I was actually surprised by how 1:1 it is to the original game lol
Thank the heavens for the original audio, could not stand the music. It's some of the worst I've heard in a long, long time..
I was actually surprised by how 1:1 it is to the original game lol
Thank the heavens for the original audio, could not stand the music. It's some of the worst I've heard in a long, long time..
There's only 1 (2 if you count its recoloured) robot bosses so yeah I know which you mean. I'm excluding Mech Rider here.
I just listened to the OST oh god wtffffff, ESPECIALLY the Mana Fortress music which I have much memories of, purely because of the grind time I spent in there for the Sword Orb (lol) (this was before the time of internet). I like the slight vocals behind it but they wrecked everything.
They should've taken this:
And added their newly visioned "vocals" into it and I'd still say it's better.
Some tracks were faithful, others completely lost meaning.
I'll quickly review my old favourite tracks:
Into the thick of it - too gentle/light. I'm not asking for a heavy thing but I don't feel it
Did you see the sea - too upbeat... I liked the original for the feeling of urgency it created
Danger (boss) and the 2nd one - Not bad. Original feel is retained for me, don't mind
Leave time for love - i do like the vocals they added to it but the rest of the track... no... no........ noooo
Meridian Dance - 3/10
It's such a shame that they had a chance to remaster/modernise the music officially and they do arguably a worst job than the guys over at OCRemix.
I would say that they did add in some cut content and likely basing it off the later revision (for example some fixes and easter egg removals like of the naked lady in the book enemy, i didn't check if that was still a thing though.) There's dialog when you rest at inns after certain events which kinda goes more in depth on some things that originally was meant to be extra cutscenes/events in the original extended game. So instead of adding new dungeons/maps etc they just give you a bunch of dialog before your characters goes to sleep. (Not always but usually major events.)
The translation is still fairly faithful but they did fix up a lot of weird translations issues while keeping the original (Like obtaining the Midge Mallet it'll have a different name.) My only TRUE complaint is not being able to customize the AI properly and how damage stacking works in this remaster compared to original, but that seemed more like a 'fix' to prevent pausing gameplay since that limitation is no longer existing.
e.g If you're curing or using an item enemies can stack damage on you and wreck your shit in a heartbeat if you're not careful lol.
Is the Mana Sword glitch still present? Unlikely I think but I was dubious about one of the achievements: All weapons at level 9
That is probably the hardest one to obtain; unless they changed it so it drops in Mana Fortress and/or casting the magic at the end qualifies.
the grind for all the final weapon orbs is bad enough. The magic one is just tedious, especially w.o the action menu remembering your last position anymore and only being given 2 hot keys
Picked it up - SOM is my favorite game from the olden days. The remake... is OK.
Really glad they left the original soundtrack - The one track a clearly will never forget is the track that plays in Pandora Ruins. It plays (for good or bad) very similar to the original.
There were some complaints about the visuals - I think they fit, and are justified.
Not at all happy with the translation - seriously, you don't remove one of the most iconic lines in RPG-game history from your remake. "Time flows like a river, and history repeats...". Whoever made this decision... you spoony bard~! Overall, just OK.
Edit: The game did crash on me once, when the Titan(?) boss used a flame aoe spell.
A few thoughts, keeping in mind that I'm fairly certain this was an engine test for SE for future SNES -> current gen remakes, a quick SE cash in, and that the franchise hasn't seen real action in 10 years - so I'm assuming they're a bit rusty over there:
Why would you even consider touching the soundtrack? There are only 2 songs so far (just got to Ice Country) that come close to a weaker comparison (Water Temple, and I believe Pandora) to the original OST. Just pay Tokyo Philharmonic to play the original arrangement...done. The soundtrack is legendary for a reason, and stands up to almost everything available today on its own.
I get a lot of the nostalgic touches, I love them. But there have been just as many left out. "X takes a critical hit" vs "X gets whacked!" is disappointing, while their sleep animations could have been a lot more colorful too. Popoi's wide gaping mouth was an obvious omission. Though the storyline skits at Inn's are colorful enough and a very welcomed addition.
Game was a buggy mess then, and is a buggy mess now. I had it crash 4 times are different points between Elinee's Castle and Ice Country. Once while casting a spell, twice while staying at an inn, and one while walking between towns. I can't remember the last time any game crashed on me in 20 years. I hope they patch that soon - and thank god for the auto save.
The changes to the item ring and menu system are nice, but they could have made it a lot more QoL friendly. The button layouts feel a little clunky even when changed, and only having 2 hotkeys is nice when leveling spells but for general use it isn't. Also, why does the menu ring for the non-active party members not appear over them depending on who you're selecting? Having to figure out why Primm's magic options aren't showing up when you realize you're on Randi's menu ring is just poor design. Have their picture appear on the bottom of the screen or highlight their portrait.
Chopins are more broken early game than they were in the original. Arrow spam is annoying and made even worse by having 2 or 3 of them alternate attacks.
Damage seems to take a while to register on the character for some hits, but not for others. I've had Popoi go from full to death while her HP bar still shows full green. Maybe this is me still trying to abuse i-frames from healing like in the original, but even using Cure Water or Candy early will still result in a death.
On the plus side, they seem to have made magic easier to level on the whole. I remember needing 8 or 9 Inn stays to get Primm's early 2MP spells up a level, I did it in 3 or 4 this time.
Overall, I'm going to enjoy it for what it is: a decade in the waiting attempt to gauge interest in revival of the franchise. I hope this sells well enough for SE to consider an english release of the Collection, or at best porting Seiken 3 to this format because I see a lot of ways SD3 could make good use of these updates.
Nostalgia Review: 7/10 - Love having Mana back in a modern era, some things have aged well and some have not.
Realistic Review: 6/10 - Feels like SE struck out swinging with RISP on a full count. So close to being a really good adaption - but some obvious missed oversights.
Wonder how much of this page was cleaned up or is still able to be done:
http://www.flyingomelette.com/oddities/oddities25.html
That reminds me...they removed the cannon travel sequence. Sad.
Anyone else catch the LoM hero portrait in the resort town in Ice Country? Wonder if this is some zelda remake level of hints.
While I am enjoying the nosetalgia trip, this thing is a hot mess! I've crashed maybe 6 or 7 times, and whenever I fly, my PS4 Pro fan revs up! I'll definitely echo the sentiment that there are some missed opportunities here. I do enjoy the inn banter though, as it adds more to the personalities of the main trio.
This also makes me appreciate SD3's battle system more.
So the new song for the Pure Lands finally beat out its predecessor from the original OST. Took them an entire OST, but they finally nailed it.
Just crossing t's and dotting i's for trophies. Missing a few armor pieces somewhere, but have all the dropped gear.
They don't seem to have upped the drop rate on mana orbs in the fortress, in case anyone is wondering. Still ~10% when a chest pops.
I've had close to 24 crashes now...which is just annoying. Game won't update, so I have no idea what the issue is. I also suspect that accuracy is bugged to some extent - because with Popoi at 90 whatever % hit and Randi at 95% hit, Popoi easily misses 70% of his hits while Randi only misses 10%.
Terribly flawed remake. Runs 100% on nostalgia but misses half of the nostalgic elements. Updates some of the UI for modern concepts but makes some aspects of it more troublesome in the process. Experiments with a classic soundtrack to the point of it being abstract.
If any of these things results from this release, I'll consider this a success. But its SE, and I simply don't know how much I can trust this company to make good decisions on the whole anymore:
1. Seiken 3 gets ported to this engine. Cleans up all the issues mentioned and reworks Seiken 3 to be a definitive edition on modern consoles.
2. Convinces SE that the Seiken Collection needs to be ported.
3. This engine serves as a basis for porting SE's other SNES era titles over (Chrono especially...FF6 deserves better than this engine.)
4. A rebirth of the Mana series as a whole.
Now to wait...
Idk the specifics of it yet but you can get the mana sword permanently with a dupe glitch with one of the sword orbs you get in a chest in Panora. You can also have two mana swords by giving a sword to the girl and then having her leave the party and giving it to the boy. When she rejoins the party she will still have the sword and will have it unless you choose to change her weapons.
The glitch is beyond easy to do. Just have Randi shake the chest, switch to another character, run out of the room, boom you get the treasure, and the chest respawns. This only works if the chest is close to a door.
Yeah, this isn't just Tomato Man whiffing. This is full on Popoi missing 60-70% of physical hits, Primm missing 30-40, and Randi missing 15-25.
BTW, they put out a new patch for this yesterday. It's jsut some bug smashing, but I'd say install it. It might stop the crashing ^^
Came across this in my youtube feed.
I am going through the sound track for this version on youtube right now.
There are a few tracks that I am just not digging.