Hylarn
(Don’t ask)
#2: Oct 23rd 2024 at 6:55:16 AM
Visions of Mana is the newest "of Mana" game in 17 years. It got great reviews so of course this being the game industry Squenix announced the studio who made it would be closed as punishment for doing their work well.
Lies. The studio was closed by NetEase, not Square, and it's not really anything related to this specific game
#4: Oct 27th 2024 at 6:56:22 PM
It's darkly amusing how the Childhood Friend Romance never really ends well in a Mana game.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Total posts: 4

Couldnt find a thread for it, so here it is.
Visions of Mana is the newest "of Mana" game in 17 years. It got great reviews so of course this being the game industry Squenix announced the studio who made it would be closed as punishment for doing their work well.
The plot revolves around a world where eveyr 4 years 8 individuals are chosen to sacrifice themselves to the goddess of mana so the world doesn't end. You play Val, the guy in charge of escorting the sacrifices (called Alms) to the Tree of Mana and making sure they don't get pre-murdered before the Goddess gets to do it.
I've been playing it finally and MAN THIS GAMES' PLOT IS WEIRD. So I had to make a thread for it.
Like you'd expect from the premise to be a pretty dark story, characters confronted with their imminent, guaranteed death. But instead the game is weirdly, almost chipper about this? People volunteer to be the sacrifice, like, actual kids "Oh I hope I'm chosen!" One of the party members has wanted to be an alm since childhood because it'd "Let her travel the world" (Because apparently becoming a traveling merchant wasn't an option?)
Add stuff like how One character is a queen who did hard work fighting corruption and abuse from the nobles and she's basically told her reward for this is to die and everyone's like "whoa, cool". Or how one dude is the last male representative of his own species so ya know, of course he's picked as a volunteer and he's like "Oh, yeah, this solves by guilt issues, neat".
This isn't to say the issue of one's imminent death isn't fully avoided. The MC's girlfriend realizes she'd rather travel with him than die, which leads to her death, and the openiing is another alm trying to avoid dying. But otherwise the game insists ont treating the whole ordeal as positively as it can. No one that's selected isn't at least initially down for dying. Families treat losing their loved one like it's a pretty sweet deal actually and don't ever seem to react or even consider that their relative is gonna be very, very dead when this is over. No tearful goodbyes, no "thank you for taking one for the team", it's treated with the same gravitas as if they won a prize. Everyone's just really happy to have a road trip before their death. It's almost a videogame version of The Pollyanna, blissfully unaware of the distopia it created.
Whats funny is I can see a lot of ways you could to the story. Imagine a town that uses the alms to get rid of interloppers or opposition to the rulers. Or what happens when someone's chosen who maybe isn't initially down with dying.