Visions of Mana

[radiofloyd]

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/square-enix-announces-visions-of-mana-out-next-year
 

Brand new Mana game, cross-gen, coming next year. I guess the Trials remake did well enough to warrant a reboot of the series then. Looks lovely.

[Maryokutai]

Yeah, except for some weird character designs here and there this looked really good. Hopefully Nintendo's next platform gets it as well.

[DisturbedSwan]

Looked bloody great this, never played a Mana game before. This may be my first.

 

[Metroid66]

I played trials and really enjoyed it. It was a bit 'budget' if you know what I mean, but it looks like they've opened the cheque book on this one.

[Guest]

 

[HandsomeDead]

Is this the bone they threw MS after saying they still can't have Final Fantasy?

[radiofloyd]

It’s nice that games like this can co-exist alongside FFVII Rebirth and Dragon’s Dogma 2. 

[Guest]

On 18/01/2024 at 21:59, HandsomeDead said:

Is this the bone they threw MS after saying they still can't have Final Fantasy?

Id take this over ff. This actually looks more on my level 

[Maryokutai]

 

 

Almost forgot this was a thing because it was a no-show during all these recent presentations. Reminded me a bit of the discussion we had about art style in JRPGs and whatnot, because this very much looks like a Mana game in every way despite being built on 2024 tech. It's cool they managed to kept their distinct style and monster designs. Some really cool spells in there as well, like the one where the character traps enemies in a cone of water and swims around to fight (@ 2:37).

 

29th of August, the second half of this year is pretty busy.

[Maf]

This game looks like it could be fun but there’s already a lot of games coming out later this year, and because Xbox has been involved with the marketing I think this will come to Gamepass down the line. 

[Maryokutai]

If you have around 200 bucks to spare:

 

 

It's a really nice-looking box to be fair. A smaller version without the plushie would have been interesting.

[Maryokutai]

Demo out:

 

 

[Maf]

Only light Twitter buzz but apparently this is really good

 

I like the trailer. But think I definitely would need JPN voice track for it

[Maryokutai]

So it seems that the grunt of this game's development was made by Tencent-owned studio called Ouka Studios. Which Tencent has now downsized to the absolute minimum number of staff to get through the game's release period with presumably the aim of closing them down completely: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-30/tencent-netease-rethink-japan-approach-as-game-strategy-stalls

 

I hope they get the environmental award during ONL 2025 for cutting down their electricity usage in Japan. Really a company to look up to.

[Maf]

Another tweet I saw was it because Tencent/netease doesn’t think Japan makes hit games so they want to withdraw from that area/talent

 

Although I think if you look at this year between Palworld, Wukong and even Stellar Blade for example the east has carried this year

 

But they don’t make that CoD money

[DANGERMAN]

Tencent making a Mana game feels wrong 

[Maryokutai]

The thing that makes me figuratively vomit internally when I think about it is that on one side you have the old school Mana heads from SE for whom this was a passion project (at least going by that presentation during the Xbox Direct). Then you have a new and young studio with people for whom it is (was) probably an incredible honour to work on a franchise with this kind of history and pedigree, and in other circumstances a springboard for similarly cool jobs in the future.

And then you have fucking Tencent on the other side, looking at spreadsheets and treating people like numbers. I realise it's the reality of things in this world but I can't stop finding it revolting.

 

I was pondering when would be the best time to buy this now (I was going to anyway, the demo was cool), but just went ahead and ordered it earlier. I hope Tencent's deal concluded with development and they see none of my money, but I think the signal towards SE should at least be 'this is cool, make more of it', if nothing else.

[Maf]

Mine got delivered today but with the news of the studio closing and they don’t think it’ll be a hit I should have waited 😓

 

I swear always have the worst timing when it comes to buying games 

[DANGERMAN]

I said this regarding another game, but I'm at the point where if a big publisher shuts a studio down right after their game launches, it shows that the publisher has already written the game off. So if they don't care about it, and the developer isn't getting anything from it, then morally I don't see the harm in downloading it for free 🤷🏻

 

It's literally a victimless crime 

[Maf]

I mean, I’m sure the devs would still like their game to do well.
 

There’s a video out today of the studio lead trying to promote the game and how happy they are to make a new entry for the first time in 15 years. Can’t tell if he’s not very charismatic or just super down because he knows he’s going to be fired