Secret of Mana game review
Test: Secret of Mana Remake: It was better in our memoriesBy tackling a remake of Secret of Mana, Square Enix knew it was going to be difficult to keep everyone happy, between early fans and potential newcomers. A big gap that is particularly difficult to accomplish, which can sometimes lead to an accident ...
SECRET OF MANA, A PEARL
Released in 1993, Secret of Mana had the effect of a tidal wave on Super Nintendo. In France, it is considered by many players as THE game that launched them into the happy world of J-RPG. He was certainly not the first, but his sumptuous artistic direction made it a memorable adventure. The story of this young hero, who accidentally puts his hand on a legendary sword, included his share of bosses, travels and magic, all playable up to three at the same time. Genius ? Without a doubt.Unfortunately, we are not all equal in the face of time and Secret of Mana is a good example. Today, its gameplay has grown old with a bastard system between A-RPG and turn-based that breaks the rhythm of fighting, not to mention the circular menu system, revolutionary at the time, but painful in the long run . In fact, the only thing that had aged well was the artistic direction, with impeccable 2D, detailed decorations and animations that were not lacking in style.
A GAMEPLAY
This is when the remake of Secret of Mana comes in with a decision that will not fail to take hold of us for a few more years: Take the original, remove the artistic direction that had made it strong and keep the gameplay as it is, without real corrections, whereas the latter had aged very badly. Indeed, Square Enix has decided not to touch the gameplay, or even the story. To be exact, these are the same scenes, line for line, with the same movements, so much so that the map that appears in the upper left is clearly the game of 1993! Or, until then, we remain in tribute. Unfortunately, in 2018, we had the right to expect anything else in terms of gameplay.For starters, the fighting, which makes up 90% of the game, is distressingly soft. The shots have absolutely no catch and where the characters gave the impression of giving their all in the original, we just pat the enemies with blows without energy. In fact, we always do the same damage to them, but visually, the result is particularly flat. Obviously, this is without a doubt the fault of the artistic direction, but we will come back to this thorny point later. To stay in the gameplay, the shot recharging system is one of the elements that have aged and although the possibility of going in all directions (against eight in the original) can be seen as a strong point when it comes to exploration, it makes fighting more confusing and you will often miss your target because of it. It must be said that most of the time, you are not even sure that you hit the enemy correctly because of the fluctuating hitboxes.
For its part, the use of magic has not really been reviewed, besides the possibility of putting two shortcuts (which also includes objects). This is a very welcome addition that avoids cutting the action during boss fights, even though we would have liked more shortcuts available. Thus, the game gains a little dynamism at times. On the other hand, bad point, it is always possible to chain non-stop bosses with magic, automatically making the fights against them much too easy. A correction at this level was more than necessary. The same goes for artificial intelligence, which is even more painful than in the past. The allies' pathfinding is still nonexistent, the latter systematically hiding behind walls as soon as we advance a little too quickly. With this remake, we even lose the possibility of managing their behavior (offensive / defensive, etc.) since the grid provided for this purpose has completely disappeared. So they can only attack random enemies or follow the actions of another human ally. Hard…
The ability to play three solves part of the problem, especially since multiplayer was fun at the time. Let's be clear, especially given the behavior of the AI, this remake of Secret of Mana is better for many than solo. Even if the local multi is often to be preferred, we regret the outright absence of online gaming, for those who do not always have their friends on hand.
Finally, the ring menus are among the elements that have aged the least well, especially since they are even more impractical in this remake. Not only do they no longer remember our last position, they also now appear in the middle of the screen, and no longer around the character concerned, which makes the whole thing terribly confusing.
AN ARTISTIC DIRECTION VERY BELOW
But in addition to this stagnation in gameplay, this remake of Secret of Mana surprised more than one with its artistic direction. As much to be clear, in writing, it is difficult to swallow the pill. We have seen remakes of shovels, and we have applauded more than one for the work done, inspired while not distorting the original. Here it's the opposite. We find ourselves in front of a tasteless 3D, a bestiary that totally lacks charisma and clumsy and jerky animations. We could practically speak of sacrilege, with a result close to what we found on Nintendo DS almost 10 years ago, the inspiration less. The same goes for music, with questionable reorchestration choices. If we start the game with a sublime orchestral version of Angel’s Fear, we follow with MIDI tones of accordions and flutes that are particularly aggressive to the ear. Fortunately, the possibility of playing with original music on the fly saves the furniture, despite some rare compositions rather pleasant among reorchestrations.Last thing, we could talk to you for a long time about the dubbing, which are, so to speak, missed. Available in English and Japanese, they have one thing in common: the acting is forced as much as possible with ultra-caricatured tones to the point that you sometimes think you are watching an episode of Dora The Explorer. Amazing for a game that is not PEGI 3.
The notes
+ Positive points
The return of a great game
Many bosses
Play 3 locally
Shortcuts
Analog stick exploration
Negative points
Particularly poor 3D
A character design without any charisma
Overworked dubbing, very painful
The softness of fighting
The unbearable menus
Too easy as soon as you have the magic
Spell leveling
Allied AI, even more unbearable
Doubtful choices for reorchestrations
When you want to remake a nugget, you have to know how to gauge its qualities and its defects. Unfortunately, we have the impression that Square Enix took Secret of Mana upside down, replacing an exceptional artistic direction by a weak 3D and a general design without any inspiration, but keeping an aging gameplay without really bringing anything to it . Worse still, there are choices that make the battles softer, the menus impractical and the AI of the allies even more basic and unbearable than in the past. Difficult to appreciate the adventure to its proper measure under these conditions, especially as the bosses are always as easy to beat. A very unfortunate result that should not make us forget our memories of the original.
0 comments:
Post a Comment