During today’s Xbox Developer Direct broadcast, Mana series producer Masaru Oyamada brings us behind the scenes of development on the newest title in the franchise: Visions of Mana. Revealed last year, the game is the first new mainline Mana entry in over 15 years, and will launch this Summer for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and Steam.
Assisting with monster design is Mana series creator Koichi Ishii, who supervised the implementation of enemies that were previously depicted as 2D sprites into 3D models. While many of these designs are cute, Ishii noted that there are “frightening elements” included, with particular attention to their expressions during combat.
Ishii also designed a new travel companion, a mount that is a cross between a Yorkshire terrier and a pangolin, and inspired by Egyptian anubis. They’re called “pikul” and can be used to traverse the map quickly. In the footage shown, the protagonist named Val rides a pikul, jumping over barriers and crashing into enemies.
The soundtrack is being created to reflect the stylings of the series’ past composers, and involves Hiroki Kikuta, Tsuyoshi Sekito, and Ryo Yamazaki. It will have “a characteristic Mana flair” and features over 100 tracks in total. In this title, the music will adapt seamlessly when you enter and exit battles.
Visions continues the action RPG series combat, and allows you to execute attacks and magic mid-air. Characters in the footage can be seeing attacking, casting spells, and evading in the air in one leap. Elementals, present in every Mana game, will take the form of specialized items to assist the player. Each of these weapons has a different element and effect. These Elementals also live in harmony with nature and the environments you’ll travel through.
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