Visions of Mana Review - Capturing the Classic JRPG Charm

My first impression of Visions of Mana was that it looks and feels like a JRPG born in the 90s, and I was right. The moment I started Val’s journey, it felt like I was transported back into the JRPG golden era of the 1990s, where a group of unique individuals band together to stop a world-ending threat. This is a game that sticks to its lane and delivers an experience that has since been lost thanks to the industry’s need to innovate. While there are a few systems that feel dated, this experience proves some styles of the past still have a place in 2024.

A grim pilgrimage, all smiles

You play as Val, the chosen Soul Guard of the next pilgrimage of Alms tasked to journey to the Tree of Mana to give their life to replenish the world’s mana and stabilize their world, keeping it from destruction. The culture that revolves around this world sounds rather grim, but that’s the only dark element in this game, as everything about it is bright and full of life. The characters and tone are vibrant and optimistic, so much so that it was off-putting at times, considering that perhaps there’s something dark and twisted waiting to sweep the player off their feet.

But that’s not the case here, as we have a textbook JRPG that pans out as mostly predictable at each major revelation. As I was experiencing this story, I couldn’t help but realize that we rarely get new titles that go this route. Most stories are convoluted, dark, and filled with hidden meanings—an approach that has worked in recent years—but it’s also refreshing to know that there are RPGs that are just a straight arrow. Nothing too complicated, nothing grandiose or out of the box. Simply a video game that delivers exactly what you expect when you see the cover.

This is what Visions of Mana was for me—a return to the typical high-fantasy adventure. And that's okay because Visions does a good job filling that role, where the simplest motivators drive these characters. It felt soothing to go through a story like this again, with likable characters to boot.

Val comes across as the typical boy scout who’s all smiles and rarely expresses malice or ambiguity in his writing. He’s the type of guy who, if you try to tease him, won’t bat an eye and will find the silver lining in what you said. The same goes for Morley, the feline cat-man with a haunting past, and Palamina, a queen who sometimes comes across as robotic due to her manner of speaking. The more interesting personalities are Careena and Julei—Careena has a Texan accent and is the life of the party, while Julei feels like the perfect sidekick to Careena’s antics, despite being the youngest-looking one in the bunch.

The growth of these characters is sadly static, with the real development mainly seen in Val. While Morley and Careena have their moments in certain parts of the game, others are left in the background, acting more like a support group. How they are when you first meet them is almost identical to how they are at the end of their journey.

The Wonderful World of Mana

Every foundational element that makes up this world is lush and colorful. It’s all smiles and quite charming, from the monster designs to the characters populating each town you visit. The bosses also express a similar tone, as a lot of them come across as cute and cartoony. Even during the game’s darkest moments, the game struggles to convey the right tone, as the art style and color palette counteract these moments. From afar, you wouldn’t realize these are heavy moments. Even the antagonist isn’t all that sadistic; his motivations, in the end, are somewhat justifiable and typical of a JRPG villain.

Each open-world segment where you explore feels like a platformer at times, in between combat, as the map is riddled with chests and resources that fuel player progression. Grizzly Syrup is an abundant resource currency that allows you to purchase key items that can permanently increase character stats, boost experience, or enhance money gains for a limited time. I couldn’t help myself whenever I came across a bunch of them just floating, waiting to be 

picked up. Some are hard to get and require traversal abilities unlocked later in the game to access certain areas, so there are reasons to backtrack and revisit completed areas. Completionists will be rewarded with more resources to strengthen their characters.

This is also true with the dungeons, as each has a mechanic attached to it. One dungeon requires you to interact with bubbles that slowly levitate you up to higher sections of the stage; others allow you to trigger beams of light to create bridges to walk across.

Chests and Grizzly Syrup aren’t the only things that populate each area, as Visions of Mana is riddled with side quests that are 90% fodder. Most are fetch quests, from what I’ve experienced, requiring you to kill a certain number of enemies or find a specific item in the world. The rewards can be enticing, but these quests are uninspiring and only have real value if you need a specific item for a character, or a bit of cash.

Performance in this type of environment, whether in the world or in combat, is mostly smooth on the PS5 at 60 frames per second. I did experience a few frame drops for a split second at certain parts, but nothing consistent enough to become a bother. I also encountered weird bugs with the character models, like Palamena’s flail stiffening up like a stick at times, but nothing too distracting.

Visions of Mana and its cast of characters are accompanied by a somber yet uplifting soundtrack, making exploration and story progression soothing to the ears. Each track fits its location, from windy mountains to firefly volcanoes and lush forests. It’s a list of tracks that one might say they’ve heard before, but it's worth mentioning that the music does its job well during Visions of Mana’s high points.

Focused fighting, with all right AI

Visions of Mana embraces the series’ action RPG roots, featuring real-time combat where the player controls one of three characters in their party and can switch between them on the fly. The combat is pretty straightforward, with each character eventually sharing the same button prompts, so it’s not difficult for the player to play each one. The combat isn’t very combo-centric, especially compared to the Tales of series. Battles can look chaotic, with multiple enemies and characters duking it out. A match can go from you defeating enemies without being touched to your team being wiped out in the blink of an eye.

There’s not much difficulty in Visions of Mana if your party's level is in line with the enemies you face, and incorporating the typical elemental weaknesses of enemies can give players an edge to defeat groups in seconds. Player AI is thankfully reasonable; although you only control one character, the other two in your party do a decent job depending on the strategy you’ve set for them. Players can control how much mana AI characters should spend, who they should target, and what their priorities should be in battle, so it’s easy to set up a character to purely support by healing or to have one constantly casting offensive spells when needed.

It becomes important to set AI behavior during boss battles, but the system shows its limitations in these encounters. While you can determine what AI characters will do, certain boss battles have attack patterns that require you to manually move out of danger zones, and the AI often fails to avoid these hazards, so expect some babysitting in these encounters.

A Robust List of Classes to Mix and Match

Thankfully, there’s plenty of build variety with multiple classes for each character that represent the elements in the game, giving players many possibilities for team composition. You can even sit Val out and choose the other characters.

Classes are straightforward: upgrading each class requires you to spend elemental points to unlock abilities and passives, which are only active if you use the appropriate class. Each class has one line of abilities and passives, with more unlocked through certain story-related items. Nothing too complex—the only real decision-making in progression comes from determining what class works best for your playstyle and what ability seeds you need to equip to further support the role. You could have a character focus on summoning spells, tanking, bolster one’s critical hits, or make a character a master of Class Strikes, a special attack that only becomes available when the Class Strike bar fills up, for example.

Weapons and armor are also simple, with weapons increasing magic and attack damage and armor boosting defense. The bigger the numbers, the better the gear—no unique properties set one apart from another.

As you progress, each class shows its true focus. Around the 20-hour mark, I discovered the true potential of each class. Val's water class, for instance, is a powerhouse that easily freezes enemies, while Morley can become a critical hit monster with the right ability seeds—items that boost certain stats and abilities. With the classes slowly opening up as you go, this alleviates any sense of repetition, as I felt the urge to experiment with the many classes and each character's three unique weapons. There’s a lot to mix and match, and that’s part of the fun in the game’s progression.

The Nostalgic ‘90s In Pure Action-RPG Form

As I soldiered through Val and company’s journey to the Mana Tree, I couldn’t fault the game for being a typical JRPG or just another Mana title. The series has been on a long hiatus, and it feels great that Visions of Mana delivers what the series is known for and fully embraces it. It's a safe and familiar video game that can easily put smiles on the faces of those looking to recreate the feeling of being a kid again and playing a wholesome ‘90s JRPG. It’s an easy recommendation for longtime fans, as well as action-RPG fans who appreciate simplicity.

This is also a solid title for newcomers to the franchise, or even those new to JRPGs, as it includes quality-of-life improvements like quick travel, an easy-to-navigate user interface, and a friendly combat and class system.

While Visions of Mana doesn’t do enough to propel the series to new heights, many can find comfort in knowing that what we have here is another solid JRPG that can easily reiterate why you fell in love with these types of games, and that it’s a comfort to know that in 2024, there are still new adventures that can transport you to the good old days.

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Verdict: 4 / 5 (Fantastic)

PROS

• Beautifully crafted open world with a colorful cast of characters

• A typical JRPG adventure for those looking for a solid nostalgia hit, or for players new to the traditional genre

• A simple yet satisfying combat system that shows diversity in the latter half

CONS

• A crazy amount of side quest fodder that doesn’t bring much value beyond the rewards it provides

• Not much character growth for some key characters.

What I’ve Played 

• Completed the main story with a game file clocking at 34 hours

• explore various side quests in each region in the game

• Unlocked almost all Elemental Plots and experimented with various classes
  

*This review is based on a PS5 review copy provided to the reviewer

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