Visions of Mana’s story may be predictable, but its familiar gameplay makes it feel like RPG comfort food.
Whenever it’s late at night and I’m still feeling a bit hungry, I always go to my local Taco Bell drive-through to pick up a Build Your Own Cravings Box: Crunchwrap Supreme, Crunchy Taco, Cheesy Fiesta Potatoes, and a medium Diet Pepsi. I know it’s not the healthiest food for me, complete with high sodium, calories, and cholesterol, but I’m not going to sit around not feeling satisfied after I eat it. It’s comfort food!
That’s how I felt about playing Visions of Mana. Here, Square Enix had the items already picked out for me: good combat, a flexible class system, fantastic art direction, and compelling characters. Much like comfort food, Visions of Mana is fun to play when you’re feeling the itch for something familiar — even if you know there are better options out there. I could’ve played an RPG with a less predictable story and fewer dull sidequests, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the taste all the same.Breaking the cycle
In Visions of Mana, people around the world must send one person from their respective elemental villages to sacrifice their lives to the great Mana Tree every four years — otherwise, disaster will fall upon their homes. Those people chosen to make the pilgrimage are called Alms, and Val is assigned to be the Soul Guard, the person in charge of protecting them and making sure they make the journey unscathed.
The story sets a nice foundation, but most of the plot twists along the way are rather predictable. It’s very much reminiscent of Xenoblade Chronicles 3’s story where romance is a huge motivator between characters. It gets to a point where it becomes a bit too heavy-handed, leaving no mystery about it’s antagonists’ motivation. It all builds to a boring conclusion.
The Mana series was originally a spinoff of Final Fantasy before it split off to become its own series, and it’s very obvious in Visions of Mana. The different elemental spirits like water, fire, and earth have essential story involvement and add quite a bit of nostalgic structure to the game. It’s almost like playing an old-school Final Fantasy game.
Where Visions of Mana’s story lacks, the compelling cast of characters make up for it. My personal favorite character is Careena, who always has confidence in her own abilities, but the lack of support from her own community has stunted her potential.
