Visions of Mana

[Violentvixen]

You can't hold Y/top button to skip the cutscenes?

Wasn't working for me, I could pause during them but not skip. I can move the dialogue along quickly but any big plot ones weren't working.

I've had a couple crashes so if that's supposed to work and mine is just bugged that's annoying but better overall I suppose.

Also I was annoyed because two of my crashes were after beating some more difficult bosses, so I watched a cutscene, beat a boss, watched the cutscene after the crash and then had to do it all again. Save after I beat the boss but before the cutscene, come on.

 

[Classic]

In my game, the armor shop inventories stopped updating.

 

[Kirin]

Well this is sounding like a good time to wait for a patch or two...

 

[Peklo]

News came out the day this game released that its developer Ouka Studios had been in the process of cutting jobs for the ongoing year, and potentially at risk of closing entirely... so I'm not sure what kind of post-launch support this game will go on to have, if any was ever planned.

 

[Vaeran]

Got this game for my birthday, and I'm a couple hours in. It's a series of gorgeous vistas, interrupted every eight seconds to make you listen to some more anime-ass dialogue.

I have to say I'm a little unnerved by the breeziness with which the characters talk about this pilgrimage they're on. We're going to feed this girl to a tree but they act like they're carefree tourists on some whimsical vacation.

Hinna: Shall we be off, Sir Soul Guard~?
Val: Right away, your alm-y-ness!

Not a moment of introspection, doubt or trepidation. It's not just the party, either. One of the NPCs in the wind town is like "my grandson would make a fantastic alm!" Jesus, lady.

I keep thinking back to Final Fantasy X, whose plot revolved around a similar scam to keep the world turning by sacrificing innocents, but as soon as the FFX party realized what was up they were immediately like "nope, nuh uh, this whole system sucks, fuck you." But the characters here seem to know the whole score already and are totally fine with it. Well, I'm sure there'll be some sort of twist along the way.

 

[Kirin]

Not a moment of introspection, doubt or trepidation. It's not just the party, either. One of the NPCs in the wind town is like "my grandson would make a fantastic alm!" Jesus, lady.

I keep thinking back to Final Fantasy X, whose plot revolved around a similar scam to keep the world turning by sacrificing innocents, but as soon as the FFX party realized what was up they were immediately like "nope, nuh uh, this whole system sucks, fuck you." But the characters here seem to know the whole score already and are totally fine with it. Well, I'm sure there'll be some sort of twist along the way.

I don't have the game yet, but I feel like this description actually kind of tracks with some of my least favorite bits of writing in previous Mana entries. The stories sometimes have a real tendency to lean into self-sacrifice as a good thing, in some cases even going for the "nobility of suffering" trope. I'm thinking most here of vaguely remembered plot beats towards the end of the Fairy branch in Legend as the starkest example, but then you've also got things like Sprite/Popoi just fading away at the end of SoM and everyone's pretty okay with it because that's just the way it has to be. It doesn't necessarily make for bad story-telling, but I'm extremely not into that philosophy, so it'll be interesting to see whether this one sticks with it or subverts it.

 

[Beowulf]

I'm thinking most here of vaguely remembered plot beats towards the end of the Fairy branch in Legend as the starkest example, but then you've also got things like Sprite/Popoi just fading away at the end of SoM and everyone's pretty okay with it because that's just the way it has to be.

It goes back to the very first game and the "the women of the Mana clan become the Tree every time something happens to it" thing.