If Visions of Mana isn’t on your radar for 2024, it might be time to take a look at this JRPG…

Developed by Ouka Studios and published by Square Enix, Visions of Mana is the latest JRPG in the long-running Mana series. The game will be released on August 29th. This date is highly anticipated, considering it is the first mainline entry in the franchise since 2006.

If you’re dying to play Visions of Mana, you’re in luck. A new demo has been released on various stores, including the Xbox Store, PlayStation Store, and Steam.

Just go to the appropriate store for your console/PC, search for Visions of Mana, and the free demo should pop up for you to download.

The demo will include “some of the story, battles and exploration,” which is pretty vague, but I guess that’s what we expect from a demo.

If you decide to try it out, you’ll be given three weapons in the first round that you can use throughout the game. These are the Gladius (small sword for Val), the Falx (large sword for Val) and a Horn Lance (spear for Val).

“Visions of Mana is a brand new title in this series revolving around the sacred sword and mana. The protagonist Val and his childhood friend Hinna, the newly appointed Alm of Fire, set off on a journey to the Mana Tree,” reads the game’s synopsis.

“This game’s iconic vibrant and vast semi-open field contains adorable yet ferocious monsters, allowing you to enjoy swift three-dimensional battles using the power of the Elementals. Through adventures with friends met along the way, they begin to see the truth about the world. Must we accept our fates?”

What are the initial reactions to the Visions of Mana JRPG?

The early reception of the demo fell slightly short of expectations.

“The movement is really clunky. It does not feel good to jump and run,” wrote Reddit user KMoosetoe. “The UI is too busy, the character design is atrocious […] This is Square Enix’s worst game since Forspoken.” Come on!

As always, there are two sides to every coin. As another user puts it:

“The movement isn’t nearly as bad as people make it out to be? It’s completely fine for a JRPG, I don’t feel the ‘moving through molasses’ thing at all. Everything feels responsive, combat with the big sword has a nice weight to it. Honestly probably better than I expected,” wrote t-bonkers.

The demo is free, so you can check it out to decide which camp to join…

Source: Steam, Reddit