Visions of Mana Review: Gameplay Impressions, Videos and Top Features

Square Enix

Visions of Mana from developer Ouka Studios features a near-impossible-feeling task of living up to gaudy expectations.

After all, Visions of Mana is the first mainline entry since 2006 in Square Enix’s beloved Mana series. It also attempts to touch down on latest-generation hardware during a refreshing renaissance of JRPG greatness.

The effort arrives with obviously splendid visuals and character designs. Yet the promised wealth of gameplay systems and the overarching narrative will decide much about whether the revival is a return to form or is quickly forgotten by players in favor of the modern franchises that have captivated audiences.

Graphics and Gameplay

Visions of Mana is breathtaking in still frames and mostly in motion when battles later in the game aren’t bogged down with visual effects.

The game is simply vibrant, colorful, and expressive at every turn, with the expected creative JRPG character designs in the anime style, running the gamut of troops and innovations alike that keep things interesting.

It’s a visual treat for the eyes that never really lets up across varied biomes. Beyond the interesting characters and NPCs, even encountered enemies get a splendid amount of detail. In motion, hair and details like fields of crops impress with realistic movement, while shadows, even in combat, often skirt a realism line in a way players might not expect from a game with these stylistic choices.

Sound design is a plus too and even something as little as the ambient noise lends to the lived-in feel of the world. The soundtrack is fitting, too, with voice-acting mostly a positive, even if the lines the actors were asked to deliver aren’t always all that engaging.

The visuals—fittingly, given the name—carry the bulk of Visions of Mana’s strengths, though. Being out in the world is breathtaking in a painting-come-to-life way, what with gorgeous skyboxes and beckoning draw distances off against the horizon to explore.

Unfortunately, actual traversal out in the game world feels average, even with mounts. Make no mistake, exploration is encouraged for progression and the sheer immenseness of the world, but at the same time, mounts can be clunky, certain voice lines repetitive, and much of it boils down to collection quests.

Beyond traversal, players form a team of three from five playable characters. Combat includes the expected JRPG tropes—the fights are fast and punchy with lots of systems to manage, a party and enemy weaknesses to juggle, etc. Along the way, players build another genre staple in the form of a Class Strike gauge for strategic big-hitting supers, essentially.

These combat scenarios take place in real-time, with players free to zip around a battlefield and engage with enemies. Learning the controls and systems is easy enough and there’s certainly a nice fun factor to be had. But the amount of particle effects on the screen can make it hard to see at times and as players might expect, the camera can be an enemy to the player, too, causing frustration.

But Visions of Mana does imprint its own mark on the staples with some interesting twists that remind players of things like jobs systems found in other games.

The big one are elemental vessels, usable both out in the world and within battles. In the former, they permit the manipulation of the environment via nature, such as gusting wind. In the latter, they let players swap characters to new classes.

This provides notable depth because every character has different classes for each of the elemental vessels. Said vessels offer dramatically different playstyles that will feel similar to standard classes found elsewhere. The vessel of wood, for example, can act as a healer via plants. The vessel of fire can do big damage over time effects, while the vessel of wind can capture enemies, setting them up for others to damage.

Players must also handle party management via the companion’s strategy menu, setting A.I. companions to prioritize offense, healing or something else. But players can also switch between each of the three party members in real-time, so it’s nice not to be stuck on the main lead.

Boss battles are a highlight. Many are creative and come with unique attacks that keep players moving and engaged, such as area-of-effect zones that cause damage.

If Visions of Mana’s combat has one big thing going for it, the systems in place emphasize strategy and don’t reward mindless button-mashing, at least. And some of those bosses are not level checks—meaning players won’t slip past them by merely out-grinding by a number of levels. Some are skill and party-composition checks, which feels good to figure out.

Story and More

What Visions of Mana, well, envisioned for a story theme, just won’t hit the mark with all players.

The protagonist Val is a soul guard assigned to protect Hinna, the Alm of Fire. Together, they set off to find the Mana Tree, as she’s one of the “alm” who, once every four years, will sacrifice their souls to empower the world’s mana.

It’s an extremely familiar JRPG tale, to say the least, yet the story is straightforward, perhaps even to a fault.

It’s not overwhelming with information, but at the same time, it would be nice to see the characters act at least a little introspective and concerned about being involved in the latest “chosen one must sacrifice themselves for the good of the world” JRPG trope, never mind the oddly cheery, happy protector of the girl to be sacrificed that is the main character. That… sort of happens at times, but is glossed over quickly and seemingly forgotten.

Beyond this, the character beats the game does try to establish fly past, almost in a blur. It’s like, for certain party members, there was a good idea for a well-rounded character, but the game wraps up their growth in a hurry so that players can then impart their own versions of the characters onto their party members by the time they join up.

And hey, some players will love the innocence of it, this world where people and nature are so in lockstep that it’s just how things are. It’s totally valid to just engage with the baseline positivity and enjoy the ride, but that might not be the majority of players in 2024.

Overarching game progression is a little convoluted, in the sense of execution and how intimidating the elemental plot screen can be. Progressing through the story unlocks moves and abilities, but with the former learnable via the elemental plot and the latter being class-specific effects when using the proper class.

Similarly, sidequests don’t amount to much beyond collection pursuits, yet they are important to finding and/or empowering the suite of moves and abilities. Having a reason to get out in such a vibrant world is always a plus, but actual tasks handed out by NPCs mostly stay in collection territory and little else.

In the menus, Visions of Mana features droves of nice options, plus a well-featured guidebook that reviews the game’s mechanics. There’s also a nice quality-of-life feature that will make it easier for more casual players in the form of a summonable path that will lead them to where they need to go. On the performance side, things can get choppy, though.

Conclusion

Visions of Mana isn’t the triumphant return to form for a legendary series some might’ve hoped, but it isn’t worth just casting it aside, either.

The story might be the most polarizing part of the game, whereas the rest filters into an as-exected column for a JRPG like this. Some players will care mightily about the lack of nuance in the narrative and characters most of the time, while it won’t impact the experience for others.

Otherwise, there’s a vibrant world with a fun combat system and some interesting, if not predictable depth to the systems that makes it all tick. Visions of Mana slots nicely in the middle of the pack on the long-running list of modern JRPGs.