Echoes of Mana Review: Go on a journey with your favorite characters from the Mana series

Echoes of Mana is another great game of Square Enix. It is the latest game of Square Enix’s Mana series. The game was announced during the 30th anniversary stream on June 27, 2021. Just like the previous titles, the game has elements of the previous titles but has some new additions. Koichi Ishii’s desire to create his own imaginary world has led this series to go this far. Today we will talk about this new title, with detailed pros and cons. In this article, we will review Echoes of Mana and share our first impressions of the game.

Experience the magical lands as a Swordsman with Hawkeye

Starting with the Echoes of Mana revisionOnce players have finished selecting their preferred region and language, they can move on to character customization. Currently, the game offers the choice between a male and a female character, and the available options look pretty good. Later, players can choose a name for their character even if the limit is only 9 letters and can be changed later.

The game offers its own save file system. That’s great because you don’t need to use the Google Play Games service to save progress. The save file system makes it easy for players to continue playing where they left off easily. The save file protection system works on password-based security. This password setup can be done on the title screen. This system is advantageous as it is possible to import files saved on any device.

With that the initial setups are complete, now it’s time to get into the game and explore the world. The game will follow the storyline of becoming a Mana Swordsman and starts with a character named Hawk eye be thrown into prison by accident and then enter the game, blasting Hawkeye out of the cell. After that the movement and combat tutorial begins, which is quite a long ordeal that leaves many questions unanswered.

Immerse yourself in the new story with characters from the original Mana series

With two fights taking place during the tutorial period, the game will show a part of the story. The story is fun, easy to understand, and engaging enough to inspire players to play. It is divided into chapters and sections. The basic storyline is about how echoes are memories and the tree bears mana as fruit.

During the game, the player will meet new players with new enemies to engage you. The story dialogues are also good to follow as they become interesting and sometimes funny. The game belongs to the genre of action RPGs and there are different types of attacks and indicator readings to take care of during a fight to make sure everything goes smoothly.

Pay attention to the health bar during fights. It is important to keep it. The battle UI is also simplistic and adequate. It really puts you at ease with the controls and there are options to select other members to accompany you through fights before starting one. Fights can be a little tough but not frustrating.

The game features co-op based gameplay where you can team up with your friends

There are multiple game modes including Co-Op which is a little tricky at the current stage but still technically works. The game has a room-based multiplayer system. But getting into the room was a bit of a hassle and the loading time was quite long. It is likely that the game may crash or you may be kicked out of matchmaking.

One good thing about the multiplayer system is that playing with other players with coordination takes the experience to the next level. AI-oriented enemies aren’t very hard to beat and could be fixed. If you want, however, you can go alone. Another problem is the resistance system, which is not the best if you want to do a long and continuous grind but filling the energy points does not take too long. Square Enix could do better to help with the resistance system and the auto repeat system of the different levels.

The equipment of the equipment is definitely a point worth mentioning here. With many options to upgrade your characters, different stats and upgrades to keep, pairing a suitable weapon is also a must. The fight seems to be at a medium pace. Players won’t feel like they’re flying through it, but they won’t feel boring. But repeating the same levels can be a bit boring.

Decent graphics come with clean audio that matches the theme

Now we will talk about graphics and audio. The audio is quite good and fits the game theme perfectly. It is really enjoyable to listen to and varies from scene to scene. Aside from the game theme, the audio is pleasant to hear. The graphics are also decent. On a low spec device, the game may stutter in some scenes. But overall, it will work fine.

Character development was also done with great effort. When the characters are zoomed in, the details are evident. Facial expressions are also in the mark. The graphics of the scene are not very detailed, but not too bad. The combination of both makes the game more exciting. Most importantly, you need to focus on the enemies and plan what your next move will be. Unfortunately, there is no audio for some characters in the game, and sometimes the character’s lip movement is out of sync with the audio.

No ads, but IAPs are a regular part of the package for every gacha game

Now let’s talk about the privacy aspect of the game. As we know, almost all apps aggressively track users, even when they are not in use. And speaking of Echos of Mana, the game slightly attempts to track users when they are out of the game. 8 attempts in 1 hour. At the moment, this level of tracking is normal, compared to other apps that have higher tracking records.

From a privacy standpoint, it worked well. There are no in-game ads that will be displayed throughout the game and in terms of the IAP, which the game has, players don’t really have to spend but like all gacha-based titles, paying for game assets with real money helps with progression . Now IAPs can be quite expensive.

Final verdict

Overall from the point of view of our review, Echoes of Mana sounds really interesting and exciting and is a pretty decent title. The developers have put a lot of effort into the game and it is paying off. But after a short gameplay, it looked like there could be further improvements to make the game better. There were problems with the AI, the game slowed down and took a while to load, the game crashed and there were a few other problems here and there including the problem where the files actual games are cached.

For a fan of the Mana series, it’s a title worth checking out. Anyone new to the name Square Enix, they have many more popular titles behind them and Mana is one of them. It won’t hurt to check out the developers by trying this game. You may end up enjoying the game despite all its flaws. It’s not as good as some of the other titles in the series, but overall it’s a decent game.

What are your views on the Echoes of Mana game and your review? Let us know in the Comments under!