I have quite distinct memories of SNES classic Secret of Mana, despite not playing it too much. It’s the visuals that stick in my mind: the bright greens of its forest environments, the electric yellows and pinks of its cute plant and bug enemies, and of course the colossal tree and its tangled roots seen in the game’s iconic box artwork.
All of this came flooding back to me as I played a demo of Visions of Mana, the next game in the long-running series. Its key artwork alone is a callback to the original, its heroes looking out at another giant tree as the sun sets behind, bathing its autumnal growths in a warm light. And that’s before you step into the game’s open world.
Visions of Mana previewDeveloper: Square EnixPublisher: Square EnixPlatform: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, PCAvailability: TBC
It turns out, this artistic callback is deliberate. “The key art [of Secret of Mana], or the package art, was illustrated by an artist named Hirō Isono,” series producer Masura Oyamada told me. “And so, [in Visions of Mana] we really wanted to be able to create a field design that captures the mana tree that was depicted in the artwork. With the advances made in modern platforms, being able to adhere to these key components still helps retain that feeling of this being a Mana game even as everything is getting modernised.”
It’s clear, then, that Visions of Mana is something of a reset for the series. Various remasters and remakes of older games have been released in recent years, culminating in 2020’s Trials of Mana. Visions of Mana, though, is the first brand new game in the series for over 15 years that both harkens back to the past and modernises for new systems.
To take you back, the Mana series began life as an action-RPG spin-off of Final Fantasy. The first was Seiken Densetsu (1991) for the Game Boy, known as Final Fantasy Adventure in North America and Mystic Quest in Europe. It was Secret of Mana (1993), though, that truly began the Mana name, which was soon followed by Trials of Mana (1995) on SNES and Legend of Mana (1999) on PS1. These games form the core of the series, though various new games and remakes have been released since; 2007’s Heroes of Mana was the last mainline entry.
So why is the series returning now? While a new game was already being considered, the success of the various remakes helped convince Square Enix, as did a survey conducted by the publisher showing players of 2020’s Trials of Mana “express strong interest” in a new title.