Recent reviews by BlazingWaters

I've been aware of Seiken Densetsu 3/Trials Of Mana for several years now, ever since I first heard about it through a Youtube video around 2012. Though I never got around to playing it, it's something I've always kept my eye on, due to it having a massive cult status among RPG and SNES fans.

Fast forward to last year's E3 event, and I was surprised and ecstatic to hear that not only was it getting localized in the form of the Collection Of Mana release, but it was also getting a remake on top of that. I planned on going through COM as anticipation for TOMR (Trials Of Mana Remake as I'm gonna call it from here on) but uh... that fell through since Doom Eternal and Final Fantasy 7 Remake were coming out beforehand, and then Sakura Wars 2020 was coming out a little after, so I prioritized going through the Doom series, OG FF7, and the fan translated first game of Sakura Wars first. Still, I was excited for TOMR nonetheless, so I went and preordered it anyway, and ended up loving it. Since I never went through the original, this review is mainly gonna be about my experience with the remake, though I'll make some clarifications on stuff I do know was added and changed.

I picked Angela as my main character, and for her story, I was actually surprised at how much I ended up liking it. I went in knowing that Mana was a series of RPGs that placed much more emphasis on gameplay rather than the story, but even still they did a nice job fleshing both her and her villains' personality out, and in general detailed a fine backstory of the universe, made even more enjoyable due to adding Duran to my party, making him and Angela interact a bit more since the two share the same set of villains. Speaking of interactions, I've heard that they added some new dialogue stuff for the other party member(s) not connected to the *main* MC's story, the other three that weren't picked at all, and even the two other villains you don't face. While I don't know which were newly written and which were already in the original, I'm nonetheless glad to see that everyone outside of the MC's story have a fair amount of depth to their story (as abridged and shortened as they can be) and their personality, making it so that you WANT to see their POV in the next run. The new post-game story content, the Epilogue, is done after beating the game once, and overall it was good. I do think some people won't like how the dungeon is handled, but the conclusion for my three character's arcs in terms of both their individual quests and their new Class 4 status, as well as the boss for it, more than made up for it to me.

My party for the whole game was Angela as Light Class magic attacker, Duran as a Light Class tank, and finally Kevin as a Dark Class physical powerhouse, and all of them filled their roles magnificently. While I'm not too sure about the specific workings of a character's build and stats in the original (though I've heard Angela has been buffed significantly in comparison, and Kevin, already being insanely powerful in my playthrough, is supposedly even better and literally game-breaking in the original?), I do know that the style of combat changed from attacks done via how much percentage was in the charge meter and other uses like magic and items being done through the Ring system, to an actual action-oriented battle, alongside new stuff such as dodging and (assuming these weren't in the original) Class Strikes and a tab that will allow you to fine-tune the AI's ability in battle to your liking. All of these were executed greatly here, though maybe a bit too great since outside of a few instances, I never felt any challenge, even when I played through the *entire game* on Hard. At the very least, though, the Epilogue's dungeon and especially the superboss that can be done after beating the main game deliver on the challenge front (though that being said, I can also see some people really not like the superboss due to it being a tad demanding).

As for technical aspects, the game looks great. Though the seams of it being a budgeted title is noticeable due to the short draw distance and how textures are loaded, the overall art direction and presentation is great, and in some instances gives an even greater sense of atmosphere. In terms of sound effects, all the ones pertaining to combat (magic, hits, etc etc) sound punchy and satisfying, though the main star for this part, for me, is the soundtrack. I've listened to some of the original's music here and there for comparison, and almost all of the tracks got a wonderful rearrangement, my favorites being High Tension Wire, Rolling Cradle, Meridian Child (<3), and Decision Bell. The only notable flaw for sound is, probably the most infamous part of the remake, the English dub. I know that, since Mana is a budgeted series in comparison to something like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Kingdom Hearts, the English dub didn't get that much of a priority, but man... it's still awful. Though I've used JP audio for my entire playthrough, I did play the demo with the ENG voices as well as hear other bits from various clips online, and while I do like some of the ENG voices, such as Belladonna's, Hawkeye's, and Angela's, everyone else either had bad vocal delivery (Riesz, Duran, Crimson Wizard), weren't good to begin with (Charlotte, pretty much a majority of the side NPCs), or a mixture of both (Kevin). I just stated there's JP audio, but even still I'm disappointed SE just didn't put much effort for the dub to begin with.

The only other flaw I can think of is that I think the late game dungeons fall flat. While the bosses for them - especially the final three bosses for my story - are all at least great, and the atmosphere for each are equally good, most of the dungeon design themselves ramp up the linearity and fighting rooms to a degree that made it a chore to go through, but that being said I still liked a decent chunk of them (Crystal Desert, Woods Of Wandara, Gemstone Valley, and Shimmering Valley specifically).

All that said, I've very much enjoyed my time with TOMR. While I don't think it's something everyone will enjoy, due to it being a near 1:1 remake of the SNES original, instead of something like Resident Evil 1 and 2 remakes or the recently released Final Fantasy 7 Remake of being a wholly different experience while still keeping the tone, theming, and core parts of the original, it's loving charm, characters, and combat more than satisfied me. I'll definitely make sure to play the original - as well as finish up my progress in Final Fantasy Adventure and replay Secret Of Mana - sometime soon.

So what do you get when you cross Star Wars with tactical FPS gameplay? A pretty damn good game, and one that still stands as one of the most immersive SW game ever created.

"The squad is your weapon" is an incredibly fitting tagline, alright. Though there are some issues, like each squad not getting a unique thing related to their specialty, the dialogue and interaction between you and your three teammates really sells in the fact that you and the others are brothers. It's why the final mission still hurts today, in fact.

And even outside of that, being able to point where and what each member should do in a given situation is a ton of fun, and makes for an incredibly addicting and rewarding gameloop of finding That One Strat™ and cleaning up.

The sound design is also incredibly well-made. Check out this full behind the scenes video about it, it's nuts about how they were able to achieve some of the effects:

With that in mind, every gun feels very good to use, to the point where I was constantly swapping out between each gun in any scenario I deemed it useful in. Even the weird, dinky sound of your default assault rifle still made it essential during those tight as nails shoot-outs.

So what're the issues? Mainly that the AI can be rather dumb at times. Idk what it is, but sometimes I see the friendly and enemy just stop what they're doing, and do a little circle motion before going on to what they're doing. Rarely, the enemies also bundle up for some reason. Also, due to there only being 3 missions to do, the game’s structure sorta gets hampered as a result.

Still, I highly recommend picking this game up if you have yet to do so. It’s so much fun to pop in every now and then and see yourself improved.

I feel like for every really cool/fun thing this game sets out and achieves, there's always a major but tagged on that ruins it.

- The companions are pretty fun, and the story rather dumb fun, BUT the friendly AI is more-or-less braindead during gameplay sections as well, which puts a damper on the whole experience, and even with the dumb fun I still had to raise a few eyebrows in certain cutscenes of the game,

- The whole "Trust" mechanic is a neat idea, BUT once again the friendly AI isn't very good to take full advantage of it since they either just get in your way or don't do anything to take advantage of their supposed playstyle, which turns something that could potentially make a healthy degree of gameplay styles available to the player, devolve into a barebones gimmick and a benchmark for which ending is given. Speaking of,

- Tying said mechanic for the endings is cool, BUT since Trust only increases via melee, grenade, and sometimes headshot/quick succession kills, you end up exploiting one of the game's few infinite enemy respawn points a few times, which makes the pace slow down tremendously, and even then, all that changes is how many people in your squad are still alive, so what even was the point?

- The core shooting mechanics is fun, and I like how the enemy robots actually lose their limbs with enough shots, BUT there's very little weapon variety since your main assault rifle and your pistol takes care of nearly everything the game throws at you (with upgrades, admittedly, but I digress) which gets rather tedious, and the overall difficulty, even on Hard, is rather easy because it's essentially one-man-armying the whole thing since again, useless allies, unless...

- The design for each of the bosses are cool, BUT in most situations the difficulty only "ramps up" because you're given incredibly tedious and repetitive tasks while placed in an environment that seriously hinders your ability to move and kill them, and on top of that, giving them attack cycles that can outright kill/ragdoll on a few occasions, which just makes for an aggrevating time especially if they have very little to no cool down Seriously, I could make a solid argument as to why the Mecha-Gorilla in Chapter 4 is one of the worst bosses ever made in gaming history, it's that bad.

I really wanted to like this game, especially after hearing all the praises about it and seeing SEGA's name on the boxart, but the cons are just too prominent for me to fully enjoy it. If you want to get this still, then I say get it during a sale, otherwise, spend your money on better shooters available.

Ah, Fable. This one is another case where it could've had potential to be one of the biggest names in the gaming community (more or less), but since the developer went all crazy (Peter Molyneaux, in this case) it pretty much lost its wonder once the sequels got released. Now, while I did have a fun time with 2 and had an..... experience with 3, I won't be comparing TLC to those games, and instead just judge this game on its own merits. With that out of the way, let me start of with what the game does right:


+ While the story itself is cliched, everything else about the game has charm, and a fun sense of humor into it, as well as having a balance of being serious and just being laidback.
+ Combat is pretty fun. Standard hack n' slash action with your one-handed and two-handed weapons for your Strength attack, archery combat with bows and crossbows for Skill, and a nice array of spells in the Magic session. Not only that, but each attack from the three aspects will net you experience points in that respective area, while killing an enemy will give you general experience. While it can get repetitive at times, I still think the game's combat does well enough so that it doesn't get infuriating or annoying.
+ Even with the techincal issues (more on that later), I still think the environment themselves can get good-looking and even a bit atmospheric at times, though that's probably because it's accompanied by a relaxing OST.



- Might as well adress this now - this game has definitely shown some age. Not only are there issues with character models and textures, but sometimes even particle effects or simple glitches can pop up every now and then. There was one instance where it pretty much showed a glimpse of a boss.... before I was even able to activate the fight.
- The story and the choices in it honestly doesn't really change much, from beginning to end. Every single choice you make in it (besides maybe the endgame one) will just change one minor element in the game's world, that's it.
- The game is way too easy. Even without the use of exploits, it didn't take me long to get some of the strongest items and equipment in the game, more gold than you know what to do with, and make some my spells maxed out so that I can end fights with ease. I think the only time I ever got some sort of trouble was at the final boss, but even then I was able to readjust myself easily.
- There isn't really much to do after finishing the game. Sure, you got your sidequests, Silver Keys, and Demon Doors, but you'll more than likely finish up almost all of the side quests just by going through the game naturally, I never really found a reason to collect the Silver Keys (though someone else might, admittedly), and I found that, outside of a few occurances, most Demon Doors are not worth opening at all.



Even with the flaws and exploits, I still give this game my Recommendation. Maybe it's because I still have nostalgia from when I played this game religously when I was 6, but I still think there's enough charm and merit to this game that most can enjoy from it. While you can beat the game in a weekend, there's still (more or less) enough content to warrent an immediate replay session.

In this game, I have made insults such as:
"This parrot never watched Star Wars"
"Your father is silly and has butt cancer, and I have proof"
"The African Swallow is a dead parrot and is not migratory and your hoverfraft was a platypus"
"Your cousin's car never watched Star Wars and your hat is a dead parrot"
10/10 best insult simulator ever.