Line #5 Trivia/TrialsOfMana


1	* FanTranslation: Quite possibly tied with ''VideoGame/Mother3'' for the title of most famous fan translation effort in history. It was one of the earliest high-profile fan translations, one of the first with a truly high quality of hacking (especially given how Neill Corlett had to crack text encryption once thought nigh-uncrackable by the hacking community) and a ''very'' solid script... and it gained the dubious distinction of being one of the oldest fan translations to ''not'' be answered with any kind of official release. The patch was first released in July 1999, was polished by 2000, and went on to serve the fandom well for nearly two decades when there wasn't even a word from Square, and later Square Enix, of an official English localization. Although after the CompilationRerelease on the Switch in Japan was released in 2017, people from Square Enix were acknowledging a demand for a localization, leading to the official international release of the original version of the game in 2019, plus a full remake in 2020, both featuring an all new translation done in-house.
2	* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: While pretty much every other [[Creator/SquareEnix Square or Enix]] release from the [[Platform/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem Super Nintendo]] era[[note]]not counting their ones developed by other studios such as Quintet or ''VideoGame/SecretOfEvermore'''s American team, ''and even then''...[[/note]] received a re-release via Virtual Console, VideoGameRemake, or a PolishedPort of some fashion during the [[MediaNotes/TheSixthGenerationOfConsoleVideoGames Sixth]], [[MediaNotes/TheSeventhGenerationOfConsoleVideoGames Seventh]] and [[MediaNotes/TheEighthGenerationOfConsoleVideoGames Eighth]] Generations of video gaming, ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' was not reissued in any way whatsoever for ''twenty-two years'' until the ''Seiken Densetsu Collection'' on the Platform/NintendoSwitch in Japan in 2017. During that two decade gap, the only ways to experience the game were either the second-hand market or outright piracy--and if you wanted the game in English, then you needed the fan patch or you were pretty much up a creek. It's probable that the game's bugs and technical issues contributed to this. As of June 11th, 2019, this was (finally) averted, as not only did the ''Collection of Mana'' for the Switch come to the US, ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' came with it, now under the title ''Trials of Mana.''
3	* LateExportForYou: At this point one of the crowning examples. The gap between the original Japanese release (September 30, 1995) and the multi-language Switch release (June 11, 2019) was twenty-three years, eight months and eleven days. But, praise the Mana Tree, late is infinitely preferable to "never"!
4	* NewbieBoom: Two, both in 2019 when the Collection of Mana was finally released outside of Japan, and when the 2020 remake was released on April 24th, 2020.
5	* NoExportForYou: Prior to the SNES version's shocking release on the Switch, ''Trials'' (then ''Seiken 3'' ) was one of the most infamous examples of this phenomenon, made worse by misleading media coverage:
6	** ''Magazine/NintendoPower'' [[https://archive.org/stream/Nintendo_Power_Issue001-Issue127/Nintendo%20Power%20Issue%20076%20September%201995#page/n55/mode/2up announced]] that "Secret of Mana 2", an English version of ''[=SD3=]'', was planned for release at one point in 1995. The game [[https://www.retromags.com/magazines/uk/super-play/super-play-issue-33/ infamously appeared on the cover]] of ''Super Play Magazine'' in Britain under that name (and featured a gigantic article about the game, complete with interview snippets from Koichi Ishii), was mentioned and covered by ''[=GameFan=]'' multiple times in '95, and was even listed in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears,_Roebuck_and_Company Sears "Wish Book" catalog]] of 1995 for a '96 release. All of this would prove premature; ''[=SD3=]'' became the only major (i.e. non-mobile) ''VideoGame/WorldOfMana'' game to not have an official English version released during its own console generation (with ''Nintendo Power'' [[https://archive.org/stream/Nintendo_Power_Issue001-Issue127/Nintendo%20Power%20Issue%20079%20December%201995#page/n55/mode/2up quietly noting the cancellation in December 1995]]), and for decades Square and then Square Enix seemed in no hurry to correct the situation.
7	** Part of the problem was that, due to the size of the game (at 32 megabits, it was one of the heftiest games for the SNES of the day), it would have needed the more specialized (and far more expensive) 32-mbit cartridge, and it would've been ready for release in '96, at the very tail-end of the Super Nintendo's American lifespan; things were moving [[Platform/Nintendo64 pretty quickly]] at that point, and purely 2D games fell out of favor for a long time.
8	** There are now-well-known technical issues with the game that, apparently, made localizing the game at the time prohibitively expensive; there were bugs/glitches (Duran's shields do nothing, evade/critical [[http://www.insanedifficulty.com/board/index.php?/topic/6274-fix-only-patch/ doesn't work]]) that wouldn't have passed Nintendo of America's certification requirements, and there's the infamous issue with the character limit in player names (and how trying to change it evidently causes problems throughout the entire game without an immense amount of labor). The ''Nintendo Power'' Dec.1995 article seems to corroborate this (noting the cancellation was due to "''trouble of a technical nature and the cost'' [to fix it] ''may be prohibitive''").
9	* UrbanLegendOfZelda: There was a long-standing rumor that ''VideoGame/SecretOfEvermore'' was what Americans got in place of the SNES versions of ''Trials of Mana''. [[NoExportForYou That game has never been released in Japan]]; it was developed specifically in America for an American audience. In truth, ''Trials'' wasn't ported over to America at the time for reasons that had nothing to do with ''Evermore'' or its development. The SNES was already on the way out at the time that ''Trials'' and ''Evermore'' were released, with the announcement of the Platform/Nintendo64 just a few weeks away. And ''Trials'' had so many glitches which needed to be fixed before Square could even think of porting it to the West that they decided it just wasn't worth the trouble.
10	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
11	** The Super Famicom release was going to have a {{giant squid}} as the boss of Volcano Island Bucca. The boss sprite and its attacks are still present in the game data, but they aren't used. There were plans to include the boss back in the remake according to a datamine, but it still remains in the cutting room floor.
12	** The 2020 remake began development as another ShotForShotRemake, like the ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyAdventure'' and ''Secret of Mana'' remakes. The team wasn't satisfied with the result and scrapped it. The unpopularity of the ''Secret'' remake was also a factor. The 3D remake would have been the only version of ''Trials'' to be translated if Square Enix's western division hadn't pushed to localize the 16-bit version, as well.
13	** The 2020 remake was originally going to feature two new boss fights vs. Lord Flamekhan and Queen Valda according to the datamine. Only Gauser, the King of the Beastmen, can be fought in the final release.

Context Trivia / TrialsOfMana