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 November 2021

I don't think I've had a month before, where I haven't played five games. I was pretty busy this month, and my PC is borked, so I guess I got to be focused for November. I'm looking forward to playing a bit more over December. I'm just about finished Secret of Mana and I'm trying to decide what to play next. I've been thinking about playing Legend of Mana, but also Final Fantasy 9 and 12, and maybe Eastward, and the Skyward Sword remake. The Axe of the Blood God is also doing a pantheon/game club playthrough of Chrono Cross, which I was thinking of playing sometime soon as well. So I have no idea what I'm going to do next, but at least I have options.

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

1. Secret of Mana (Collection of Mana) - I think I've played Secret of Mana more than any other game. It's certainly one of the two games I first fell in love with as a kid (along with Illusion of Gaia). I played a bit when the Collection of Mana first came out, but decided when I finished Trials of Mana that it would be interesting to go back to where I started and play again. It's been fun, sometimes frusterating (I've tried to do a more-or-less low level run), and a little weird. There are several things I'd forgotten and a few I don't think I'd ever seen before.
   
   
   
   


2. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - Continuing to try to "git good". I had a fair bit of fun, although honestly playing ALTTP makes me want to play Illusion of Gaia more often than not. They have very similar game play and IoG is beautiful (and I love it). I started to do a second play through to keep building towards "gitting good" but trailed off as the month got busy.
   
   
   
   


3. Trials of Mana (Collection of Mana) - Playing the original after the remake has been interesting. I've tried and bounced off this game quite a few times in the past. I'm thinking I'll write a combined "things" post about both the original and the remake - and Secret of Mana as well. Overall, I'm glad I played it certainly has a lot of interesting elements. I'm not sure how I would have felt if I played it back when it was originally released, and it does have some flaws by modern game standards, but it's really pretty and fairly fun.
   
   
   
   


4. Super Mario Odyssey - I barely play this, but I finished the "main game" and started on the post game bit and the flow and joy in running around this game has been great.
   
   
   
   


Here's my total play time chart for November:






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

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 August 2021

Time feels like it's absolutely blowing by right now. Looking back at August I can't even remember what all happened, but I did play some good games.

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

1. Trials of Mana (Remake) - I picked up Trials of Mana at a point where I really wasn't sure what I wanted to play while sitting down on the couch. As it turns out I'm really glad I did. The game is fun. The combat doesn't have a ton of depth, but has enough that every fight is interesting enough. The story isn't great, but the story wasn't great in the original either. The game looks pretty good overall. I don't like some of the models they've chosen, but even those are fairly faithful to the '95 original. I don't know that I can totally recommend it, but I've had a lot of fun.
   
   
   
   


2. Battle Brothers - This game has just the right amount of challenge and decision making to give it some really nice flow. Sometimes it flows in a bad direction, but usually when I finish playing, however long I play I'm pretty happy. I don't quite know how to describe or encapsulate how that flow works, but I think it revolves around keeping the stakes of any decision low enough that a bad choice doesn't cripple you.
   
   
   
   


3. Mario Golf: Super Rush - If Nintendo had a bullet proof network infrastructure, their new online play mode would have me pretty hooked. Since they don't it leaves me kinda interested. The online mode also illustrates how much their focus was on the running-around-the-golf-course mode compared to the traditional golf mode. Competitive matches tend to resolve into two or more people just waiting for everyone else to go. Unfortunately, the running-around-the-golf-course-mode stutters and chugs when played online.
   
   
   
   


4. Civilization VI - As always, I want to love this game the way I love Battle Brothers. I read Sid Meier's Memoir, and it left me wanting to play Civ, but perpetually the image of Civ I have in my head is more fun than the one I actually play.
   
   
   
   


5. Celeste - I started rewatching Carrie play Celeste on PlayFrame, as an exercise in seeing how someone who doesn't play much can take on a really hard game. I don't usually play those hard games, but I felt inspired. I'm having fun with it, although my hands do hurt.
   
   
   
   

Here's my total play time chart for August:

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

Blog Post: Video Games of July 2021

July was a much quieter month than the last few. I'm still working on finding my happy point for balance between getting stuff done and getting stuff played, but generally I was pretty happy. I found myself struggling a little bit with finding a game to play to relax with, but with a little bit of energy Trials of Mana has turn out to be a delight.

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

1. Mario Golf: Super Rush - This has turned out to be a good game to play when I need something to pick up at lunch (as with World Tour before it) and it's been something good to play quickly. It's not great and definitely has a noticeable lack of depth, but the moment to moment play is fun.
   
   
   


2. Battle Brothers - Other than the bit where my PC seems to be having some issues, especially while playing Battle Brothers, this continues to be a great game the play. I'm continuing to learn more and more and the depth required to play well has been really compelling.
   
   
   


3. Trials of Mana (3D Remake) - I've stalled out playing Seiken Densetsu 3 a few times. It kinda lacks the drive of early Secret of Mana and also suffers (for me) from not *being* Secret of Mana, so it results in a lot of huh, that's good but different. The combat in is also, not terribly easy to read. The 3D remake is pretty good, I've enjoyed the combat and I think they've made some reasonable chances, streamlining some of the rough places in the original.
   
   
   


4. Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn - This took a little longer to finish than I'd hoped. From my perspective it provides a list of all the quality of life features that were eventually implemented in later games. On the other hand I *like* the story and the characters and compared to the games before it's much more dynamic and interesting. I think it was worth playing through, especially just after playing Path of Radiance, but I'm in a good spot to wait a little bit 
   
   
   


5. Peggle - I've ended up playing Peggle and Zuma when I've needed to get a break without getting up from the desk. (And really I *should* just be getting up from the desk.) Peggle takes a little bit longer to play than Zuma, so it ended up just ahead of it in the list.
   
   
   

Here's my total play time for July:

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: