Visions of Mana is a game that I enjoyed as much as I enjoyed the Trials of Mana remake, whether it's the fact that it became the first mainline new Mana game in 18 years since Dawn of Mana first came out in Japan for the PS2 and the fifth mainline game, cinematic Class Strikes, Elemental Vessels or fun parts like the one where Careena, Palamena and Julei acted emotional, the other where Val was appointed as the Alm of Light while a Soul Guard and of course, Sly Cooper-esque moments we've experienced.
Before I get started with this pitch for the next mainline Mana game, I'm gonna talk about how Visions of Mana became the first new Mana title in 18 years. I'll be talking about only mainline games as the spin-offs are not mainline games and they come in different genres and varieties.
If you rewind back to the point when they were Square on that time, Final Fantasy Adventure is the spin-off of the Final Fantasy series and the first mainline game of the Mana series released on the Game Boy on 1991. Then Secret of Mana came along to be a sequel on the Super Nintendo in 1993 to shake up the gameplay a bit by having the player character and their two teammates and a ring system. Followed by Trials of Mana released in 1995 for the Super Famicom (also known as Super Nintendo in North America) and was an inside game, never released outside of Japan. Followed by Dawn of Mana released on the PS2 in 2006 in Japan as the first title under the Square Enix name and the first 3D game. To my knowledge, there has not been new mainline Mana game for the 7th generation consoles for ten years since Dawn of Mana came out. That's why the series had to be on a ten-year hiatus.
After the series' ten-year hiatus, Square Enix enlisted studios to make 3D remakes of their old games. And it went well with Adventures of Mana being the first 3D Mana remake that is a 3D remake of Final Fantasy Adventure, first Mana title. Then Secret of Mana followed up to have 3D graphics, but faithful to the original gameplay and story. Then Trials of Mana also followed up to not just have 3D graphics, but also shake up the gameplay by being open world rather than have a top down view and have the new class system and a new and improved combat system kind of similar to Rogue Galaxy that you earn EXP, money and items after defeating all enemies in an area. But I don't mean in terms of attacking because you can't attack outside of combat and the HUD appears during combat in Rogue Galaxy.
The reasoning for the 3D remakes is to call attention back to the Mana franchise to pave the way for new mainline Mana titles to have 3D graphics going forward, with the first being Visions of Mana, the first new Mana game in 18 years since Dawn of Mana first came out in Japan and became the second open world action RPG. The process started when the demo version came out with the part where Square Enix teamed up with One Tree Planted to plant 25,000 more trees globally once the goal of 60,000 hours of watch time on the demo version is met. It succeeded as the goal was met to plant more trees worldwide.
The main reason for bringing more trees across the world is to fight deforestation and encourage reforestation. Trees produce oxygen, right? So when there are leaves, trees also produce mana across the world. When Autumn comes, the leaves change their color and they fall from certain trees and they will not have any leaves until the Spring when trees grow new and green leaves. Without trees, there is no oxygen and without leaves, there is no mana and healing. The only fun thing about forests is that they make me think of Elora from the Spyro franchise because she is one with the forest with her leaf dress and healing powers. Only during the Spring and Summer.
Now, my playthrough of Visions of Mana became pretty darn spectacular. But my Morley: Renegade Moon joke has pretty much flopped. I'll tell you how later. But the Palamena: Water Princess joke has succeeded that her name has an -ena suffix at the end and it's a successful joke of Xena: Warrior Princess and Fena: Pirate Princess. And so do falling on bottomless pits making me think of Spyro: Reignited Trilogy. Then Julei came along to serenade the party with his guitar. While a no brainer, he is believed to be a fun character to play kind of like Umbrella from Skullgirls because of the fact that he can wield his umbrella and he uses it to glide. Unfortunately, I have not experienced any Maggie and the Ferocious Beast vibes. Not even one. But thankfully, I came across multiple vibes other than the Ape Escape and Xena: Warrior Princess vibes. I'll tell you what they are later, so stay tuned for that.
I could just relax, do some side quests and take on Elemental Aeries while learning about Liza's petrification and the calamity of the Earth Village and mourning the loss of Hinna. But what really annoyed me is when I'm about to ride on Flammie on the way to kick Daelophos' butt in the final battle again after I defeated Aeve Zalaha, I realized that riding on Flammie quickly overheated my PS5 despite equipping it with a cooling accessory. I had to hold my PS5 near my portable air conditioner until I exit Flammie. I would just groan and stick with riding on Vuscav. But a hotfix was released and that will hopefully keep my PS5 from overheating while riding on Flammie.
I did enjoy Visions of Mana a lot that it became the first new mainline Mana game since Dawn of Mana first came out on the PS2 in 2006. The best part about it is that the developers made a new Mana game that is perfectly on par with the Trials of Mana remake in terms of the open world perspective, combat and the class system. They have the formula to do so, meaning that if and when the next Mana title potentially Seasons of Mana goes into production, they can know how to make a great new Mana title just by copying and pasting the coding and physics used in Visions of Mana and start from there rather than retooling it from the ground up.
But there is one minor problem I had with Visions of Mana, and it's not developed in Unreal Engine 5. Ever since we entered the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S era, Unreal Engine 5 was announced. It is a far superior version of Unreal Engine that uses Nanite and Lumen to produce photorealistic lighting and rendering on games. It pretty much succeeded with Fortnite being a testbed for UE5. Then MultiVersus came along to have it at launch, but it only used Lumen to produce realistic character lighting. The reason why Visions of Mana doesn't have photorealistic lightning and rendering is because it was developed in Unreal Engine 4 like Trials of Mana. It's considered lukewarm that it lacks realistic rendering and nuance.
So, what if we spice up the graphics up to UE5 standards so that the game would have photorealistic rendering, ray tracing and realistic effects within the 3D environment? Maybe the elementals can have real world elements. For example, if Undine was summoned, you would see the realistic rendering on the water effects. And if they are in a desert, you would see the realistic rendering of the oasis, cacti and sand. Maybe you would experience the realistic rendering of the forest to resemble the ones in my old stomping grounds and other States where forests are found at like in Mylos Woods. And maybe the characters can have wetness from the rain and dirtiness. I believe that this can be done in the style of... Ys X: Nordics, maybe?
Objectively, the best game engine out of others tied with RE Engine is Unreal Engine 5 because of Nanite and Lumen. If and when Unreal Engine 6 comes into fruition, there's no telling how even more realistic future 3D games would be once they are developed in it. The PS5 Pro has launched, so if this game gets chosen to receive PS5 Pro enhancements, that would make the environment even more real. That is one thing so far in this blog post. I got plenty more to give you, so with that being said, it's time to begin my pitch for Seasons of Mana.
The next thing I like to see that is from Secret of Mana, a land of four seasons on the world map. You know that Secret of Mana has the land that has four seasonal themes of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. This one applies to the name of the next Mana title, hence Seasons of Mana. But it is gonna be a lot bigger and more dedicated than Secret of Mana's.
Now, the four areas would depend on the elementals' power. If they are in the Spring area, Dryad's powers get buffed. In the Summer area, Salamando's powers get buffed. In the Autumn area, Gnome and Sylphid's powers get buffed. And in the Winter area, Undine's powers get buffed. No matter which area, Luna, Lumina and Shade's powers would remain the normal amount. This land is how you get to the Tree of Mana. To get to the Tree of Mana, you would go through the land of four seasons, starting with Spring, then Summer, then Autumn, and finally Winter. Then you would arrive at the area where the Tree of Mana is at dwelling the Goddess of Mana and the legendary tool, the Sword of Mana.
The land in Seasons of Mana has a lot of scale that it's gonna be much bigger than Secret of Mana's.
The next thing I like to see in Seasons of Mana is a party of six characters with an even gender composition. Let me stress a little bit. Even gender composition. What I mean is that a party of an even number of characters has several male characters while it has the same number of female characters as the male characters and vice versa. Trials of Mana handled having six characters with an even gender composition, but you can choose up to three characters. Picture the next Mana title to have a party of six. While you can only have three characters in battle, the other three characters can also earn 100% of the EXP like the inside characters, similar to Ys: Memories of Celceta where it involved a party of six with an even gender composition and all characters in a party earn 100% of the EXP.
Now, the next thing that is a returning thing I like to see in Seasons of Mana is a Soul Guard and their Alms. Visions of Mana's story involved having Soul Guards and Alms, so they would also be part of the next Mana title. Why Soul Guards and Alms are important? Well, I'll tell you. Alms are beings that are appointed with the elementals and they can have access to the Tree of Mana, not Soul Guards, which guide Alms to the Tree of Mana.
If you played through the story, Hinna was appointed as the Alm of Fire. Then Careena came as the Alm of Wind. Followed by Morley, appointed as the Alm of the Moon. Then comes Palamena, appointed as the Alm of Water. Then Julei followed up as the Alm of Wood. Followed by Aesh, appointed as the Alm of Darkness. Oh and the cherry on top, Val was appointed as the Alm of Light while a Soul Guard, which received a huge praise because a Soul Guard can also be an Alm like Liza, who was a Soul Guard and also the Alm of Earth.
Now, picture the next Mana game to have Alms and they can't be lost in situations like what happened to Hinna and Liza. And since the party of six with an even gender composition is a part of my pitch, the party of six must have Alms of Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Moon and Wood while those outside of the party would be Alms of Light and Darkness and one of them in a party would be both a Soul Guard and an Alm, like Val. One of the Alms in a party of six is the main character.
I know you are asking what about Final Fantasy XIII. Sure, it's an RPG that has the party of six with an even gender composition, but they each have Eidolons and that's the coolest thing about it. Sadly, the Eidolon-esque creatures that characters would have to earn will not be in my Seasons of Mana pitch, so into the dumpster it goes. But what will be done for Alms in Seasons of Mana is that the Soul Guard must gather the Alms of Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Wood, Moon, Light and Darkness before going to the Tree of Mana, which would be located at the land of four seasons.
Over to the next thing I want to see in Seasons of Mana, a consolidation of handling and behaviors of the Class Strike gauge between two open world games. Trials of Mana handled each character having their own Class Strike gauge and they have up to four Class Strikes and subsequent Class Strikes go either the darkness side or the light side while Visions of Mana handled having one Class Strike gauge for the player character to burn and they only have one Class Strike for each character depending on the vessels they equipped. So what if we consolidate the Class Strike gauge handling and behaviors between Trials of Mana and Visions of Mana?
I think that consolidation could work like that so that all three characters in battle can have their own Class Strike gauge and one Class Strike in four levels that measure by intensity. If Trials of Mana handled three characters having their own Class Strike gauge while Visions of Mana handled having cinematic Class Strikes, then Seasons of Mana would consolidate that so that the player character and the two teammate characters can each have their own Class Strike gauge, but they can only have not four, but one Class Strike in four levels depending on the intensity. And they would have one class that comes in four levels.
Instead of me just telling you, I am also going to show you what the ingame HUD would look like in Seasons of Mana. The middle meter HUD is for the player character. Both ends are for the player character's teammates. The right one is for Teammate 1 and the left one is for Teammate 2 to emulate the HUD style in Trials of Mana that is easier to read. The bar below the MP gauge is the Class Strike gauge coming in multiple levels. The blue diamond with a 1 on it means your level 1 Class Strike is available to use and the blue fill up is for your level 1 Class Strike considered to be a Base Class Strike.
The green fill up is for your level 2 Class Strike and the green diamond with a 2 on it means your level 2 Class Strike is ready and the intensity increases a bit as an Arcane Class Strike.
The yellow fill up is for the the level 3 Class Strike and the yellow diamond with a 3 on it means your level 3 Class Strike is ready to go and the intensity increases up to the penultimate point and it's considered your Burst Class Strike.
And last but not least, the red fill up is for the level 4 Class Strike, or the Ultimate Class Strike and the red diamond with a 4 on it means your level 4 Class Strike is ready to go while the red fill up is for the level 4 Class Strike. Level 4 Class Strikes would be so cinematic that they grant the character's power to unleash their ultimate potential and they would be far far more cinematic than Trials of Mana's level 4 Class Strikes. Consider them their Mystic Class Strikes. There is a special rule on how to unlock a level 4 Class Strike that I'll explain later.
At the begining of the game, you would start at level 1 to perform a level 1 Class Strike. Then you would go to the next level by interacting with the object to go up a class level, but a special item is required to go up a class level. Trials of Mana handled having four Class Strikes, but Seasons of Mana would have one Class Strike in four levels that measure by intensity. The higher the level, the higher the intensity.
Here's the next thing that is another one of the things I want to return in Seasons of Mana, Elemental Vessels. They are cool items Visions of Mana handled. Equipping it changes their weapons, classes and magic depending on the vessel and for use in battle. And to equip Val the Lumina Lantern makes him quite core with him being the Alm of Light while a Soul Guard. So if Visions of Mana had eight playable characters in a party to include Hinna, Liza and Aesh, I would equip Hinna the Salamando Candle, equip Liza the Gnome Shovel and equip Aesh the Shade Sight to make them quite core with them being Alms of Fire, Earth and Darkness.
While Seasons of Mana can have Elemental Vessels, equipping it doesn't have to change their weapon choice or change their class. They would stick with one weapon and one class once equipped with an Elemental Vessel. Once equipped with an Elemental Vessel, their level 1, level 2 and level 3 Class Strikes would be elemental while unequipping it would perform non-elemental Class Strikes. But not the level 4 Class Strikes. Instead, they can give the character power to unleash their true potential as an Alm. Think of Corporeal Magic Attacls in Blue Dragon where the characters' shadow unleashes their true potential.
Here is the next HUD pass for the Elemental Vessel HUD. The diamond shape represents the HUD for the equipped Elemental Vessels. The HUD disappears when an Elemental Vessel is unequipped. But a separate gauge for Elemental Breaks would be located on the left and fills up when collecting Mana particles that appear from using Elemental Vessels against enemies.
The next thing that is something that is never featured on previous Mana games, Triple Strikes. This is something that has never before seen in a single Mana game. Triple Strikes are combined attacks that allow three characters to perform their cinematic combined moves. Triple Strikes have different combinations depending on the composition.
Now, picture a Triple Strike in Seasons of Mana. Here are two examples. If there are three male characters in battle, their Triple Strike would increase their manpower and unleash a frontal assault against enemies. And if there are three female characters in battle, their Triple Strike would offer temporary immunity of enemy attacks. I think they could work like that in a Mana game.
However, there is a bit of a snag to this. We had to press the right trigger to perform Class Strikes and the left trigger to use Elemental Vessels. But what if we press the left and right triggers simultaneously to perform Triple Strikes? That could work.
This is what the character HUDs would look like in full form when you have an Elemental Vessel eqipped to each character, have three characters in battle and came to the point when you are granted to do a Class Strike. When you have three characters in battle, the Triple Strike meter appears in a circular form that the gauge fills up clockwise when dealing or taking damage. It's doesn't make sense for both meters to fill up when dealing or taking damage, so what will make sense is collecting CS particles fills up the CS gauge while dealing or taking damage fills up the Triple Strike gauge on the right. However, the gauge is greyed out when one teammate dies or turns into stone. So again, this is what the in game HUD should look like in full form for Seasons of Mana. In fact, the HUD is easier to read.
And last but certainly not least, an extra story chapter. When you beat the game for the first time, an extra story chapter unlocks and it's to backtrack to the part of the story to have a new event that takes place before the final battle. Trials of Mana's extra story chapter backtracked to the part of the story where we switch to Class 4 to defeat Anise before saving the Goddess of Mana again. Visions of Mana's extra story chapter backtracked to the part of the story to reveal the answer on who is the true mastermind behind Etaern's tragedy after hearing that Morley is not the one responsible.
If you have been living in a pineapple like SpongeBob or living under a rock like Patrick, it revealed the true mastermind behind Etaern's tragedy, and that is Passar. Now, Passar was one of the characters who was quite the judge of character. He became so iconic that removing him would make things any less core to the backtracking part. If you played through the extra chapter, you would know that according to Morley's horror, Passar was revealed to be a true scumbag responsible of causing Etaern's tragedy by stealing the orb from the giant hourglass that he would plot to turn Illystana into his dastardly base using Aeve Zalaha. I mean, come on!
Sure, Passar would've gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling kids. Or in Visions of Mana's case, meddling Alms. So when Passar was revealed to be true mastermind, everything is great, right? Sure, everything is just peachy keen. If Seasons of Mana is gonna have the extra story chapter when you beat the game to backtrack to the part of the story to have a new event before the final battle, what's it gonna be? The answer is unknown. But we do know one thing, that if you beat the game for the first time, the extra story chapter in Seasons of Mana would unlock and would entail acquiring a very special elemental item required to go up to Class 4 to grant you the power to unleash cinematic level 4 Class Strikes and defeat the true penultimate boss before defeating the final boss again.
For vibes I experienced in Visions of Mana, I said that there are multiple vibes other than the Ape Escape and Xena: Warrior Princess vibes I experienced. The vibes I have experienced are the Inside Out, Scooby-Doo and Johnny Test vibes. Inside Out vibes is when Careena, Palamena and Julei acted emotional, Scooby-Doo vibes is when Passar was revealed to be the true mastermind behind Etaern's tragedy, and Johnny Test vibes is when Palamena appointed her brother, Iain as the King of Illystana. It's like hearing the sound of hitting collectibles in Crash Bandicoot making me think of the old Nick Jr. logo, probably. If Seasons of Mana is going to get existing vibes and Simpsons vibes or something, I'll be hyped for that. And this will count as an optional thing I want in Seasons of Mana.
Making a pitch is easy, but it can be hard for me to come up with a lot of ideas on this post because there are a lot of avenues Seasons of Mana can take and I can't afford to crush any creativity when it comes to having a barrel of ideas. What is really hard is analyzing ideas that I like and don't like, so I just want to cover the ones that I want in Seasons of Mana.
There is a padding that we had with Square Enix. They like to release a 3D remake of the original mainline titles and the new titles each even year. 2016 was Adventures of Mana, the 3D remake to Final Fantasy Adventure, first mainline Mana game. 2018 was Secret of Mana. 2020 was Trials of Mana. 2024 was Visions of Mana. And 2026 will be Seasons of Mana and that will be the year when the series celebrates its 35th Anniversary. Let's not forget that 2026 will be the year when the Mana series celebrates its 35th Anniversary because Final Fantasy Adventure is the first Mana game of the franchise released in 1991 despite having "Final Fantasy" in the title. They haven't released a new mainline game in 2022, so they put in a new spin-off, Echoes of Mana as a buffer between the remakes and the new games to give the companies time to develop new mainline titles.
However, there is one catch. The next Mana title is potentially Seasons of Mana. What this means is that the name may or may not change. We will have to wait until 2026 to be in the know for the next mainline Mana game.
