REVIEW: Visions of Mana


Title	Visions of Mana
Developer	Square Enix
Publisher	Square Enix
Release Date	August 29th, 2024
Genre	Action RPG
Platform	PC, PlayStation 4\|5, Xbox Series X\|S
Age Rating	Teen
Official Website

When I was given an opportunity to check out Square Enix’s latest release, Visions of Mana, I jumped on it. It had been a while since I played a game in this series, so I was pretty excited to get started. I’ve spent about 30 hours with the game and played to end of the main story, so it’s time to share my thoughts. Let’s see if this one met my high expectations.

Our story begins as the Soul Guard Val begins his journey to escort his childhood friend Hinna to The Mana Tree. She has been named the Alm of Fire and will have to give her soul to the world in order to keep the elements in balance. The pair will encounter other Alms along the way who will join their group on their pilgrimage to the Mana Tree. This will not be without incident however, as the Faerie has not named all of the Alms when the party arrives. This will lead them on adventures they could’ve never imagined, on a journey that will take them to very unexpected places.

I can’t really dig deep into this story without getting into spoiler territory, so you’ll just have to take my word that this is an adventure worth doing. I loved seeing all of the different places in this world and how each of the characters grew, the further along in the story I got. Careena was by far my favorite character here, and I dare say a cuter one winged angel. I think this was helped along by her English VA having that cute Southern accent, but she is really fun and I think most players will have a smile watching her antics.

Graphically, Visions of Mana is amazing. Each area is greatly detailed with lots of landmass to explore. As you trek across snowy fields, deserts and lush forests you will see lots of interesting things if you go off the beaten path. These include things like items that will help on your travels and maybe some ruins to explore. You will have to do most of these late game since the enemy levels are really high, but it was fun to go back and see what goodies were there. The character models are all nicely detailed as well, and I love that each different class gave them all distinct looks. The game ran at a constant 60FPS on my laptop and 120FPS on the desktop. I did encounter a few dips here and there, but it was nothing that would break immersion. I think the cutscenes being locked at 30FPS is a bit jarring and something I hope Square addresses down the line. Outside of that, this is a great PC port from them.

The soundtrack in Visions of Mana is just simply amazing. Each area’s theme inspires exploration with their upbeat vibes and you will find yourself humming along as you wander through each one. The battle themes are great as well: fast paced to get your heart pumping for the epic battle that is about to take place. I really felt this with the boss themes, and some of those battles were indeed fantastic. The English voice cast does a great job bringing these characters to life. I’m usually more of a Japanese audio with subs guy, but I found this cast to be really great so I stuck with them this time.

As players traverse each area, they will be met with lots of monsters that stand in their path. Combat is done in groups of three and is action based. While the world is big, there is no need to worry since there are plenty of waypoints you can fast travel to once you’ve explored, and plenty of map markers to guide you on your quest. The side quests will place markers as well, so you won’t be wandering aimlessly trying to find said monster for X quest since it will always point you in the right direction.

You have two main attacks you can chain together for combos, as well as special abilities at your disposal. These will come in two forms, the first is from the class skills you unlock via the Elemental Plot. This is basically a skill tree for each character that unlocks skills for each class as you spend the elemental points you’ve gained through combat and find mana points on the map. The second is from seeds you can equip. These are obtained from sidequests or treasure chests.

You can switch between any of your party members on the fly during combat, and setup shortcuts for important skills and items. You can also pull up the ring menu during a fight. This will stop all the action on the screen and allow you to decide which item or skill you wish to use at your leisure. I really liked this, since it would give me time to think about what abilites I wanted to use next in the boss battles. Do I buff my party, debuff the boss or just take some time to heal? I had time to think and strategize how I wanted things to work out.

Since classes use different types of weapons, their attacks will vary depending on the type of weapon they have equipped. Careena uses spears when she is Dragon Master or Starlancer, but a fist type weapon when she is a Warrior Monk or Divine Fist class. This gives each character lots of flexibility in combat and you will have to play around with them to see which ones fit your play style best.

Despite my few nitpicks I had a great time with Visions of Mana. The story is fantastic and watching these characters grow as the adventure went on, was pure joy. The world felt full and there were lots of hidden things to find while exploring each map. The combat is fun and having all the different classes for each character gave it lots of variety. While it took me around 30 hours to complete the main quest I left a lot undone with this one. There were plenty of upgrades, monsters and even a post story that I still need to get to. I feel this one is well worth the $59.99 price tag to fans of the series and newcomers alike.