When Square Enix announced a remake of Trials of Mana, many were excited. This looked to be a much more extensive remake than what was done with Secret of Mana, and a lot more was done. But there were causes of concern as well, as some were put off by the trailers, and were worried the game would be lacking. Now though, Square Enix has released a new demo for the game and it is amazing. The demo for Trials of Mana allows you to play the early part of the game and get up to level 7 in experience. You can choose any of the characters’ stories to try as well as choosing two others to serve as supporting characters. This means that those who do not like one specific playthrough of the game, can try another easily and get a good feel for what the game has to offer.
Trials of Mana has a revamped combat system, that takes influence from other modern action rpgs like the Tales series, Ys, and Shining games. However, it is not a clone of those games as it does have its own ideas as well, in addition to bringing the classic elements into the modern era. The ring system for item management is back, and revamped to be much more intuitive, the attacks and magic are well developed and easy to understand, and interactions are streamlined. In terms of new additions, you can now jump, dash and do new types of attacks as well, in addition to having a new map to give you an idea of where to go and what to do. The game is fully remade in a 3D world and the revamped controls work extremely well here, and finding new secrets is something that will interest anyone.
For those unfamiliar with the game, Trials of Mana is the follow-up to Secret of Mana and was previously a Japan only title before receiving a localization last year. The story is vastly improved over that game, and now serves as both a deconstruction of RPG ideas and a reconstruction of them at the same time. We see why character archetypes would be terrible in reality, but then the game shows they can be made to work better. Trials of Mana also tried something different with the day and night system, to make the world feel more alive and unique. The NPCs and enemies behave differently and provide more of a challenge. This is worked into the remake and is handled extremely well and once again allows for the world to be different and offer more variety.
This is just a taste of what we have in the game, but it is truly amazing. I suggest playing the demo a few times in order to get as many different experiences as possible, which will give you a real idea of what the game has to offer. If you have even the slightest interest in the game, you need to check out the demo. If you are on the fence or do not think it is for you, I suggest trying the demo to see why the game is amazing.
The demo is available on PC, PS4 and Switch.