Valkyria Chronicles 4 (PS4): Treading back to familiar ground.

So. Remember when I was all excited for Valkyria Revolution? Man, I do. Thought literally nothing of putting that one on preorder without a second thought and eagerly dove right in. Although I had seen a gameplay trailer and knew it wasn't the game I was hoping for, I was still going to give it a chance to live up to the lineage of the game I loved.

I shouldn't have. It was total dogshit and it got rightly panned by myself and every other reviewer who played it. Well, apparently the team at Sega must have seen this coming because not long after the release of Valkyria Revolution they released another trailer as if to say "uh hey, we are working on this too?" This one had design more like Valkyria I remember. Had tanks, similar art design. Looks like it played like it was supposed to. I was skeptical now, but still willing. So after waiting for what felt like forever, I finally sat down with.....

VALKRYIA CHRONICLES 4:(PS4)

Valkyria Chronicles 4 takes place within the same timeline as the original Valkyria timeline, but further south of the original nation of Gallia. The Empire of the east has been pushing westward against Federation territory in an attempt to claim more land and in doing so more Ragnite, the material that is used as a power source for the nations and their military equipment. 

We assume control Claude Wallace, a wet behind the ears but competent star military recruit who joined up with the federation army with his childhood friends Raz and Kai. After some initial friction as a unit, the team eventual gels and passes their training to join the Ranger Corps, which is an elite squad within the federation army, and Claude is awarded the rank of Captain of Squad E.

After some initial strong showings as a team, the Squad learns that the empire is taking ground from the federation, and that they are marching towards Gallia and their small hometown of Hafen. The federation makes the decision to put all their effort into Operation Northern Cross: a massive offensive push to the capital city of the empire, Schwartzgard. Squad E is to take part of this offensive as one of the federations stronger weapons.

I can thankfully say that this time around Sega has learned from their mistakes because this iteration of Valkyria Chronicles is once again built on the same gameplay framework as the original. The wonderfully unique combination of tactical RPG, JRPG, third person shooter, and first person shooter. There are a handful of little differences put into this version, but it otherwise is a stone for stone rebuild of what made the first one great.

As you did before, you start off by selecting your squad for a given mission. Then each turn you have a set number of actions to use. Once selecting a character, you zoom into a 3rd person mode and then get a limited amount to move them across the battlefield to your desired location. During your move opposing forces are able to take pot shots at you so move quick and use cover. Once there, you can zoom again to a first person angle to line up and take a shot of your own, if it doesn't kill your foe they get to counter attack. Once you have used all your actions you end the turn and then enemy gets their phase to do the same.

How the game differs this time is in addition to the order system that was in place, the special commands for stat buffs you could spend action points to use, you now also have series of support commands from the main forces you can use to open the map locations, bring in artillery fire, and other support actions. These are story based so you don't always have them, but there a nice bit of options to have.

There are handful of new squad mechanics too. In addition to having some tanks to control, you also have an APC unit to control. I foolishly ignored this for the first part of the game, but this little guy is incredibly useful in getting some initial moves on the map done safely. On his turn, he can pick up a number of troops and essentially move across the map without taking much in the way of damage from anything that isn't a tank or anti-tank artillery. Once in position you can dispatch units at the cost of their normal move. This is fantastic for troops like Shocktroopers or snipers who do not get a lot of initial movement. 

There are two big new aspects to the squad too.  One of them is the new troop class, the grenadier. Their job, as you might expect, is a slow moving portable artillery. They take a minute set up so they are risky to bring right into the lines of enemy fire, and they can be somewhat inaccurate. But they can provide big damage to turrets, tanks, heavy soldiers, as well as provide smoke cover. When used properly, they can be a very effective force. And one of them is a major character, which will provide you an additional action.

The other is now each turn, you get a single command point. By spending this point, some characters can basically take command of two other troops in a single move. This is incredibly useful for a number of reasons. For one, like the APC, it can be used to move two troops a significantly longer distance. But while they can take damage as if they were on a normal move, they aren't the targeted enemy. They also are just in range for to possibly join in for a joint attack. So for example: if I use a scout to use the CP command to pull two shock troopers, those troops basically get to move double the distance they could have by themselves without expending their own move yet, and if I take a shot at a nearby enemy, I essentially get a 3 man attack to mow down whoever I was aiming at. It is incredibly useful.

In that initial game summary I provided more of the overarching narrative for Valkyria 4 because while it does coincide with the original Valkyria Chronicles it really could be its own game if they had changed the names of the territories. I will say that the original Valkyria was more cut and dry because it was one army vs another army with a focus of smaller characters having a smaller side stories within them.

Valkyria 4 however feels more like the main story is there only to provide the framework for all the characters stories which are the much bigger focus of the plotline. Through out the game you the military is basically part of two major operations and if that ended up being the focus it would be very one note. By making the focus more about the characters in the squad themselves, I feel that the narrative is actually stronger for it because it allows for more faces to take the stage.

While the primary characters are the source of the main narrative, this story focus is best displayed on the brighter spotlight on the lesser members of the squad. As you might remember from the first game, they released some DLC packs where you got take control of Edy and a number of other squad members. It was a fun little aside and got to give you more depth to the rank and file troops you have been using. Before, you only got to read a little blurb about their history and that was all you got.

Now between chapters, you also get "squad stories" where a small number of the squad has some interaction with the main cast. These little asides give you some backstory to these character and completing them allows you to turn some of their negative quirks into positive bonuses, so it is more than worthwhile to do them. I feel that the story as a whole in this game is pretty good, but it does have a few anime cringe moments that feel are in there for the sake of being there.

The visual design for the original has come back as well and thankfully for it it this time around. It's a well proportioned anime style done in that washed out yet colorful watercolor look that the first one had that made me feel like I was watching a well produced anime (which was sorely missed after the video gamey look of Valkyria Revolution). Sound effects are accentuated by animated onomatopoeia such as the "ratta ratta" of guns. Even has some cool weather effects for some missions.  They have added some better transitions for when troops trigger their quirks and flaws. Generally better cleaned up this time around.

It has a pretty exceptional classical soundtrack. Much like before it feels very fitting of a military story that give a lot of the missions and scenes a feeling of "epicness" but they also fit in a number of rearrangements of tracks from the original game that sneakily felt iconic to it. I couldn't hum a few bars of the main theme right on command for you if you asked me too, but I'll be damned if I didn't notice that song immediately when it crept in on a major scene.

Unfortunately for Valkyria 4 by being a stone for stone build of the first game, a lot of the bad aspects of the series also make a return as well. First off, this game like its predecessors is notoriously talky.  Because of how the natural flow of the actual "game" element is, it doesn't allow for a lot of narrative to actually take place during missions, so much of it is crammed in between the missions of the game. Like you can with most modern games, you can always skip them but this is a narrative based game so I don't know why you would want to.  

But this does bring us back to the biggest complaint of the Valkyria games and it's something they should have fixed. But in between every single story segment, the game brings you back to the book menu. The book menu is what you can use to flip through all your various options of the game like skirmish missions, R&D to make new weapons, proceed with the story, adjust your squad, etc.  As a base framework, it's fine. But for some reason after every single story transition it brings you right back to the book and asks you if you are sure you want to proceed with this chapter.

Literally every time you want to advance the game, you have to select this.

I appreciate the need to confirm that I am making the decision, it's fine for almost any of these functions so I don't accidentally go into a menu I don't want to. But in the context of following the story it's an absolutely pace killing nightmare. If I start going through the story segments, what SHOULD have happened is it would play through all of the necessary story bits until I tell it to stop. Let me pause and either skip and go back to the book menu at MY whim so I can pick up were the story left off. Then after it completes the story it then would go back to the book on its own so I can prepare for the coming mission.

This is how it SHOULD have worked. This is how it should have been implemented from the second game onward. But it's not. So now after every couple minutes of cutscene (and sometimes even less than that) it just yanks me to a loading screen and then back to the book so it can ask me if I want to see the next part of it, and then wait for the loading to finish to continue the story I didn't ask to stop in the first place. It's arduous, completely unnecessary, and it makes a game that doesn't exactly move at a break neck pace go even slower.

The additional unit types do allow for more strategy, but at its heart this iteration of Valkyria can be won in the same fashion as the first game. That means with the right defensive buffs, and the right moves, almost every single mission can be won on your first turn. Yes, a handful of them do require some very specific strategies to survive, but there was a lot of times where I would use my raise all defense buff, command a pair of shocks with a scout to dash towards my goal, and then finish off to take base with my two troopers. Inside of a few missions I was "A" ranking all of the story missions and skirmishes.

That being said, Valkyria 4 did a better job of making all the ranks way more useful. In my last review I said that you shouldn't waste your time with medics, lancers, or snipers. Now the missions have a lot more different nuances to them so it is to your benefit to play around with it all and bring at least one of everything to the table. You have no idea when you might need a snipers long range accuracy or a lancer to bring out a frustratingly placed tank. The only class I ended using the least was actually new grenadiers. They had use but not as much as the other classes did, at least when I played it.

R&D can be a grind to do sometimes. Up to three tanks in the game and 3 branching trees of weapon means a lot of upgrades to do if you want everything. This too is muddled by the support character reacting every time you build a new weapon with one or two lines. This also should have been changed to only react as you were leaving R&D, so I could speed through my upgrades without having to stop to cancel this reaction. Instead, like the book, the progress is slowed for unnecessary pause

And like the first Valkyria a significant number of the upgrades are worthless. More damage is nice and all and so is clip size. But this is a game that rewards head shots so it doesn't make sense to use anything but the starting weapons because they have the best accuracy and that ultimately is the strongest stat in the game. They thankfully now show on our squad screens how accurate each solider is so now you can change things accordingly, and admittedly some of the weapons you find are indeed better than the base weapon. But so long as you keep upgrading center of the tree, you will have little issue progressing.

The last thing I want to bitch about is one enemy in particular, Klaus Walz. As a character, he is fine. He's a foil to Claude as being their big enemy tank captain. But he he specifically is bullshit because outside of having a fast and maneuverable tank that is next to impossible to bring down, he is one of two units that break one of the rules of the game. His tank is able to just have generic machine gun fire that triggers WHILE he moves. So if for some reason he is making a turn around where one of your guys are standing, he just completely obliterates their health bar without even taking his turn.

And one of the missions you fight him, he gets the first turn! So after you carefully set your troops up to start the level, he just blows through 1 to 3 of them before you even get to take an action. It's one of the few missions where you might have to restart it just because you got fucked before even take a turn. Even the final boss lets you get a goddamn move in first.

Ultimately the question is, is this good or better than the first Valkyria Chronicles? Well, that's a tough call because it's working against nostalgia. If I take them from a mechanics standpoint I do have to say that Valkyria 4 is better due to the additions to the games and minor improvements. I do love this cast and this story, and it had some great moments in it. But it does feel like there is a bunch of wasted potential because they had 3 previous games to fix some quality of life annoyances that could have made this game superb.

Instead, I have to lave with the somewhat unimpressive rating of "If you liked Valkyria Chronicles then you will like Valkyria Chronicles 4."  Which is true and by no means a mark against it. I frick'n loved this game and would certainly recommend it for its uniqueness. But it feels like it could have been so much more polished after all this time. But I am not looking a gift horse in the mouth. They messed up a series and I liked and then fixed it with a proper installment. If I get an Valkyria Chronicles 5 then I am more than happy to see it.

I will say that this one kind of messes up its own
lore about the Valkyria, but it was a nitpick at best.

Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon (PS4): Baby Steps Forward

I wanna say at some point in 2016, I saw a trailer for a game that was being produced by Gust. If you don't know who Gust is, that would me you probably don't play the Atelier franchise with almost the heroine like addiction that I seem to. While they are known for item creation RPGs, the trailer depicted a much more faster paced action game with hack n' slash combat, over the top super movies, and what seemed to be good soundtrack. Gust is a competent studio, so I gave this a purchase with little thought.

It was not a very good game.

So I didn't immediately rush to pick up the sequel when it came out, but during the summer months I had a relative dead spell where I didn't have any immediate new releases to get to, and I saw that gamestop of all places had it ridiculously marked down (not a good sign). But as poor as the previous was, I was able to see it through to the end, and felt with nothing else to do and only 20 to spend, why not give the sequel a try....

NIGHTS OF AZURE 2:
BRIDE OF THE NEW MOON(PS4)

Nights of Azure 2 picks up in the distant future from the previous iteration of the game. After the last battle with the Nightlord banished away eternal night, the world was not as saved as people hoped as during the night monsters called fiends surface and terrorize humans, leaving the sun as their only defense and forcing the world to never truly know restful sleep.

A holy order known as the Curia task of their best agents, a woman named Aluche, to take her friend and now-priestess Liliana to be a sacrifice to one called the Moon Queen and to become the fated Bride of Time. An upset and distraught Aluche proceeds with her mission to accompany Liliana where the ceremony is supposed to take place, but they carriage never makes it. They are attacked by fiends and in Aluche's efforts to protect her friend, she is slain in battle.

Sometime after, Aluche awakens to find herself under the care of a Curia researcher called Camilla Alucard (yeah, that's not fucking on the nose). Using sciences shunned by religious practices, Aluche now lives again as an artificial half demon with purple blood, like the last holy knight to fight the Nightlord. Leliana is missing and leads point to a nearby ruined city and with no other course of action, Aluche pursues to try to find and save her friend. 

Okay before I even get started with the actual review: Carmilla Alucard? Really? You named a fucking character Carmilla Alucard? Come the fuck on. I mean she's not a vampire so it's kind of misdirection I guess, but she does deal with blood transfusions for the half demon character. You could have named her Elvyria D. Edgelord and that would have been about as a subtle. Sheesh. 

So Nights of Azure 2 plays pretty similarly to the previous iteration of the game with some subtle differences, so while I never gave the first version of the game a proper review, there is going to be some significant carry over here so you could see this somewhat as a double review.

At its core, Nights of Azure 2 is a mission based hack and slash spectacle fighter with some RPG elements and splash of Pokemon monster collecting to go with it.  Functionally how it works is you start by accepting missions at your base of operations (the same hotel from the first game) and then go out into the surrounding map to try to complete your objective, be it slay a certain monster, number of them, find specific items, etc.

The rub is that even though Aluche's new half demon status grants her significantly more strength, it does require regular blood transfusion and digestion to maintain, essentially forcing her into a state of vampirism to stay alive. So when you leave the hotel, you only get a short amount of time to complete your goal. So with a clock constantly ticking, you have to quickly navigate the map as efficiently as possible, while simultaneously battling monsters to increase your experience and gain blood so you can level your character and thus allow you to fight for longer stretches. 

If the time expires during the mission, you only get the experience for the monsters that you defeated none of the rewards for completing the quest. This forces you to try it again the next time you go out, the problem is with each chapter you only have a limited number of nights to get your main story quests done, while side questing along the way. If you fail to get everything done by the time the moon goes dark, you get a game over.  I've heard people complain about the time mechanic in this one but honestly outside of the first chapter or 2, I never really felt pressured by it. I've completed story missions with plenty of moon phases to spare, and then ultimately those carry over. You could do more side questing later.

Like the last game, on top of using a combat system with light, heavy, and special attacks to combo and chain, you can still summon demons that you collect called Servan to fight alongside you. Some of these can be used for support and some of them have attack properties. But a handful of them also have some situational map purposes such as burning down an impeded path or using one's flight to jump to a higher level and open a new route. So while it is good get some some strong one's leveled up, you will need to occasionally rotate some out from mission to mission.

How it differs from the first Nights of Azure game is now this time you have a number of support characters who can fight with you as well. It wouldn't be a Gust game if it literally wasn't barfing cute anime girls at you with every given opportunity but it did add an interesting new ripple to the game. If you are going to give me all these characters, at least they are letting me get some use out of them.

Because of the breadth of characters to choose from, the game now also features an affinity mechanic that plays a factor on character specific side quests, cut scenes, and possible ending outcomes. So if you want to unlock more of the content, you are going to want to jump around from character to character. To its credit, some of them have some pretty unique moves that make them all pretty interest to use. But as it is with games like this, you will find one or two characters you will want to stick with be it for their moves or story.

Once you are back at your hotel base, you can speak to your supporting party members to finish up any specific side quests you did for them to watch new interaction scenes with them, and then head to the lab to level up. In the lab you basically have two forms of experience. Your regular XP you use to level up your skill tree for stats, weapon abilities, and other passives. You also have a blood XP that is used to level up your Servans. Once they level up to a point your "evolve" them which basically makes a stronger version of the one before, and sends it back to one.

Now before I get into the complaints with the game, I would like to stress that I do generally enjoy games that Gust puts out  (most of them are Atelier, but shut up). So the real crux of the review is did they learn from their mistakes from the previous title to make Nights of Azure 2 a better than the first one? Nights of Azure was functional and did had some bits that I liked, but there was a lot of room for improvement.

Well, there are some story bits that are still pretty cringe worthy. First of all leveling your character. Much like the last Nights of Azure,  Azure 2 had to contrive a reason for when you are leveling your character, the process requires Aluche to be clad in a scantily white set of bridal lingerie. They did this in the first Azure as well. Whenever she successfully raises a leave she has this pleasured moan animation that she does to complete it. It's super awkward.

There are some useful skills on each tree, but stick to one weapon or the game becomes a grind.

Then you have a number of "pool" scenes. Since they highlight that this hotel has a pool, they basically have a significant number of character interactions take place at the pool to justify the characters getting into swimwear. And holy crap, if the level up bridal lingerie was racy, then the swimsuits are a step over that. I don't think even girls with perfect bodies would have the courage to wear some of the suits the characters in this wear. I love me some fan service as much as the next guy does, but these are so over the top it borders on comical.

They do this, I feel, to really hammer the point that Aluche is gay. The first Azure game also had gay protagonists. That's fine, I get that it's a consistent theme since the first game and as I played through I started to piece together that the affections between the main characters were clearly more than friendship. But at least to that sense, it felt more natural as the story progressed on. Azure 2 would have been about as subtle if they just said: "Aluche got a massive girl boner because Carmilla wore her bathing suit". It feels like it had to be crammed in because the last story did.

Speaking of cramming things in, this game expects you to do an awful lot with very little time. I did a fairly significant number of side quests and used a decent amount of my allotted time to explore the maps to try to find better paths or where certain monsters or treasures were. And when I would get back to the base, I would be awarded with affinity from the character I used. Each character has about 6 hearts to fill, but after playing through the entire story, I don't know if it's even possible to to max out every character's possible affinity rank. I feel you must be able to to get the good ending, but I don't see how.

This is something I bring up a lot of games of this nature, but the combat still kind of has that weightless floaty feeling the first one did. It is better this time around but the recoil from enemies taking damage still jerky and unnatural, and it ruins the entire feel of the combat. It also really doesn't motivate me to learn how to properly combo since stun locking enemies into the longest slew of attacks I can muster basically traps them into place. It also negatively impacted my Servan usage since I basically didn't need them. I would wait for my special counter to finish and then mow groups down with it. It just didn't have that visceral recoil that I get when I play Bayonetta.

The skill tree branches on a few different paths, and it's mainly to beef up the various weapon types as you play through the game, but honestly I just stuck to the route of the base sword and it really didn't seem to affect my experience in any tangible way. The first Azure title was not very difficult to get through, and this one really isn't either. So long as you occasionally remember to spend your points at base, you should pretty easily clear the game.

It's visual design is.... fine. I guess. It's an anime game so I don't know how much I can say about it. It's pretty consistent with the games they tend to put out, but it looks like it would be just as at home on the PS3 than a PS4. But I have to figure if they aren't going full bore on the details of the characters or environments (which admittedly can feel samey), you would figure to get a must smoother and consistent frame rate.  Perhaps I am remembering wrong but Azure 1 had a pretty solid 60fps all game. I don't think Azure 2 is that smooth at any point.

I generally like the soundtrack in Gust games, and Azure 2 is no exception. Much like the boss battles of the Atelier series, this series is known for blending synthesized fantasy classical blended with contemporary rock and metal. For lack of a better expression, it very much is "video game music" but it's not bad. It didn't shake me like Persona, Doom, or Undertale did, but it's definitely a credit to the games favor. And for certain story moments, you might recognize updated arrangements from the previous Azure title, and I appreciate consistency like that.

But the sound design overall in this one is not great. There are inconsistencies throughout the game. There will be points where the voices will just cut out during scene (Japanese language). During combat voice lines will sometimes surge up and sound effects of attacks will mute during special moves. Some song volume levels are much higher than others. It's strange and feels very unpolished, which honestly wouldn't surprise me with how fast this company pumps games out.

It's story is still somewhat nonsensical. They do not have a lot of build up to who exactly the final boss can be. I think in both games they make an early appearance and then never again until the actual last boss battle. It makes it a little hard to get motivated when I don't really know what it is I am fighting. I actually finished the first game not realizing that was the final boss. It adds characters and gives you new locations, and it does constantly warn you of the impending doom, but yet as I play it it never feels like the stakes are getting raised. The tension level remains consistent from the first to last stage.

But Gust does do some story things right. They are very consistent in their lore. In Atelier games, in sequels major characters in one title will be minor characters in another, showing a change in the timeline and growth. Azure 2 does this as well as one familiar support character references and tells of the events of the previous game, which culminates with a major character returning to join the party. I won't lie, despite my lukewarm feelings to the first one I got happy to see them again, and was even more happy when I got to use them too. So the story must have done enough to leave some kind of lasting impression.

I find myself somewhat mixed on Nights of Azure 2. I affectionately refer to it as "anime trash" because that is absolutely what it is. But for a game that I didn't think was that good to get a sequel, and for that sequel to be good enough to see the story through does say something. I definitely can say that they did make improvements so it certainly is a better game. But at the same time it just so decidedly average.

Azure 2 is an ultimately unoffensive title. It pushes no boundaries and doesn't really shake up any established game mechanics. It's visual design is pretty anime and it has a relatively decent soundtrack. It's not a horrible game, but depending on what it is you are looking for you can find so many better options in that same vein. It's vanilla ice cream. It's perfectly fine as it is but it feels like it's begging for so much more. Tighter story, more weight to the combat, better implementation of its mechanics, better sound design.

I want to say that I paid close to 20 or 30 bucks for this game. That's probably a fair price because despite showing improvement, there is still quite a bit wrong with this game. That said, the ARE showing signs of improving, so I am not totally ready to write this one off. I wouldn't tell anyone to take a chance on this one, and it is a game that can be very easily forgotten after you've played it. Roll the dice on it if something about it speaks to you, but otherwise I wouldn't give a recommendation.

Carmilla Alucard.
I'm still mad about that.

Secret of Mana: Remake (PS4): Revisiting a familiar path.

When explaining to idiots who think I hate the Legend of Zelda franchise, I usually have to explain that I love the best Zelda game: A Link to the Past, (Yes, best. Ocarina is average at best. Fight me) But while this icon title is pretty much a masterpiece on the SNES, it wasn't the first of this top-down exploration adventure game I actually played on this console.

When they announced a remake for this one, I was pretty amped. And despite Jason Schreier of Kotaku's attempts to suck the joy out of everything in his reviews (he seriously hates every remake), I was pretty excited to play it again. I haven't played through this game in a long time, but it's always been one of my favorites as a kid so it will be interesting to see how the game has changed, and what is the same in.....

SECRET OF MANA(PS4)

Secret of Mana opens with a brief prologue about the world of this game. Human civilization prospered and advanced by utilizing magic and energy powered by Mana. They used this power to make a massive floating super weapon called the Mana fortress. In order to stop potential destruction, the world unleashed a Mana Beast to destroy the fortress.  As they clashed, a man wielding the Sword of Mana appeared riding a white dragon and defeated the beast and fortress. The world was safe, but as mana started to fade.

We flash to now, where Randi is exploring the falls with two other village children looking for a sparkling treasure they had seen below.  Randi slips on a wet passage and falls to the bottom, where he finds a Rusty sword embedded in stone. After hearing his name and yanking the blade free, he catches a glimpse of a ghost for a moment before heading back to the village.

On the trip home he notices that monsters are a lot more violent and active. Upon reaching the village he learns that he actually has pulled the legendary mana sword and it was what was protecting the village from monsters.  The Village is attacked by a larger monster called a Mantis ant, and Randi manages to fend it off. However, due to the monsters attraction to the sword the village exiles him from home. With nowhere else to go, Randi takes the advice of a knight named Jema to take the sword to the shrines to reactivate the power of Mana.

Jesus Christ. It's actually shorter to play through that sequence than it was for me to describe it. This remake is a modernization of the 1993 release. It is actually a pretty faithful rebuilding of the game from a map perspective and from a mechanics perspective. While the game is functionally exactly the same as it was before, they did make a number of quality of life improvements to the game overall.

Obviously and most notably this game got a complete graphical overhaul. Now this isn't an upgrade to make it super new and modernized like a lifelike rendering like Final Fantasy 7 is currently getting. They basically upgraded this game from the SNES graphics to a more polished version of say a gamecube era Zelda game. It manages to keep the art style from the original promotional and concept art from the original game so the overhaul doesn't feel like it's departing from its original aesthetics.

The game is now full of voice acted dialog as well, which was a surprising addition to the remake. This has been a big point of contention to the remake as a whole because whenever they announce something new or good that people want, it immediately turns into complaining about not being the same. Now admittedly it's not exactly the greatest bit of voice acting by any stretch, and it's pretty much reduced to major characters and scenes (and the innkeep for some reason) but ultimately I was not that put off by it. I played Star Ocean: A New Hope. That game is the eff'n gold standard for bad voice acting.

So functionally, the game operates pretty much exactly the same as the previous SNES iteration of the game did. Secret of Mana is a top down hack and slash adventure game with RPG elements in the vein of Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and can be played up to 3 players. It still operates with the endurance mechanic so when you swing your weapon you have to wait for a quick 0-100% counter to fill up before you can take another swing at full strength.

You still can charge up your 8 weapons depending on their level for special attacks that deal increased damage. Your support characters Primm and Popoi still can use the various types of magic they learn during the course of the game. And this is still done by the ring menu system which can be just as slow and cumbersome as it always has been. It is certainly original and unique to the series but when you are trying to level up your magic it never flows as smoothly as you would like it to, even if you have it memorized.

This is somewhat abated by the addition of a pair of hot keys that you can now program. For a veteran player like I am to this series, this is very handy to have Undine's healing spell mapped to one and whatever spell I was leveling or using for dungeon or boss to the other. This cuts down a significant amount of delay having to navigate the menu every time I want to cast a spell, which makes this a very welcome addition to the game.

This clip show's the significant difference from casting with the ring system, to the hot keys.

They have also included a little mini-map in the upper right corner of the screen, which was a nice little add-on. You can turn it off as well, which I did since I know this game like the back of my hand. But a cute little visual thing that they used for the mini map is that it uses the original SNES sprite graphics for it, which is a nice little nod to the original. When using it though, it did feel like it quickened the pace of the game because you could see a lot more of the map.

As I mentioned previously, There is additional voice acting to the game and it's usually kept to primary scenes. But they added a bit of story flavor for when you go use inns. Inns in this game were originally required to save, so when you to use it you are treated to a scene of the main characters interacting with each other about some of the previous experiences of the game. All of these are completely new and original. Some of them are cute, some are funny, some drag on much too long. To the game's credit these can be skipped, but I don't know why you would since this is new content. I will say that if you don't keep up with them, the team will talk about events you did hours ago.

The music in this game has completely remastered as well to make use of PS4s expanded memory and quality. I found the modernized orchestral iterations to be very good, but again, this is something I have seen a significant number of reviews and comments to complain about. It seems like Square-Enix was concerned about this too so the game does have option to set it back to the original SNES version of the soundtrack, which still actually holds up pretty damn well, really.

I would say that the biggest annoyance I had with the remake was the change to the AI control system. In the old version of Secret of Mana, you had a 4x4 grid based on how close to monsters you wanted your team to get, and how aggressive they were in attacking. It was pretty stellar, because I could have weaker character hang back, but still attack like crazy if something got too close.

It's now a more simplified AI control menu and I don't feel it's for the better. Because by simplifying to "attack the same", "attack another", "do not attack" or whatever they are called, I feel now attacks are wasted by hitting an enemy I've already gotten well in hand, or making some map travel frustrating because I can't get the team to keep up with me because they are chasing another monster or refusing to run past. It's happened a number of times and admittedly a minor frustration. But minor frustration that you notice a lot, becomes a major one.

This simple gird allowed for a lot of character nuance in combat.
I do not understand why they got rid of it.

I will say that in the defense of the menus, they did simply down the list of meaningless statistics that don't actually play a factor into the gameplay. It was just additional information for the sake of having it. Now it's just down to simple, easy to understand terminology with much clearer indicators of progress while you are leveling. So while I miss my grid, it's not really all bad as far as menu changes go.

The voice acting is.... acceptable, I suppose. I am always kinda taken aback when I play a game that has some bad voice acting because at this point it feels like with how many actors are in the VO scene this shouldn't happen anymore. But after some initial cringe at some lines, I am sure you would be like me and eventually the voices will sort of just fade into the noise and not bother you. I will say that some of the Inn cutscenes can be phenomenally bad. It's always usually one that runs too long.

With the rework of the menu, there is now a much more significant indication
of progression of skills, or benefits to items used. 

They also made the strange decision to not animate the mouths in this game other than a few exceptions. It gives it more of a puppet show feel if that makes any sense. Major scenes will fully animated and drop to a 30fps frame rate to give it a more cinematic feel to it, but while characters are talking and moving, the mouth is shut, or open and not moving. It's strange and feels out of place. This is also the norm for any other non-animated cutscene. It basically shifts from pose to pose rather jerkily. This feels like it would not have been much work to fix.

A lot of the old game annoyances are back too. The could have really tweaked up the combat system so that the percentage for attack could have greater influenced the damage dealt. Instead it still feels like you either get full damage, or next to no damage. If I have 40% stamina when I take a swing, wouldn't 40% damage make sense? Another combat annoyance is the "miss" rate is still ridiculous. Even at full stamina your likelihood to miss an attack is why higher than it should be, leading to combat where you are constantly taking a swing at a baddie to kill them and just constantly whiffing for no reason. This is even more frustrating when you wasted time charging up an attack.

To be fair, you far less likely to miss on a charged attack. But it still happens too frequently.

Leveling magic is still a chore. Like the weapons, you level up their efficiency by using them. That makes sense, rotate your higher weapons around so everyone is good at everything. But even with the addition of the hot keys, magic still takes an arduous amount of time. Pick your spell, wait for the cast animation, wait for the spell animation, wait for the damage to drop so you can recast it again. MP is pretty sparse in this game so you need to carry MP recovery items if you are going to grind spells for any reason.

They did add a feature that you could increase the amount of items you could carry. Typically you could only carry up to 4 of every specific item and I personally felt that somewhat added to the challenge of the game. When you learn magic it really doesn't become the inconvenience it feels it should be, but none the less you can increase that amount so it helps for grinding spells without having to constantly go back to the Inn to recover your MP.

But the flat out biggest problem of the game is the exact same one that I bitched about in my Death's Gambit review and that is that this game crashed a fucking lot. It would crash mid battle seemingly for no reason, during boss fights, during screen transitions. It was patched multiple times and I still found myself with the game constantly crashing on me. It really was souring my entire experience of the remake as whole.

Unlike Death's Gambit though, Secret of Mana has also added a very generous autosave that basically saves every time you enter a new room.  So even if the game does crash on you, you really aren't inconvenienced any more than just needing to reload the game back up and bam, you are right back where you left off just a room away, or at the start of a boss fight. It really is something that should have been taken care of immediately but honestly I don't even know if that ever got addressed.

So that leaves us with the final question: is the Secret of Mana remake better or worse? From where I stand, it comes to a matter of preference. The original holds a special place in my heart and I can always go back and play it. But it's not available to everyone now, so if you have never played Secret of Mana before I would give this a recommendation even with the problems I've cited.

Sure, a number of things could have been done better or improved upon, but it still captures a lot of the old magic that made me love the game before, and quality of life adjustments added do make for a more streamlined experience. It's only 40 bucks and it's a reminder that classic, simple mechanics can still hold up.

I am still saying "One night is 50 GP"
in old man voice