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[TheSadRanger]

Played an hour of Trials of Mana. I figured I'd start with the default party lineup of Duran, Angela, and Charlotte. Leveled up to level 4, got Angela in my group.

This game is awesome, I can already tell it's going to be spectacular. I really enjoy the level up mechanics (allocating skill points to make a proper build) as well as changing classes that seem specific to each character. I'll definitely have to dive into this a little farther.

Does the port of Secret of Mana fix any of the slowdown issues of the original game or is it basically the same port that's on the SNES classic?

 

[entremet]

Biggest surprise of e3 for me. I’ve been waiting for a legit release of SD3 for ages.

 

[Northeastmonk]

Played Adventure & Secret of Mana on my phone & SoM remaster on Vita, so going to just get Trial of Mana remake ....

Yeah I bought the remake of Adventure on iOS and SoM. I finished Adventure last year. I had FFA as a kid on GameBoy. I had a lot more fun with the remake than I remember as a kid, which is great. I have SD3 via repo cart with English text.

It’s worth it for me just for Trials of Mana, but I’m waiting to purchase it. The last Mana game I got on console was Dawn of Mana for PS2. It actually wasn’t all that terrible, but the voice acting/plot was a bit cringe worthy. I much rather play these 3 games.

There are some wonderful towns to visit in SD3. The whole game is wonderful. I bought the repo thinking I’d never get to play it in English. I’d gladly pay them for the localization.

 

[Shifty1897]

Does the port of Secret of Mana fix any of the slowdown issues of the original game or is it basically the same port that's on the SNES classic?

Can't say for sure but I've watched it being streamed and I did not see any slowdown, especially in places where I remember there being slowdown in the SNES version.

 

[spookyfish]

First you have to go back to the harbor town and talk with the guy in the house in the northeast-most corner of the map.

I did that. I *hadn’t* talked to the guy outside that says “there’s an entrance somewhere.” Once I did that I was able to use Lumina. Thanks!

 

[cireza]

Yeah, but the game was intended for 4:3 displays, so couldn't you argue this is actually the proper presentation for it? Chrono Trigger is one of the examples people point to as evidence that these games weren't meant to be displayed at 8:7.... so I dunno. I'd think another Square game from 1995 would probably be the same deal.

First point :

This is a false argument in my opinion. The vast majority of SNES games were not designed with the fact that the picture was stretched from 8/7 to 4/3. All these games have circles that are actually rendered as ovals. And this is perfectly understandable, from a developer point of view, what are your choices when working on SNES ?

If your sprites are rather small, and their basis is 16x16 tiles, what can you do ? The console does not offer you 14*16 tiles to begin with. So you work in 16*16 but always leave two columns blank ? This is a hassle, and not the solution that was used in the vast majority of the games. You can eventually begin to think with stretching in mind when you have big sprites, which did happen in a few fighting games. I am pretty sure that Mortal Kombat II does this, which is pretty clever from the developers. But that's an exception, not the norm. Also games were necessarily displayed on 4/3 screens, this does not mean that every SNES game was designed with stretching in mind.

Seiken 3 clearly has wide characters and ovals everywhere in the game. It would be look better in 8/7.

Second point :
Even if the graphics are stretched, our CRT TVs could display rectangle pixels without a problem. In fact, the vertical resolution is always adapted to fill the entire space. You even have games that are actually squeezed to fit because the resolution is wider than 4/3 (CPS 2 games from Capcom, and these were definitely created with this is mind). And that's the magic of the CRT TVs.

Our HD TVs don't do this. You have a set number of square pixels to display your stuff. Meaning that stretching from 8/7 to 4/3 on an HD TV means that some pixels are going to be doubled, some won't. In this situation, as the resolution is multiplied, you get stuff like 5*5, 5*4, 4*5 and 4*4 pixels. This is uneven and definitely not a good effect. This kind of display also make applying scanlines impossible without creating ugly patterns on the screen. Maybe that 4K TV will enable stretching from 8/7 to 4/3 perfectly, I haven't done the math yet.

This is a common issue with 8/7 content. It also applies to NES, Master System, PCE and some MegaDrive/Mega-CD games. And developers doing emulation stuff rarely nail these problems down, even with 4/3 content to begin with.

And about Chrono Trigger, in my memories sprites are a bit thinner so this one was probably done with the intention of using the 4/3 stretching. But in the end, it is a matter of preferences, it is not the norm for SNES games, and the problems listed previously still apply.

 

[ULTROS!]

I really do plan to get this but I'll wait for the retail version.

Bloodstained is coming very soon so I'll be pretty occupied.

 

[Contica]

I don't understand the issue. Just don't use both save features.

The issue is that they cancel each other out, and a feature like that should not be in a game. I used the ingame save exclusively, until my wife wanted to play some Zelda, then I figured I'd do a quick save since I had just put it in sleep mode last time I played.

I load back up and 10 hours are gone.

I mean, how the fuck does this happen? It makes no bloody sense. How can it just deleted 10 hours of playtime, and revert back to after I've just cleared 40 minutes.

The point here isn't "don't use it". No shit Sherlock. The point is, how can devs put a feature like this into their game that effectively screws the player over if he uses it?

 

[theclaw135]

Yeah, but the game was intended for 4:3 displays, so couldn't you argue this is actually the proper presentation for it? Chrono Trigger is one of the examples people point to as evidence that these games weren't meant to be displayed at 8:7.... so I dunno. I'd think another Square game from 1995 would probably be the same deal.

No matter the games' internal or intended display ratio, virtually everyone who ever played video games on a standard CRT (most sets in homes for like 40 to 50 years), had played the games stretched to 4:3.

Developers are of course human, and might've slipped up from time to time. Drawing stuff for one display ratio here, another there, even within the same scene.

 

[Vawn]

The issue is that they cancel each other out, and a feature like that should not be in a game. I used the ingame save exclusively, until my wife wanted to play some Zelda, then I figured I'd do a quick save since I had just put it in sleep mode last time I played.

I load back up and 10 hours are gone.

I mean, how the fuck does this happen? It makes no bloody sense. How can it just deleted 10 hours of playtime, and revert back to after I've just cleared 40 minutes.

The point here isn't "don't use it". No shit Sherlock. The point is, how can devs put a feature like this into their game that effectively screws the player over if he uses it?

I'm sorry, I still don't understand what you're saying. By loading a Quick Save it deleted your in-game save?

That definitely doesn't make sense, but it does not happen here. I've been using both saves in Secret of Mana, but basically just relying on the quick saves.

 

[Deleted member 752119]

The issue is that they cancel each other out, and a feature like that should not be in a game. I used the ingame save exclusively, until my wife wanted to play some Zelda, then I figured I'd do a quick save since I had just put it in sleep mode last time I played.

I load back up and 10 hours are gone.

I mean, how the fuck does this happen? It makes no bloody sense. How can it just deleted 10 hours of playtime, and revert back to after I've just cleared 40 minutes.

The point here isn't "don't use it". No shit Sherlock. The point is, how can devs put a feature like this into their game that effectively screws the player over if he uses it?

So how does this happen? I used both in playing through FFA and didn’t have issues. I primarily used the in game saves (since you could save anywhere anyway) but used the quick saves for some janky rooms in dungeons after getting stuck and having to reset a couple times as it’s faster to do a quick load than reset the game and load a game save.

Just want to make sure I don’t get hit by this when I get around to the other two games.

 

[Contica]

So how does this happen? I used both in playing through FFA and didn’t have issues. I primarily used the in game saves (since you could save anywhere anyway) but used the quick saves for some janky rooms in dungeons after getting stuck and having to reset a couple times as it’s faster to do a quick load than reset the game and load a game save.

Just want to make sure I don’t get hit by this when I get around to the other two games.

I hon3stly have no idea. I don't understand how it works, and all I know is I'm never using it again.

 

[jshackles]

That sounds like a bug for sure @Contica I've used both the in-game save as well as the Quick save functionality in Trials of Mana and haven't run into any issues. Others here have also said similar.

Sorry you lost so much progress though, that's a huge bummer!

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

Can't say for sure but I've watched it being streamed and I did not see any slowdown, especially in places where I remember there being slowdown in the SNES version.

Haven't had any slowdown in Trials of Mana so far, and something tells me that game would've brought the SFC to its knees.

 

[shark sandwich]

Definitely haven’t seen any slowdown or any other performance issues in ToM.

That said, ToM’s UI is a clunky, cumbersome atrocity. Definitely the prettiest SNES menus I’ve seen but man it’s a pain to do anything.

 

[jshackles]

Up to 7.5 hours in Trials of Mana now, I finally unlocked the turtle guy I can summon to swim me places on the map. I also just reached level 18 and went back to the Manastone of wind to change my character classes. I decided to go all light path considering this is my first play through the game. Hope that doesn't come back to bite me in the ass. Having the ability to heal multiple party members at once is super handy and takes a bit of the tedium out of the game.

Still loving it.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

I'm just slightly ahead of where you are, I think. I'm still liking it quite a bit. Square's games from that era had a charm that nobody's quite managed to replicate.

 

[Link1110]

Not playing on the collection (using my SFC cart) but is the second half of Trials supposed to be super grindy? Grind so you're the same level as the enemies, grind to farm ??? seeds and settle for magus cause the other seed isn't dropping after 3 hours... Kind of becoming a pain.

At least I managed to get paladin and night blade, so two out of three ain't bad.

 

[cireza]

Not playing on the collection (using my SFC cart) but is the second half of Trials supposed to be super grindy? Grind so you're the same level as the enemies, grind to farm ??? seeds and settle for magus cause the other seed isn't dropping after 3 hours... Kind of becoming a pain.

At least I managed to get paladin and night blade, so two out of three ain't bad.

The game is a little bit grindy yes. You have to grind for seeds. These can actually be dropped early at a certain place, with enemies that actually spawn other enemies which can drop them (if I remember correctly).

 

[Link1110]

The game is a little bit grindy yes. You have to grind for seeds. These can actually be dropped early at a certain place, with enemies that actually spawn other enemies which can drop them (if I remember correctly).

I used the Ancient Ruins of Light where the enemies always spawn next to the save point.

 

[cireza]

I used the Ancient Ruins of Light where the enemies always spawn next to the save point.

If I remember correctly, you can drop them in some kind of forest in the clouds for the very first time, maybe against robots that spawn other robots.

 

[Link1110]

Just beat the final

Spoiler

Benevodon and the Dark shine Knight. First, that text box right after beating the Benevodon is a MAJOR plot point that would've been nice to see rather than getting the Cliff's Notes. Also can I prevent party members from using their techs? Getting nearly wiped out against the Dark shine Knight cause my party members used techs that I had no control over was obnoxious. At least I had enough healing items to brute force it, but that was a pain.

 

[Link1110]

My fiance was out of town, so I decided to finish the game tonight

The writing in the end felt kinda lazy

Spoiler

yeah, the bad guy had every power imaginable and we wrote ourselves into a corner cause the heroes should have no way of defeating him, so... Hope? Massage they shouldn't have been able to cut down the mana tree and the violations power stayed limited.

Also, the fairy is the mana seed now? So the girl in the first game was a fairy? Am I reading too much into this?

 

[Trogdor1123]

In secret on mana do you still run on the edge of the screen? Or has that been fixed?

 

[jshackles]

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