Trials of Mana Review

I never played the original Seiken Densetsu 3. Dropping fifty dollars on what looked like a budget JRPG during a global pandemic didn't seem smart. But the lockdown was long, my backlog was short, and Angela's outfit on the store page made me curious enough to click. Five years later, Trials of Mana is one of my favorite action JRPGs of the PS4 generation — a game that shouldn't work as well as it does, carried by charm, tight combat, and the sheer audacity of its fairy-tale confidence.

This is a review of the 2020 remake. You don't need to play the first two Mana games beforehand — I didn't, and it was fine.

Budget Aesthetics, Butter Gameplay

There is no point in talking about the obvious. The graphics in Trials of Mana do look cheap. The animated cutscenes show a limited range of motion, the characters are stiff, faces change expressions among four different presets, and the story cameras are extremely poorly framed. You can tell this game is an AA title, and is selling at a AAA title price. Coming from Persona 5 Royal or Final Fantasy VII Remake, released in the same month as Trials of Mana, the difference is extremely clear.

What drives me crazy, though, is the game actually knows what it is and doubles down on it. Charlotte swaps consonants for W's ("I had a dweam that..."), which is either cute or obnoxious depending on your level of tolerance. Angela, the sorceress I made my main character, has a valley girl accent that is comically bad and makes the exposition impossible to take seriously. Along with her completely impractical costume, and a walking animation that would be more appropriate for a runway than a battlefield, I can easily imagine a design team throwing their hands up in defeat at the mere idea of creating a character so over the top. I enjoyed every moment of it.

You begin by selecting three characters from a pool of six, each of whom has their own unique opening chapter - a tragedy or mystery that propels them onto the journey ahead. From that point onward, Trials of Mana turns into a typical JRPG experience, filled with town-hopping, dungeons, and labyrinthian routes through forests, deserts, volcanoes, and icy mountains. While the general structure may be uninspired, the gameplay experience is what truly makes the game shine.

The Combat That Surprised Everyone

It probably hit me when an NPC offered to shoot me out of a cannon to reach the next town. That's the energy of Trials of Mana — a lovable absurdity that the fairy-tale framework earns. And once you stop judging the production values and start playing the actual game, something clicks. The combat is clean. Not "clean for a budget game" — clean, period. Responsive dodging. Melee cancels that feel intentional. Buttery menus that slide you points and items after each encounter. Beautiful colors pouring out of every spell effect.

A few hours in, the difficulty elevates perfectly. Early encounters are button-mash territory, but mid-game bosses demand that you pay attention to your party composition, class abilities, and the action combat's dodge timing. Enemies telegraph abilities with red zones on the field — stand there and you eat a massive hit, dodge out and you get a punish window. It's not Soulslike depth, but it's enough to make every boss encounter feel like a genuine fight rather than an HP race.

The boss fights are the highlight. There's a door demon that turns the entire room into spike traps. A dragon that requires aerial positioning. A golem where you need to break limbs in the right order. Each one teaches you something about the combat system that regular encounters don't, and the difficulty curve rewards players who experiment with class abilities rather than grinding levels.

The AI Problem (And Why It Barely Matters)

The one true issue: your AI party members are self-destructive. You can control one character at a time and switch between the three at any time, but the other two will just stand in red zones, won't dodge attacks that are clearly telegraphed, and will even run straight into the face of a boss during wind-up animations. In fact, I have won a number of more difficult fights with only one character remaining alive. This had nothing to do with the bosses being overtuned; it was simply because my AI allies considered danger like a suggestion.

Here's the counterintuitive solution: stop trying to keep them alive. Once I accepted that the AI was going to eat hits regardless of aggression settings, I started building my own character as a self-sufficient damage dealer and treated the AI as disposable support. It sounds terrible on paper, but in practice it turned every boss fight into an intense solo challenge where the AI occasionally helped — and when they did contribute, it felt like a bonus rather than a baseline. Not ideal design, but workable.

Outside of that, the AI is decent enough. You can set aggression levels, change characters at any time, and the class system offers enough build diversity to make up for the tactical shortcomings. The ability to switch from Angela’s spells to Duran’s tanking during a fight to draw aggro while your healer is recovering — that level of character management is where Trials of Mana’s combat excels.

Class Changes and the Power Fantasy Payoff

The class system changes Trials of Mana from a charming indie game to an engaging experience. Each character has four class tiers with Light and Dark options. This creates build variety that rewards replay. Angela can go fully offensive (Dark path) or go support as an elemental specialist (Light path). Duran can tank or go paladin/healer. The choices feel impactful because they change your spell list + your role in the party. Not just a costume change (though the costumes are great).

Reaching Tier 3 and the class build you've been waiting for comes online is a glorious moment. Spell chaining, passive abilities stacking, raw damage numbers climbing. All of this combined is almost intoxicating. Most action JRPGS somehow fumble the curve of "this is tough" to "I am unstoppable," but Trials of Mana perfectly nails it. The post-game allows players to experiment with builds even further with the addition of a Tier 4 class unlock.

Trials of Mana in 2020 felt nostalgic even for someone who never played the original. In 2026, it feels like a hidden gem that most people walked past because it launched next to FF7 Remake. If you want an action JRPG that respects your time (twenty-five hours for one playthrough, sixty for all three routes), delivers satisfying combat, and wraps it all in a fairy-tale aesthetic that never takes itself too seriously — give it a shot. It's on Steam, PlayStation, and Switch.

All images are official screenshots from Trials of Mana. Trials of Mana is a registered trademark of Square Enix. Originally published April 2020. Updated March 2026.

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