Visions of Mana Review – Just to warn you, this film audaciously comes with some gameplay

You’re here because you’re wondering what it’s like to play Visions of Mana. Unfortunately, I only know what it’s like to watch the thing. A game that’s 80% cutscenes, Visions of Mana takes being a “story” game rather literally.

Visions of Mana hardly lets you play the game, then punishes you for not playing the game

Visions of Mana is aptly named, as all it feels like you’re doing is watching the game unfold in front of you.

I’m going to get my primary gripe out of the way as it’s driving me mad: There are way too many cutscenes. I genuinely can’t go two minutes without being thrust into another one, some of which drag on for far too long.

Out of my hours of playtime, over half of it has been watching them talk and rehash what they’ve already said again and again. I’ve lost count of how many times the main character has mentioned his duty as the Soulguard in only the first four hours of gameplay, as if I’d somehow forget.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m likely not the target audience for this game. I have little patience for the anime-esque dialogue conventions that Visions of Mana employs. Yet at the same time, I feel like even those who should love Visions of Mana may grow tired of the constant talking, a lot of which is redundant. If you’re used to the dialogue in something like Genshin Impact, you won’t be too surprised by the pace here; the problem is with the entire genre.

On top of this, the game is extremely hand-holdey. Everything is tracked and pointed out to you. On a quest where you need to find something lost? The mission marker will point out its exact location. Want to go on treasure hunts and find all the hidden chests? Don’t worry, they’re all already marked on the map for you.

I felt like I was hardly engaging in the game at all. Mindlessly following the missions markers and being forced to sit through a short film every five minutes must have melted my mind, for suddenly, the game became difficult.

I don’t have too many problems with the combat and I’ll get into that later, but suddenly I felt like I was incredibly under-leveled and equipped. The difficulty spiked, and I realized I maybe should have spent more time purposefully picking fights and grinding my levels before I proceeded.

However, you fall into the habit of following and watching so much so that you become a passive participant. Visions of Mana doesn’t encourage you to go off and explore and grind up. It just prods you along to the next cutscene. So actually having to play the game to get stronger is something that doesn’t come naturally. In a video game.

When I came across the first boss, I was level seven, and the boss was level 10. It took me around ten minutes of spamming the boss with my attacks as I did next to no damage. My party was wiped almost instantly, and it was just me left. It sucked.

The game did tell me just before the fight that I was entering a point of no return, but I had been progressing through the story for hours at that point and didn’t think anything of it. There was no mention of a boss. No environmental or subtle signs that I may need to prepare for something. Just droning dialogue and more walking simulator and then bam! Boss fight.

Even when the going gets tough in Visions of Mana, I don’t feel compelled to get stronger or go out of my way to fight enemies and buy better equipment. The cutscenes take up so much time and the mission markers help you out so much that it feels like the game doesn’t want to be played, and that the action sequences are merely a buffer or a distraction.

I’m always incredibly reluctant to boot up Visions of Mana for I know I’ll be sitting through cutscenes for most of my “gaming” time. It becomes incredibly tiresome.

Right. Rant out of the way. Visions of Mana may have far too much dialogue and cutscenes, and it may require zero active engagement until you’re suddenly thrown into a difficult fight you weren’t prepared for, but ultimately, I can’t get myself to say it’s a bad game.

In fact, I’m rather conflicted.

Is Visions of Mana simply a kids game? …

At one point in the game, when I was walking past all the enemies in the snowy area, the soundtrack brought me right back to when I was a child playing Super Mario Galaxy 2. It reminded me of the water planets. The serene and infinitely calm vibes clashing with some existential comfort.

I was brought back to the time when I was a kid, and some games were just easy and breezy. I thought, for a moment, that maybe Visions of Mana is tailored toward kids as a casual and easy-going experience. Maybe it’s alright that I’m feeling braindead playing it, because I’m used to twitchy shooters and soulslikes and not a slow, simple, and safe linear adventure.

A story, a grand adventure. I must admit, although I’m falling asleep most of the time, some plot points surprised and interested me. I may not care about the story, generally, but that’s not to say it’s boring. The world itself is beautiful and inviting.

For a brief moment, I appreciated the possibility that a young gamer out there will fall in love with the characters and the world, and that it won’t matter that the game is holding your hand the entire time and offering you enough short films to rival Metal Gear Solid 4. It won’t matter, for a kid out there will be enjoying how easy it is and reveling in the plot.

I say “brief moment” for I was swiftly thrown into another cutscene and had to mop my brain off the floor again. At least Super Mario Galaxy 2 was challenging, exciting, and didn’t have me constantly waiting when I just wanted to play the thing. So to conclude my thought, even if this game is geared toward younger, less experienced gamers, there are better games.

I did revisit this thought later, but that was juxtaposed by the next fight I was suddenly having great difficulty with. Visions of Mana presents a rather complex build system whilst providing extremely basic combat mechanics, which makes me rethink whether this is a game made with easy-going younger gamers in mind.

… or is Visions of Mana a complex action game?

I was (and still am) surprised by the level of complexity featured in Visions of Mana, despite everything else supporting the idea that it’s supposed to be simple and easy to grasp.

It makes sense for a kid’s game to have a basic attack system, but the systems that support combat are complex.

When in battle, all your party fights simultaneously, which I personally find really cool. What’s more is that you can switch to control any other character on the field at a whim, too. Every fight is that little bit more awesome when you can see your companions fighting. The fact that you can choose their AI settings when you’re not controlling them is an incredible feature, too.

But just fighting won’t get you anywhere. You’ll have to go into the gear menu and select and equip the following for each of your party members:

• The weapon and armor that they’re wearing, with the weapons being class-specific.
• The class (vessel) of your characters that completely change everything about them out of a choice of nine.
• What spells they each have equipped.
• What “Ability Seeds” each character has equipped, which unlock new spells or raise certain stats.

For a game so geared toward simplicity, this is a pretty convoluted system. Also, each class, spell, and Ability Seed can only be equipped by one party member, meaning that your walking simulation is interrupted by decisions that take some time and mental resources to figure out.

And in some fights, it really didn’t matter who had what equipped because I was so underleveled. Yet I was always broke so could scarcely ever afford new equipment.

It’s the disparity between “here, let me show you the way to the next cutscene so you don’t need to activate a single brain cell” and “you’re telling me you didn’t grind enemies for levels and money to buy better equipment and find out the optimal strategies for classes and Ability Seeds that you’re unlocking at a slow pace so you have little choice in what you can do anyway? Here’s a boss encounter three levels above your team” that gets me.

It’s like the game wants to be two things at once. A laid-back adventure for a younger audience to get wrapped up in and a complex action JRPG that requires grinding and preparation for untold strengths of future foes.

This oxymoron of a game can’t cater to those who want to grind levels and watch video essays about build guides and to those who want to essentially watch an anime show on their consoles (I honestly feel like this game would make for a better anime than video game). It doesn’t work at its foundation. The clash between active and passive engagement is too extreme in Visions of Mana, and renders it mostly unenjoyable.

And, yet again, I can’t bring myself to hate the game, even if I don’t enjoy almost everything about it.

Visions of Mana is still a beautiful and fun game — if you know what you’re in for

Look, if you’re a fan of the Mana series by Square Enix, then you’ll enjoy Visions of Mana.

If you want a laid-back game that’s rich with story and dialogue and you want an admittedly interesting combat system, then you’ll enjoy Visions of Mana.

Honestly, if it weren’t for how easy and long the non-combat sections of the game are, I think I’d enjoy Visions of Mana so much more. The game is gorgeous and the soundtrack is beautiful. The fact that each character has a class when given a special item is genius, and the fact that they all look different and wield different weapons for each class is a fantastic feature.

I just can’t handle the constant flip-flopping between me staring off into space for half an hour and suddenly having to lock in for an intense fight. But hey, that’s just me.