Trials of Mana

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About

Trials of Mana is the English name of the Japanese video game Seiken Densetsu 3, sometimes mistakenly called Secret of Mana 2, which originally was developed and published by Square in 1995 for the Famicom. It is the third game in the Mana series. The game was rereleased on the Nintendo Switch in 2019 and a full 3D remake of the game released on April 24th, 2020.

History

Trials Of Mana, first known as Seiken Densetsu 3, was directed by Hiromichi Tanaka, designed by series creator Koichi Ishii, and published by Square. The game released on September 30th, 1995. The game features several playable characters with overlapping stories and traditional JRPG elements, such as a top-down perspective and a player-controlled leveling up system (playthrough shown below).

The game went unlocalized for decades due to financial and technical obstacles.^[1] It was not until the Collection of Mana trilogy release on the Nintendo Switch in Japan in 2017 that Square Enix became aware of the Western demand for a localization of the trilogy.^[2] The studio got to work on a 3D remake, and while it was in development, worked on a localization of Seiken Densetsu 3. While developing the game, the team decided the English name of the game would be Trials of Mana. It released as part of the Collection of Mana release for the Switch on June 11th, 2019.^[3]

Remake

The remake was announced the same day as the release of Collection of Mana, and releases for the Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, and Windows on April 24th, 2020. It is a 3D remake built using Unreal and is directed by Nakoi Matsue. A playable demo released on March 18th, 2020.

Reception

Seiken Densetsu 3 had long been sought after by fans before its localization. A 1999 unofficial fan translation of the game made it available to English players.^[4]

A thread of reviews for the remake gained over 300 points in /r/games.^[5] IGN^[6] praised the game and told people they should play it thanks to its combat and faithful recreation of the original. On Metacritic,^[7] the remake has a score of 78/100 as of April 23rd, 2020.