Last time I previewed Visions of Mana, via a couple of short segments of the early game, I came away enthused by its charming, breezy nature that stood in stark contrast to some of the other RPGs I was playing at the time (Dragon’s Dogma 2, anyone?). It’s always tough to know how these things play out over an extended period though, and thanks to Square Enix I’ve finally been able to play a lengthier chunk of the game and really stretch my legs within its mesmerising world.
Aside from the recurring themes around a legendary world tree and shared motifs and designs that tie it to earlier games, Vision of Mana is – like this franchise’s other entries – its own self-contained story with a new cast of characters on an entirely new adventure, making this just as good a jumping-in point for newcomers as anything else. This time around, our adventure follows a steadily-growing group of “Alms” on a pilgrimage to the Mana Tree that occurs every four years in order to maintain the state of their world, guided by the game’s protagonist and designated Soul Guard, Val.
The section I’ve been able to play for this preview kicks off very early into the game, starting at the fire village of Tianeea with Val and his childhood friend, Hinna, who’s just been named the Alm of Fire by the spirits that govern this journey. As protector of the group, Val sets off with Hinna to meet with and escort the Alms of each other settlement across the world, representing their own elements like water, wind, light and even time. I can’t speak too much to the story just yet – there are things best left to players’ own discovery – but based on what I’ve played, traversing the world and steadily growing your party on this pilgrimage to the Mana Tree forms the core of the adventure.
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What I can speak to is how this all plays, and much like I gleaned in my earlier hands-on, it’s a very compelling mix of old-school “JRPG” tendencies with modern, open-world adventure twists. The majority of your time will be spent out in the wider world, exploring vast fields between major towns and cities, fighting enemies in real-time combat and picking up healthy heapings of loot. There’s a fairly consistent rhythm to what I’ve played thus far, which sees the party arrive at a new town, discover there’s a complication to picking up the next Alm, solving it along with any number of side quests, and continuing on to the next point.
It’s hard to see later areas breaking away from this semi-linear path of progression, but you’re afforded plenty of time in-between to traipse around each area and poke for hidden secrets. The game’s not truly open world but instead sliced into map segments, but they’re typically quite expansive and generally a lot of fun to explore. Val is quite nimble and can vault, jump, double-jump and dash around the place in almost platformer-like fashion, and making use of that is usually rewarded with hidden chests, items or various tradable commodities to spend in towns.
And, of course, while you’re out in the world you’re going to come across all manner of beasties to contend with. Visions’ combat is similar to other modern games of its ilk, lightly locking you into engagement with groups of monsters should you choose to approach them on the field, and letting you wail on them in real-time along with the rest of your party. Everything you’d expect to see is here with light and heavy attacks, dodges, aerial moves, magic and occasional big finishers. It’s fairly simplistic and, at least in the opening chapters, quite manageable through button mashing alone, but there’s an inherent relationship with the elements that promises to add extra complexity the deeper you go.
Visions of Mana’s class system is quite novel, allowing you to attach one of your steadily-growing collection of Elemental Vessels to a character to alter their class. There’s no restriction on who can equip what, despite their affinities as Alms of each element, and every character has a completely unique class based on each one – complete with its own stats, abilities, weapon proficiencies and even outfit. I only had access to a handful of the elemental vessels in this preview section but it was already a lot of fun just equipping different vessels to Val, Careena, Morley and Palamena to watch their magical girl-esque transformation sequences and see what they looked like.
In battle, these different classes come with unique benefits and special moves, like being able to slow time for enemies in a small area or juggle them into the air with a whirlwind, and by progressing each class with elemental points found in the environment you’re able to earn more skills to use permanently for each character. I found myself constantly encouraged to try out different builds and switch who I controlled in battle just to find what worked for me, and I can already see myself spending hours fine-tuning my party once every potential member and element is on the table.
If I have any reservations, it’s that all throughout the hours of this preview segment most of the monsters I was fighting were fairly small and didn’t feel like much of a threat. They fit the vibe of the Mana series, cute and whimsical over ferocious and challenging (and many are recurring creatures from the rest of the series) but it really wasn’t until the couple of significantly-larger bosses I came up against that I felt compelled to think about my strategy. Again, and I’m going to sound like a broken record here, this is all early-game stuff but I really hope that enemies in later areas represent more than just marsupials and marsupial-sized insects.
Absolutely the most fun I’ve had so far is exploring the game’s environments, whether it’s the wide open fields or visually and thematically-varied towns and cities – the seaside kingdom of Illystana being an absolutely highlight with its mediterranean vibes complete with accordion-fueled theme music. There are plenty of opportunities to stray from the beaten path to find treasures and tough fights, and already I’d come across a lot of places where I’d need to come back stronger or with new elemental powers to traverse even more of each map.
Pretty soon in, you also get access to the Pikuls, which are the huge, rideable wolf-like creatures that can help you zip around even faster. Failing that, there’s a great fast travel system that allows you to instantly zip to certain points around the area you’re currently in, or go from a fast travel point to anywhere else in the world – even as far as being able to select a certain shop or landmark in a town and drop straight there. I found out the hard way that save points and autosaves are also the only point of re-entry if you die, which I’m not a huge fan of in comparison to games that allow you to simply restart a battle you’ve failed, but usually these moments don’t account for too much backtracking.
Throughout all of the places I’d visited so far, lush and green fields, snowy outcrops, sunny coasts and more, Visions of Mana also has a really strong aesthetic. It’s bright, almost painterly, and superbly composed with some fantastic art direction. From a technical level, based on the PS5 build, there’s certainly room for improvement, and things like character animations are a bit stiff, but the overall look is absolutely stunning and goes a long way to translating the feel of earlier Mana games into something fresh. Musically, it’s also an absolute treat so far, though the audio side of things is somewhat let down by how frequently Val repeats the same vocal quips when finding or collecting things in the world. Even after a few hours I was entirely over it.
While there are definitely some questions to be answered, based on this sizable chunk of the early game I’m more than excited to see the entire Visions of Mana journey through to its conclusion, especially to get a feel for the rest of the classes and how they synergise, and to explore even more of this gorgeous world. If the momentum keeps on, and the early simplicity makes way for some more engaging dungeons and battles, this could turn out to be a bit of a treat for JRPG fans in 2024.
Visions of Mana launches on August 29th for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S and PC.
