So while we're all living the quarantine life right now, I thought it was a good time as any to clear up some of my backlog. After playing the Trials of Mana demo and REALLY enjoying it, I figured I would go back to Collection of Mana after dropping it in the middle of last year.
Why did I drop it in the first place? Well, it wasn't exactly intentional as much as it was a result of University taking priority at the time, rendering me unable to play anything that wasn't quick and dirty runs on gacha games. But there was at least one more reason I'll touch up on later. For now let's just do a quick rundown on what I think of each game so far, because yes, I still haven't finished this. In fact, I've only finished one of the games and dropped the other two for very different reasons.
Anyways...
Final Fantasy Adventure/Seiken Densetsu
I guess it's no surprise that this is the only game of the three I've finished so far, it's the shortest and the first game in the series so most are likely to this one boot up I would imagine. I would say I didn't know what to expect when jumping into this game, but that'd be a lie. I was expecting this to be a really simple and rather primitive game, given it's time and the hardware it launched in and in that way, I was right. It's nothing to write home about mechanics wise, it's extremely similar to Zelda 1 with the added wrinkle of stats and the Will gauge and sometimes party members. Where I was very wrong though, is where the story went. I was 100% thinking this was gonna be a very simple and straightforward "Hero saves the princess" type of deal but hoo boy do people love to die in this game. Even the intro was a little surprising, hitting you with the revelation that you've been nothing but a slave for the Dark Lord for god knows how long. As of the ending, pretty much every notable NPC was dead, your friends are dead and the girl became the Mana Tree. All the Hero has left was his trusty Chocobo at his side.
All in all, I enjoyed this game for what it was. It's pretty janky and the only thing I'll really remember the game for was for how surprisingly bleak it got, but I can't call it bad or unejoyable.
Secret of Mana
This game is where I stopped, to keep it brief I just simply wasn't enjoying it. The music is very good and the visuals are amazing... And that's it. It feels like some of the jank from FFA wasn't really addressed and I don't enjoy the fighting at all this time. It feels like even my charged moves do nothing while Magic completely destroys the game, rendering everything kind of obsolete. I can't say I'm really enjoying the narrative either, or lack of their of. Maybe I need to give it more before it clicks but for now I was fine putting this game down for good... Until...
Trials of Mana
So this game is the one that re-sparked my interest in this series again (the demo of the remake, to be exact.) I haven't really looked into the marketing or trailers for the remake, I just knew that the demo had launched so I thought why not give it a shot? In short, I loved the demo so much that it inspired me to jump right into the collection again just to see what this one was like originally. And, yeah, I'm still liking it a lot, I'm loving the changes they made to the battle system and all but... I couldn't stop thinking about the remake while playing this. So I ended up putting it down before I got very far because at this point it was pretty clear to me that I'm just gonna buy the remake and play the heck out of that one instead.
So, yeah. This compilation was a rather strange experience looking at it now. One game I finished, another I dropped because I couldn't get into it and the final one also dropped but because the remake is coming soon and to me that's how I would prefer to experience the game for the first time. I do plan on coming back to SNES Trials of Mana at some much later point, and maybe give Secret another chance as well.
Why did I drop it in the first place? Well, it wasn't exactly intentional as much as it was a result of University taking priority at the time, rendering me unable to play anything that wasn't quick and dirty runs on gacha games. But there was at least one more reason I'll touch up on later. For now let's just do a quick rundown on what I think of each game so far, because yes, I still haven't finished this. In fact, I've only finished one of the games and dropped the other two for very different reasons.
Anyways...
Final Fantasy Adventure/Seiken Densetsu
I guess it's no surprise that this is the only game of the three I've finished so far, it's the shortest and the first game in the series so most are likely to this one boot up I would imagine. I would say I didn't know what to expect when jumping into this game, but that'd be a lie. I was expecting this to be a really simple and rather primitive game, given it's time and the hardware it launched in and in that way, I was right. It's nothing to write home about mechanics wise, it's extremely similar to Zelda 1 with the added wrinkle of stats and the Will gauge and sometimes party members. Where I was very wrong though, is where the story went. I was 100% thinking this was gonna be a very simple and straightforward "Hero saves the princess" type of deal but hoo boy do people love to die in this game. Even the intro was a little surprising, hitting you with the revelation that you've been nothing but a slave for the Dark Lord for god knows how long. As of the ending, pretty much every notable NPC was dead, your friends are dead and the girl became the Mana Tree. All the Hero has left was his trusty Chocobo at his side.
All in all, I enjoyed this game for what it was. It's pretty janky and the only thing I'll really remember the game for was for how surprisingly bleak it got, but I can't call it bad or unejoyable.
Secret of Mana
This game is where I stopped, to keep it brief I just simply wasn't enjoying it. The music is very good and the visuals are amazing... And that's it. It feels like some of the jank from FFA wasn't really addressed and I don't enjoy the fighting at all this time. It feels like even my charged moves do nothing while Magic completely destroys the game, rendering everything kind of obsolete. I can't say I'm really enjoying the narrative either, or lack of their of. Maybe I need to give it more before it clicks but for now I was fine putting this game down for good... Until...
Trials of Mana
So this game is the one that re-sparked my interest in this series again (the demo of the remake, to be exact.) I haven't really looked into the marketing or trailers for the remake, I just knew that the demo had launched so I thought why not give it a shot? In short, I loved the demo so much that it inspired me to jump right into the collection again just to see what this one was like originally. And, yeah, I'm still liking it a lot, I'm loving the changes they made to the battle system and all but... I couldn't stop thinking about the remake while playing this. So I ended up putting it down before I got very far because at this point it was pretty clear to me that I'm just gonna buy the remake and play the heck out of that one instead.
So, yeah. This compilation was a rather strange experience looking at it now. One game I finished, another I dropped because I couldn't get into it and the final one also dropped but because the remake is coming soon and to me that's how I would prefer to experience the game for the first time. I do plan on coming back to SNES Trials of Mana at some much later point, and maybe give Secret another chance as well.
