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About the Game Trials of Mana was an action RPG released in 1995 on the Super Nintendo by Square. Surprisingly, despite its popularity and the popularity of its predecessor, Secret of Mana, Trials, titled Seiken Densetsu 3, never saw release in the West. It did, however, gain a cult following. Translated by fans shortly after its release, Trials gained high praise owing to its solid gameplay and unique features. A co-op mode, a rarity in most RPGs ensured that friends could enjoy the story together and a set of 6 characters, with varying storylines allowed for a level of replayability rarely seen in other RPGs of the day. I was one of those fans, playing the game more times than I could count to see all the different plot variations and gameplay elements that had been lovingly woven into Square’s story. I even went as far as to seek out romhacks for the game and chose Trials for my first ever Let’s Play, as I tackled Sin of Mana a Hardtype mod of the game. And with that most fans were content, the game was great and a Western release, whilst pleasant, never seemed realistic. However, almost 25 years after its release, Trials finally saw a true Western release and translation, with the announcement that the game would be released on Switch and PS4 in 2019. That was not the only treat however as Square unveiled a full 3D remake of the game. Trials of Mana (2020) was announced to release on the game’s 25th anniversary, to the delight of many fans and the tremendous excitement of your truly. About The LP This will be a solo video LP. Owing to the global situation with coronavirus, my erstwhile colleague and best friend Yorkshire Tea can’t come and record with me, so I’ll be going it alone this time, which perhaps is appropriate given that Trials of Mana’s remake is single player only. I’ll be running through the game on its “Hard” difficulty. I think I should be able to handle it with my knowledge from prior games, but we’ll soon see and I can turn it down if need be. Spoiler policy is that you can mention things inside spoiler tags, but try to keep it at a minimum, the game has a neat story that I wouldn't like to see new people spoiled on. Art is handled by the wonderful Bifauxnen. Prologue In case you want to know more about the characters I’ve created a series of Prologue videos so that you can get to grips with them. Episode 0 is a quick run through, but in each of Prologue 1-6 I pick a character and run through their introduction so you can get an idea of what they’re like. The videos are around 20 minutes in length, which hopefully is enough that you can get to know who you’re voting for. A quick introduction to all the characters! Duran, Swordsman from Valsena. Specialises in physical attacks and defense. Angela, Magician from Altena. Specialises in magical and elemental attacks. Kevin, Beastman from Ferolia. Specialises in all out physical attacking and can transform at night! Charlotte, Priestess from Wendel. Specialises in healing and buffing allies. Hawkeye, Thief from Navarl. Specialises in fast attacks and debuffs. Riesz, Amazon from Laurent. Specialises in long range attacks and support spells. Episodes Natural 20 fucked around with this message at 11:57 on Jul 8, 2020 |
# ? Apr 22, 2020 22:54 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 02:51 |
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I'm new to the Mana games (and several JRPGs in general) and I enjoyed the demo for this, so I'm looking forward to this.
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 06:31 |
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I was waiting for an LP of this! Can't wait to see what characters you end up taking... for your first run. Because let's be serious, you're gonna do multiple playthroughs, right?
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 06:35 |
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I know just enough of this game to know that I don't know this game, so I'm here for this.
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 08:16 |
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Well, I sure wasn't expecting this thread already. Still gotta wait until tomorrow to get the game for myself, unfortunately. And, knowing steam's release times, probably not until the evening in Europe. Had to vote for Chawwotte. Cyflan fucked around with this message at 08:56 on Apr 23, 2020 |
# ? Apr 23, 2020 08:53 |
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Oh god, this releases tomorrow? I'M NOT READY! Also Angela FTW.
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 09:34 |
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Your LP of Praeterius' Sin of Mana hack was basically all the experience I had with this game up until the Collection came out. Needless to say, I was a bit confused about some of the fiddly bits when I played... I voted for Kevin/Duran/Hawkeye, because we didn't see much of Kevin or Duran in the original LP, and Hawkeye just because.
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 11:32 |
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Great to you LPing the game. The Sin of Mana hack LP was fantastic. I'm so excited for this game.
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 12:12 |
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For maximum suffering, pick Charlotte as your main and Kevin as your second. Maximum bad voice acting!!!!!! For your third... Riesz or maybe Hawkeye.
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 13:00 |
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It's not an endless way to play the game... If the order of the two companions doesn't matter we have 6 main characters and 5 * 4 / 2 = 10 ways to pick your companions for a total of 60 different combinations. If the order does matter then we have 6 * 5 * 4 = 120 combinations. And in the case where it doesn't matter which of the three is actually your main character we end up with (6 * 5 * 4) / (3 * 2) = 20 groups of three. Also I found it very disturbing how the text in the character description kept jumping around. The line separation wasn't constant. It looks almost like line height isn't an integer number of pixels but they round every line start Y coordinate to integer, resulting in the fractional part getting spread around randomly. And now that I've said this you can't unsee it either.
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 17:02 |
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Voted speech impediment, most precious duo Kevin/Charlotte, with ice valley girl Angela to round it out.
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 17:06 |
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While I understand why they didn't make this game co-op, it's still a goddamn travesty. Rock and roll, Nat20.
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 17:18 |
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I'm not sure whether it's the voice actor or the direction, but Kevin's voice is godawful. All. The incredibly. Long. Pauses.
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 17:27 |
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I'm on the fence about this game, and honestly the thing that'll tip me is if characters can use magic without having to go to the menu. It was definitely my biggest deterrent in the original, Secret of Mana, and Secret of Evermore, to which I can't seem to find an answer anywhere. But either way I'll be watching
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 18:31 |
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I didn't play Duran's part in the demo, and the flashbacks combined with the amazing soundtrack actually had me tear up a little bit.
Torrannor fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Apr 23, 2020 |
# ? Apr 23, 2020 19:26 |
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:I'm on the fence about this game, and honestly the thing that'll tip me is if characters can use magic without having to go to the menu. It was definitely my biggest deterrent in the original, Secret of Mana, and Secret of Evermore, to which I can't seem to find an answer anywhere. But either way I'll be watching Great news, you can bind spells to a quick-cast slot, and activate them just like the tech attacks!
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 19:50 |
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Can we vote Chawwotte three times?
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 20:50 |
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:I'm on the fence about this game, and honestly the thing that'll tip me is if characters can use magic without having to go to the menu. It was definitely my biggest deterrent in the original, Secret of Mana, and Secret of Evermore, to which I can't seem to find an answer anywhere. But either way I'll be watching You have the ring menu which pauses the action to let you select an item or spell, but you can also set 4 spells/items to a shortcut menu (open ring menu, hold R and select the item you want to set to a shortcut by using the A, B, X, or Y buttons) which will let you instantly cast/use the spell/item by holding down R and using the A, B, X, or Y buttons (depends on which button you set it to).
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 21:51 |
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my votes go to Hawkeye, Charlotte, and Reisz
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 22:49 |
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gandlethorpe posted:Voted speech impediment, most precious duo Kevin/Charlotte, with ice valley girl Angela to round it out. same
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 00:07 |
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Halfway through the polls and everything to play for. Angela has taken a command lead at the top with Riesz in a comfortable second, but Kevin, Hawkeye and Charlotte are in a near dead heat for that coveted third spot. Duran unfortunately is lagging in last place. Coolguye posted:While I understand why they didn't make this game co-op, it's still a goddamn travesty. I had *desperately* hoped that this would have 3 player co-op so I could have had you as a special guest on the Yorkshire Tea and Nat20 train. Sadly that was not to be.
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 00:09 |
I'm voting for a waifu party setup. I plan to do the same, just not sure on which direction to take with their light/dark choices. I think the safest is Light/Light Angela, Light/Dark Riesz and Dark/Dark Charlie.
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 00:25 |
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Tyberius posted:I'm voting for a waifu party setup. I plan to do the same, just not sure on which direction to take with their light/dark choices. Ah the, "explode the unbelievers with ludicrous amounts of magic damage" party.
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 00:27 |
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I'll laugh if the thread ends up giving you the same Riesz/Hawkeye/Angela party that (IIRC) you used for the previous LP. So far, at least 2/3 are probably going to be the same.
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 00:30 |
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Zurai posted:I'm not sure whether it's the voice actor or the direction, but Kevin's voice is godawful. All. The incredibly. Long. Pauses. Incidentally, I found their pauses way more annoying than Kevin's because Kevin at least sounds like someone who needs those pauses to work out this whole 'talking' thing The only VA I didn't like (in terms of acting) was Hawkeye's, strangely enough. Probably because every other character has a moment to get really emotional in their prologue and his has him sit there and grit his teeth, so I couldn't get a read on his range like I could the others. It may also be because they carried the Neko dialogue style from the SOM remake forward for his cat person buddy and it made escaping from a hideout of ninjas that much more ridiculous Also I'll be playing this myself when it drops, so not sure how much I'll be following. EponymousMrYar fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Apr 24, 2020 |
# ? Apr 24, 2020 00:36 |
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Natural 20 posted:Ah the, "explode the unbelievers with ludicrous amounts of magic damage" party. When you have multiple orbital death cannons, every problem starts to look like... a nail?
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 01:26 |
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My vote's for Hawkeye, Duran, and Charlotte, preferably with Charlotte last, due to something I won't spoil (partly because I'm not sure I'm even remembering it correctly). Not voting for Kevin because I've played him before in the fan-patch, not voting for Angela because cast times, and not voting for Riesz because, quite frankly, she doesn't interest me all that much. ...You know that someone's gonna vote for a Duran/Kevin/Hawkeye team at some point if they haven't already, right? Pretty sure that's the "all-out physical offense" party in the same way that Angela/Charlotte/Riesz is the "all-out magical offense" party. Of course, I liked the original (which I hunted down because I played Secret), so I'll be following this LP regardless of team composition.
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 02:08 |
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Hawkeye's more of a caster than Riesz. Once Riesz casts her buffs/debuffs, she's pretty much a weaker Duran. And why are you worried about cast times when spells are more streamlined?
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 02:35 |
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Kyrosiris posted:When you have multiple orbital death cannons, every problem starts to look like... a nail? If Doom Eternal has taught me anything, it's that an awful lot of problems are solvable with pure rage and excessively explosive violence Hammering nails, for example Ciaphas fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Apr 24, 2020 |
# ? Apr 24, 2020 02:45 |
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gandlethorpe posted:Hawkeye's more of a caster than Riesz. Once Riesz casts her buffs/debuffs, she's pretty much a weaker Duran. I'm sure a Dark-Hawkeye, Light-Riesz, Dark-Duran build would be fun, since it's about leveraging advantages: Riesz buffs the party, Duran lays down Sabers, and Hawkeye uses his Jutsus to debuff the foe, then ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK.
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 03:53 |
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I can't get behind the headgear Angela and Kevin are sporting in this one. In the original, I thought she was wearing a scrunchie/headband, and he was just wearing a bandanna, but these look like some kind of makeshift crowns. Which make sense giving their backgrounds, but they just look really weird.
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 05:52 |
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Kevin will always wear a fez to me His headgear does change as you change class, though. All his 3rd classes except the warrior monk are more bandana-y. Good thing I like group heals.
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 07:48 |
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It sucks that in order to experience Budget Brand Kefka that we have to either experience the dog murder story, owwowr Chawwote. E: have some fan "art" https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/315364487882342401/703288992795197520/burn_to_the_ground.mp3 FeyerbrandX fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Apr 24, 2020 |
# ? Apr 24, 2020 17:22 |
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Voting closes at Midnight BST, 7PM EST If Angela/Riesz/Hawk wins, it will precipitate another (short) vote where I ask if we want Angela or Riesz as main character. This is because Riesz and Hawk on their own path would lead to a more coherent story than both of them on Angela's path.
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 20:20 |
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The thought that we might have a playthrough where the main character doesn't have their "partner" is giving me almost as much anxiety as a full glass of water on the edge of the table
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# ? Apr 24, 2020 20:40 |
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Angela has claimed her place at the top of the polls. Riesz is in second. And, so we repeat the party from the previous LP, Hawkeye has nudged Kevin into fourth place, 62 votes to 60. I'm honestly a little stunned by the number of people who voted on this! So thanks everyone. This does however mean we have a run-off poll. Angela has won and is set to be our main character. However, without Duran she won't see the full story behind her realised. Riesz and Hawkeye share a story path, so there will be additional dialogue and exposition if we play with both of them on their story. So I'm going to put it to you. Do you want Angela to lead or Riesz? https://www.strawpoll.me/19862615 This will be a shorter poll that I'll keep open until I start recording on Saturday. I'd love to hear the cases either way!
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# ? Apr 25, 2020 00:04 |
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Why are you not letting Hawkeye be the lead, out of curiosity?
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# ? Apr 25, 2020 00:43 |
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Probably because he was third
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# ? Apr 25, 2020 00:46 |
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Junpei posted:Why are you not letting Hawkeye be the lead, out of curiosity? Because he came third and I already feel a little cheaty saying that Angela doesn't immediately win.
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# ? Apr 25, 2020 00:47 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 02:51 |
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I really enjoyed the demo a lot, I'm glad Reiz got in there because shes really cool what with the jumpin and spearin and whatnot. Some of the VA they went with in a few places is really....... interesting. I'm lookin at you, Lumina.
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# ? Apr 25, 2020 03:15 |