Square Enix Visions of Mana (Playstation 5)

Overall score 9/10Graphics - 10/10 Made with love. The lighting is so on point (that i think it is genuinely the best lighting i've seen in a game period, no cap). The environment design exempt the desert imo is absolutely gorgeous. I cannot believe no one is talking about this game for this alone. This game looks absolutely fantastic in terms of textures and environments. Why ? because it's trying to be a game and not show you where you last went on holiday lol. Everything is crip and has a quality feel, all the way throughout the game.Combat - 7/10. A lot of variety but not a lot of depth. This is a weird one because if you look at party class combinations and abilities then this game has depth. However class skills for each character are pretty limited. This is offset as new party members are introduced at a good place so things never really feel stale and i find myself actually trying out and looking at my party build in way more detail than i usually do in these types of games.Combat encounters range from small groups of enemies, to larger groups of enemies. These are repetitive but there is a good amount of enemy variety to stave of the repetition. Whilst i enjoy the gameplay loop and haven't been bored with it so far, unless your into changing your skills and mains every 5 minutes you will see the repetition there. Granted im using morely nightblade so again if you've played this then you know the power and satisfaction of spam holding y, you can probably see why i've haven't gotten bored. You can do combos and ariel combos too, the animations for every class are again just so on point with the look and feedback. Bosses range from good to wow this is a really cool design (whether that be the boss itself or the arena). However this game doesn't bring anything new here. I hope the devs don't read this and decide to go ham on the next game in this area, realistically if you added in 2/3 more class specific attacks or abilities and i would be happy.Story 9/10 - Surprisingly very good. It is basic as an overall story but they add a lot of worldbuilding. Here is the important thing however. World building is done in an extremely fun way with your characters either explaining things in their quirky ways, or through interactions. The story writing is very down to earth too which is a refreshing surprise ESPECIALLY for a square enix game. There are a things that i came across early on where i thought this will be mentioned in a corny way later on. Well they did mention it, and they had me laughing out loud when it happened lol, if you've played, then you know what im talking about with Palamena and morley interaction in the later parts of the game. I often found myself thinking (especially in the later part of the game), wow i hope this person joins our party. This however is just one example. There are many, and it takes this game from being a generic jrpg with top tier graphics to a genuinely memorable experience, especially as it's done all the way throughout the game and not just the start. Honestly give the writers a raise, it's been a long time since i've enjoyed a story this much that can mix sad/dark elements in with light humour so well, whilst making yourself question whether whats happening in the game is morally right. I cannot do it justice, will have to replay it, just to rewatch the cutscenes early in the game, as i went in with the expectation that it would be a generic jrpg story writing. Boy was i wrong. But i would say if you play, don't make the same mistake as me and not pay attention at the start, it takes a minute for things to pick up and get to know the characters and the world, but it is well worth it when you do.That being said i do have to mention the bad, side quests. No dialogue. Usually this annoys me but you can tell it was done to give a more refined story, and it really really shows. I must admit that i only really did these to give me an excuse to backtrack to see environments again though. They do have useful rewards from time to time so they are picking up to see if it's worth doing though. Your not forced to do them however so they can be ignored. But you won't be doing anything outside of go here, kill or pick up this.World design - Your standard collect this and that using these unique mechanics unlocked throughout the game. All of these mechanics are well designed. Furthermore there are items scattered across the semi open world to obtain. Once again i usually hate these in open world games, but i found myself doing as much as i could in each area in terms of collecting items/currency for a few different reasons. 1 The world is beautiful and it's just fun going back. Feels like im 10 again. 2. sometimes they are genuinely fun to do (although this is rare most of the time their neither fun nor boring, just a checklist), 3. because some of the items you find are actually very useful, to the point of where it makes it worth doing for me. I play on hard, which means i have to be decently equipped, as normal is just too easy (have to bear in mind this is a game meant to be enjoyed by all audiences). Overall outside of the top tier environment design, and the blacksmith dance, there's not too much to say. I wish when it came to collecting currency they did this in a more fun way.I want to also touch on the openness of the world. The game doesn't force you to take a route to get somewhere. If it's easier for you to scale a mountain, the game lets you do it 90% of the time. This is a big plus for me. And is fun to do from time to time to see if i can jump attack my way up a really tall pillar lol.Sound designer - 8/10. I struggled not giving this a 9 but a 9 to me is i will remember this music outside of playing the game because it's an absolute banger. The game has very good music but not that good.Performance - I play on performance. Butter smooth zero issues. I did start of on quality but due to some fps drops decided to go the performance route. I was surprised by how little difference visually there is, and only really changed it's performance in combat. However no biggie, as i come from PC i'm use to games being absolutely broken at launch and having to fiddle with a million settings to get a stable fps lol. That being said i will say it performed with zero issues/crashes or bugs so i'm pretty sure that's a good thing.OverallI hope this is the direction square enix decide to take as i genuinely cannot believe this was made from them especially in regards to the story and graphics/environment design. I enjoyed playing this game, and whilst i enjoyed ff7 rebirth i was just playing to get to the next cutscene. In ff16 i was playing to get to the next boss battle and snoring the rest of the way. It's such a huge step up in respect to these things that i honestly think the writers should be swapped out after ff7 part 3. Let these guys have a go ! Down to earth stories and actual relatable characters has been missing from their games for so long. Each character here actually feels like they have a personality outside of brooding or quiet type, or goody toshoes, ticking of a archetype checkbox instead of trying to build interesting characters and seeing how they react/interact with the world around them as the story progresses. It's just a different experience imo, the party interactions are another level from SE triple A games and it's out of nowhere.In terms of environments, first jrpg that actually goes out of it's way to make interesting environments imo. I had some of those moments in granblue fantasy relink but it happens so often here that i wasseriously impressed. I honestly can't pin point my finger on why this game is different as graphics wise fantasy relink is better, but i think this game clearly comes out on top. Maybe it's the environments, but the way you interact with everything and the creativity here is what does it for me i think. Curious to hear other reviewers thoughts on this.This game does what a game is meant to do, it provides a enjoyable fun experience, and for that it deserves a permanent place on my shelf. Thank you to the devs, you may go unnoticed by many but not unseen by a few. GREAT JOB !If your thinking about buying this game please do you will not regret, if not for the sole reason of telling the devs we enjoy these types of games made with love then the corporate machines the ff series and other series under SE has become. Not saying they make garbage games, as i I play them all through but this has been such a nice change, and feels like im playing a game again and not a movie, that's extremely boring/ a chore outside of cutscenes. Thank you for reading, now go buy this !

This jrpg is one of my favourite JRPGs. It doesn't do anything groundbreaking but I was hooked all the way through to the end and now on new game + The visuals are stunning and it's just great fun to play and also quite deep game mechanics so experimentation keeps it interesting throughout. So if you want a very addictive jrpg with quite a bit of depth this is for you.

Probably the best JRPG I’ve played since Xenoblade 3. Gorgeous graphics, compelling combat, great voice acting and a lovable cast. Exploring each area to try and find all the items and chests is so much fun. Don’t skip this game.

Really enjoyed this game it really is the best mana game I've played since trials of mana in terms of story, visually it is stunning every zone you are in is breath taking to look at just all good vibes this game brings and the story doesn't treat you like a child it really has some good story beats that engages you.

Big and funny world to explore