But its series of bewildering design choices and faulty execution does technically make it stand out.
But what a view.
A new vista is before me of a land perpetually in harvest.
Rolling fields of amber grain and tiny farmhouses dot the land.
A waypoint is on the horizon, the next stop en route to the tree.
I pass a swarm of hornets armed with spears and monstrous jack-o'-lanterns, but they don’t do anything.
Perhaps afraid of the dogs, I guess.
Basic attack to initiate combat.
Only then use combos or magic.
But I really gave it a go.
Visions of Mana is an action RPG with little desire to be unique.
There are NPC side characters in towns and out in the world, but none of them stand out.
It’s shockingly brief, and certainly out of step with recent peers.
Visions of better games
The action part of the RPG is just as shallow.
Each character can change classes to use different elements, which offer different spells and weapons.
These systems don’t add up to anything, let alone synergize.
But the camera is actually the biggest challenge in Visions of Mana.
Targeting is unreliable and the auto camera swings wildly around the action.
It also doesn’t help that the input just feels unresponsive.
Visions of Mana disappoints in a thousand other much smaller ways.
It works, but it’s off-kilter in an unintuitive way.
It’s a shame Visions of Mana isn’t one of them.
Visions of Mana was reviewed on PC (Steam), with a code provided by the publisher.
