Legend of Mana officially hits the European market more than twenty years after its launch on the first PlayStation. The Square Enix game does so with a smooth remastering of some of its elements, but preserving all the essence that characterized it when it came out. Is it a title that all players will like today? We tell you about it in this analysis.

Before I get down to business with what I think about this Legend of Mana HD, I would like to make use of a few brief lines to explain the approach from which I make this analysis. In this way my comments will be better understood, because Legend of Mana has to be looked at with the eyes of another time. I’m talking about the year 1999, when it was released for the first time in the Japanese market under the title Seiken Densetsu: Legend of Mana. Therefore, be clear that both the criticism and praise that will continue in the following paragraphs have been made with all this in mind. Being the first time that we have access to the title in Europe through “normal” channels, I will focus on telling you how and what to expect from the game in the first instance, to later judge if the quality of its remastering is at the level of what it would have been. could wish.

Legend of Mana occupies the fourth place in the list of this long-lived saga that groups under the word Mana up to thirteen different productions. After the release on Game Boy of Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden, known as Sword of Mana in the West through its remake, and the wonderful Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana from Super Nintendo (to see Trials in the West we also had to wait many years until its release as part of Collection of Mana and later its charming remake), PlayStation was the platform chosen to continue the saga with the installment that concerns us today and that will be released on June 24 on PC, Switch and PS4 .

The most striking thing about this classic action RPG was the decision made to tell the player its story. In this installment there is no linear progress, there is no predefined story to stick to and tell its events in a way that leads the player through their narrative. Instead we are given an empty map, framed within the world of Fa’Diel in which you as a player are in charge of creating its different locations through an original system of artifacts that, when placed on the areas enabled to To this effect, they make new dungeons, places and cities to visit appear out of nowhere. This striking way of creating the adventure has its justification within the narrative, since the Mana Tree and its goddess have been forgotten for too long and it will be with this mechanic that we restore splendor to the world around us.

Without the narrative force of other installments of the saga

The problem is how this affects the rhythm of the game and its narration, practically nothing is explained to us, the title presupposes that the bases of the saga are known and our role and path of hero is taken for granted without there being just a previous introduction . In this way, each player will know the different main arcs of the story in a different way, depending on the order he chooses to create the new locations and visit them. This component, added to the great superficiality with which many characters and conversations are treated in much of the title, makes the experience somewhat washed-out and lackluster , far behind other titles in the aforementioned franchise.

Where the title manages to hook from the first moment is in its combat system, we are facing a classic action role-playing game, the fights happen in real time, and the control system has been moved in an almost identical way to the original. We can choose between a male or female character to give a name, and from there choose an initial weapon. I opted for the greatsword, but you can choose daggers, swords, axes, halberds, mallets or spears. Under this premise, and from a lateral point of view, the confrontations take place. The truth is that it costs a bit to get the point of the mechanics, the dodge and attack system is anchored in the past , but after a short time you will be fully integrated with it and it will be difficult for you not to take a certain affection for it.

Of course, the equipment can be improved, there are numerous points of sale in which to exchange profits for better weapons and equipment that, added to the automatic level increase of our protagonist, create a pleasant sense of progression as you advance in the approximately 25 hours it takes complete the adventure. When the time comes we will be able to perform magic, for this, from the workshop of our home we will create musical instruments endowed with the power of different elements of mana.

The automatic level increase of our protagonist creates a pleasant sensation of progressionAn interesting mechanic opens up here, because to make such instruments we will first have to get certain coins that we will only get by tricking these elements that appear sporadically on stage through music. We will have to get them to talk to us, and for this we will have to play a melodythat they like. It is up to the user to discover if a sad or enigmatic ballad best matches an element or, if it is a happy melody that will make them trust us enough to get these coins. From the combination of these and certain manufacturing elements of worse or better quality we will create different instruments such as flutes, harps or drums that will give us spells that we can use during the combats by assigning them quickly to any of the triggers of the command.

It is strange that there is no limitation regarding the use of these magic, which does occur when executing special combat techniques which will only be available once we have filled in a kind of ATB bar that will be completed based on achieving impacts on the more than one hundred different enemies that we will encounter during the game. In fact, all of them have a good number of attacks of their own, any confrontation can lead you directly to death, because although at the end we will restore the health of the entire group, during the battle it is not possible to access potions or healing elements beyond of some objects that they drop in the middle of the fight and that have to be picked up quickly if we do not want them to disappear in front of our noses.

The combat of an old school action RPG

In the fighting section, the confrontations against some final bosses stand out, most of them have a really good design, both aesthetically and when using different patterns that will have to be identified as soon as possible if you do not want to die a lot. Of course, in this version the quick save option has been included, so we can save the game at almost any time ensuring our progress in different slots, something that in the original version was reserved for the statues of the goddess. If this was not enough, when you die, the game gives you the option to start from exactly the same point where you were, being able to repeat without limit so I have not really used the loading system except a couple of times at the end of the adventure in which I needed to increase my team and character level more.

This is something that really should not be given if you play the title in its original format, where the enemies reappear with some ease and the repetition of combats can become somewhat tedious. For this edition, the possibility of activating or deactivating the fights at will from the title’s quick pause menu has been enabled, something especially useful if you want to revisit an area to explore in search of chests or to recruit any of the companions you have the game.

It is precisely in our companions one of the points in which Legend of Mana has gray hair. Their artificial intelligence is not especially brilliant, and the title may reserve you some tricks since they come and go and can leave the group without prior notice at some points of the adventure or when entering your home. Something that made me look silly the first time it honestly happened. Legend of Mana can be played with a friend in local cooperative, assuming control of the companion, a feature that I would have liked to test in greater depth.

However, in addition to the adventure companions that we are incorporating into the group, we can be accompanied by monsters that help us in combat. Of the best of the game. During the exploration you will find different eggs of various types of monster with which to make yourself, for this you will have to place a bait and approach carefully, without being seen, to hunt them. After this you have to take them to the stable where they will grow, you will feed them or you will take them out to graze so that they become stronger and are an increasingly effective support during the combats.

Another novelty of this remaster is the Ring Ring Land minigame, a hybrid between Tamagochi and PokémonAnother novelty of this remastering is the appearance for the first time in the West of the Ring Ring Land minigame . It is a hybrid between Tamagochi and Pokémon, in which we send our monsters on an expedition. Through a small screen we control their progress based on dice rolls, they can find treasures and manufacturing elements and also fight against other creatures. All this, so that when you claim them back, they are stronger and your coffers are fuller. Although it is an interesting addition, it can end up becoming a bit repetitive and lacking in incentive once it has been done a couple of times, so it is understood that it was not included in the NTSC version of the year 2000 as it is a mere anecdote .

Too smooth a remastering

At this point I have already told you what Legend of Mana is and what I think, but is its remastering at the level you could wish for? I’m not going to make you dizzy, the answer is no. In addition to the saving system, the power to eliminate the combats and the minigame that I have already mentioned, the main novelties of this edition are that the game has been adapted to current screens and the finish of its beautiful scenarios has been improved . Really the work carried out with those drawn by hand and a huge variety of places to know and with which to recreate for its color palette is very worth it. Something similar happens with his music, completely renovated and fully accessible from the menu to listen to all his excellent songs whenever we want.

However, the design of the characters has not been touched, their pixelated appearance contrasts too much with the high definition of the scenes and is something that I have never quite got used to during the game. Unfortunately, this was much smoother in the original version of the title in which everything showed a more uniform appearance. I think this remastering falls between two waters, wanting to preserve the essence of the original and trying to update it, not achieving either of the two things in an effective way. For more details, I have played Legend of Mana on PS5 via PS4 backward compatibility. I started on a 65 “screen and the look so” strange “that it looked led me to move to a 29” monitor where it was not so appreciated. It may be that in your version of Switch it is less noticeable in portable mode, I have the feeling that it is the best platform to enjoy a game like this.

The design of the characters with their pixelated appearance contrasts too much with the settingsThe truth is that if we did not have such good precedents at the hands of Square Enix as the remake of Trials of Mana or the 3D version of Secret of Mana, it would probably not have arguments to ask a little more with this title. In fact, all audiences could have been satisfied by choosing the path of Dragon Quest XI S , which allows players to switch between 2D and 3D graphics throughout the game. It is what I would have wanted from this production, a full HD version, with the option to enjoy the original experience alternately.

However, the interface has been tweaked, promises to be more accessible from PC, and an art book has been added where you can contemplate the magnificent conceptual designs that Legend of Mana has. In addition, it has been translated into 8 languages, including Spanish , so it will not be a problem to enjoy some comments with a lot of humor that dot the game. Of course, Legend of Mana still does not have any type of vocal performance.