The Mana series has a long and storied history, with its roots stretching back to the original Nintendo Game Boy. Visions of Mana ($59.99) is a new series entry that retains many classic and iconic franchise elements while injecting enough modern freshness to keep the experience engrossing. The action is great, though targeting and jumping can feel a little loose. Exploration has been radically improved thanks to the introduction of expansive open zones, but there isn’t quite as much to do on the field as we would have liked. Still, the overall package is a fine one, packed with charming visuals and engaging action mechanics that are well worth checking out. We played Visions of Mana on PC via Steam, but it's also available for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Xbox Series X/S.

(Credit: Square Enix/PCMag)

The World of Mana

Visions of Mana pushes its storybook aesthetic and vivid color to the forefront, producing timeless and nostalgic visuals. Despite the cartoonish and whimsical presentation, Visions of Mana has tinges of tragedy interjected into the world to give the narrative depth and impact. The game follows Val and Hinna, two heroes selected for a pilgrimage to the Mana Tree by its fairy. If you’re familiar with video game pilgrimage storylines (think Final Fantasy X and Tales of Symphonia), you can guess how well that goes. If not, know that there's sacrifice required to complete the journey, and not everyone receives a happy ending. 

The world is lush, colorful, and well-crafted, with surprisingly open expanses to explore. Visions of Mana is not truly an open-world title; developer Ouka Studios divides the map into multiple zones, so the game resembles Final Fantasy XVI. Aside from the obvious enemy encounters, you also have collectibles and treasure to scout while adventuring. Elite monsters haunt remote areas of the map, giving you a decent challenge. Tough gauntlets are also hidden within each map, which you can access upon finding the respective elemental relic. Of course, you can also undertake fetch quests via the town's NPCs. 

That said, the map lacks a significant number of activities. Although Final Fantasy VII Rebirth may have gone overboard with sidequests, the many quest types were superb. Enemy hunts, hot-and-cold treasure hunting, and numerous mini-games gave you plenty to do between combat encounters and story missions. Visions of Mana is a simpler game, lacking the robustness of its more involved contemporaries.

The cast features eccentric, fantastical designs, which fit perfectly within the game world. This is true of each party member’s core design and their many alternate class designs. Voice performances are also vastly improved over those in Trial of Mana, which had some truly abhorrent voice readings. However, most characters have robotic, doll-like facial expressions and mouth movements. This deflates the story's impact during dramatic scenes. 

The game music is good, but a step down from previous Mana releases. Many tracks fall into the atmospheric category, lacking a hummable tune that sinks its hooks into you. This is a shame, as Legend of Mana and Trials of Mana had outstanding soundtracks.

(Credit: Square Enix/PCMag)

Visions of Mana's Real-Time Combat

Like its predecessors, Visions of Mana is a party-based action-RPG that sees you run across the map and battle monsters in real time. Use basic combos, pause-combos, and charged attacks to spice up your assault, or swap to another character for a different playstyle. Every playable character has strengths and weaknesses, but Visions of Mana strikes a good balance among the cast. Not one character does everything exceptionally well, so you are incentivized to swap around to suit the combat flow. 

Despite the cutesy visuals, monsters hit hard, especially when they throw status ailments your way to complicate engagements. It never becomes overly challenging but remains engaging throughout the adventure. Targeting can be a little fiddly, however. Swapping between foes is overly sensitive, and the camera frequently breaks the lock whenever a monster moves off-screen. The floaty jumping is great for exploration, but not quite as beneficial during combat. (The extra airtime leaves you vulnerable to attack.) You can cancel almost any attack into a dodge, thankfully, but snappier jumping and tighter targeting would have made the action feel considerably more precise.

Visions of Mana uses a class system for its playable characters, which you can advance or change by swapping elemental vessels you acquire throughout the story. The spunky Careena, for example, is a spear-wielding Oracle by default. However, when armed with the wind-powered Sylphid Boomerang, she swaps to the Dancer class and fights with bladed fans. Val is a sword-toting Guard at the game's start, but he swaps to the lance-and-shield-toting Aegis class if given the moon-based Luna Globe.

Move sets are tied to the weapon type, so if the class changes your weapon, you can expect a radically different move set and fighting style. Not all class changes do, but even classes that share the same weapon have enough alternate attacks and spells to make them unique and worthwhile. The class system gives you a tremendous amount of variety, so your options for party compositions are vast. 

(Credit: Square Enix/PCMag)

I would have liked more environmental interactivity during combat, however. Where are the rocks to kick around or lob? Or Dragon’s Dogma-like explosive barrels? Either would have added a bit more pizazz to the action. Visions of Mana limits environmental interactions to obstacles and puzzles, which is serviceable, but formulaic. 

Can Your PC Run Visions of Mana?

Visions of Mana marries visual fidelity with its outstanding art style, resulting in a great-looking game that runs fairly well. According to the RPG's Steam page, you need the following specs to get it to run: an AMD Ryzen 3 1200 or Intel Core i5-6400 CPU; an AMD Radeon RX 580, an Intel Arc A580, or an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (with 6GB of VRAM) GPU; 45GB of available storage; and the 64-bit Windows 10 operating system.

Our test PC, outfitted with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 GPU, and 16GB of RAM, handled the game without issue. We played the game at 1440p resolution (with an uncapped frame rate and high graphical settings) and enjoyed more than 100 frames per second throughout most of the adventure. I noticed the occasional stutter while exploring the game’s many areas, but the hitching wasn’t very pronounced and didn't negatively impact platforming or combat.

Though not yet Steam Deck verified or playable, we got Visions of Mana to run on Valve's gaming handheld, albeit with caveats. The RPG ran at less than 30 frames per second, and suffered graphical glitches (particularly water effects, which wouldn’t display well). Hopefully, they get patched out in time for release.  

Verdict: Visions of Mana Oozes Retro RPG Charm

Visions of Mana is an entertaining RPG that remains faithful to the series’ roots, while building upon its foundations. The action, class system, and graphics are fantastic, but the mechanics could use tightening. Overall, Visions of Mana is a great series addition, despite lacking the previous games' conciseness.