#TRIALS OF MANA BEST TEAM SERIES#
The Mana series was never Final Fantasy, in the sense that it has never been interested in philosophical debate, and if there’s any part of this remake that feels a little primitive, it’s in the almost naive treatment that it has of its themes. Regardless of which character you choose however, all of them share a commonality in that they are tasked to go on a grand adventure to preserve Mana – the natural energy of the world – from those that would look to harness it for personal power, if not nihilistic ends.
Naturally, I chose Angela, a sorceress who wears a strapless leotard that is so daring I’m surprised this game got through the censors. In Trials of Mana you get to choose your protagonist from eight available options, with each having a different short introductory chapter, and slightly different key adversaries to fight. Anyone who has any experience with this series knows that as a common theme, it is intensely concerned with environmentalism and is an ongoing conversation between Japanese Shinto’s call for humanity to respect the spirit of everything around them, and the imposition that modernity places on the delicate balances and equilibrium of the planet. There are some serious undertones to Trials of Mana, though. Having only recently played the original Trials of Mana for the first time, seeing all those SNES-era environments completely redrawn has been fascinating, and the Trials of Mana remake is immediately lovable for how inviting it all is. The Mana series has always been renowned for its charming enemy designs, and the rabites, goblins, sahagins and boss monsters all pop with a comic cuteness that gives the mighty Dragon Quest XI itself a run for its money. Every new town and location offers a kind of wonder at both its scale and attention to detail – the castle looks soaring in the distance, but the gorgeous brickwork and character models look bright and inviting up-close. Where the Secret of Mana remake stuck to convention, Trials of Mana goes all out to look and feel modern, and it truly succeeds. One of the remake’s greatest features is immediately apparent the action has shifted from the top-down/isometric perspective of the original to place the camera firmly behind your hero. I am happy to say that if Square Enix hadn’t just dropped one of the finest games of all time on us with the remake of Final Fantasy VII, I would be singing the praises of Trials of Mana as the best remake attempt we’ve seen from a company in many years. Simply put, there was no reason to look forward to what the company would do with Trials. And then there was the reality that Square Enix really did trash the legacy of Secret of Mana with that remake.
There just wasn’t the same nostalgia to make me excited for a remake. I therefore didn’t have the emotional connection to the game that I did for Secret of Mana. For one thing, Trials of Mana hadn’t been released outside of Japan (officially) until 2019’s Collection of Mana. After the crushing disappointment of that woeful Secret of Mana remake from 2018 (never forget, never forgive), I wasn’t interested in the remake of Trials of Mana on any level.
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