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About the game
Trials of Mana is developed and published by Square Enix. The game is a remake of Seiken Densetsu 3, aka the follow-up to Secret of Mana, released for the SNES in 1995.
The SNES original is notorious for lacking an official release and translation outside Japan, which was finally remedied upon the released of Collection of Mana in 2019. The retitled Trials of Mana was included as part of this collection, with its original 16-bit graphics and sounds, with the text fully translated into English.
The remake moves the game into a 3D environment, with revamped graphics, sounds, and gameplay improvements.
Here's a description from Square Enix:
This daring tale of overcoming the tests of fate has been given new life! Experience the beloved adventure fully modernized with graphic improvements, character voiceover support, a remastered soundtrack and a new episode which you can experience after the ending, in addition to an ability system and a new class that reconstructs the character levelling system plus more active battles!
How does it rank?
Trials of Mana currently has a score of 7.98, calculated from 6 partner reviews. This puts it as the 7th highest scored game for April 2020, 34th highest in 2020, and rank 354 overall.
See the game page for Trials of Mana here.
Five of the review score the game between 8.0 to 8.5, while one review awards it a lower score of 7.0. As always, it's worth reading the reviews, not just the scores.
I have a strong interest in the game partly for nostalgia reasons, and also because I enjoyed the demo. However, the price tag seems a little steep. I'll probably wait for it to come down.
What about you - have you picked up Trials of Mana, or are you planning to?
