Trials of Mana HD

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聖剣伝説3: Trials of Mana Trials of Mana

Basic Info Console(s) Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4 Publisher(s) Square Enix Developer Xeen inc

People Info Producer(s) Shinichi Tatsuke Director(s) Naoki Matsue Programmer(s) Satoru Yoshieda Artist(s) Haccan Writer(s) Koichi Ishii

Release Info Japan April 24, 2020 N. America April 24, 2020 Europe April 24, 2020

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Trials of Mana HD is the fourth remake in the Mana series, and is a fully three-dimensional recreation of the third entry in the series. Compared to the previous remakes in the series that merely gave the titles a polygonal touch up, Adventures of Mana and Secret of Mana HD, the game is a far more drastic overhaul of its source material that takes full advantage of modern hardware to tell the story of its six protagonists.

Blurb

Official Square Enix website

When the world was shrouded in darkness, the Goddess of Mana drew forth the Sword of Mana to smite the eight Benevodons, monsters of destruction.

She sealed the horrors inside the eight Mana Stones, bringing the realm back from the brink.

Weakened from rebuilding the world, the Goddess changed herself into a tree and fell into a deep sleep for many years.

However, the forces of evil soon sought to free the Benevodons to gain control of the world.

They started a terrible war to further their plot and destabilize the kingdoms.

Peace was at an end. Mana itself began to disappear from the world and the Mana Tree started to wither...

Story

The plot of Trials of Mana revolves around three heroes who are chosen from six possible candidates at the beginning of the game, with the first selected being chosen as the Hero of Mana by the character Faerie. Once the player selects their characters they will then be able to witness the tragedies that befell their lives just before the group's union, with each of the three potential antagonists affecting the lives of two heroes in different ways as they set their malefic machinations into motion.

Once the opening prologue is completed and the party assembled, the group sojourns to the holy city of Wendel to speak with the priest of light, who explains to them that the power of mana is weakening due to the actions of the villains and that, if not stopped, the eight Benevodons of the distant past will break their seals and bring calamity to the world. Faerie concludes that the only way to stop the disaster from ending their world is for the three heroes to obtain the aid of the eight mana spirits and travel to the sanctuary of mana, where the all-powerful sword of mana rests. With their goal defined and each having the life of someone they treasure in jeopardy, the heroes depart the city of Wendel under faerie's guidance to save their world.

Cast

Protagonists

• Angela: the only daughter of the Queen of Altena, the snow-covered kingdom of magicians. Angela did not receive much attention as a child due to her mother's responsibilities as queen, and as such she began to seek that missing attention however she could. This includes wearing sultry clothing, playing pranks on the castle's staff, etc. Angela does sincerely care for her mother, however, and that love is the main motivation for uncovering the truth of her mother's sudden change in character. Angela is regarded as an amateur spell caster in dialogue, but this is merely a story aspect and has no effect on her gameplay style.

• Charlotte: the granddaughter of the Priest of Light, who has raised her after the death of her parents. Charlotte is a half-elf and thus looks much younger than she is, which has led to her being coddled by the people who raised her in the temple of light in the city of Wendel. Charlotte has a bright and optimistic personality, but she is also very bossy. Though curious about the world around her, she's superstitious and overemotional to the point of crying openly several times throughout the game.

• Duran: the proud young soldier from Valsena, Kingdom of the Plains. Though he comes across as hot-headed and ready for a fight, the whole kingdom acknowledges his skill with a blade. Duran has nothing but love for his kingdom and respect for the Hero King, a good friend of his departed father, Loki the Golden Knight.

• Hawkeye: this young cut-purse hails from the desert fortress of Nevarl, home to a guild of noble thieves. He was raised as the orphaned ward of Flamekhan, the leader, together with Flamekhan's own children, Eagle and Jessica. Hawkeye comes across as a laid-back and charming young man, making it hard to tell when he's being serious. But at his core, Hawkeye is a fiercely loyal friend. Nothing gets past his honed senses and quick wit.

• Kevin: Kevin is heir to the throne of Ferolia. His father is the king of the beastmen, but his missing mother was a human woman. Kevin's father raised him to be a fighting machine, which has left his social skills lacking. He is unused to conversing with humans, which can make him hard to understand at times. The ice around the young boy's heart only began to melt after making friends with Karl the wolf pup. When night falls, Kevin will transform into his beastman form and gain extra strength.

• Riesz: the young princess of the mountain kingdom of Laurent and captain of the renowned Amazon guard. Riesz is very down-to-earth and has a cast iron willpower to match her sense of duty. She is stubborn to a fault but does not hesitate to lend a hand to those in need. She lost her mother as a child and since then has tried to help raise her little brother Elliot. Riesz' family bonds are the only things stronger than her loyalty to her kingdom. Her name is pronounced "Reese".

Antagonists

• Belladonna: a wicked woman who uses her stunning beauty to manipulate Flamekahn, the chief of the Nevarl thieves. She kills Hawkeye's friend Eagle and frames him for it, and uses his friend Jessica as a shield for herself by locking a cursed choker around the girl's neck that will kill her if Belladonna is ever slain. She leads the Nevarl forces against the kingdom of Laurent, and seeks to revive the evil domain of Mavolia.

• The Crimson Wizard: a magician who wormed his way into the royal court of Altena to influence the True Queen, poisoning her mind. He instigates the assault on the kingdom of Valsena, and he seeks to release the energy of the Mana Stones for an unknown, wicked purpose. Rarely walking, the wizard instead teleports from place to place in a flash of red after-images that echo behind him.

• Goremand: a supernatural consumer of souls who dresses as a jester and behaves eccentrically. Goremand has aligned himself with the corrupt king of Ferolia to use the beastmen as soldiers, but his true aim is to further the agenda of a terrible figure from Wendel's past and will exploit anyone he can.

Side characters

• Faerie: the emissary from the sanctuary of mana who departs her home to find a suitable hero to prevent the end of the world. Once she selects a worthy person, she inhabits their body as a spirit and can speak directly to their mind. Though dutiful and completely loyal to the Mana Goddess, Faerie is struggling to endure the immense burden that fate has placed on her shoulders, and will come to cherish the protagonists for their friendship.

• Vuscav: a comical, colossal kappa who is said to be the king of the seas. He first encounters the party when they crash land on Beuca island, and ferries them to safety when the island's volcano erupts. He can be summoned from any shoreline to carry the party across the ocean.

• Flammie: a feathered dragon known as the Winged Defender, Flammie is a playful creature that bonds with the party after Faerie names her during their first meeting. She can be summoned from any open air location with a drum to fly the party across the world, and one of the battles against the Benevodons will be fought on her back as a dog-fight in the high skies.

Gameplay

Trials of Mana HD features enhanced gameplay compared to the Super Nintendo original, with players able to move freely in three dimensional environments. Stat progression is significantly different from the original, where in leveling up increases a character's stats automatically instead of having one point to manually assign to a stat per level. Instead, there is a new training system based on the prior manual assignment where a character gains skill points each level that the player can then assign to one of their attributes to unlock new spells, stat boosts, and abilities that can be equipped in the main menu. These abilities can greatly influence a character's performance in battle and range from lowering the damage they take when casting a spell to increasing the amount of experience points gained at the end of an encounter.

Similar to the mini medal feature found in the Dragon Quest series is the inclusion of the Lil' Cactus character who rewards players with prizes for being found in the overworld, towns, and even in dungeons. This spritely saguaro first appeared in Legend of Mana, and his rewards range from worldwide free room and board at an inn to randomly being granted triple the amount of experience points earned in combat.

As is standard for ports and remakes of Square Enix games, lengthy post-game content has been included in Trials of Mana. This post-game content is available once the final boss of a character's story is defeated, and returns the player to the kingdom of Valsena just before the finale. There, a new character named Grand Croix warns the party that the witch Anise has been unsealed from her extra-dimensional shackles due to the weakening of mana in the world, and instructs the heroes to find the most powerful class upgrade items in the world. These artifacts are tied to the bonds each character has with their home, and once assembled Grand Croix will show the way to Anise's spectral stronghold in the sky. The lair is a massive dungeon composed of ruined versions of previous locales to inflict psychological attacks on the party, and is patrolled by the strongest monsters in the game. Once the party defeats the witch, a new game plus option is available to players that allows the carry over of items, levels, and skill points into a new game.

Development history

Development of Trials of Mana HD entered the first phase of development when Secret of Mana HD was nearing completion, but was given additional focus due to the international fan demand for Collection of Mana that arose online in 2017 as well as requests from Square Enix's western branch to localize the package collection. As the game had never been released internationally, the development team approached it as a new entry in the series instead of as a remake, and was afforded the appropriate budget for such an undertaking.

Producer Shinichi Tatsuke explained in an interview that development first began with careful consideration as to what would be changed and what would remain the same. As the characters, setting, and style of the original game were already fully realized, the team focused on updating the graphics and battle system for a modern audience and concentrated on those aspects for the bulk of the development cycle. In terms of presentation, the largest hurdle was transitioning the cinematic sequences into three dimensions without losing the feel of the original cutscenes: certain movements and gestures that make sense in a flat plane do not necessarily lend themselves to realistic proportions and careful consideration had to be applied to ensure the intent of the scene was not altered.

One wholly original feature is the inclusion of more dialogue between the protagonists and Faerie--the interactions between the cast were limited to cutscenes in the original, and it was decided to include quips and banter during and after battle to further highlight each character's well-defined personality. This feature highlights the replayability of the game, as each three-person team will yield different interactions based on who was selected by the player. This also serves as a helpful guide, as characters will remind each other of where they need to venture next when leaving a town flying on Flammie. Upon entering a town or castle, the party will also split up and the main character will be able to speak to their companions as they explore the locale.

The prototype for the title was similar to the original game in that it utilized an overhead camera angle, but this was discarded as it didn't adequately display the level of detail the graphics team put into the polygon models and environments. When the camera was shifted to an over-the-shoulder view, the battle team began fleshing out the depth of combat by including aspects that could not be done with the original's 2D sprites and overhead view, such as evasive rolls, aerial combat, and combo maneuvers that strike different sections of an enemy's body.

This shift in camera positioning did lead to problems implementing the series' trademark multiplayer function, however, and it was decided that a focus on a strong single-player experience was the more important goal. An online multiplayer mode was briefly considered as it could potentially allow the third person camera system to remain, but this would have occupied a significant portion of the development period and run the risk of weakening the focus on the single-player aspect. As a result, careful fine tuning was applied to the game's A.I. system for characters not immediately being controlled by the player. Whereas the original game would only allow players to control how aggressive their characters were with basic melee attacks, the new A.I. system allows the full customization of each character's strategy in battle and allows for the use of items, magic, and class strikes.

Reception and sales

Trials of Mana has been well received by critics and fans, garnering praise for updating the legendary Super Nintendo title for modern audiences without losing the charm and spirit of the original. Criticism has been levied against the English dub however, due to being the first production of several cast members and for giving questionable inflections to certain characters, such as Lumina being given the voice of a flamboyant adult man when the original spoke in the syntax of an energetic young boy.

The game was a commercial success, significantly outperforming Square Enix's sales projects despite being released near the beginning of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.. On February 12, 2020 it was announced via the official Seiken Densetsu Twitter account that Trials of Mana HD has broken one million units sold worldwide. This total included physical and digital sales across all available platforms.

Trivia

• For the English localization, the Western branch of Square Enix was determined to outdo the fan translation from 2000.

Gallery

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  Angela

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  Charlotte

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  Duran

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  Hawkeye

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  Kevin

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  Riesz

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  Faerie and the eight mana spirits

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  Flammie

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  Vuscav

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  Belladonna

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  The crimson wizard

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  Goremand

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  HACCAN art celebrating the sales figure milestone

External links

The official Square Enix website

Notes

Main titles Final Fantasy Adventure Secret of Mana Trials of Mana Dawn of Mana Collection of Mana Side stories Secret of Evermore Legend of Mana Children of Mana Heroes of Mana Rise of Mana Remakes Sword of Mana Adventures of Mana Secret of Mana HD Trials of Mana HD