Gather your party and venture forth in Trials Of Mana's free demo
Pick your plucky party
Ring-a-ding! That's me shaking the freebies bell like a farmer calling the family for dinner. We're having Trials Of Mana this evening, a free demo for Square Enix's upcoming remake of 1995 RPG Seiken Densetsu 3. The demo kicks off today and you don't need to fear spending too much time with it because you can carry your party and progress over to the full release when it launches at the end of April.
If you're not familiar with Trials Of Mana, it's got a very familiar JRPG plot. The world has gone to heck because some long-ago goddess locked a bunch of baddies away with some mana stones and then proceeded to turn herself into a tree. Now there are more baddies that have gotten too big for their britches trying to jailbreak the sealed away evil and also mana is disappearing from the world. You're young and brash and can certainly solve this with the power of friendship and personal growth.
When you jump in you'll select a party of three from the six classic cast and a main character to play as. You'll try out each character by playing through a bit of their origin before you assemble the dream team.
Along with its new name, Trials Of Mana is sporting some other upgrades over its 90s ancestor. It's in 3D, as you can see, includes voice acting, and has a remastered soundtrack as well.
If you don't know which party members you'd like to bring along, Square Enix have designed a personality quiz to determine which character you aught to be. It's a predictably goofy bit of engagement marketing so yeah, I did it. I have been assigned Angela, the daughter of a queen from a snowy kingdom who wears gaudy clothing to get attention. Ah yes, perfectly primed for some character development.
You can find the demo for Trials Of Mana on Steam, which is where it will fully release on April 24th for £40/€50/$50.
If you're looking for something a bit different, the Resident Evil 3 demo begins tomorrow and the Steam Game Festival is kicking off with a bunch of demos today as well.