Before I begin, let me just take note of several constant spelling mistakes. It's Duran, not Durran. Dark Knight, not dark knight. Goremand, not Goreman. Faerie, not Fairy. And I think that's it!
I kinda don’t want to write this. Mostly because I don’t know how I felt about the game. I’m not sure I liked the game, but I don’t think it was a terrible experience. Where do I start?
Let’s just do what I always do. I found the battle system cumbersome. I’ve called it an action/hack-and-slash, but there’s a better way to say that. However you choose to do so, it’s one of the earliest forms of walking around on a live battlefield and smacking your enemies with your weapon of choice. It’s Dark Soul, circa 1995. Being a pioneer in any field comes with some issues. Mainly it's janky. If you’re too far away, you miss. That makes sense. If your too close, though, you don’t attack. The game will try to activate its push action that usually moves NPCs out of your way on towns. Because mobs can’t be pushed, you just spam your attack button, doing nothing but getting hit yourself. It’s quite frustrating. Maybe if I could see better, I’d be fine, but ToM is a vivid world where our characters get lost in the colors. At least to me and my terrible eyesight. Another dilemma I had was a problem I had with Secret of Mana. Magic is overwhelmingly powerful. There’s almost no point in using physical attacks. If you’re into magic, great, but magic also slows the game to a halt. No one, mobs included, can move or attack when a spell has been cast. And a lot of spells take forever to finish. I'm pretty sure that I ended up SNES9x speedhacking Ancient Curse every time I used it. Healing and buffs also have the same stopping power. If this is an action game, why atop the action? Walking around and killing random mons was fun, but bosses always felt boring, mostly because of how passive I had to be to beat them. And don't even get me started on the godawful, imaginary turn order that bosses can skip past. It's what killed me in the final battle, annoyed me in various other boss fights, and, undoubtedly, the second worst thing in the game.
I’m not sold on the plot. There are six playable characters, with you only being able to take three. The rest get relegated to bit parts. The final dungeon and boss is based on who the main character is. Sadly, my backup characters were from a different boss/ending. Because of that, I felt like Belladonna was a secondary villain. We were chasing the Crimson Mage for two people, whereas Belladonna was vital to one person and a tertiary character who had no plot relevance for me. The Crimson Mage was more interesting than Belladonna, and the dark knight had far more importance than Mollachio. I don't even know who the dark knight was, and I'm more intrigued. I guess that’s for replayability, which I do sorta want to do. If I replay the game, probably on the remake, I’ll be running with Durran as the main character. I wonder if there’s more/special dialogue between characters with the same boss?
Why was the music so mediocre? No matter how middling I found Secret of Mana, I can't deny that its OST was a masterpiece. Both games have the same composer, so why the wild swing? I’m not adding anything to my giant video game playlist. I will stand by my claim that Beuca Island is the worst song ever. It is THE worst part of the game.
The ultimate gear grind is terrible. Do you know what every gamer loves? Randomness! RNGesus is a carpenter, not a mechanic.
So what did Trails of Mana do well? I don’t know. There were a lot of times when I was having a lot of fun, I can’t deny that, but, like, why? When I wasn't flustered in battle, I loved walking around and fighting. Even trying to get the ??? seeds and ultimate gear was a little fun. I could shut my brain off and listen to a podcast about Rock and Roll or wrestling instead of okayish music. I enjoyed that. I want to know the backstories of the other characters. What happened to Charlotte after she ran out when she found out her ancestry? I just noticed there aren’t any secondary plots or lasting characters. There are no fun characters that, while having no effect on the world, are around for humor, world building, or to keep us grounded. I think Hawkeye might have Neko, but does anyone else have one? Everyone you meet in Riesz' prologue you never see again. The priest in Wendel is missing the moment you leave him. There’s no named Amazons, Valsena Knights, or Altena Mages. Riesz is alone, so maybe she’s just the odd one out? But that’s a little bit of a tangent.
Other things I enjoyed: the game doesn’t overstay its welcome. There are just enough twists and turns that all make sense, and I didn’t wish the game was shorter at any point in my playthrough. At least until the final boss...when I rage quit. And it’s a pretty big world that's filled with a lot of places to go and see, especially for its time.
And even some of the things I didn't like can't rightfully be criticized. It's fine ToM had a, if you only play one scenario, small cast of characters. ToM is a simple game that doesn't need to be a giant epic. It's okay to be focused on only a few systems and characters. And maybe if I played a few other stories, I'd see more things that were good. When it comes to the battle system, I'll repeat, if you're the first to do something, it's okay to not do that thing perfectly, optimal, or even remotely correctly. It's a 25-year old game. There are 25 years of quality control, innovation, and trial runs that couldn't have affected this.
If I replay the game, I’ll buy the remake. It adds some fun stuff, like skills not tied to one special (I think) and some new scenes that might be in the SNES version, but I just didn’t see. The remake looks gorgeous, too, and brings a new life to the game. As for this version, I’m fine remaining confused about my feelings for it. Secret had more charm, but Trials had more professionalism. Maybe I just don’t like the Mana games? What’s the next installment you want me to poo-poo on?
I had my next game planned, but the Steam sales got in the way. My next game probably won’t change, but there may be a random curveball in the future. See ya Monday!
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