Episode 339: Trials of Mana Remake
Added 2020-11-16 13:12:09 +0000 UTCWhy should the Final Fantasy VII remake get all the love? Just because Final Fantasy VII is one of the most popular games of all time, sheesh. Overshadowed by that game's release this past spring there was another Square Enix remake for modern consoles: A surprisingly solid 3D recreation of Trials of Mana, the third entry in the Seiken Densetsu series, which spent nearly a quarter of a century sans formal localization and now is available in English in both its original and 3D forms.
This episode, Chris Kohler and Nadia Oxford join me to give the remake the conversation it deserves. Weird to think that once upon a time, any English rendition of this game would have set the RPG fanatic contingent to vibrating with excitement yet it's practically a non-topic in 2020. Just another bizarre thing about this year, I suppose.
Art by Shaan Khan and edits by Greg Leahy.
Comments
Just finished the switch version of this game yesterday.
Mark D Myers
2022-06-05 13:28:37 +0000 UTCYeah, I'm really curious to try that demo someday, because it sounded pretty miserable.—JP
Retronauts
2020-11-21 12:53:00 +0000 UTC"Still doing the games journalism thing, at least for now..." Ooof. :(
Nigel G
2020-11-18 01:11:59 +0000 UTCI totally understand why Bob would think it was bad based on the demo. Nothing particularly bad about the switch version, but the section in all the demos is the intro, which is the worst section of the game for basically any character. A lot of "go here, talk to this person, tutorial", with only one or two combats that are constantly interrupted with tutorial text of how combat works, and the intro sections seem to have the worst voice acting in the game. So I almost bounced completely off the game too. Glad I ended up buying it anyway.
Paul
2020-11-17 13:50:55 +0000 UTCThe one good thing about the oversaturation of nostalgia right now is that it's giving devs a reason to revisit games that never saw the light of day, in or out of Japan. Just a damn shame Square wasted the remake of Secret Of Mana to make functionally the same game while stylistically ripping away its charms. I'd love to see what some of the cutting room floor ideas were planned for that game.
Phoequinox
2020-11-17 10:59:12 +0000 UTCI have hope that one day we'll see English releases of Live a Live, Treasure of the Rudras, Treasure Hunter G, and Bahamut Lagoon....but I'm not going to hold my breath. It's a good thing they've all been extensively fan translated, so it's not like we're really missing out.
crystalhearts
2020-11-16 21:38:13 +0000 UTCI really enjoyed this episode, and I will go on the record to say that the original SNES ToM is a technical marvel that is beautiful to look at and listen to, but an absolute chore to play. I loved the remake, warts and all, and I would love to see more B-tier games like this from Square-Enix.
2020-11-16 19:16:45 +0000 UTCGood point about how Square Enix doesn't support series once the creators leave. Even the Final Fantasy series has floundered since Hironobu Sakaguchi left. FF 12, 13, and 15 all suffered from leadership crises at some point in their development.
Dave Dalrymple
2020-11-16 17:03:11 +0000 UTCHow do you feel about the fan translation of the SFC game?
KerooSeta
2020-11-16 15:33:19 +0000 UTCLiterally just a few hours before this went live, I had just finished the episode of Axe Of The Blood God where Kat and Nadia talked about this very game, and said something similar about FFVIIR stealing its thunder. It'll be interesting to hear Nadia's full thoughts as well as Jeremy's when I finally get a chance to listen. And I just realized Chris is back. This is gonna be a great episode. Can't wait.
Phoequinox
2020-11-16 14:16:46 +0000 UTC
