Hands-on with Echoes of Mana: A patchwork of nostalgia enveloped in a gacha wrapper
Over the last year, Square Enix has been busy celebrating the 30th anniversary of its Mana action RPG series, launching classic remasters likeTrials of ManaandLegends of Manaon the Play Store. Of course, these are older games despite their remastering, so it’s about time something new was brought to the table, and so Square Enix has developed an all-new title in the Mana series calledEchoes of Mana. It’s a free-to-play gacha game that offers a new story, and it just launched this past week, which is precisely why we’ve revisited our guide to ensure it’s up-to-date for the global launch. So if you’re interested to see how the global version of the game stacks up now that it’s out across the world, you’ve come to the right place.
Thankfully, Square was kind enough to supply AP with a testing build before release, and so I’ve recorded a 40-minute gameplay video of Echoes of Mana in action, all so everyone will have a better idea of what to expect from the game. We even have ahandy guideavailable for those who are starting their journey now that the Echoes of Mana is officially available.
The above 40-minute gameplay video was recorded by yours truly, offering a lengthy look at the preview build for Echoes of Mana (unedited to provide a clear view of how the game performs). Thankfully, it would appear that Square changed very little between the preview I tested and the official release, so what you see is still very much representative of the full release, bugs and all.
What’s clear from the very start is that Square has gone all-in on a story-driven game. Echoes of Mana offers a tale that spans several past releases in the series, with classic characters returning to hit the ol' nostalgia button. Despite the focus on the story, it’s incredibly dull, filled with pointless exposition that comes off incredibly dry. To nobody’s surprise, we have to save the Mana Tree yet again, and it’s clear this journey was written around collecting old and new characters in the Mana universe, more so than existing to tell an interesting story, a problem with many F2P gacha games.
When you first jump into the game, you’re forced into a lengthy tutorial. Somehow it manages to be filled with endless text that rarely explains the game’s mechanics. You’d think if a developer is going to force you to waste your time with a tutorial you can’t skip, it could at least explain the game’s mechanics better, especially when that game’s UI design is a confusing mess. Then again,a casino’s floor is designed to be a maze, much like how a F2P gacha game is designed to be a confusing tangle of menus and upgrade systems backed by multiple currencies and a stamina system. Turns out it’s incredibly easy for people to lose track of what they are spending if they are forced into a constant state of confusion.
Then there’s the game’s performance, where load times are long, for some reason, with odd black-screen transitions between every scene, which are very jarring, especially for how frequently this happens. For a game that offers incredibly stiff vector art and animations, performance should be the last issue, and yet my ROG 5 constantly heats up, a furnace in my hands, for a game that can’t offer more than 60FPS. Thankfully there is an option to modify your graphics settings, so you can choose to play at Low, Standard, or High; though these settings do not affect the framerate, they simply lower the resolution of the graphics.
As for the gameplay, it’s the same shallow loop we’ve seen thousands of times over, where you collect star-rated characters to build out a team in order to take on a series of level-based RPG battles. These battles are at least real-time, so you have complete control of your characters. You can switch your characters on the fly depending on what skills you need to finish off the latest round of bad guys. This switch system is similar to the one used in Trials of Mana, so there is some strategy to be found as you build your team and level up, thanks to a rock-paper-scissors battle mechanic. There’s also an auto-battle option, which means most battles won’t require manual control. For all intents and purposes, the gameplay loop follows that of any gacha game, but this time with a Mana skin slapped on top.
Of course, Echoes of Mana is a free-to-play release, with in-app purchases that range up to $79.99 per item. These are primarily for purchasing the in-game currency called Gems, but you can also purchase 4-star Harvest Tickets (the means for summing new characters). No matter how you slice it, you’re provided several avenues to directly pay for your character pulls, which means the game is pay-to-win, by definition. Luckily there’s no PvP component, only co-op, so at the very least, the players that do sink tons of cash won’t ruin your experience.
Ultimately, Echoes of Mana offers inconsistent performance, lackluster writing, and deviates little from the typical gacha formula. Sure, it’s nice to revisit the Mana universe, and if you’re a Mana fan, you may enjoy the story since it offers plenty of nostalgia, but sadly the gameplay and graphics of Echoes of Mana barely hold a candle to the classics in the series, which is a shame, especially when this title was released to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the series.
UPDATE: 2022/04/30 09:00 EST BY MATTHEW SHOLTZ
Updated for the global release
Now that Echoes of Mana is officially available as a global release, this hands-on has been updated to reflect the stable version of the game.
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