Visions of Mana Review

Having been a fan of the Mana series since I was a kid, I was more than thrilled to get a chance to receive an advance copy of Visions of Mana. I have fond memories of Secret of Mana from my childhood, and recently enjoyed playing the remaster with my family. While Trials of Mana received a re-release with the Collection of Mana and a complete remake in 2020, Visions of Mana is a brand new entry in the series.

Without having to stick to a specific story, Visions of Mana has an advantage over the Trials of Mana remake. The developers didn’t have to worry about angering fans of the original game and only loosely had to keep the themes present in older games from the series. While Visions of Mana succeeds at creating an interesting story inside a gorgeous world, many aspects of the action RPG feel shallow. It almost feels like the developers tried to cram too much of everything into too small of a space.

Journey to the Mana Tree

The underlying plot for Visions of Mana is something we’ve seen before in Japanese RPGs, and there were quite a few that seemed parallel to the Final Fantasy Series, however, the way things are approached is so casual it’s almost unsettling. In the world of Visions of Mana, there are 7 elements  (Wind, Fire, Water, Moon, Wood, Light, and Darkness), and each element grants its power to a different village. Unfortunately, in order to continue receiving the element’s blessing, each town needs to sacrifice a soul every 4 years. Furthermore, if someone isn’t sacrifice, the power doesn’t simply stop but the entire village is destroyed in a catastrophe.

Those picked by the Goddess’ Fairy to become sacrifices are given the title of Alm and must make the journey to the mana tree in order to give their soul to power the flow of mana. One would expect people to be terrified of becoming an Alm, but in Visions of Mana it’s seen as an honor and everyone is excited at the idea of being picked; even parents are proud of their children who are chosen to be