Difference between revisions of "Trials of Mana HD"

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 prior to 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.

''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 in order 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.  

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 prior to 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.

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<ref>https://noisypixel.net/trials-of-mana-interview-how-the-team-retained-the-fantasy-of-this-adventure/</ref>. 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 insure 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 to next when leaving a town of 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 in 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<ref>https://square-enix-games.com/en_GB/news/trials-mana-interview</ref>.

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<ref>https://www.siliconera.com/trials-of-mana-interview-producers-talk-about-secret-of-mana-angela-and-other-entries/</ref>. As a result, careful fine tuning was applied to the game's A.I. system for characters not immediately being controlled by the player. Where as 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.

''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 ans 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 in spite of being released near the beginning of the ongoing covid-19 pandemic.<ref>https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/ir/pdf/21q1outline.pdf</ref>. On February twelfth, 2020 it was announced via the official Seiken Densetsu twitter<ref>fhttps://archive.fo/dBzw5</ref> account that ''Trials of Mana HD'' has broken one million units sold world wide. This total included physical and digital sales across all available platforms.

*For the English localization, the Western branch of Square Enix was determined to out do the fan translation from 2000<ref>https://www.usgamer.net/articles/trials-of-mana-interview</ref>.