Trials of Mana vs. Trials of Mana | Forgotten Worlds

[00:00:00] It's time for Fine Time! Hello, party, people, it's your boy Dre, and once again, just for fun, it's my boy Vin. Floating in all the way from the mana sanctuary, his wispy buddy... Oh no... Are you the mana...

[00:00:37] What's the fairy's name? Is it just fairy? I almost called her the mana fairy. I think it'd be cool if it were the mana fairy, but no, it's just fairy. Capitalized though. Oh yeah, where is fairy? Yeah, that's right. IE, right? FAE, RIE.

[00:00:55] I almost kind of looked at spelling though, FAE, RIE. Yeah, it's very fairy-y, right? So you may as well. We are going to talk about Trials of Mana and also we are going to talk about Trials of Mana. How's that sound?

[00:01:14] It sounds like you get the twice amount of fun in one podcast. Two games for the price of one. So yeah, we're going to be talking about the Super Famicom Now Switch original Trials of Mana that came out in 1995 and the 2020 remake

[00:01:30] that came out at the dawn of the rona. I just remember being locked in our apartment's being like, oh man, I'm glad we have this to play. It was weird, right? Didn't that come out right on top of like, wasn't it Final Fantasy 7 remake and that?

[00:01:45] Yeah, it was at that same time, like a month after Animal Crossing New Horizons or something like that. So I mean, that's a time capsule. And do me eternal. What a time the rona everybody. At least it was good time for video games, right? So we were entertained.

[00:02:05] We could think of other video games otherwise we would have been bored of our goddamn way. No, we played video games all right. Jesus Christ. So here a couple notes before we start here we've been planning to do this episode for a long time

[00:02:20] but with the announcement of Visions of Mana at last year's game awards we figured it'd be best to get this out ASAP as to not interfere with our eventual post game show for Visions of Mana because let's be real, we're going to do that. I mean, come on.

[00:02:38] I think that's inevitable. Yes. It would be really weird to do trials versus trials after Visions. That would be a little strange. Yeah. As soon as the announcement happened I think I texted you the next day like we got to do trials of mana like now

[00:02:51] we have to in the next like few months. Yeah. Because we've been kicking around for a while but now we're finally here. We want to get ahead of Visions of Mana and so also if you haven't played trials of mana before do not worry because

[00:03:05] there will be no story spoilers in this podcast. You know, as a matter of fact then I don't even think we're going to talk story at all really. I mean, unless you really want to good but No, it's not really necessary

[00:03:21] and that's for like a couple of reasons. I mean like both versions really share the same story. Secondly, we have plenty of other things to talk about and the story is actually among the least interesting aspects of this game anyway. Yeah.

[00:03:36] We're just not like this isn't a story game. You know, this isn't Final Fantasy IX where we're going to get into this deep shit or whatever. No, but just if you've played Secret of Mana do you really remember the story in that game?

[00:03:48] I bet you don't right? Like and it doesn't matter right? That's what trials of mana is like as well. What? What's so funny? You're just traversing the world to do stuff and then mana happens. Yeah, whatever. It's just a fun adventure right?

[00:04:06] Don't think about it too much because they didn't. They sure did. Yeah, there's no need right? Not every game needs to be like that and trials of mana is not that type of game but regardless we won't be talking about story spoilers. There will be some unavoidable

[00:04:24] of like environmental or rather I should say location and like scenario spoilers which are unavoidable if we're going to be comparing the two games. We're going to try to leave names out of it the best we can. At the same time, we're not here to tell anybody

[00:04:40] what is a spoiler or what isn't because I think that's wildly shitty. I hate people do that to me. So I just wanted to say this up front if you care about like some minor location and scenario spoilers you might get some here

[00:04:55] but that's all there's going to be in this podcast. What I wanted to do first here is something we don't usually do on the show and we just kind of want to do like the road to trials of mana because we shouldn't assume everyone knows

[00:05:12] everything about the mana series and I figured this context is important to why we wanted to talk about these games and compare them to. Yeah, because these games all build on top of each other whether it's mechanically or just the way they like to do things.

[00:05:27] Yeah, they sure do. So I think it's just nice to know how we got here basically and that'll give everyone the context for enthusiasm of why we really enjoy these games and what to talk about them today. So let's start here. The Mana series or Sekinden Setsu

[00:05:45] as it's known in Japan began on Game Boy in 1991 and that original Game Boy game came here as Final Fantasy Adventure. Now, I think you had this growing up. I did not have Final Fantasy Adventure. I didn't even know it was a mana game to a way later.

[00:05:59] Yeah, I actually so I did have Final Fantasy Adventure but I didn't know it was a mana game at first and furthermore when this initially had come out it was actually like really hard to find. So there was like a random reprint later on

[00:06:13] I think actually by maybe by Sunsoft for some reason but yeah, so yeah it was just a hard game to find so like I jumped on that reprint and had a good old jolly time. Yeah, so that happened and then a Super Nintendo sequel to Sekinden Setsu

[00:06:32] came out a couple years later aptly titled Sekinden Setsu 2 and this game came to North America as Secret of Mana which of course would go on to have tons of critical acclaim and maybe one of the most beloved SNES games I think that's easily said right?

[00:06:48] Oh easy, yeah a lot of people have memories of this game whether it's like the multiplayer or just like the aesthetics or just the action RPG shenanigans right? But can you imagine if this game were called Final Fantasy Adventure 2 over here I think the marketing might have been

[00:07:02] a little nebulous there so I'm glad they... Yeah, I don't think that would have been good You know, I didn't always like Secret of Mana and sometimes I still don't today but it's great regardless, it shines through its flaws It's a really great game

[00:07:20] even though it's not perfect Yeah, it's kind of built like ass right? There's a lot of programming quirks I mean like this is one of the most formative games on my childhood right? So people know me for like wispy like motifs

[00:07:34] and stuff like that but it all stems from this game right? And it arguably factored into like my whole fascination with like nature and stuff like that as well but yeah let's just not pretend the game's perfect it's got all sorts of wacky ass things under the hood

[00:07:49] Yeah, it's not flawless but it definitely has its place in history and there's a reason why it's beloved So naturally since Secret of Mana or Sekinden Setsu 2 was such a worldwide success a couple years later Sekinden Setsu 3 appears on Super Famicom in Japan on September 30th 1995

[00:08:11] Notice this time I said Super Famicom and not Super Nintendo because famously very very famously Sekinden Setsu 3 never left Japan Let's not mention any words most famous like Japan only game maybe ever Yeah I would say so

[00:08:29] even more so than like a Mega Man in base or something like that because like we actually like heard rumblings of this game like in magazines like actually coming here right? Yeah I remember it was previewed in magazines Secret of Mana 2

[00:08:44] I don't know what magazine maybe like a game pro or something I remember seeing screenshots and it said that Yeah I remember those two I think maybe EGM I'm not really 100% sure but yeah I saw that as well But SNESide are you surprised that like Sekinden Setsu 3

[00:09:02] as it was never got like a PS1 port or something like you know like late SNES RPGs like you know Tactics Ogre I'm surprised they didn't do that for Sekinden Setsu 3 It's weird though because they did a lot of other things right

[00:09:18] so I mean like the Final Fantasy games got it like Chrono Sugar got it with those cut scenes and all that so it seemed like a bit of a missed opportunity right so yeah I'd say like to some degree I'm surprised

[00:09:28] but this game notoriously had a lot of text in it so maybe Square just thought it wasn't worth like the localization effort because they couldn't just like reuse a script or whatever right but like in Japan like just coming out there on PS1 like we didn't get

[00:09:42] did we get Tales of Anteity of PS1 I think we did no actually we didn't never mind but like yeah but like you know we got Tactics Ogre that's what we got Tactics Ogre yeah but like why not

[00:09:58] I don't know I just figured it'd be a shoe in but I guess not yeah I don't know maybe they weren't really confident just kind of like driven by like some degree of like expectations of what's going to do well or what's worth the poor job

[00:10:13] I guess but I fucking guess but I can't imagine at least like not 200,000 people on PS1 in 1996 or whatever wouldn't have bought that in Japan let alone here but who knows if Sony would have allowed it to come here let's be real

[00:10:33] oh god it's another can of worms but so since Seigen didn't set to 3 never came out here it had this like mythical like this forbidden fruit status like I said I genuinely think but now maybe the answer is mother 3 but like before that

[00:10:51] I think it's the most famous like we never got this game it has to be but you know fan translations did appear at the beginning of the 2000s and I think that's how both of us originally played the Famicom game absolutely yeah that's how I jumped on it

[00:11:08] in the year 2000 I think I did it in 2003 is when I played it nice yeah so anyway years were on no word of release obviously the super Nintendo was dead at this point so it's like okay oh well we're never getting it that was until Square announced something

[00:11:28] for Switch in 2017 called Seigen didn't set to collection which was a repackaging of the first three Seigen didn't set to games meaning of course Final Fantasy Adventure Secret of Mana and the mythical second in sets who 3 so we're like hey this is it

[00:11:46] it has to come here here it is this is finally our chance to play it you know they can just translate this one game for the collection the other two we already have but guess what it didn't come here warm balls 2017 came and went without

[00:12:02] any North American announcement 2018 comes and goes without a whisper and then I gotta be honest I gave up at that point after 2018 I was like you know what it's just not gonna happen there for whatever reason they don't want to give this game who knows why

[00:12:20] even in collection form where they just have to translate one game and this collection is done by M2 who are the best in the business and they are you know what fine I guess we're never gonna have it and you know I thought the same thing

[00:12:35] because it's not like the system had that many Jairapigees at that time either right so I mean like it could have filled in a bit of a launch window gap right by giving it to us but you know not a single word

[00:12:49] and like in most games that Square was putting at the time like they did come here in some form with some right so I mean it was especially Jari it was disappointing more than anything just a lack of acknowledgement at least say

[00:13:03] I mean remember back in the day especially in the 2000s they would get asked the American offices it's like nah we don't think we're gonna bring that here or like yeah you know we might do that or you know you get answers like that these days

[00:13:19] it's more automatic we just assume we're gonna get everything until like we don't you know we live in a much better era now back then it was kind of loosey-goosey and we may not we may do it you know no such word here

[00:13:31] total radio silence and it was just like okay fine but then the day came the good day finally came the beam of light the lucent beam the lucent beam came through the darkness so here's what happened and this is this honestly what I'm about to say

[00:13:55] might be one of the hypest things for me I had ever seen in like a Nintendo Direct personally yeah it's so crazy so during the E3 2019 Nintendo Direct this trailer starts and it quickly becomes clear that it's a manetry that the first thing they show it like okay

[00:14:17] I was like huh and then before I could even think they showed Durran one of the six characters in Sekien the Setsu 3 he's in full 3D modern graphics and shit and I was like wait hold the fuck on and before I could even think Charlotte appears the most

[00:14:35] unmistakable character design in the game and I was like oh shit oh shit this is really happening they're remaking Sekien the wait a second wait it can't be called that here it's not called Sekien the Setsu 3 what are they gonna call it what are they gonna call it

[00:14:49] I don't think of mana yeah and then of course the voiceover goes action RPG Trials of Mana is getting a global release on Nintendo Switch and I was like what Trials of Mana it's such a good name for it too it's a perfect name that's

[00:15:05] exactly what the game is and then the wrestler trailer plays out and sure enough there's that famous key art with the six characters in the blue clouds honestly some of my favorite square art ever of all time it's great oh it's iconic too it's so good

[00:15:19] and then the nude logo Trials of Mana in English I was like oh my fucking god it's here I want you to tell me your perspective here because you're a bigger fan of this game than me so that was my reaction what did you think when

[00:15:35] the trailer first kicked on yeah so I had done a few more runs into you at by this point so I had a bit more familiarity with the soundtrack so I kind of came from that angle and so like right when this trailer started

[00:15:47] it played a symphonic version of one of the main themes of Meridian Child I was like wait a second like that's that's a familiar track like that can't be right so uh I can recognize that track from like a mile away

[00:15:59] and then so they also showed like the iconic shot of like the tree with like the sword at like embedded at an angle and I was like wait a second man it's very very specific iconography right so at that point I was pretty convinced we're getting something

[00:16:15] related to the Sega Genesis E3 but I just didn't know exactly what I mean like so I was just blindsided by the whole way that was presented it was it was so good and be like okay and so here's the thing we're shell shocked from

[00:16:29] that right we're sitting there days what the fuck again before I can have a chance to think another trailer immediately starts with the text the original three games in the mana series now on Nintendo switch and sure enough boom here's what now what is called for us

[00:16:47] collection of mana yeah it's a fitting name it's a fitting name for sure right yeah final fantasy adventure secret of mana and trials of mana and it said with the additional text available for the first time out of Japan and then at the end available later

[00:17:05] today for your Nintendo switch a fucking shadow drop it happened everything happened at once they announced a remake of the game that we never got and then immediately after hey here's the original one right now what it's so crazy we had to reiterate that we had

[00:17:25] total radio silence for two years right and then it's just to actually say collection of mana to actually like mention it as like a footnote like after a remake we're like what the hell is going on here it's crazy I was a little bit scared at first

[00:17:41] I have to admit because there had been so many crappy mana projects over the years since like the mid 90s and I was afraid that like trials of mana was going to be some like shitty mobile game or like some port to switch that I hadn't

[00:17:53] heard of or here's various characters the mana series in this game or something but then obviously the trailer quickly revealed that it wasn't going to be that but it was just like yeah you know I had my hours like okay I can't get too excited at first because

[00:18:07] you know I mean I can't blame you because my crazy ass had been still sort of keeping up with the series this whole time but like I mean in the late 2000s it was kind of impossible to because those all mobile games there were names

[00:18:19] like a rise of mana like circle of mana and like nobody knows what these are I don't even know what these are and so I mean trials is not too far apart on paper but yeah they made it very clear very quickly which is great and

[00:18:33] yeah it's again I can't reiterate enough like trials is such a good title for this game it makes perfect sense yeah it's a great name for the game trials of mana we finally have a name and we finally got to well I mean again we played it

[00:18:49] in an unofficial capacity before but to have a natural official version real script and everything no no diss to whoever did the original like fan translation but you know you only did what you could back then right this is a real this is a real script and

[00:19:05] it's just fantastic I was just so happy so let's talk about the game someone let's do some basic information about trials of mana and like I said earlier we're going to use secretive mana as a base of comparisons since again most people played that so we just kind

[00:19:39] of want to you know it's in the differences between the two games are interesting so I just thought they were good they'd be good to highlight here so let's just start here unlike secretive mana where you have just the three characters they're not really

[00:19:53] I mean I guess they have official names but not really right it's the boy the girl in the spray if you actually know these people will see some like Randy and stuff by me at the time no did it exist yeah yeah I mean I will

[00:20:07] say Randy to I don't even remember the girl's name Purim oh that's fucking right and I think I think a Papoy for the spray I think that Papoy Papoy for them yeah yeah Super 10 original didn't have anything like that no anyway unlike secretive

[00:20:25] mana where you just have those three characters boy girl spray in trials of mana in trials of mana you have six characters of which you can choose three of them to make your party for the game so and depending on who you choose as your main

[00:20:41] character you can set on three different story paths throughout the game so one path is if you choose duran or Angela as your main another happens if you choose Hawkeye or Reese and a third path happens if you choose Kevin or Charlotte as your main

[00:20:55] so that's how the game is structured basically so you pick your main that's the main story and then the other two are just supplemental to whatever you're doing and it's really really crazy just because there's such freedom and like few games at the time really

[00:21:09] did this as well right so like to actually have like three separate paths like this was like insanely transformative at the time um these three paths actually have like different pen ultimate dungeons and like even different final bosses which I can even think of

[00:21:25] like another case that like does stuff like this can I can I okay this is something that is always said about trials of mana and I wanted to talk about it because I don't think I've ever vocalized this it's the last place you go to really a dungeon

[00:21:41] I mean because again without spoiling I'm not going to even say the name of the place but is that really a dungeon I always felt like what we've referred to as the pen ultimate dungeon is actually the final dungeon let's be fair

[00:21:55] I'm just saying this is a technicality but just saying it so no one tears apart my sort of sentence there but yeah it's truly the final dungeon let's be frank to me it is to me I agree I'm just being fiddly that's all

[00:22:11] yeah no I understand it's always referred to it that way and other people do too but to me I was like I don't know I feel like that one is the final dungeon but whatever again I can't really say why

[00:22:23] I don't want to spoil but yeah of course anyway yeah six characters three different story paths different final boss what game does that three different final bosses get the fuck out of here this is crazy it's so crazy this is a super nintendo game doing this shit man

[00:22:41] with its 32 mega with its 32 goddamn megabits double of secret by the way which was 16 and I think that hurt Secret of Mana a lot because there's a lot of pallet swap dungeons and shit and bosses and oh my god

[00:22:57] how many times do I have to fight the same boss now it's blue or green or something that annoyed that annoyed the shit out of me in Secret of Mana and look you had to do pallet swapping back then to a degree

[00:23:09] Secret of Mana took it to such an extreme that I even me at the time as a I don't know whenever that game came out I was a tween right I was just like this is I've seen this five times already this castle

[00:23:23] yeah I was gonna say I thought the temples pissed you off more than the bosses from my recollection no every all of it the bosses pissed me off too it's just like oh my god I have to fight like and the bosses come out of nowhere

[00:23:37] sometime they just like happen this is like okay I guess I'm fighting like horse riding or like motorcycle riding guy again or whatever I think you fight him like three times or something it's a lot it's just like okay already anyway Trials of Mana

[00:23:51] has a lot more bespoke bosses and stuff like that there's very little of that stuff going on of course some of the enemies are pallet swap but that's natural that's that's fine but yeah but they really put that double the space to good use

[00:24:09] this is like the joke I'm sorry to beat a dead horse it's like the joke that we all say though you can tell it was on 16 megabits yo yeah you could yeah you fucking could a lot of the combat quirks from Secret of Mana are gone

[00:24:27] there's no more percentage counter remember in Secret of Mana you had to slash and then it counts up to 100% and then you could slash again otherwise you'll do dick for damage that's gone yeah I gotta wait it's like you still have to wait in Trials of Mana

[00:24:39] but it's like hidden there's no penalty if you just press the button which is weird but I guess we'll get to that later there's no more charging up attacks oh my axis level 4 let me go forever and then like and then you fucking miss

[00:24:53] and then you fucking miss yeah so no more of that the ring system was retained I thought that was like the smartest thing they did honestly it's iconic to mana yeah at that point you know there

[00:25:05] had only been two mana games and only one with the ring system I'm glad they realized that hey that's something that worked the last time that we should really keep yeah it works yeah especially with multiple characters on screen is great yeah

[00:25:19] you have like class ups as you level up you can change your class so there's a lot of different stuff and as we said earlier the script is the same between the original and remake of Trials of Mana so literally the exact same

[00:25:33] and to me I think that's part of the reason why they even made the original the remake happen over here in the first place because you could essentially get two projects for the price of one script right it makes perfect sense yeah I mean

[00:25:47] and also now we realize they were hanging on to collection of mana because they were making this remake so this is probably in the cards the whole time they wanted to do this be like okay when we announce the remake of Trials of Mana we'll give them collection

[00:26:01] of mana so they did it for they held back on us for a marketing decision at the same time good fucking god man just waiting all that time with like nothing for two years it was excruciating it sucked it really did it was a lot

[00:26:17] but I guess that's how the business goes yep let's just say some things we like before we get into the comparisons let's say some things we blanketly like about Trials of Mana but before we do that I wanted to ask you like you are an

[00:26:37] artist because of mana right let's not mention any word like that is the truth right like the secret of mana just put you on a path that was like it absolutely did right so I mean people may know that I love like nature

[00:26:49] and rainbowy things and I think a lot of that is informed by the sort of multiple elementals like in mana even in like fourth grade or whatever I am when I did a replay of secret of mana I actually slapped a plastic bag

[00:27:05] on my wrist and pretended it was Wisp yo okay I have several questions so you did you put eyes on the plastic bag yeah yeah it's actually right on it yeah oh my god you really did did you give it a voice in it talk like did it

[00:27:30] no it wasn't that like a fleshed out by that point nowadays it would but back as a wee lad I don't think so okay did you do this at like you didn't do this at home right not like at school or something no I was at school

[00:27:48] I remember those in the library yeah with this bag on my head yeah oh no that's bullying central don't worry about it oh no I'm sorry no give me your time no one even question is fine oh I bet they were like okay we're just staying

[00:28:08] away from him that was great man that's that's good I did not know that about you holy shit that's that's pretty good you kept it in the bag literally can we put it real simply basically because we it's obvious that we love this game but just

[00:28:28] in a real simple way could you tell me why if this is our favorite mana game or more pointedly why Trials of mana is way better than Secret of mana well that's because your teammates in Secret of mana get caught on random shit wait what oh god

[00:28:46] I could do a whole podcast on stupid Secret of mana shit that pisses me off oh you mean you don't like infinite hit stun from a boss man it was great man not so great but anyway to answer your question I'd say the journey is extremely well defined

[00:29:02] and the characters personalities are bold distinct and memorable like you're never going to forget any six characters right I mean as evidenced by the fact that you can still remember Duran and Charley right and even though it's like 90s like JRPG tropes out the wazoo

[00:29:18] like there's a lot of love put into this general scenario but like the way the characters interact is just extremely distinct right so like sometimes they bicker other times they like get along and it's like that's actually like really memorable to me and that's a lot more interesting

[00:29:34] than like the cardboard caught out in like Secret of mana 100% agree and it's just a fully realized version a more fully realized version of Secret of mana you know it's Trials of mana is also a very different game particularly in terms of like combat and story

[00:29:50] and stuff but the thing I love the most about Trials of mana is that the scenario and game flow are like pretty much perfect perfect pitch perfect we talk about that like pacing a lot in JRPGs or whatever Trials of mana works even though

[00:30:06] the story isn't great and worth talking about that much it doesn't really matter the pacing of it and the flow of it is perfect note for note find the elementals, beat the Benevadans do this or that it's over it's really tight and concise

[00:30:22] in exactly what it should be all killer no filler as the kids might say in the 90s I agree yeah there's no waste of time with this game and like I mean a lot of SquareGames are pretty good in general but this really

[00:30:34] is on point and it was great did you expect the remake to be good like I mean I know like you know we saw the character models when they first showed in the trailer it's like oh shit they look amazing but did you expect this to be good

[00:30:50] because there have been so many bad mana games no to answer your question I didn't have the biggest expectations but how could anyone build expectations given those two games you know when the last good mana game was Trials of mana in 1995 so like

[00:31:06] yeah I mean the last great one there's been some here or there that have been kind of interesting some people say they like children a mana I guess and whatever I guess okay yeah yeah that's the best that's the best you could say about a mana

[00:31:20] game in the last almost 30 years then you know that's why we hopefully Vision's a mana delivers but that's another topic yes fine time we're gonna start comparing and trasting these two versions of Trials of Mana original and remake but they are completely different games in field design

[00:31:53] etc you know execution and you should play them both there's not going to be a winner in that regard like which one should you play play them both that's that's our answer but we're just gonna pit we're just gonna pit them against each other

[00:32:05] anyway because podcast content right we got it we gotta do it well comparing conscious never hurt nobody on the airwaves nope alright let's start with like the graphics in general art I always think that's the best place to start because you eat with your eyes first of course

[00:32:21] and by the way we both played the remake when it came out on ps4 and for this particular podcast we played it backwards compatible on ps5 so we cannot speak to any other version of the game particularly switch so if you're playing

[00:32:37] that version God help you don't know what to tell you I think we're on the great fight is that that version is oops all 30 frames a second but if it even hits that but I don't really have any first-hand experience I don't know

[00:32:49] I ain't finding out dog I'll tell you that much let's just talk about the sprite art on SNES because in my opinion then it's I'm not gonna mince words it's the best on the system it is it's easily the best on the system and like the environments

[00:33:05] really feel like they're alive there's tons of foliage and decorative details and stuff like that right and in stark contrast to Secret of Mana again it's as we've said like a lot of it is boutique areas like not pallet swapped like pallets or anything like that

[00:33:23] and it was always incredibly impressive how unique everything felt and I was actually that guy in 2000 I made like desktop backgrounds out of some of the areas oh my god okay oh like taking stitching together like the screens or whatever yeah

[00:33:41] you know I've never tried to do that honestly I imagine it couldn't be too hard but still no it wasn't too bad yet yeah but still that's like that's pretty wild I didn't know you did you probably told me you did that and I forgot

[00:33:55] and it's been so long in the mid 2000s probably as yeah just artistically it's insane like as we get into the late SNES era we start to see peak 2D you know obviously everyone's mind goes to like Chrono Trigger as they should Yoshi's Island obviously as they should

[00:34:13] but for me Trials of Mana is the one that always comes to mind first it's that perfectly idealized best looking SNES game like you know almost like I know this might sound kind of rude but you know how like sometimes you see on social media people do like

[00:34:31] here's my 16-bit art or something and it's like this very it's like this very like over stuff thing that could never actually be on like a real system because you can't have that much stuff I think Trials of Mana damn near looks like that without trying

[00:34:47] basically is what I'm saying like it really looks that good I love the originals look a lot there was a certain type of person back in the day tell me if you can help me with this and I'm pretty sure you can

[00:35:03] there was a certain type of person who we claim that 2D graphics are better than 3D because they were quote-unquote hand drawn that was always the thing you heard hand drawn right yeah this was something I've always dismissed as them not willing to let go

[00:35:23] and look at something new that's what I always took them saying that as they also never took stuff into account like camera perspective or whatever problems you have in 3D right but that's not the point point being at the risk of sounding like one of those guys

[00:35:41] the background craft in the original Trials of Mana is absolutely insane every background is crazy those beach areas they look straight out of a painting seriously they do yeah like with the craggy rocks like jutting out and they have that like perfect water view right yeah

[00:36:01] the volcano area has this like wild lava effect that doesn't do like the typical wavy heat overlay thing which is fine I don't mind that effect but it has this like lava effect that looks smoldering maybe lava shouldn't be smoldering but it definitely does

[00:36:19] look like it in this in this game it looks alive basically is what I'm trying to say yeah it really really does it has that sort of like a point in it sort of effects going on yeah yeah yeah the loop of it is really

[00:36:31] seamless and it looks incredible Mount Laurent when you get to the peak and you look out over the land and the ocean when you get to that one peak Jesus Christ I mean what can I say it's picturesque yeah it is but you don't I mean just like

[00:36:51] I can't think of any other game on that has stuff like that and then of course you know that pile on all the square soft SNES spell effects and you know all that typical shit you know with that oh used hey so here's a clock in like a

[00:37:05] weird dimension thing or whatever like that type of shit all that typical square soft shit on top of the art magic pure magic yeah it really was it really takes the sort of capabilities of the system and pushes them to like the limit right and

[00:37:19] there's all the effects have a nice sort of um I put it um there's like there's like scaling effects there's like semi transparency like all the works and it just it really takes all that score have learned up to that point and just

[00:37:33] like melds it together and then some yeah I think I think we said all we can about the graphics I really like the older character designs to the character sprites because like I love their walk cycles Kevin is like stomping everywhere yeah it's weird for high up yeah

[00:37:49] it's like I'm a beast I'm like stomping around I love that one um I love the battle stance of Hawkeye he's holding one dagger high and one dagger low he has that like perfect like anime like um I think you know what I'm trying to say

[00:38:03] I don't even know what to do it blade blade dancer you think of like a blade dancer style in any given thing right that kind of thing and when he actually looks like he's moving like he's dancing to yeah yeah that whirling

[00:38:15] twirling kind of thing I love it almost like if Rashid from street fighter 5 or 6 had like knives or something like that I kind of like you know what I mean yeah it's something like that yeah that would be great

[00:38:27] he should have knives why don't why doesn't he have knives hashtag give Rashid knives he would be too overpowered if he had knives but that's why he would be he would be um so I gotta say this and

[00:38:43] I don't know how you'll feel about this but as we said the character designs were unmistakable and striking when we first saw that trailer before we even knew it was called trials of man or anything I was like oh shit that's the ran and the

[00:38:55] reason why I was so excited is because it looked so good in terms of character design I really do think the remake is one of the best conversions of 2D to 3D ever in terms of like character design I would definitely say

[00:39:11] that especially just because it captures like the silhouette and like the sword personality of as you the sword personality of those original designs but so not only does it honor those but like adds on top of that there's decorative details that that that don't

[00:39:25] attract you just add to their original designs right so um and yeah I just I was just like those touches and they didn't really they didn't add anything that was like unnecessary so to speak yeah they didn't try to like modernize them or you know I hate

[00:39:41] I hate that term nowadays because it always mean it usually means something bad it doesn't always have to be but to me it like it can have a negative connotation in terms of character design because it's like the characters the character they're from the time that

[00:39:55] they're from and to try to modernize them means making something else now sometimes that can still be good but trials of man I didn't attempt to do that they're just like we're gonna take the art and pop this in the 3D exactly and they did exactly

[00:40:07] that all the other details are there like the NPCs are spot on too like the shopkeepers are there um you know those burly guys with like the chest hair that has like that perfectly triangular like Zangief like chest hair you know what I mean like sometimes

[00:40:25] sailors at the port or something the sailors go on the sailors do yeah that's a yeah that's like a very 2D type of like touch to do to a character but it works in 3D they kept it it was like okay that actually doesn't look stupid

[00:40:39] yeah but those are those are the kinds of details that would get lost in 3D but trials of man it does everything they really gave a shit whoever worked on this gave a shit they really put a lot of love into like really recreating everything and keeping

[00:40:53] the spirit intact and this level of care just hadn't been present in manic games for such a long time like the entirety of the 2000s were just full like half past effort so it almost feels like forget about those altogether yeah I mean like

[00:41:07] I hate to take my mind all the way back to stuff like dawn of mana and shit which is just like terrible but like yeah I just your favorite physics you mean the worst physics of all time like yeah I just love everything

[00:41:23] and there's something else I don't want to take for granted either and it's how fantastic the enemy designs came over from to remake as well yes because not every RPG has this because like even great games like I love Octopath Traveler right

[00:41:39] the day to day enemies roaming around they're not really that memorable like some of them are but some of them aren't and that's fine not every game has to be Dragon Quest right well it's hard to beat that yeah well yeah but like

[00:41:51] but trials of mana has crazy good enemy designs and the way they look in remake are spot fucking on whether a rabbi mushroom the goblin is my favorite the guys with the little mask and whatever the little ice alone yeah yeah the death animations are incredible

[00:42:07] too they have all the animations those are so distinctive from Secret of Mana and trials of mana it's like okay when you kill the goblin it turns into a pile of bones or something yeah that still yeah that still happens in trials of mana

[00:42:19] still happens or when you kill one of the slimes a little drops just kind of go like that still happens all that stuff was retained they understood how important it was and they got it right in 3D that is not easy

[00:42:33] and I wanted to say how good that was yeah and like mana has a lot of fun whim school enemy designs like that and some of these carry across like you know every single game and like some of those are sahajin like the fish people like little trident

[00:42:47] those will stand out to me and that's great petite Poseidon one of them yeah just like okay whatever man whatever it's not evil ninja it's a ninja but it's evil I love how they're like literally called that oh so dumb I don't know why they're like

[00:43:05] evil but I mean evil ninja not just any ninja apparently you need to know the ninja is evil I think it's just a word evil if it were called like dark ninja or something I don't think I would have like thought anything about it

[00:43:21] but evil ninja it's just like it's the 90s man it's just feeling like you get away with what slapping on whatever they want in there yeah alright anything else about graphics before we get to which one we prefer rather I would like to say one little thing

[00:43:39] and that's a little touches that really bring scenes to life for example just in Durant's opening in the remake his aunt passes him his father's sword you actually see the literal sword in that scene but in the original game it's just a text box but

[00:43:55] which is fine for a super Super Nintendo game but actually be able to see like that sort of like prop work and that I guess you could say cinematography it's in the remake that's great that's fantastic I love seeing that stuff

[00:44:09] does it just do the thing where he just gets it out of a chest or something on SNES or does it just like first she quote unquote hands it to him like and you got the sword I think she just

[00:44:21] has her neutral pose yeah I think it just does yeah right right that's what I meant yeah um that's that's interesting that's a that's a T.C. you played these games several more times than I have so you you probably pick up on something like that

[00:44:33] um but yeah which which one do you prefer presuming you have a preference because for me I'll just put it simply we're talking peak 2D graphics versus a fairly average looking ps4 game you know like yes the character designs are incredible and any many designs but like environmentally

[00:44:51] it's still a ps4 game from the year of our lord 2020 so you know I original wins for me or yeah original wins for me but you mean Charles a man a remake is not going to outshine form of Fancy 7 remake uh no not quite I mean

[00:45:09] I think you can see the vast golf and budget there but you know hey what what can I say I think yeah there might be a slight golf in there and uh to answer your question though I think you put it pretty well

[00:45:23] uh it's really like what you just say it's like it's hard to really beat like square at the peak of their like 2D Super Nintendo game there's also some really interesting expressive sprites and you just don't see that level of character expression

[00:45:37] for remake like all the time necessarily and just on a pure consistency level like the original game like has these sprites that really jive with the backgrounds and they all fit together they all mesh together who are as like a remake like if you look at like

[00:45:51] any given texture on the environment you might be like uh well I got my beautiful looking character but there's like this little poly-ass like texture surface 60 at all cost baby so I have to go with the original on this one let's get more mechanical let's talk

[00:46:21] like level design control layouts and stuff like that okay anything in that category I'd like to tackle now and I want to start with this and see if you agree original Trials of Mana feels weirdly segmented in terms of traversal yeah I'd say so

[00:46:39] yeah absolutely yeah because I don't want to go as far as to say it's like the original Legend of Zelda where everything is literally like a single screen or something like that and you slide over and you get to the edge

[00:46:49] you know it's not like that but it's definitely pretty controlled and pretty linear like this is not some sort of sprawling explorative adventure you know at all I'm just trying to imagine the NES life applied to this game and that would be pretty uh

[00:47:07] oh shoot it it it it we don't have Trials of Mana you don't you don't try a game like this on 8-Bit no but yeah but in contrast to that the somewhat like hallway design of remake or path based design might feel restrictive under like normal circumstances

[00:47:25] but as a translation of the original 2D game I think it works I also think it works really well it also sort of breaks down some of those boundaries and helps like the areas a few more organic on top of that too

[00:47:39] but yeah just in terms of like sheer like path traversal yeah I think it fits just fine yeah I like how remake occasionally strikes the right side-on angle so the right 2D angles to look just like original in some key moments

[00:47:53] you see the part like when you go to Cascade Cavern the beginning of the game it strikes this exact same camera angle as if you were looking at the original yeah I love that I don't even think they did that as like a oh we want

[00:48:07] to hey kids remember this I think they just thought that was like okay that's like an iconic shot of the game so we just kind of need to it needs to look this way it's part of the the shot just because the way the waterfalls

[00:48:21] cascaded in specific ways because if you're looking that in third person it would sort of like pull away from the sort of intrigue because you're going to like this cavern or whatever right so yeah they they thought it through again they thought about all the stuff

[00:48:35] yeah I really did I think Wendara Woods does that too because that's largely a 2D section or whatever I mean of course the original but you know what I mean like a single plain section I also thought Wendara Woods in the original felt almost

[00:48:55] like yeah it was almost like a belt scrolling game or something like that but Ninja Warriors Ninja Warriors again right something like that something like that yeah something like that and they encapsulate that sort of perspective in the remake too

[00:49:11] so it's great I want you to tell me about the glow up of the gnome village because that shit was incredible that actually blew me away like that was a crazy it was really good because in like the original game it was

[00:49:27] relatively constrained I think it was only like on a few screens or like whatever but like in the remake again they core break down some of these boundaries and sort of like blow things up so you feel the scale there's giant mushrooms like all around you

[00:49:41] and like the environment feels really full and lived in which is like not to knock the original but like the original didn't really feel like the sort of expansive area to like that degree no definitely not and that's probably one thing that's weak about both games

[00:49:59] is that the towns generally are not that interesting yeah but this gnome village is it's easily the most interesting place maybe what what's that place in the woods uh Dior is my favorite flowery place yeah yeah maybe that's interesting I guess

[00:50:19] but like yeah most of the towns in this game aren't really that interesting but so when it when it is interesting that does really stick out to me yeah speaking of flowers this like this village just has like a flower fuels

[00:50:31] in it and it's like they just like crammed it man they crammed it full much detail it's so cool I gotta give the edge to the original over the remake on golden road though there's something about golden road in the original that is incredible looking it might actually

[00:50:47] be my favorite place in the game it's super iconic I think and it's not quite so uh golden looking in the remake yeah I mean like yeah it's it's not like it's look unless they wanted to go like full like Wizard of Oz

[00:51:01] like the yellow brick road or something like that like unless they really wanted to bring that home which honestly I wouldn't have minded but you know I don't I don't know you suppose that was deliberate though right the direct inspiration for that yeah of course it's

[00:51:17] it's a fucking yellow brick road yeah of course yeah literal road yeah yeah but like you know not not as pristine as it is and then Wizard of Oz so remake Trials of Mana remake has a mini map with like star markers telling you exactly

[00:51:37] who to talk to or where to go next to to to progress the game which we affectionately or derisively depending on the game called triple A markers they are totally tripple A markers but honestly in this game it's fine with me because anyone's anyone who's familiar

[00:51:55] with old RPGs is used to like town situations especially where they're like you have no idea who to talk to and then they're like oh so something or other isn't ready yet let's go hang around town and then you have to remember you have to figure out

[00:52:09] what three or four people they want you to talk to before they're like hmm this thing is ready that you're supposed to do now it's so finicky remake throws that all out the window because it's like okay here's the four star

[00:52:21] points of the people you need to talk to to progress it so like honestly I don't mind I really don't it doesn't detract from the experience to have those stars on top of the objective either because like honestly in like in the original

[00:52:35] if you got to talk to like very specific people you're just kind of wasting some time at that point and like there could be a point to be said about sort of like exploration and intrigue but in this case I don't think it really matters if you're like

[00:52:47] spelunking in town because like there's not that much to do in town anyway so it's like whatever at that point and yeah it's like we said the towns aren't that interesting so yeah it's not like you're gonna have fun like you know

[00:52:59] as of this recording we are both playing Final Fantasy 7 remake and those are towns baby right so like I don't care if I get lost in those and Trials of Mana ehhh dude rebirths towns are crazy holy sh... rebirth I'm sorry I said remake Jesus Christ

[00:53:17] we are not playing Final Fantasy 7 remake we're playing Final Fantasy 7 rebirth that would be a little slightly out of touch yeah slowly out of touch it's the 2020 adventure in 2024 yeah I imagine some people are yeah there's a point I want to bring up

[00:53:35] and in the original Trials of Mana like you play the origin story you remain character which means like there's six origin stories because there's six characters but that also means in that game that's the only one you see

[00:53:47] so when you play through Durand you get to see like oh you get to understand why he's like on his quest for revenge or like you can see why she's like trying to find her friend or like whatever but in remake you actually get the opportunity

[00:53:59] to experience all of the origin stories of your three chosen members which is actually extremely transformative because it's nice actually experiencing the whole background rather than just getting some like sepia tone flashback that lasts like a few seconds or like whatever right

[00:54:15] so um but you don't even have to do this if you don't want to and remake it literally says hey this is optional you can do this or you can skip it and so it gives you the choice which is great that's amazing yeah for anyone out there

[00:54:29] who is an Octopath Traveler person it's a kind of playing your characters chapter one yeah you know or especially when you come across a new person in Octopath Traveler 2 they you talk to them and it's like do you want to play their origin story

[00:54:41] you say yes or no you don't have to do it you know so it's kind of the same thing in that so yeah they also make it a very very specific point saying that oh the items you acquire in like your other characters origin stories don't impact

[00:54:53] like the main playthrough like whatever so you don't feel obliged to like try to like spelunk around it's purely for context and that's like smart man that's like super smart it's smart and it makes it good for like successive playthroughs

[00:55:05] because it's like if you're already know over in story you don't necessarily want to do it again no you know what I mean so like on this recent playthrough for this podcast I didn't do them because I already saw you know I mean I don't

[00:55:15] know that already so yeah yeah give people the choice exactly I love that you can jump in remake I don't know why it was trials of mana or really any other mana game really I don't think you can jump you can jump

[00:55:29] in the remake of trials of mana which is a lot of fun I I don't know why God we could talk about this one all day if you wanted to but I gotta say to start things off so I did I was very fortunate and I did play

[00:55:45] the pakis toy 19 demo of trials of mana's remake and so the only thing I kind of remember is that I was jumping on all the rooftops like an ass well were you like were you like holy shit were you like holy shit I can

[00:55:59] jump or something or were you you know it's more like holy shit I'm able to actually like do this in town the fact that there's actually like spaces to do that so it wasn't just the jumping it was the

[00:56:11] fact that like on jad and one of the very first mert like towns I could just like jump around like a crazy person like the fact that they give the opportunities to do that that was the crazy shit to me yeah it's

[00:56:23] it's fun there's a lot of fun traversal that can be had with that and it turns out the aforementioned woods of one dara you do some actual like platforming sometimes they're gonna do it weird yeah it's it's it's fun there there seems to be a lot more

[00:56:37] stuff to pick up in this game like a lot of like a lot of treasure chests and the like little sparkles on the ground that's like oh here's an item or something like that yeah you see a lot more of that

[00:56:47] but which makes sense like if you're gonna have 3d space I think you need to have more stuff like that yeah you're giving people things to do and like in the original there's not really too much of a reward for like spelunking so like there's not any

[00:56:59] stuff on the ground like even secret of man is more stuff on the ground right but like to have Charles of Man remake actually do this I think that's actually extremely interesting because it gives a reason to like jump around traverse traverse and mess around these spaces

[00:57:14] right so for sure I want you to answer something for me because I've had this question for years I've never thought to ask anybody including you okay so here goes in both remake and original there are the spring pads that launch you way up

[00:57:34] in the air so high that it loads the world map and you get the boat seven zoom out oh I'm so high up and then you go back down and then you land or crash or whatever depending on the character and then that's it nothing happens

[00:57:48] that's literally what are those there for what do they even do they want to play a cute little little sound as a bit of internal humor in the office that's the only reason they just wanted to do their boop boop boop boop boop boop they're stupid like

[00:58:08] oh my god what do they that always confuse me it's like okay maybe I'll come back this later I don't have any I mean I don't know why you just got launched up in the air for no reason I think the actual answer is flexing

[00:58:20] mode seven and flexing world building I think that's the actual answer I don't think there's any actual practical reason for it but it doesn't do anything it's just it's confusing and they don't say oh that was a weird trap or something like that or you don't lose

[00:58:34] any HP or anything it's just like nothing is even said it's like okay I guess might be a good point this might be a good time to say that like I like Kevin's landing animation in the original game it's great he looks like a crazy person

[00:58:50] yeah he lands on his feet and he's like oh it's good and then he flops over yeah I think I think the ranches flops like belly flops or whatever I think so I think so yeah I think they're flexing that's all for no what reason to what end

[00:59:10] I don't know alright which what do you prefer in this regard let's just we talked about a lot here but let's just say level layouts what do you prefer original or remake it's got to be a remake yeah I love wandering around and it's good

[00:59:26] be able to wander around and like it actually helps you out in that regard because you might find some sparkly thing my babas and just in terms of the original layouts you just don't really get that sort of a reward and also another thing the original

[00:59:40] game really feels like they want you to take one very specific path sometimes it's just really nitpicky and fiddly it's easy to get lost because there's just one too many screens sometimes that look the same and it's just like okay am I going this way

[00:59:54] or that I've got turned around in this last play through I did of original for this podcast I got turned around so much more than I probably did in my other two play throughs it's so easy to get lost though yeah I feel like I just got luckier

[01:00:08] in those because in this one I was like holy shit I'm back at the town again how the fuck it happened more than usual to me and you know one thing what the original that's kind of a pain in the ass

[01:00:18] is that if you go the wrong way it'll actually block the exit and say trapped and then hit the fight and then after you beat them up and then opens up and like what the fuck was it closing the first place make some god damn sense trapped

[01:00:34] it's like well I mean you know it's a typical RPG thing of like you know whatever oh do you like how in the original I guess you could do this in remake too but like if you open the chest

[01:00:46] and it turns into a mimic you can just like leave you don't actually you don't have to actually fight it he's like a body not trapped not trapped by you sucker yeah it's like I don't fucking care that much about whatever dude adds in there

[01:01:02] I just did it anyway I was like the fight on but yeah you can't just walk away in this last game I got lost too much where I was like you know I don't want to fight these but yeah I guess what I'm trying to say

[01:01:14] is I agree with you I think remake wins here yeah I don't always like markers in games that tell you exactly where to go especially in RPGs but I think it really is welcome and trials and manner remake it really is I think

[01:01:28] it's one game where it does work so I'll choose that yeah and then literally like the only disadvantage to having those is that in in original like sometimes it puts a little bit of fear into you if you don't know exactly what's like upcoming

[01:01:40] or what the right direction is so it's like if you go off the beaten path like you can be like oh shit right but like that's literally it and it's not that much that's it benefit yeah all right let's talk combat because this is an

[01:02:10] aspect of the game that is night and day oh so different oh they're so there they're there is different as possibly can be yeah let's let's say this as a starting point so unlike Zelda or secret of mana for that matter yeah where

[01:02:26] enemies are just kind of there and you can either slash at them or walk past them or whatever trials and the mana both original and remake have it so when you come close to an enemy group you draw your weapon from there and then

[01:02:40] enter battle mode and then you fight and then you get like you won and then you get some results displayed or at least you do in remake so that's kind of had the flow of it it's not as like I'm just walking around with my sword out

[01:02:52] you're walking into a literal okay it is battle time or it is not battle time yeah and did you think this was weird that like in in original you move like slower when you're in battle mode do you ever think that was like kind of strange

[01:03:04] I didn't think that was strange hmm I thought that's fine I mean you are fighting them I do I don't think I want to be going like full tilt faster and god damn I just remember it and see good a man

[01:03:14] you get like when you press that dash button you're moving baby like you're yeah I love how it was only one direction too so it's just like I've dashed in the straight line it's time for me to catch my breath yes like you are moving

[01:03:30] yeah that doesn't happen here yeah yeah and you know honestly I guess another question I've got is like is the original game like a little too mashy for its own good because it can kind of like border on being that way but I don't

[01:03:46] know if that's necessarily the case is it mashy you know I thought this question was unfair when you first put in the notes I will admit but honestly it's pretty fucking mashy I gotta I gotta agree with you after cause like after I did my play through

[01:04:06] of original games like you know what he's right he's right because the wait and poke strategy from Secret of Mana and Secret of Evermore for that matter is gone when you just when you have to wait for the bar to fill up to 100% again to do any damage

[01:04:20] or whatever that's gone yeah so that aspect seems to be hidden in Trials of Mana as I said where like you will attack and then your character isn't some sort of like cool down animation before you can attack again but there's no indication of that's happening

[01:04:34] you just kind of have to feel out the combat and realize oh wait I can't just mash the B button or whatever like I can in Zelda or something keep slashing yeah you know I can only do it every so often and unlike Secret of Evermore

[01:04:48] Secret of Mana there's no penalty for pressing the button before your hidden percentage meter is full because your attack yeah your attack simply just won't come out you're not going to do a weak attack so yeah if you haven't played Secret of Mana

[01:05:02] or Secret of Evermore before that aspect of the game is probably poorly communicated to the player meaning mashing but hey I know what's going on and I'm still mashing right but hey at least there's no more asshole levels of hit stun at least I can say that much

[01:05:18] so yeah this that's the I think that's a good um I think that's a good plus not getting stuck so one thing I think is really crazy about the original Trials of Mana is that it's coded in such a weird way that the order of

[01:05:38] turns if you will obvious on a turn-based game but still things happen in an order right and that order doesn't always display correctly leading to a lot of confusion until you really understand what's going on and I'm going to attempt to explain it to the audience so

[01:05:56] here I'm going to say it this way okay then you have 100 HP okay I do an attack to you that does 200 HP so that means you should be dead right yes but you're not dead because you're in the middle of casting a healing spell let's say

[01:06:16] your animation can't be interrupted which supersedes me killing you right yeah you're going to cast that spell that heals everybody you and your allies and it's going to show that you got healed for X amount of HP with those green numbers but as soon as that happens

[01:06:34] you're going to fall over dead because I hit you for 200 HP when you already had 100 so that heal that you just did doesn't matter but people who don't understand what's going on will be like wait a second I just healed myself why am I dead

[01:06:48] that doesn't make any sense yeah it's that's the wild thing about the original Trial Demand once I mean there's three characters on screen and if you have three or four other things you're fighting in this particular battle good luck man good luck I can't keep up

[01:07:06] because the game doesn't display it correctly yeah it feels like it gives the impression that things just kind of happen arbitrarily even though there is an internal logic albeit like a logic that doesn't really make the most apparent sense and uh yeah

[01:07:20] well I mean they just got to show up those animations man that's what they gotta do before you get like silenced before we go down okay sure yeah it's just weird that like I don't know just about any other game casting it can always be interrupted

[01:07:36] by a physical attack that just doesn't happen in Trials of Mana you can just code the interrupting part yeah or for whatever whatever they did you can be interrupted in Remake you can sure can yeah you cannot be interrupted in original so it's

[01:07:52] it's like draconian it's weird yeah yeah it's not like something that wasn't thought of in games because I'm pretty sure TLC Fantasia you can be interrupted you can't be yeah yeah yeah I'm pretty sure yeah so like I don't know man it's weird

[01:08:04] but it's not just spells there's a lot of things that display out of order well as far as combat and the remake goes and I want to throw this at you I think the best way to describe it is Dynasty Warriors not that you're fighting that many

[01:08:18] people at once obviously can you imagine that many rabbites all in the grave oh Jesus Christ oh man warriors of mana holy shit that would be incredible warriors of mana please so yeah you have these like very Dynasty Warriors combos depending

[01:08:34] on how many times you press your light attack before you press your heavy one known as the charge system in Dynasty Warriors but I think generally applicable to anything that uses it it's simple it's effective and it's fun I really enjoyed the combat and remake and once I

[01:08:48] found out it was that style it was like cool perfect I think it really fits especially because they like you don't have to necessarily know exactly like what combos lead to what but if you do like you can definitely attack in in

[01:09:00] areas in specific ways that you want and like you can also even do things that like knocked people back which is like really cool and who's like it's a little bit of finesse in that regard right and

[01:09:12] you don't really think about that kind of stuff in the original because the original doesn't really have like a heavy attack one or like whatever no it's it's very different yeah so it's it's cool I really do like the way remake feels

[01:09:24] it makes a lot more sense for a 3D space to do that we mentioned jumping earlier so like now for flying enemies like the what are they called the not the ant visceri what are they called the flying almost had buzzy B and I know that's not it

[01:09:40] I think they're called buzzy Bs in secret or man up but oh are they okay anyway those now you have to jump up there and hit them and do like an air combo you're right so it's like more active in this game yeah the way super

[01:09:54] attacks are handled between the two games are so different I don't even know how to maybe you can take this one I don't think I know how to so like fundamentally like in original you're building a gauge using your I guess you can say your regular attacks

[01:10:06] and then like once you do enough once you accumulate enough gauge you can then press another button to like unleash like a super so this is like simple enough but then once you start like changing your class you unlock more supers so like

[01:10:24] so your super bar basically like grows so if you do more more normal attacks you could do like a level 2 super and then eventually you could do like a level 3 super which requires more time to build up so um you would do these at a fairly rapid pace

[01:10:38] like especially like the level 1s you can just keep firing them out over and over again if you want to so that's just like the pace of combat in the original which is like you know fairly consistent but the one thing in remake is that

[01:10:50] you feel a percentage instead you have to like so like on paper it sounds kind of similarish because you're building a percentage of your normal attacks but the one thing they change is that the percent takes quite a while to build up

[01:11:02] so you can't really use your techniques nearly as often this percentage carries from battle to battle I think the thing in the original was that like it starts over every time because it builds so rapidly this percentage in remake you carry along with you so it's like

[01:11:16] okay these guys are almost dead and it's not user to lose it I can just take it to the next thing yeah that is true but and also like to me the slower like use of supers it's actually kind of worth it

[01:11:28] because of how much damage they do and you really feel it when you're doing it on a on a boss because it'll cleave off like a decent percent of their like their life bar or whatever especially when they're staggered or whatever the state is called

[01:11:40] in you right yeah in remake yeah yeah but yeah I like the approach to both I don't think either one is better than the other I like both of them honestly so they're just two different strokes yeah we talked about the fact that it was really smart

[01:11:54] that they retain the ring system in Trials of Mana the original but the remake also has the ring system that's not the type of thing you usually see in a modern game you know what I mean I figured that would be the type of thing to

[01:12:07] go by the wayside but no it's still here it doesn't obviously it's a 3d game so it doesn't revolve around the character anymore it revolves around the character portraits at the bottom right but it's still basically the same thing and I'm so glad it's here I'm glad

[01:12:21] can you imagine how ham-fisted it would have been to like make the camera pan to like make the rings go around the character someone would really know it shoot me a dupe now you're over surely and the ring is it's like oh the camera would be

[01:12:33] such a pain in the ass oh my god you know how in you know how in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth or remake for that matter they do like super duper slow mo when you're like yeah they probably could have done it but they're like

[01:12:47] yeah they probably could have done that for the ring system like super duper slow while you're choosing a thing but I think I could have liked it pause in this particular case anyway even though I do like the slow mo it's good that it's paused because that's also

[01:13:01] the great thing about especially in Secret of Mana where you really need to think about some of those things a little more you know where it's like okay bring up the bring up the thing okay should I heal them first

[01:13:13] should I cast a spell should I do the saber whatever right like you need to think about those kind of things and the game being completely paused with the ring system up is key to it it's not just the ring system it's the

[01:13:25] it's the freeze so it's a strategic shenanigans or whatever you want to call it yeah exactly thinking about what because the game is kind of fundamentally about like choosing your characters targeting your characters carefully so like you just want you want to make sure like you

[01:13:40] like you use magic on the right target or whatever it is so there's a lot of things in the remake that they added that are interesting that we don't want to get like too super into because it'll take all day but

[01:13:51] before before in the original you you put points into your stats when you level up and that would determine what kind of spells you get in the remake you can see what they are you can you have a certain amount of juice if you will

[01:14:03] and then you can put them into whatever things you want you could see what you're going to get before you put stats into it which is great I think that's really transformative because in the original like if you weren't using like a guide

[01:14:14] you wouldn't know how many stat points you wouldn't know how many like intelligence points you need to get a spell and it's like a pain in the ass man I know I looked it up hell yeah now they just tell you and it's a whole system behind it

[01:14:25] they don't have decks or dexterity as a stat anymore which I guess it's not really necessary because you're literally moving in the 3d space and it's like you can dodge and like stuff like that so you I guess you don't really have that

[01:14:37] your dexterity is how well you press circle to dodge red circle that'll poke your ass oh you need dexterity for that I do like that your your cpu teammates can now just like cast stuff and perform other like special moves on their own

[01:14:53] because before you would have to tell them to do that you'd have to use the ring system for everything now sometimes they'll just do Angela will just cast spells or whatever you know so it's a lot more useful it gives more character too yeah it does

[01:15:08] so which game has better combat which which trials of mana versus trials of mana here which game has better combat I'm gonna cop out first before you give your answer I like them both equally I think I like them both for completely different reasons

[01:15:21] I think both are great so it's I can't really choose a winner in this instance you know like it's so hard for me to say but I think I gotta barely give it to remake just just ever so slightly however there is something really nice

[01:15:35] feeling about the original because so immediate and it's it's so like it's so brisk in a manner of speaking right but like I do like some of the additional bells and whistles and remake some of the additional moves

[01:15:49] I think that kind of like shakes things up in a sort of a fascinating interesting way um and I think just like maybe breaking down a bit of the the combat stance stuff to like some degree it like feels like the transitions of remake

[01:16:01] or like a little faster between like navigation and combat it feels like those barriers aren't quite as like hey infested right so I mean to me anyway so I mean that's why like kind of barely give it to remake but yeah okay I can understand that

[01:16:16] and I feel like most people will feel the way you do um I just I just think there's something to the original trial of mana trial of mana the singular trial of mana single one character the one trial of mana there's something to trials of mana originals

[01:16:32] combat that I just I'm drawn to it like a magnet I love it I don't know why I it's hard for me to put into words dude it's nice it's a good simple like way of you know it's no filler it's like we said before

[01:16:47] okay all filler no filler yeah okay let's talk game balance a bit because this is very different not just between the two but both have their quirks especially original has its quirks in this regard oh god because grinding in the original game was a bitch

[01:17:18] I must say it was a ugh it was annoying like sometimes it's not a problem especially if you get lost like I did because I was well I shit I was like 40 before I went to what you call the penultimate

[01:17:35] dungeon I was level 40 that's how much I got lost in this yeah this is like one of the longest runs I ever took just because I just couldn't fucking find my way this time I don't know why you know I can't blame you

[01:17:47] I can't blame you yeah previous experience didn't really help me just because it's like it's been so long I'm not going to remember but the thing about original is that the difficulty can wildly vary depending on which characters you pick yeah depending on your

[01:18:01] your your makeup it can get rough out there it can be a very difficult game it's never any point in easy game but it can you can make it a lot harder than yourself I think one run I had was to

[01:18:14] ran Angela and Reese and let me tell you I was in a world of pain oh my god yeah I often affectionately say that the game is doable with any configuration though like if you have Charlotte she kind of breaks the game

[01:18:28] because of her healing so like if you have a healer it really like facilitates like staying alive which is you know kind of important so uh but yeah like if you have a healer or like someone that can cast like elemental like sabers

[01:18:40] on your team it like makes it go so brisk man it's like oh baby so we mentioned the turn order thing earlier and that was fucked up in the original but the but the programming in general in that game is fucked up so like so here's

[01:18:56] here's the thing that and I didn't understand this the entire to give my original run back in the day on emulator right sometimes when you die the game can display that you have one HP even though you really have zero HP or

[01:19:09] vice versa it's weird it can and sometimes even it can flip between one and zero yeah a few times it's like okay am I alive or not I don't understand why that happens from a programming angle but it really like what it can you

[01:19:26] remember what you thought at the time like did you think that was so weird or I thought it was so unlike other games it was kind of sloppy because like well I mean if you compare to secret Amanda you just like die in that game

[01:19:38] right you're just like dead yeah you no fluctuation no guessing you're just like stun locked to death right so yeah but um but yeah like the so the flickering is so strange and I'm like is like am I dead am I not dead now here's the best part

[01:19:55] sometimes if you toss a healing item to a teammate specifically it's one of the CPU teammates in original you can actually like revive like fake revive them for the brink of death if you toss a healing item in time yeah you know if it lets you then

[01:20:10] you can't because like sometimes it's like I pick the couple wishes first that's the revive item in in mana and I pick that first and to see if I can select them with it because it won't let you do it if someone's not

[01:20:22] actually dead yeah but if they do if you can actually pick it is like okay I'll just use that but if I can still throw a chocolate at them or something I will try it I mean that's a state of death right yeah yeah it's it it's so

[01:20:36] weird okay so here's here's some really some wacky thing always happens every single run and this is what happened my last run so I was on the ghost ship and a zombie just a basic bitch zombie took Charlotte down to one HP right

[01:20:53] and it said one HP it didn't flicker between zero and one it said one HP then the zombie died and then it gave me like the you one and then the shop keeper appears because you have to kill the enemies to make the shopkeeper

[01:21:06] appear a shopkeeper said welcome and then two seconds later Charlotte died well okay so one I've never seen that but a two I can believe it three clearly the payment for the shopkeeper services was her life Charlotte must die so you can buy more

[01:21:24] you know bear claws or whatever whatever it was yeah it was it was insane it's like I kill but it never said zero that was a thing and it said one the whole time it didn't it just said one she died so

[01:21:38] that's why I'm surprised that she just fell over dead anyway shit like that can happen um the original has extremely laggy menus I was listening in on your recent play through original every single time you went to the menu got like

[01:21:52] super tilted it's so slow it was slower when we played it on a millator back in the day it took like sometimes several seconds I feel like m2 cleaned it up a little bit maybe they did maybe they didn't it's pretty simple to what I

[01:22:07] remember but however I feel like m2 probably could have cleaned it up if they had so clean they clean up fucking everything if they want to right so they sure square just said at port um or whatever yeah whatever and then Konami was like oh no you can

[01:22:24] make an arcade accurate a Gradius on Turborographic 16 mini yeah go ahead like um but anyway yeah just getting to like oh my god re-arranging your items is so painful and original holy shit I'm not usually the one to be that impatient and talk about how slow

[01:22:43] something is especially if it's old because I'm like okay whatever it's old that's the way it was but this that's too much for me you know the funny thing about the original menus is so I was doing a little bit of original

[01:22:54] recently too I feel like it eats inputs like if you try switch like your gear yeah so I have to press it like twice and maybe I'll like switch out the gear and then if I just press it once it doesn't always work I wait a good two

[01:23:07] seconds between button presses because it'll is that what it is okay hi I do because it gets too it gets confused and you know the best part is that like so the original menus actually like not a three by three grid so if you

[01:23:21] try to move from section to section it's when you press the direction it like lags before it does it's like it's like thinking thinking okay yeah it's like Jesus Christ I'm glad that doesn't apply to the ring system or whatever in game it's literally just like the

[01:23:38] menus like equipment and stuff like that and items but like man we alluded to this earlier but critical hits do not work in this game there's a bug in trials of mana original where like they just do not work you cannot do

[01:23:52] crits in trials of mana so if anyone remembers the old school like secret of mana rabbi got whacked or whatever the numbers are pretty rude yeah the numbers are huge yeah that doesn't that does not happen in trials of mana at all because it cannot trigger

[01:24:06] and you know the weirdest part is that like you know what was meant to be there because certain moves watch certain spells actually boost critical hit rate but that rate will never actually go off because you'll just never see it and like there's a lot of

[01:24:20] bits like people claiming it can happen but I didn't know if I could verify those across all my runs I don't know if I've seen one man yeah it just doesn't man this game would be a lot easier if I could crit right I

[01:24:35] mean holy shit if we could do some real damage every once in a while not that you do shitty damage in this game but so it doesn't ruin the game or anything but like man to get out of a tight spot those crits really

[01:24:46] came in handy sometimes before but it works in remake though from my yeah it does work in remake remake does have critical hits well that was the thing back then about a lot of 8 and 16 bit RPGs where it's like a lot of especially older Final Fantasy there's

[01:25:01] stuff that just straight up does not work that's why like a lot of people got especially back in the day where it's like why would I be a mage when like I try to put someone to sleep and it never works or I try to

[01:25:13] put someone to sleep and it never works because it's not because the game's being an asshole on purpose there's bugs it just got it programmed fucked up and it just yeah the program is fucked up yeah yeah my favorite example now to get to off the

[01:25:27] rails I think like magic of aid in Final Fantasy 6 doesn't do anything cuz like a vein does it both are physical and magical I think it's what it is it's like something really fun to maybe they fix it pixel remaster but in the original

[01:25:41] it's like a lot of equipment and stuff in like Final Fantasy that just straight up like lowers your stats even though it says they're higher it's it's crazy there's stuff that just straight up doesn't work and trials and man is no different you

[01:25:55] know that's just how it was sometimes back then yeah just cuz of the territory but yeah so there's a lot of programming quirks in the original but that are not so much the case anymore in remake and that's that's good so it's a great system in both games

[01:26:13] but before we talk about it a little bit can I say how weird and super duper video game it is that like the game talks about changing your class as like an actual in universe thing it's so funny it's because like it cuz like usually games that have

[01:26:31] classes or jobs don't actually like talk about it in the story or anything but Durand's story of his as well the other figurations where like Ingrid says he's putting his character on point because that's all that's really crazy and it's not like and so like someone

[01:26:51] doesn't talk about it and he's like yeah he your super hand his character in a while he's like hey if you don't talk about it you know what I'm saying slightly immersion breaking, but you know what does happen is that clearly cloud in Fallen

[01:27:09] Fancy 7 Rebirth to beat Sephiroth. He's got to change his class. Yes, he must change his class to, uh, you know, Grenadier or something like that. That would be amazing! Oh man. My favorite joke though is that the Priest of Light who's like the helper dude in

[01:27:29] all the, um, in the beginning of the game, he literally tells Daren you do not have enough experience to achieve that feat, which is literal because you need experience to change your class.

[01:27:40] It's so weird that it's like part of the story and it's even weirder and remake with the voice acting because they say it out loud, I need to change my class. It makes it even worse somehow. I don't know why.

[01:27:51] Do you like when he go up to the statues and the fairies are like trying to change your class? Who was changing? Who was switching classes? Yeah. It's it's pretty good. Oh, it's funny. It's great.

[01:28:07] So something that I honestly would have never thought of in remake versus original is that remake has completely different level scaling. Yeah, the level skills are interestingly different. I didn't necessarily think this was something they had to do, but so you class change at specific levels.

[01:28:25] But in remaking at level 18 and level 38 right in the original level 18 38. So in the original, like you're going to class change after a fair amount through the game. Like it takes some during your quest for the eight elementals that'll put you at about

[01:28:42] like the fifth ish give or take elemental. But the remake is like fuck it. So like you get level faster and like by the time you get the third elemental, you can like class change already. And I'm like, wait, what?

[01:28:56] It's like why would you like boost it to that degree? I actually do appreciate this because it lets you play around with the first class change a lot faster. But at the same time and by extension, that also means like the second class change

[01:29:08] also comes earlier in the run as well. So you have more time to play around with it. You don't just bring it into the final dungeon like you do in original. But so I actually appreciate the fact that they accelerated it. It's just kind of feels weird, right?

[01:29:20] So it's like, I guess like the idea is like get you more empowered faster question work. But yeah, I guess. I guess. But it's like, I honestly never thought about this aspect of remake until you mentioned it to me. I honestly just didn't think about it.

[01:29:37] Yeah, I think well, the reason for that is because like I've done like multiple original runs to the point where like the timing just like cemented in my head, right? So sure, sure. Deviate from that. It's going to feel weird. Here's the funny thing though.

[01:29:48] So like there's a part of the game where the the hero king these thieves are so 90s. What the fuck? Hero Kings like when you go to this specific area, make sure you change your class before you go there.

[01:30:04] And I'm like, bitch, I did that like hours ago. What the hell are you talking about? But yeah, they probably, you know, when they were doing the new script, they probably could have left that one out and just changed it to something else. I mean, probably.

[01:30:18] But yeah, I mean, why it happened because they're using the same script. But at the same time, it's like, yes, me, come on, man. Like I did that a long time ago and the game has all these tutorials. It's like, here's when you change your class.

[01:30:31] This is how you can change your class. This I could do all the yada, yada, yada. These are the requirements to change your class. So it's like, I'm not going to miss it. Yeah. And that's good because the original Trials of Mana

[01:30:41] does not tell you shit, including to get your to get your third class. You need these question mark seeds and you got to farm them shit. You can't just find them lying around like you can in remake. In original, you got to farm them fucking things.

[01:30:55] And that's another thing that took me so long in my my current play through to original is that I could not get the right things. And I couldn't save scum them for some reason. You tried though, you try to save. Yeah, I tried.

[01:31:06] I was actually like, can't you save scum these? I thought you could just wasn't working. I had to do everything legit. So in many of my original runs, I would just beat the crap out of tomato people.

[01:31:16] And that sounds weird out of context until they dropped the seeds I wanted and then just plan them all back to back and inevitably get three of the same goddamn item or whatever. Right. Yeah. Yeah, it's just it was just I don't know, man.

[01:31:31] They could I don't know they could I was going to say maybe they updated the programming of that particular stuff. Why would they change it? That doesn't make any sense. Yeah, I don't think so. But the good part about remake is that like they actually give you

[01:31:42] question mark seeds for like freeze as you're exploring stuff. So it's like it really like I mean, I often use that word stream line and it kind of can come across a little weird, but it really does like streamline the process in this case.

[01:31:53] It's like in this case, I do appreciate it that you don't have to. Especially like I said, original doesn't tell you anything. You better hop on game FAQs or whatever. Like, you know, like you're not going to figure it out. Yeah, I did.

[01:32:05] I think I think I asked you honestly. I'm pretty sure I asked you. Pretty sure you did. Yeah. God, how long we've been married? Holy shit. So to me, I think it's pretty clear that remake is an easier version of Trials of Mana.

[01:32:22] But remake is not exactly like a pushover. It's still going to challenge you maybe in retrospect. Most of the challenge in the original is due to some assholery, like unavoidable screen filling attacks to you and stuff.

[01:32:34] So it's like, yeah, you have to you have to take the hit. But like and remake doesn't have anything like that. But that doesn't mean I think the original is busted or like super unfair or anything. I always like the challenge either way.

[01:32:48] But still being balanced is better than not being balanced. And I'll I'll choose remake. Yeah, I again, I don't necessarily mind getting wrecked by full screen stuff as much in the original either. But yeah, I got to go with remake on this one because

[01:33:01] if a boss is charging up his laser or whatever it is, right? Like you almost know when that's going to happen. And so like there's a bit more player agency in in remake. And you just don't really you feel like you have a greater control

[01:33:16] over like over things, right? And again, just like the rescaling like gets you feeling pretty powerful pretty fast. I mean, that's always like a that's just a different feeling from original in a way. Let's let's reverse this one. We're going to talk about music now.

[01:33:49] Let's reverse our order here and let's put the big question up front. Which soundtrack do you like more? Let's just start there. The original. OK, that was fast. Well, let's hear it. I mean, that OK. Here's my thoughts to me. It's a wash. I think they're both.

[01:34:11] See, you know what? I'm lying already. I think I might actually prefer original. Oh, OK, well, here's why I feel that way. So I've talked about this before. Hiroki Kikuta's sample work on the original Trials of Mana and Secret of Mana for that matter.

[01:34:29] The best Super Nintendo music there is. Yeah, the most impressive sample work. Maybe I've heard from that kind of sound ship. It is incredible. All those little fussy drum sounds and percussion and loops and whatever. Like all of it's incredible and they still sound incredible today. They do.

[01:34:52] And remake lets you change the music to original if you want. And the difference really isn't there. Like, yeah, they're keeping the spirit of the original, but perhaps it's to a fault. I think the problem is that the instrument choices and remake largely mimic the original.

[01:35:08] They're too scared. They're too scared to do anything. And I think what I probably would have wanted is more of a reimagining like, you know, CD-ROM Red Book Soundtracks of Old. It's like, OK, we're going to port this arcade game to TurboGraphic CD.

[01:35:23] Let's make a crazy good new soundtrack based on that. I think that's the kind of thing I wanted. And that's not what this is at all. Nope, it really isn't. I do like that mechanical sampled feel of original because I like that synthesized sequenced feel to it.

[01:35:40] So maybe I'm just contradicting myself. Maybe I do like original more. Yeah, but that sequence feels gone. It gets largely replaced by this much softer, like sounding soundscape and like it's just not all this impactful. And honestly, and those punchy percussion like instruments in original,

[01:36:00] those are those are forever like ingrained in my brain. And nothing even comes close to that in the remake. Not like the percussion is largely a wash. I mean, it doesn't sound bad, obviously. But there were some points where I actually had to like,

[01:36:15] like sit there and listen and I'm like, yo, am I listening to original or am I listening to remake? And that's not good if you have to like wonder that, right? And one particular example that sticks out my mind is the snow song.

[01:36:27] Another winter, like it almost sounds identical. Like in a vacuum, you never know which one you're listening to. I dare anyone to tell me the difference between the two versions of oh, I'm a flamelet or something. Right? Like I don't know. It's so safe. It's way too safe.

[01:36:42] And it's unfortunate. One song I do think fairs better in remake is Secret of Mana. Yes, there is a song called Secret of Mana. He because he thought it was funny. He thought it was hilarious because well, that is funny to a Japanese audience, right?

[01:36:58] Just naming a song Secret of Mana. I mean, that's funny to us, but that's not called that there. So it's it's funny. The remake is called Secret of Mana. Over there. It is. It is. Yeah, the subtitle Secret of Mana.

[01:37:12] Oh, wow. I didn't know they I didn't know they called it that there. That's just like the remake of Secret of Mana. It says it's three Charles of Mana. Really, I didn't know they I didn't know they called it that there either. Yeah. Kind of like our collection,

[01:37:25] like what is it called, like collection of saga, Final Fantasy Legend or something like that? Yeah, you got to do it though. You have to do. Yeah, because it's so brand new. We just got done saying the music is the best part of Charles of Mana.

[01:37:44] The bosses might also be like up there as well because the boss encounters in Charles of Mana are crazy good. Again, I keep saying best on Super Nintendo, but honestly, it's true that probably the best boss encounters I've ever seen on that system. Yeah.

[01:38:02] So the original Charles of Mana relies on these like very carefully crafted looking graphics built for that specific boss room and that scene. And I hate to use this term because I think it's overused, but it really does have like a cinematic craft to it.

[01:38:17] Yeah, it really looks like a stage almost. It looks like here is this perfect place for this battle, you know, and I love that they do that. And honestly, like I said, some of my favorite encounters ever that ghost ship,

[01:38:29] it does like the 2D like single plane side on thing when you fight that ghost. Incredible. Yeah. I don't know the name of this boss, but we affectionately call him Moon Ferry because you fight him on top of what they are.

[01:38:41] You fight him on top of the Chart Moon Tower. That shit's crazy. It's a giant werewolf that you fight onto. Oh, my God, that looks amazing. The wall boss. I love the wall boss. I think the wall bosses were a play secret of man of the song.

[01:38:54] I think so, yeah. I think the moon furries on the back of the Super Famicom boxes are random aside, so they're proud of that. Sure. I love the I don't know what they're actually called, but I call them the Astral heads.

[01:39:07] The I know you're talking about the cosmic like two heads. And then there's like the maybe the big one appears in the middle. Yeah, boss is crazy. So unique. That is insane. Like all that stuff is so crazy.

[01:39:20] And like I said, they all set the perfect stage for them. But my favorite one is when you fight Don guard this, it's like this hydro boss. But you fight him in midair on the back of Flamie. It's the dragon.

[01:39:32] If you've ever played Secret of Man, the thing you fly from place to place. You're on top of Flamie and while you fight this boss and it actually does perspective switching. It's a start. You start from finding him from the from the view he's in front of you.

[01:39:47] And then it flies through the clouds who can switch. And then all of a sudden you see Flamie in a big sprite in a side view. And then you're fighting the boss from a side view as well. They made like different sprites for this.

[01:39:57] Holy shit, 32 megabits of storage space. Dude, it's it's so good. They're really so memorable, right? And not to really be the dead horse, but to be a dead horse. It really stands in stark contrast with Secret of Manna

[01:40:12] because like the very first boss, the Secret of Manna is like the Mantis and they don't take up a lot of the screen. I mean, I guess they're fine for what they are. The first boss in Charles of Manna is like full metal hugger.

[01:40:21] It's like this giant like a crab. They take up the entire screen, the entire screen. Their presence is unmistakable and they command that sort of presence on screen. And it's it's great. It pushes the system to the limit.

[01:40:35] And what a way to like ring in your very first boss encounter in that game. It's just like the whole thing moves around and it's just like they like blanks and stuff, too. And it's like that will always blow me away. Like absolutely. It's it's crazy.

[01:40:49] I also want to add to that when I first played the game in 2003 on the emulator, I remembered that boss from the magazines because I saw that screenshot. And then when they came up in the game, it's like, oh, yeah, that thing.

[01:41:04] So I remembered it just from a fucking EGN or whatever I saw back in the game. It was it was yet even at the way of the game. It was that memorable. So yeah, I totally I totally get you.

[01:41:14] Yeah, those stand still a lot more than a random mech night. I don't mind going to the Mac writer. So I don't know why I always I don't mock writer. I don't know why I was dunk on the Mech night. I really don't.

[01:41:27] Maybe that's just the one that was like the most sick of seeing or something. But it's a dunkable one. It's dunkable. Don't you have to fight to fight to it once? Is that a thing? So yeah, I think so. Oh my God. Thank you.

[01:41:42] So as we just established, original tries, the manna best in class bosses and I'll be blunt, it's just not the same in remake. It isn't and it's and I but I want to stress it's not because boss encounters and remake are bad because they're actually really, really great.

[01:42:00] It's just that the ones in original, like I said, best of all time. It's an unattainable high bar that remake just cannot match, at least not with that budget, right? So the budget could have done it. I mean, look, I mean, some seven remake funds.

[01:42:16] Yeah, I was going to say you look at them seven Final Fantasy seven rebirth bosses right now that we're playing through right now. You you tell me, right? I mean, enough money, you can. Anyway, for visions of manna, they can make it. Oh, never.

[01:42:30] That that game has a 20th of the budget of Final Fantasy seven rebirth. Yeah, no chance, no chance. Yeah, so yeah. Again, it's not really remakes fault. It's just up against something that it just can't hope to match with that said,

[01:42:45] the look of the bosses and remake are pretty fucking superb. As you just said about that crab boss of full metal hugger, that looks crazy good in remake. It looks really good a remake. It does. I think so. Yeah, I think the look is there.

[01:43:00] So like again, like the way they translate the designs just like with the playable characters, they capture the field of designs, but the presence on screen. I think that's the big thing to me because like it's sort of like you said,

[01:43:11] they didn't really like like the original like environments are very carefully set up in a way to communicate like the sort of like cinematic skill. They don't really do fit those things together quite as well in remake because like the hunger is big.

[01:43:28] They just don't have the same sort of like commanding presence on screen. I don't think it looks cool. And you can't. Yeah, you can't have that simply because you can move the camera. You just can't have that in a 3D game. You can't.

[01:43:42] It just will there's no way it can be the same. Right. So, you know, you can do other stuff better like the wall boss, I think comes out better. You know, but like but like moon furry, I just you just can't. You just can't do it.

[01:43:56] You know, it just doesn't work. The ghost boss, you just doesn't work. You know, that one actually translates like OK. Just in terms of verticality, but yeah, like just again, it just goes back to presence like that moon furry.

[01:44:07] It's like if you get told that camera away from them, they just become like a random object. They're not like actually like dominating half the screen. Right. So it's like, yeah, it just doesn't. And by the way, when I say it doesn't work,

[01:44:19] I just mean doesn't work as well as original, which is impossible to. They do work in the context of the game and they're they're a lot of fun. So I don't want to say like they suck or anything.

[01:44:28] It's just, you know, they kind of take around the bosses in some ways, so they move around a bit differently and remake compared to like your like the original. But just yeah, it's just not quite as impressive, I think, in a general sense.

[01:44:40] What I do like about remake and this is obviously it brings a much different flavor, as I said, there's no more, you know, unavoidable like screen feeling attacks or whatever like original. So remake does like the more, I guess, like MMOs and stuff, popular.

[01:44:55] I guess I'm like Final Fantasy 14. But like there's a lot of like like stuff on the ground like you can see AOE or line attacks or whatever. Oh, they're about to attack this way or oh, they're about to do explosion here

[01:45:06] or whatever. So that that stuff you could see coming and you can dodge except your dumb ass CPU teammates don't fucking they just they just they just fucking stand there. Oh, that's correct. You know, it really pisses me off. So there's one mechanic in remake where it's like

[01:45:22] the boss is charging up to do something, but you could prevent them by doing a bunch of damage to them or killing their three doodads around or whatever you can do to stop your attack. But your teammates don't fucking help you. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[01:45:36] Well, the teammates just like fucking swing your damn son. Yes. Don't you see me hitting this one? Go over here there and hit that one. God damn it. Like Jesus Christ. Kevin wants to eat chips. It's like just fucking help me with this. This is it.

[01:45:52] It feels like it's a more laborious effort to break the AOE shenanigans than it needs to be. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's fun. I like the mechanic, but yeah. But yeah, is there any bosses you want to mention before we move on here?

[01:46:05] I think we kind of. Yeah, so I don't want to spoil anything. But one of the final bosses was translated pretty interestingly in the fact that they actually have like they actually can like move around. Whereas before, like in the in the original which path,

[01:46:20] which would what does it happen in? Which is the Durant Angel boss. So OK, OK, say say no more. Yeah, I know which one. Yeah. So like they're kind of like a little ghetto in some regards in the original.

[01:46:32] But like they they they redid the whole fight in remake. So that's that's interesting. Now that one still that stains out to me a lot. Yeah. And some of the some of the bosses that fly around like the fire benevolent on like that. That's kind of cool.

[01:46:45] But you know, in general speaking, they're fine. Sick. Head. I'm sick. So there's some stuff that's only in remake, and we just kind of want to talk about that stuff here. We have mentioned voice acting here and there that does exist in this game

[01:47:15] or that that script is fully voiced. Well, I mean it cut scenes anyway, like actual scenes, not every NPC and stuff like that. But yeah, so that's interesting. The voice acting is is, you know, you're just going to have to hear for yourself.

[01:47:31] I don't think we can really describe it here. It's not bad. It's just very it's a very interesting take on things. And I think that's all we can say. Yeah, there is some cheese factor to it that you'll just have to experience for yourself as best.

[01:47:44] But we think it's good. The good the good kind of cheesy, but you know. But yeah, you had some other notes about voices though. I really like context sensitive voice samples in games because they kind of like add character without halting the flow of events.

[01:48:02] So you don't have to like have a text box necessarily. So like in some cases, like. There's one particular scene where like if Hawkeye restarting your party when you're like in Laurent, like one of the castles, he'll actually apologize on behalf of his people to Reese.

[01:48:18] Like after like a fight, you'll just like say it right. And like, you know, dude, like the fact that they actually like record, they made this and they recorded it and they implemented it for this very specific situation. Most players might not even necessarily hear it, right?

[01:48:33] And then like the actual like love and craft thereof that's actually extremely impressive to me. And like it's it's it's easy to miss. It's just like a throwaway line. It's like I'm sorry that the noble thieves did this to you or to your to your people.

[01:48:46] And it's like, wait, what? And like that's really, really cool to me. One thing I like is that like your teammates can just kind of like when you're doing a town thing, they're also in town and you could just like talk to them. Yeah, that's great.

[01:48:58] Yeah, I like that. Yeah, there's more that that's what they did. Stuff that they added was like character stuff. They realized that was the important part. And Charles and Manna's characters are one of the most notable elements.

[01:49:08] So it makes sense in those lines were added to remake, even though the large like most of the script is like shared. But like those little additions, they're just like great, man. I love it.

[01:49:20] I did think it was interesting that they added like a collectible to the game. There's like where they call little cactus. I think I only caught like, I don't know, 10 of them. I think there's 50 though in the game now and remade. They're all over the place.

[01:49:33] But it's like if I only caught again, I didn't do too much spelunking. But the fact that I only saw 10 means these things must be really hidden. Yeah. So in my in my first remake run, I actually did like spelunk around and like chase these things down.

[01:49:45] But they're like they when you click like a certain like threshold when you meet a certain threshold, they'll like give you like bonuses. But they're like little subtle buffs. It's like you get a discount in shops or like you can get some

[01:49:57] like some like ability buffs or like random things here and there. So it's like, you don't need to do it. But like the places that they put them in are all like really, really funny to me, like in sort of like Molten Lava area.

[01:50:10] They'll just be like chilling on a platform and like what the hell? Like what are you doing here, man? Like you're going to like you're going to try out like what are you doing? It's so I don't know, man. The cactus don't occur.

[01:50:24] He wants to be on the whatever. No, just just hang out in the corner of the evil castle. Like, well, it's the worst that can happen. It's like the evil castle. I don't know. Are there are the evil ninjas in the evil castle? Yeah, they are.

[01:50:39] They're not so evil cactus. Not so evil little cactus. Yeah. But there is a level it. No, say it. Say it. No, I just I just love how they did this because I think again, like they they didn't just translate the original game.

[01:50:55] They added like the fact that they actually like gave you an incentive to explore. It's great. Well, one thing they also add to remake is there is a postgame scenario, which we don't really want to talk about, because obviously we don't want to spoil.

[01:51:08] But you you can load your save after you beat the game and you can do this extra scenario that takes maybe like four ish hours to do, I would say. That's what I would say. But what did you think of this mode?

[01:51:19] Because like I like the extra story content. That was cool. You know, that was unexpected, really. I didn't really expect anything like that. But I didn't really like playing through it that much. I thought it was just a bit too long for what it was.

[01:51:34] And for for Dragon Ball Z fans out there, let's just say it was like the snake way of scenarios. So I just I just thought it was a bit much. But, you know, it's fine for an extra.

[01:51:45] And I'm glad it was there just for the character stuff, honestly. Yeah, the character stuff is the biggest thing, obviously, not going to say specifics, but that's the most memorable thing to me. But the actual like like dungeon-esque part. I mean, that's not particularly memorable.

[01:51:59] But on the flip side, can we really expect like too much for like an added scenario, I guess? But and the story thereof is kind of trashy. But I mean, kind of not written the best. But, you know, it's worth it for some cool interactions. I guess.

[01:52:18] It's rather ham it's rather hamfisted in terms of how they like put it into the game. But the original game doesn't even have like a post game or anything. So I guess it's fine. Yeah, it's fine for what it is. I didn't I didn't hate it.

[01:52:30] I didn't like it that much, but I definitely didn't hate it. And like I said, I really did appreciate the character stuff. So that's good. Yeah. So yeah, I guess that's a shit. I think we're that's it on Trials of Mana. But before we go, just real quick,

[01:52:52] I want to talk about our expectations for Visions of Mana just because we can concrete it here. And if we're wrong, we're wrong. Everyone will hear how wrong we are forever. So I'm confident. Yeah. When we when they first showed it, it was a state of play, right?

[01:53:08] What were they first showed it? Ah, the game awards, game awards, game awards. I thought, OK, since this is coming out for PS4 and Switch, it has to be the same engine as Trials of Mana remake, right? It has to be.

[01:53:24] Well, it's not like you could put on Rio Engine 5 on a switch. So I mean, you could try. Well, I don't know. Switch two could be out by, I don't know. They did say switch though. So yeah, it's going to be hamstrung by last year, unfortunately. Yeah.

[01:53:42] But that doesn't mean it has to be bad or anything. But that's of course not the case. But outside of that, I don't know if you really have any expectations of Vision of Mana. I just hope they are just not embarrassing. You know, like we said earlier,

[01:53:56] the last great Mana game was Trials of Mana almost 30 years ago. So I hope Visions of Mana can just be great without all the bullshit. We've lived our entire adult lives without a great new Mana game. And I really, really hope that changes this year.

[01:54:14] Well, for I, for one, want to play exactly like Donna Mana, I want the barrels to float and bounce around like rubber objects. And if they don't bounce around. Oh, my God. Now, my expectations are super lofty, man. Like that aren't during that aren't during the game awards.

[01:54:31] When I saw it, we were like watching as a small group. And I was like, I instantly said it was like Mana. And like I was blown away by those sunsets. It was such a luminous looking game, way more luminous than what we've seen from Trials

[01:54:44] and way more luminous than like anything we've ever seen. That was such a superlative, superlative looking game. And like the way that they've like translated those established concepts to like a new game, they just their breathtaking. They're nothing short of breathtaking.

[01:54:59] And like one thing I often like to say is that you can often sense the confidence of a new project through their marketing. You know if something's a good idea, Street Fighter Six versus Street Fighter Five. Tech at eight versus Tech and seven.

[01:55:11] I'm sorry about the fighting game references, but like they're those. Yeah, sure. New games are very clearly communicated. And I feel Vigis of Mana is the same way. It's just like you can sense that confidence through all the marketing materials.

[01:55:25] They're even doing like, hey, like here's like a good like the good dog. Here's a good dog or whatever. Right. They're already like playing into these sorts of things. And like it just like speaks to the the development of this game

[01:55:37] that they feel like they got something incubated and they feel like they got something cooking. It's not like some ghetto ass like mobile game. Right. So yeah, they they they know what they're doing here. They know what they're doing. Trouser Mana gave them the confidence. It's OK. OK.

[01:55:50] We don't have to worry about character, scenario story or anything that's already made for us because that already exists. We can just concentrate on crafting a world and battle system and stuff that works and they have that they can make it can go forth

[01:56:03] and make like an actual new thing. Yeah. And like even during the Xbox Showcase, which would have been the last place where it would have expected footage, by the way, they're all talking about like the soundtrack. They're like, yo, we got like a gazillion million tracks,

[01:56:16] not literally like a gazillion million, but I got all these tracks. And like it's it just speaks to like how much time and energy and effort that they're putting into this game. And maybe you won't have as much money as like a Final Fantasy 7

[01:56:29] rebirth or whatever. But that art direction is strong, man. It's so strong. It's very strong and it looks great and I hope it is great. So, yeah, thanks for joining me. Trials of Mana, great game, original and remake. Everyone out there playing both. They're both worthy.

[01:56:46] Can't pick one, but we put it in against them again for podcast content. But yeah, we're not going to pick a winner because both should be played. They should be. Thanks for floating from the man of sanctuary. All right. Put your plastic bag

[01:57:00] in the fucking hand away of your wispy pal. And then we can get out of here. Catch us on fine time podcast on Twitter or check the description of this podcast to find our names on Blue Sky. See you next time. Bye.