Uneeded remake that fortunately it's actually a pretty neat game.
It can't compete with the original and it knows it but takes a lot of things expands, remixes and improves on them that even with the weaker gameplay loop still is pretty rad and fundamentally more RE4. I can't commend enough the work they did on playing with your expectations of the original, sometimes it feels even meta imo. My biggest issue is with the performances of the characters, they made plenty of memorable characters into very forgetable ones.

A mix of Quake, Doom 3 and Duke 3D with a very unique, personal and genuine premise. It's pretty obvs where the quake influence goes, the author clearly loves Quake's brown textures but knows how to make the game not feel samey visually, it's more brown than Quake ever was but you'll never get tired of it. There's some Doom 3 in the more limited mobility and resources being scarcer than average for the genre. Duke 3D plays a big influence in the level design and soul of the game, levels feel like real places that are also made for a videogame like all good Duke 3D levels do, also the frequent and many elements of interactivity and humor which give a one man feel to game in the best possible way. The gameplay loop isn't as good as other games of it's ilk but it makes with level design and charm, most I can complain is that some projecticles might as well be hitscans but it's not a big issue.

After wasting time trying to get into the previous Mana titles I jumped unto this and I had a blast. 6 different really cool characters and your protagonists and companion choices influence the story. Each character has a beginner class which they can change into 2 other classes later in the game, twice. The game isn't really an action RPG since the only action element is moving in and out of enemy melee range, spells and special attacks can't be dodged but despite that the game is still immensely enjoyable. The biggest thing if favor of this game is how fast progression is for the genre, you're always moving forward and seeing, doing new things. Needless to say it looks and sounds great. Major criticism is that the story isn't overall that engaging, main party is a highlight for sure and depending on how much you like those characters you might not be bothered by it, still the story has a lot of strength and presence for 2/3 of the game but the last third up to the final section of the game it feels like it's barely there. Minor complaints, spells animations can't be skipped and you'll get tired of seeing them but you sped them up in an emulator and the grind for the 3rd class change is boring but you can also sorta cheat it in a emulator I suppose. Play this game it's awsome

It's hard to live up the expectations of a great game like Trials Of mana and yet they went and made something even better. Incredibly faithful remake, maps, dialogs, skill progression and many more things are just like they were in the orginal but in a new form.

This time around the game is actually a real Action RPG, the original felt like one but most the action was just getting in and out of range of enemy attacks and didn't even matter against special and magical attacks, here they are AoEs you can dodge out of, as for your characters they can do simple universal combos now and unlock more as you Classchange making the game feel a little bit like a 3D Beat'Em Up and your spells also have AOEs. Progression is so much better, instead gaining one spell at a time as you level up and improving a stat of your choice you are give skill points to allocate how you see fit with added link abilities to unlock and equip, exploring is also worth a damn now since straying from the given path will have you find treasure instead of just encounters. Gone are also all the annoyances of the original, no longer having to wait for spells and skills to play out before you can do something else and even the grind for the 3 Classchange is eased up if you don't want to classchange early. Story is largely the same and it was carried by the playable characters and this time they have a lot of interactions with voices, Angela and Rietz are cuter than ever. Music is also very faithful to the original to the point I can't tell if it's just the same tracks. Companion's AI leaves to be desired but it's still far better than you'd expect.

The game biggest flaw is how easy it is, the original wasn't really hard but it gets aggravating here.
Some of it's due to the fact that you can dodge most special attacks but generally the game has been balanced to be really damn indulgent even on hard, when the game gets hard only in small spikes that aren't that challenging either, if you aren't into the characters and progression the game will fell mindnumbing. Unlike the original the game isn't a high budget production pushing boundaries and it shows, everything outside models doesn't look good and the game is almost janky during certain bosses, hit detection on those is weird and it makes companions not work properly.

Translation is probably fine but they let the translator take too many liberties imo, didn't need to give names to characters who literally don't have them lol.

I don't think the game can satisfy everyone and the lack of difficulty is definetively going to turn people off but this remake is even better than already awesome game, I can't not recommend it.

I haven't properly finished this game because I got awfully tired of it, I don't like to talk about stuff I haven't fully finished but I have things to say about this game, take all of this as you will. For the record I gave up the last level of the second chapter.

Let's begin with the fact that this isn't a retro-shooter at all besides visuals. It's more inspired by Doom Eternal but doesn't really commit to it and ends up something that tries to be like a retro-shooter but really isn't, feels like they wanted a something looking retro that played like Doom Eternal but just didn't pan out.

The melee options like the chainsword and the sprint that kills enemies are pretty clear signals of the Doom Eternal's influence. More importantly though it's the arena and encounter design, areas are big and paired with high mobility, the most important encounters are in arenas that lock you in and allow you to leave only once everything is dead. Also keys are needed for progression but rather than actually being actively searching for them like a retro-shooter them you'll encouter them as go, they're just a motivator but that's not inherently bad.

The reason why all of this ends up being pretty dull is simply a matter of severe lack of difficulty, even on the second hardest difficulty and a really weak gameplay loop. The gameplay loop is pretty simple retro-shooter affair but it feels conceived with something like Doom Eternal's systems but then they realized that's not like a retro-shooter at all. Health goes to from 200 to 10 like Eternal but you don't have to get health back yourself by interacting with multiple systems, generous health refils are just in a container somewhere in the arena, ammo for weapons other than the basic bolter also run dry quickly but much alike they're just plentiful around the level or arena. So you don't have to really manage resources at all like retro-shooters who would also have explorations and rewards or systems to interact with like in Doom Eternal. The opposition you meet is also rather inconsequential and not stimulating. Enemies can be divided in three categories, stands there and shoots slow and easy to dodge projecticles with different amounts of health but generally not an issue, runs at you fast at you and needs to be dealt with out of annoyace and finally a boss or bosslike encounters whom are rather spongy and have several visually messy attacks. Enemies might have different weapon resistances, I'm not inherently against this but it ends up being annoying particularly with bosses. I didn't find myself enganging with these enemies in anything more than the right tool at the right time which paired with the really shallow resource management made everything really dull quickly, bosses might get really annoying when you run out of resources and they start teleporting around big arenas.

The spritework is really good, weapon sprites are awesome and using miniatures for the enemies is a great touch. Enviroments are beatean easily by games who came out 30 years earlier.

The game biggest strong point is how it feels, your space marine stomps around like crazy and the guns might be some of the best to use in a shooter period even when the melee options are incosequential. If this is enough for you'll enjoy the game otherwise I would think twice before getting this.

Pretty big oddity in genre, being an FPS from this era with a huge focus on exploration, platforming and a live system is enough already to make the standout and then it's about native american fighting aliens, dinousars and cyborgs. Kinda fails at what it sets out to do pretty badly but it's still has strong points that might make the game a decent time for those willing to put up with it's shortcomings.

I've more negative to say but let's start with the positives. Moving and jumping feels really good, the way you sway and the gun bobs while moving so fast feels appropriate but maybe offputting for some people. This is based off a comic book and if you didn't know this alreay it will make sense once you see the weapons in this game. Guns in the this game are awesome, even some of them becoming obsolete pretty fast and the game having to account you might not have the best tool for the scenario they are still useful and more than that designed to be the coolest and loudest thing. You got an autoshotgun, a minigun, alien gun that sends enemy into orbit and quad rocket launcher among them. Soundtrack is a banger, only listened to the N64 version (There's differnet OSTs for the N64 and PC version, both are available and tooglable in this remaster) so I can't say how the pc version fairs but go listen to that stuff now.

Unto the negatives. Level design is really bad. Gigantic levels whose goal is to get keys to unlock other levels in the main hub and pieces of a special weapon to defeat the final boss. The goal is to get a better sense of exploration which is also why the levels have been made so big, issue is that the levels are gigantic and linear anyway with the keys being placed along the path or in a short sidepath you can miss and the pieces of the special weapon frequently beign hidden in secrets, you can reload a save and basic exploration got me most of even collectables hidden in secrets but in the worse case scenario you need to replay a whole level and idea alone rightfully will turn people off. No real point to platforming or the live system, which isn't as bad as it sounds but accidentally falling into a death pit will make you lose some time and deaths are not particularly punishing either, your health resets and most importantly you loose the ammo upgrade if you got it, I think I've only died once because of enemies and the rest were misjudged jumps but I never got a gameover. Kinda weird that game starts spicing up it's enemy roster significantly only in the last 2 levels, not like opposition is much threatening despite it mostly being hitscanners since their attack rate is pretty low and so is their effective range even their damage on normal isn't high ignoring how generous overheals and armor pickups are, they are fun to fight still even solely for some of death animations.

As for the visuals the game is a mixed bag. Models look ok with today's standars but they're really well animated and accompaniend by great sound design and generally fun enemy designs. Levels are some of the ugliest looking levels in a shooter I've seen, they are so big it would've probably been prohibitive to decorate them throughly but man they're bare and ugly, I think on average each level has like 2-5 textures repeated for the enviroments, Duke 3D came out the year prior.

I suggest trying out this game looking for just a decent time out of a it and figure if you can put up with levels design, turn back on the fog since the game relies on it.