), but I definitely remember looking at web forum posts and walkthroughs for the Japanese version (Seiken Densetsu 3) and thinking about how much fun having six heroes was going to be. Especially having a storytelling system which was supposed to mix the six heroes’ stories together depending on who you had in your party and all kinds of different classes your heroes could level into. I spent a lot of time dreaming about all the ways I wanted to play this game.

And then it was never released in North America.

I did play the fan translated ROM, but somehow it never clicked with me. A little bit of that was because I was sitting at my desk rather than on the couch and that I was playing with the keyboard rather than a SNES controller. At the end of the day, it felt slow and a bit disjointed and it just wasn’t *fun* in the way Secret of Mana was fun.

I’ve played a few of the other Mana games since and they’ve been all over in terms of how much I’ve liked them. Mostly I came to the conclusion that I just wasn’t interested in the places the Mana games were going. My feelings about Secret of Mana got mixed into my plans to make an Action RPG someday and I was pretty happy to move on.

And then they announced The Collection of Mana.

Secret of Mana on the Switch, along with Final Fantasy Adventure (Adventure of Mana - Seiken Densetsu) and … Trials of Mana? Seiken Densetsu 3, with a full official translation and everything.

And I was a little excited. (Apparently I made a really interesting noise during the direct).

So, on a nice day early in July I sat down to play Trials of Mana again, and I thought it was slow, a bit disjointed and it just wasn’t *fun*.

And then they announced the Remake.

Given how generally down the people I followed online were about the Secret of Mana Remake from 2018, I wasn’t very interested. Still, the reviews eventually sounded kinda good and possibly if I supported that we’d get other good games from Square-Enix from the 90s (*cough*Illusion of Gaia*cough*) on the Switch, so I picked it up.

And I finally played through Trials of Mana.

I can’t say it’s one of the greatest games I’ve played, but it was pretty fun and had several interesting elements. It also had a lot of slightly odd choices and I found myself wondering as I played, how did those work in the original game? So finally, I got out the Collection of Mana and played all the way through Trials of Mana. And then, just to see if Secret of Mana was really the masterpiece I love, I played through that again too.

And there are some things I’d like to talk about.

Beware of spoilers for Trials of Mana, Trials of Mana (Remake) and Secret of Mana.

Things I Liked

I’m going to focus on the 1995 original version of Trials of Mana, because it’s the game I dreamed about for so long. The Remake is either faithful or better in almost every aspect. While there are things to talk about with the remake as well, I don't have as much to say about it right now.

The thing that has always stood out to me about Trials of Mana is how great it looks. It takes the vibrant cartoony vibe of Secret of Mana and makes it better looking and cooler. The look of places feels like they put a lot of effort into the sprites and the background.

The character sprites are the same way. Durran looks like the grown up, badass version of Randi (also he’s named Durran and not Randi, so that seems way cooler - especially in 1995). All of the characters are cool and badass and probably have half again as many frames in their animations as the characters in Secret of Mana.

The quality of the sprites ties into a fairly well constructed sense of place.Even though a lot of the background sprites (and all of the character sprites) were shared, I feel like each place was different. The dungeons felt similarly, although I think the design leaves me thinking about them more as abstract places than remembering specific locations. Place is much more clearly written in the remake, and I may be transfering my feelings from that version, but I think place is one of the things Trials of Mana does very well.

Another thing I liked about Trials of Mana is the way they weaved six character’s stories together. It’s not perfect, but especially the idea of having a story that works out differently depending on who you bring along. Certainly in all the years I spent dreaming about this game, the diversity of stories was the part that most held my interest.

Things I Didn't Like

I think following the rule of cool, which made the game look awesome, really brought out the two things I didn’t like.

The first is that the combat feels bad. The combat in Secret of Mana is weird, but for me, it’s a weird I grew up with. The combat in Trials of Mana is slow and feels janky. I think it’s supposed to feel cool, awesome, and flashy. When animators talk about animating for video games, they often mention that you want as little anticipation in your player animation as possible. That means that if a character is going to throw a punch, within two or three frames of animation after the button is pushed the punch should be happening on screen.

In Trials of Mana there is a mix of too much anticipation, too much input lag (where it seems like the game isn’t doing anything at all after the button is pushed), and no animation cancelling. Once a character is doing an animation they seem to keep doing it, regardless of which buttons you push. Again, I may have just had different expectations, but I never felt happy playing the combat in the game at all.

The other rule of cool problem is that the magic effects take too long and push you out of the action. In Secret of Mana, your magic gets more and more impressive effects as you get stronger. The fireball turns from little sparks, to football sized globes to dragons larger than your characters. In Trials of Mana they tried to start there. If you cast the first wind spell in the game tornadoes pop up all over the screen and take a while to fade away.

In short, I think the effects programmers took all of the tricks they had learned working on the Super Nintendo and put them into this game. However they are overused, especially given that using the spells over and over again is the only way some groups of your heros can hurt some enemies. It ends up feeling like they focused on making magic look as impressive as possible and didn’t think about how the game would actually play.

Things I Noticed

I mentioned that I liked having six different stories worked together, but in implementation there are some problems. It’s possible depending on how you play to only see a small portion of the story on any particular play through and particularly if you don’t pick two characters for your party who share a story a lot of things go unexplained.

I played as Hawkeye, whose love interest is captured by the big bad early in the game. Then, spontaneously, she was released. In my first playthrough (in the remake) when I fought the final boss, it was over the body of Riesz’s little brother. They were mentioned, but because I didn’t have Riesz in my party, I had no emotional attachment and not a lot of knowledge about the character. In the second playthrough I did have her in my party and at least the connection was clearer, but still not as emotionally meaningful as if Hawekeye’s love interest had been the macguffin.

Apparently if you choose other characters you get a whole other final boss. On the one hand that’s wonderful, but it made me spend most of my time wondering if I’d made wrong choices or if there was something else I was missing.

I think there’s a way to tie everyone together better, but I also think that having 6 main characters makes storytelling much much harder. I think it’s hard to walk the line between being dynamic, honouring the player’s choices, and telling a coherent story.

Things I'd Put In A Game

As I’ve mentioned, Trials of Mana is the game I dreamed about for years, and figuring it wouldn’t come out, I’ve spent a very long time thinking about how I’d make my own Secret of Mana 2.

The long and the short of that game in my mind is one that reflects a lot of the player’s choices and where the characters and the world are aware of and reacting to the player's action. It’s also about tying together the player’s actions with the story of four different characters.

Usually I try to be concrete in my takeaways but I’ve spent more than twenty years mapping out how I’d fill that Secret of Mana 2 shaped hole. I won’t lie, I’m feeling a little distressed that I haven’t actually done it yet, but it shaped a ton of how I think.

Final Things

How would I have felt, if Trials of Mana had come out in North America in 1996? I really don’t know.

Not too long after I didn’t love Legend of Mana (another game I’d like to come back to -- the remake / rerelease train has been pretty good lately). Its controls were also weird, but it didn’t have any sense of place.

Trials of Mana takes a lot of what I love about Secret of Mana and tries to polish it. Sometimes I think it does it in a way that makes the game worse, but the developers tried to take the good in Secret of Mana and intensify it.

I may always love the memory of Secret of Mana II more, but I’m really glad Trials of Mana finally came out and I got to play it.

Blog: Games of October 2021

October was a busy month and I was more focused on doing things than playing things. At the same time my PC has started acting up so any chance I had to play anything on there was a bit of a crap shoot.

I'm at a point where I'd love to find a few games to play on the Switch for short bursts, 15 - 20 minutes. Celeste and -- weirdly -- A Link to the Past have been filling that niche, but I'd love to find something new and maybe something which would have a bit of longevity. 

My top five games (by play time) for October were:

1. Trials of Mana (Collection of Mana) - Trials has been an interesting game. I still think everything in the remake was better but it's been interesting. I think it's not the greatest SNES (a)rpg, but it has some cool features. I think if I'd had it back when it was originally coming out I'd probably have loved it. As it stands, I'd like it to be faster and smoother, and the level grinding is not very much fun. On the plus side, the sprite work is beautiful (if a little hard to read sometimes) and the backgrounds are lovely. I think, especially if the game were a little faster, the variety of classes would be really cool to explore.
   
   
   
   


2. Battle Brothers - If only this didn't make my video card vomit colourful patterns all over my monitor. A little tempted to find the switch version.
   
   


3. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - Reaching to ProtonJon playing randomizers, I wanted to actually "git good" at ALTTP. It's been fun to pick up and to my surprise, each chunk of the game only takes me about 15 minutes. I'm certainly enjoying this a lot more than the last time I played through.
   
   
   
   


4. Super Mario Odyssey - I didn't play much, but Odyssey is always a delight. It hasn't *quite* been that short burst game I'm looking for.
   
   
   
   


5. Ogre Battle 64 - It snowed. I played Ogre Battle. I'm assuming if you've read any of these before you'll know the tune.
   
   
   
   

Here's my total play time chart for October:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Blog: Games of September 2021

I'm discovering that trying to create an overall description of a month is kinda hard. In short, I played a lot of fun stuff in September. I finished off the Trials of Mana remake and quite liked it, enough that I wanted to start playing the original in the Collection of Mana. I guess the biggest thing for me was playing through Celeste and really working on developing the skills to get through a hard game. (Thanks PlayFrame!)

My top five games (by play time) for September were:

1. Celeste - I'm not sure the last time I felt really proud of myself for finishing a game, but finishing Celeste, I feel really proud. It took a fair bit of work and a lot of time doing the same thing over and over until I got better at it. I think there are some lessons there in how to practice. There are maybe also some lessons for someone in their late 30s who doesn't move enough, as this is the first game (in a long time) to put me in physical pain.
   
   
   
   I like when games give you a deep knowledge and bond with the spaces in the game and Celeste does a really good job of of linking you with the mountain in the game. There are screens I remember clearly and I think if you showed me any screen in the game know I'd know (more or less) exactly what was going on there. I'm playing through now to find all the strawberries and B-sides, but I've also taken the game up on its very open challenge to speed run it as well.
   


2. Battle Brothers - The brothers roll on. The only thing that's really holding me back is the bit where something seems to be cracking in my PC and Battle Brothers sets it off worse than anything else ... or maybe it's just that Battle Brothers is the game I'm playing.
   
   


3. Trials of Mana (Remake) - This game is pretty good. Not great, but pretty good. I enjoyed playing, and the combat was fun if not a really complex system. I think with the option of six protagonists that all played very differently they were limited in how complex they could make the game, especially on a low-to-mid-tier budget. I've started playing the original in the Collection of Mana and I'm impressed at how well they honoured the core feeling of the game in the remake while polishing up the rough edges.
   
   


4. Super Mario Odyssey - I needed something I could play without the strain of Celeste or the headspace needed for Trials of Mana so I found myself picking up Odyssey again. It's still good. In fact, the more I play the more interesting things I find.
   
   


5. Mini Motorways - I had a few days where Mini Motorways really captured me. After a while, though, the bit where it's a randomized puzzle game and not a city builder really started to drive me nuts. It is beautiful and if you're there for hooking up elements in a puzzle you might love this game (especially if you loved Mini Metro).
   
   
6. Mario Golf: Super Rush - Super Rush was pretty good, but the shine has come off for me a little bit. Considering how much I still go back to Toadstool Tour over the years, there's just something that keeps ringing hollow with Super Rush. The new courses they just released are okay and the new golfers they've added are okay, but the whole thing is just missing some life.
   
   
   The online has been a real bust for me. I guess I'll do enough to grab the monthly prize, but it's just not that much fun to play against people, when the only correct move is to wait as long as possible for everyone else to take their shots. The alternative "Timed Golf" mode is too unreliable to play, so the whole thing is just poorly designed.
   

Here's my total play time chart for September:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Blog: Games of July 2019

July was the first month in a long, loong time where I was able to just relax. I spent a lot of it with old childhood favourites and sprinting around being Mario. It was a nice month. Then I got hit by what might be the best Fire Emblem ever and I'm not quite sure what's happens to all the time since.

My top five games (by play time) for July were:

1. Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Oh wow. So I picked this up on July 26. I played 30 hours. It's pretty great. I have a few nitpicks on pacing and story, but both the actual Fire Emblem grid-based combat and the interstitial Professorial team-building phase are really fun. Played the first pass on normal, casual difficulty (party because I'm tired of how hard Awakening would kick my butt) and I've found it a touch easy. Overall this game has taken over my life a bit and it's pretty glorious being able to revel in it for a while. That being said, my students may be a little confused come September when I try to teaching them by fishing a bunch.
   
   

   

   Ah. What a lovely place for a nap.

   
   


2. Super Mario Odyssey - The more I play of this the more I love it. There's so much diversity in things to do and the motion and control is a lot of fun. I think it could have a little more to it, and I'm sad there wasn't any DLC, but I've loved my time with Super Mario Odyssey.
   
   

   

   There is more in this game than has been dreamed of in any 8-bit philosophy.

   
   


3. Opus Magnum - Zachtronics gets me. I loved SpaceChem and Opus Magnum is the new, fancy, more accessible version of SpaceChem. The missions feel a lot more achievable than some of the early Zachtronics games, and once you've achieved a working result, it's extremely satisfying to go back in an optimize those results. I think having spent a lot of time thinking about algorithmic problem solving for novice computer scientists really put me in the right frame of my to enjoy this game.
   
   

   

   It's not efficient but it is pretty, which this game lets you do quite happily. 



4. Secret of Mana (Collection of Mana) - I think this my be my game-of-my-lifetime. I bought the Collection of Mana mostly for the other two games, but I've spent more time on Secret of Mana and been extremely happy playing it again. I love the way the story flows, I love the big bright sprites, I love the controls and the combat. Of course it has its flaws, but it still makes me so happy to play. Incidentally I noticed a few things this time around. One is that the UK version has different controls and a different translation to the US version. The second is just how well the game prepares you for things. Most locations are mentioned several steps ahead of the story from the time they actually become important and I find it helps the game hang together really well.
   
   

   

   Take that, Wasp!



5. Trials of Mana (Collection of Mana) - I've started to play Seiken Densetsu 3 several times of the years and I've always played the first few hours and then trailed off. Mostly because I wanted to recapture my joy of Secret of Mana and play properly sitting on the couch. Trials of Mana is letting me do that and I have to confess I'm a little disappointed. I think the story is great and well constructed, but the flow and combat from SoM is missing and the game feels a little detached from my input (the way Legend of Mana on the Playstation feels). I'm wondering if the game didn't get brought across back in the SNES area because they knew it wasn't quite up to the standard of SoM. I think as a kid I would have been pretty disappointed with it (although my capacity to play through crappy games was pretty high back then).
   
   

   

   What a time to be alive.

Here's my total play time chart for July:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Blog: Games of June 2019

My June was mostly dedicated to playing on the Switch. I'm really enjoying the ease of picking up the controller (or the console) and being into a game within second.

My top six games (by play time) for June were:

1. Super Mario Odyssey - Thanks to this game I can now pretty regularly spell Odyssey. The more I've played the more I've gotten into it. I keep thinking I must be running out of fun (or at least Power Moons), but so far it just keeps showing more and more depth.
   
   

   

   In context, this doesn't make any sense either.



2. Animal Crossing: Amiibo Fest - This usually doesn't land so far up the list, but my play time was pretty spread out this month. As always this is a nice way to wake up on weekend mornings with my partner and even though we basically know all the events by heart by now, it's still a charming thing to play.
   

   

   Sunday Morning Business meeting.

   
   


3. Xenonauts - Less charming, but no less fun. I am surprised by how long it took me to get into this game, but I have been pretty thoroughly enjoying it. The only real complaint I have at the moment is that I'm readier to end this campaign than the game seems to be. I think there's a little bit of pacing trouble between the missions you play and the research the game does for you that actually advances the plot. Otherwise, I'm enjoying the combat and I feel like they've arrived at a spot where "failure is fun". (But that might just also be my brain relaxing from the PhD).
   
   

   

   Oh sure, deal with my shotgunners by building all your ships like tubes...



4. Cadence of Hyrule - This game is pretty awesome. I was really bad the first hour or so, but then found my groove (so to speak) and got the idea of the game. Since then I've really enjoyed it, although I find it needs a particular mindset to really appreciate (and because it's rhythm based, you can't drink and play well). I wouldn't mind if it had a little more meat on it, but I'm only about halfway through right now, so there may be more to come. I'm interested to see how it replays (it feels short) and I think I might also take a look at Crypt of the Necrodancer for the purer Rogue-Beat genre.
   
   

   

   **Guitar Riff**



5. Secret of Mana (Collection of Mana) - I was not spoiled on this, so when Nintendo announced the Collection of Mana in its E3 direct I pretty much fell out of my chair. Seeing Seiken Densetsu 3 released in English in North America is fantastic and so I bought it as soon as it was released (which was that night as I recall). I haven't played too much of either SD3 or SD (Final Fantasy Adventure) yet, but having Secret of Mana to hand has been a total blast. Also I discovered that the UK localization is very slightly different (and better?) than the US one.
   
   

   

   **British Whale Sounds** 

   
   
6. Pokémon Go - I really haven't spend that much time sitting down to play PoGo the last little while, but trying to keep streaks up, I've played a few minutes each day. That's been enough to get it into the top list for the month.
   
   

   

   Good catch ... 

   
   

Here's my total play time chart for June:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month: