Sadly I beat the game....
Honestly, this is the WORST Mana game by FAR. The plot was concerning, like they tried to take a page from the Tales series but done poorly, They want you to care for one of the main characters family/village but failed HARD. The whole village was insufferable and I didn't care if they all lived or died with how they acted. A lot of NPC's are copy/pasted throughout the game, which would be fine if they were background characters with no name, but some of those models are named here and there. Two of the are even voiced, but their models are still just used over and over again.
The "storytelling" was interesting in a bad way. An enemy would do something like summon a monster, the Main would defeat said monster, the summoner would run away by going THROUGH the main characters group and they'd be like"oh no, they got away. How are we going to stop them?" like WHAT!!? This also happened MULTIPLE TIMES.
Traversing towns is a slog. For whatever reason as soon as you enter a town/village or a city you can no longer double jump or dash/ air dash. Which means you can't just get around as easy as you'd like, which is only annoying because there's literally NO explanation as to why, you just CAN'T, even though you could in the prologue.
Tho overworld voice acting and little quips get annoying real quick. GRIZZLY is the most mind numbing thing to hear in the world while you're just trying to explore the overworld and listen the the music (which honestly might be the ONLY good thing in this game). Grizzly Syrup are giant egg looking things in the world that you collect to trade for items. Only problem? there are WAY TOO MANY. By the time I beat the game I traded and got everything I could get for them and still had hundreds left over, and no they're NOT infinite. They could've been items in the chests as those items are just as useless.
Really the only PRO is the music, when it's not ruined be nonsense chatter...

A fantastic return to the series being good. Its full of JRPG tropes, but this is a strength. it knows what it is, and is navigating that idenity well. The ARPG elements are simple and engaging, and i found myself seeking out fights to try things out, or just to experience gameplay.

Story/characters decent. Voice acting of main character more than a little annoying. Julei voice actor very good.

Combat, world, and art direction excellent.

A shame the studio got closed.

Would buy again.

This is the best rpg game i have ever played so far good job square enix <3

It looks wonderful and feels very old school

It's a great game to pick up if you enjoyed Trials of Mana. It did feel too linear on the story but other than that it's a decent mana game. It definitely needs work on the performance issue (stuttering).

As a fan of Secret of Mana, this game is a dream come true! The gameplay system is very fluid and the world is a joy to adventure in.

Honestly, for such a legendary series this game was pretty.... meh. The story is OK. The gameplay is pretty simple. I did not care for the vessel plot system. The voice acting is god awful. Having to hear Val say Grizzly like a Low-T Tony the Tiger grates on my nerves. It is not worth the full price in my opinion. I would maybe recommend on at least 50% off. There is no better way to say it. This game is... Meh