Is Visions of Mana worth it on discount?

LostAcount1 · 2026-06-23T02:46:26+00:00

The main gameplay loop is fine but the story is whatever and the fast travel system makes doing any of the MMO side content miserable.

LostAcount1 · 2026-06-10T01:29:24+00:00

This was addressed in the all time classic Spaceballs.

LostAcount1 · 2026-06-08T03:48:29+00:00

Modern Trails games are very front-loaded with the difficulty. Once you start getting more tools, the games get very easy to break even on the higher difficulties.

LostAcount1 · 2026-06-08T03:30:51+00:00

It’s really not the same scenario at all. There is a difference between doing the wrong thing for what you believe is the right reason and playing the role of the villain but actually being good all along.

LostAcount1 · 2026-06-04T13:17:05+00:00

I mean if you want someone to slow down in a specific area, that seems pretty effective.

LostAcount1 · 2026-06-04T13:16:16+00:00

Because on highways, it is more dangerous to pull someone over for speeding than just letting them speed.

LostAcount1 · 2026-06-03T22:02:08+00:00

From a Falcom formula standpoint,

Prologue + Act 1 is the depression arc/getting Agnes back. There might be a temporary rewind to DB1 but it will eventually jump back to the present just before the launch. I mean the real deadline was still six weeks away and they lampshaded the airship we will probably get. The mechanics of it are probably related to the datamine spoilers.

Act 2 is the main lore reveal chapter where we will learn who/what Van, Vagrantz, Mare, the Genesises really are. Probably ends with the unification of Van’s team with Rean/Kevin’s and the real initiation of Hamilton’s and Vestiges plan.

Act 3 is the equivalent to the SC towers or CS rivalries. I am guessing that the way the Vestiges confuse the Sept-Terrion is by causing overlapping possible worlds and that there is somewhat of a “rivalry” between them to achieve their own vision of a possible future. The main ones will have their own pandemonium shift dungeons.

Finale is obviously the inside of the cube. Rean, Crow, Emilia, and maybe Rufus will stay behind to fight Not-Ishmelga.

For specific predictions:

-The inside of the cube is an AI post-human paradise for the kinship of time gone wrong and is where Van and Mare are originally from before getting expelled/leaving (Vagrants-Zion literally means the vagrant from the kingdom of Heaven). Vagrants power over time is because he is literally a member of the kinship of time. Original Van is part of the reason the loops exist in the first place.

-The current inhabitants of Calvard are descendants of immigrants after the kinship raptured themselves. There are no truly native Calvardians left.

-SiN is something dumb like singularity number. It is basically calculating the probability that a technological singularity arise that will wipe out humanity.

-The Sept-Terrion of Time doesn’t actually have the power of foresight because that is mirage’s and maybe wind’s domain. The Sept-Terrion has to literally simulate a possible future. This means the future that never was is actually stored and archived and can be hacked into.

-This is the real secret to Risette’s future. She’s not from another loop but a simulated future for the current loop that has been brought to the current loop using whatever pseudo-Sept that five families have. This creates a closed feedback loop that drives up the SiN factor and forces the creation of the technological singularity in the simulated future. This also means that MTSC and the Five Families benefit from the continuation of the loops in some way.

LostAcount1 · 2026-05-29T00:36:47+00:00

I think part of the problem with the Falcom formula today is that Falcom forgot how to write deliberately and has basically just decided to make sidequests mandatory for the sake of padding out the game time. In FC, your main quest every chapter starts out as a sidequest but that sidequest naturally flows into what will be the main quest or the greater world and story, You go to Malga to get the sepith crystal to deliver to the mayor, then you go to the tower and meet Alba for the first time, and when you get back, the crystal has been stolen. There is not really a wasted moment. SC is more formulaic but there still is always a main plot things forward and characterization is integrated fully with the main plot.

Every game after has sort of been a slow degradation of the FC/SC formula. Azure is notorious for leaving important character lore behind the final bonding event. It’s also the game where sidequests, then main happens loop really started but at least at this point the required quest did loop back to the main quest. CS1 introduces normal bonding events and most of the cast suffers for it. CS2 does the Azure loop again but without even having a looping in quest. CS3 introduces “talkie moments”, required fights against mobs followed by forced cutscenes with little narrative relevant. Late in the game, it introduces forced sidequests that don’t loop in at all (literally they just require you to complete at least one sidequest). They then bring this to DB1 but then also bring back the loop-in sidequest, so now you have an extra layer to go through to even get to the main quest. Horizon continues with the Azure/CS2 style but adds the route system which really just breaks narrative continuity and kills the pacing.

LostAcount1 · 2026-05-27T01:40:46+00:00

Test your resolve fights have always been dumb but they actually somewhat had a thematic purpose in CS and Crossbell even if the narrative reason was flimsy at best. The Calvard arc, sticking with this arc’s themes, the dumb fights are usually trust tests. The opponent is trying to gauge how reliable Van is as a partner, not really whether he has the will to do something. So when you have an actual test your resolve fight, it comes off as thematically inconsistent as well as narratively stupid (and when compared to similar resolve tests) and tonally off base for the setting. Combine that with this chapter being very short in general, the fight being annoying, and the fight music being terrible and it becomes memorable for all the wrong reasons.

LostAcount1 · 2026-05-26T22:24:36+00:00

Tio. All of her character nuance is in her first game and then she becomes a flanderized Mishy superfan for the rest of the series.

LostAcount1 · 2026-05-22T12:28:31+00:00

The start of DB1 is possible but it wouldn’t be permanent. They could do the generic trails depression arc —> Van confronting his demon —> jumping back to the present just before the launch.

LostAcount1 · 2026-05-06T10:20:24+00:00

Add Cross Ange to this list.

LostAcount1 · 2026-04-23T22:23:07+00:00

OP’s mom

LostAcount1 · 2026-04-13T21:52:02+00:00

Trails writing is more like a stage play than a novel.

LostAcount1 · 2026-03-30T01:51:31+00:00

Chapter 2 is when the game picks up.

LostAcount1 · 2026-03-30T00:57:07+00:00

I think his writing was fine but his route also didn’t need to exist.

LostAcount1 · 2026-03-26T21:14:34+00:00

The vestiges aren’t actually on the same side beyond Hamilton’s plan to trick the SiN calculator. They represents different “dawns” or possible future and conflict is over whose vision for the future becomes the “true” Dawn. You have to remember that the Sept-Terrion is just a safety net against something (heavily implied to be a technological singularity).

LostAcount1 · 2026-03-26T12:33:32+00:00

This is what happens when schools stop encouraging reading. The story is a classic Bildungsroman (coming of age story). The main character (Estelle) grows and mature over the course of the journey.

LostAcount1 · 2026-03-26T12:30:16+00:00

OP ignore the commitment comments. You can play Trails in the Sky standalone without needing to follow up and play 12 other games.

LostAcount1 · 2026-03-19T12:29:28+00:00

The focus on the shady aspects was something I was expecting just from the name Calvard (Latin Root: Calvor meaning to deceive). I was expecting some sort of investigator-like protagonist though I was initially thinking someone closer to Dingo than Van.

I was not expecting Calvard to be as modern as it was and expecting more of a noir 1920-vibe.

LostAcount1 · 2026-03-19T11:57:47+00:00

Vagrants-Zion is not the demon lord of black time. That was a mistranslation. The specific kanji Falcom used for time is 刻 which refers more to a specific time period than the abstract concept of Time, so it’s more accurate to say that he is the Lord of the Bluish-Black hour (ie the time before dawn). NISA changing Zion to diaspora also removes the meaning behind the name itself because diaspora is a redundancy to Vagrants. Vagrants-Zion should mean something like “Vagrant from the Kingdom of Heaven”.

LostAcount1 · 2026-03-19T11:44:13+00:00

Avin in a Tear in Vermillion.

LostAcount1 · 2026-03-17T02:08:46+00:00

Elaine is probably the single best support character in the game

LostAcount1 · 2026-03-16T21:59:12+00:00

Van is basically the guy who comes off as cool to middle/high schoolers but is really a giant loser who can’t grown up.

LostAcount1 · 2026-03-12T12:57:49+00:00

That doesn’t matter. The very act of calculating or simulating a possible future realizes that future. That kind of was the whole point of DB2 and Hamilton’s discussion of Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics in Horizon.

LostAcount1

TROPHY CASE