In a recent interview at PAX East 2024, we had the opportunity to sit down with Masaru Oyamada, the producer behind the much-anticipated Visions of Mana, the latest entry in the revered Mana series. Oyamada-san shared insights into the development process, the creative pressures and excitement faced by the team, and what fans can expect from this new adventure.
With Visions of Mana marking the first mainline Mana game in 15 years, Oyamada-san discussed the balancing act of innovating within the series while paying homage to its roots, the introduction of new gameplay elements, and the overarching goal of delivering an expansive world that feels both fresh and familiar to series veterans and newcomers alike. The conversation delved into the nuanced approach to game design, character development, and the anticipation surrounding the game’s release, providing a fascinating glimpse into the future of the Mana series.
Azario Lopez: What was the room like when your team received the green light to develop a new Mana game?
Masaru Oyamada: So that actually happened after Trials of Mana was released, and it only came after the game’s reception was so positive. It did feel as though it was a very easy approval from the company to start working on a new game, but discussions about possibly releasing a new installment started shortly after Trials of Mana was released. As the producer, I was elated when I found out. However, I think my teammates felt pressure overall. Once we started making the visuals for the game and saw the concept art, we quickly became confident about releasing it to the world. At this stage, I think everyone is just very excited for fans to finally experience the launch of this new entry.
Azario Lopez: It has been a while since a new Mana adventure was created. How do you define a modern Mana game?
Masaru Oyamada: For now, we’ve only shown the very beginning of the story, which does make your question difficult to comment on without revealing things we hope to showcase closer to release. Still, when we think about the Mana series, a core concept has always been the theme of encountering and meeting new people, but also bidding farewell and parting ways with others. Even in this game, we have always felt that even though some of the characters carry a very heavy burden brought on by fate, we’re still depicting them in a way that allows you to understand their motivations and struggles, which was really important to us.
Orpheus Joshua: What aspects from each game throughout the entire Mana series would you say had the most impact on or inspired this new entry?
Masaru Oyamada: So, I have always been a fan of the series and have played all the games. As we were developing this new installment, we wanted to think about the best parts of each of them. And to get into the specifics, when it comes to Secret of Mana, we felt that it was partially being able to switch the weapons, the Class change feature in Trials of Mana brought a sense of excitement with building your own character, and the world of Legend of Mana where you could interact and encounter all these curious creatures was part of its core appeal.
We felt that all these different elements from each of the past games have made it through. And as a regular fan myself, I know that it’s always a tricky thing to achieve. However, since the first game, Final Fantasy Adventure, the series itself has always had a very expansive adventure where you explore a world, and even though that had its own challenges, I wanted to be able to realize that expansive field and that expansive world and create a journey where get to explore different lands.
Azario Lopez: The demo that I played mentioned Niccolo’s Emporium, which is a call back to previous entries in the series. Can fans expect other Easter Eggs and series references like this?
Masaru Oyamada: Aside from Niccolo’s Emporium, returning items like the Surup are scattered across the expansive field for players to collect. However, we are still keeping a few surprises for players to discover. We have so many different little details here scattered about that if you know about the series, then you’ll probably be able to notice them, and hopefully, they put a smile on your face. And so we do hope that people will look forward to that.
Azario Lopez: I just hope that you don’t have an achievement to collect all of the Surups.
Masaru Oyamada: I agree that collecting all of them would be an incredible challenge.
Azario Lopez: Actually, now that I think about it, challenge accepted.
Masaru Oyamada: laughs
Orpheus Joshua: Of this new cast of characters, would you feel like you resonate with the most and why?
Masaru Oyamada: When it comes to precisely who I relate to the most, I would say Morley, the cat character. Unfortunately, I can’t go super deep into some story scenes, but he does come to mind for me. In terms of Careena, the dragon character, I relate to her from a more parental perspective.
Orpheus Joshua: I did notice that, at least in the main cast, there are different types of races, which is pretty different compared to some of the other games. Was that done to make the world feel more alive, or were there different thought processes that went into this?
Masaru Oyamada: I’m actually very happy that you realized and noticed this because when we were thinking about how to push the series even further with this newest installment, we wanted to do something different and felt that introducing new species would be an interesting way to achieve that. And so that was something that we did think about for sure, that’s for certain. To avoid repetition from other games in the series, early on in development, we threw around many different ideas to conceive a lot of these characters.
Orpheus Joshua: Would you describe this game as an open world, or is it more akin to open areas with some linearity?
Masaru Oyamada: That’s something we had to think about during development, but we did feel that the semi-open field was what we ultimately agreed to describe this experience as being. It is closer to the open-area type you mentioned.
Orpheus Joshua: I doubt you can give a concrete answer because of all the factors surrounding it, but what would you say is the estimated playtime?
Masaru Oyamada: We are in the middle of optimizing the final game, so changes can happen depending on that, and I can’t give a clear answer at the moment. However, it definitely has the highest volume of content you can enjoy within the series. Of course, the playtime will change depending on the player’s pacing, too. We feel this entry will provide very high satisfaction as an RPG experience.
Orpheus Joshua: Some previous Mana games have cannons that shoot you to other locations. I was wondering if Visions of Mana also featured this or if there’s a mode of transport.
Masaru Oyamada: I was keen on trying to implement the cannon, but we also felt it may be too niche, so we decided to forfeit it. In terms of other modes of traversal, you can ride the Pikul around and the fast-travel system that will make exploring these lands accessible and convenient.
Azario Lopez: When it comes to the game’s difficulty, how do you balance the experience for players who want less of a challenge while also providing options for those who want to really test their skills?
Masaru Oyamada: In the demo that you experienced today, knowing that this is the first time that people will be playing the game, we set the difficulty level to be more on the accessible side. The Mana series has always been more of an action RPG series. So, one thing we always thought was important was being able to make sure that the RPG element was still there so that as long as you take the time and effort to strengthen your character, any skill type could clear and beat the game. However, we are aware that some players expect to be able to dive deeper into the action element. So, we wanted to make sure that both of those are reflected in the way the game is built.
Azario Lopez: While playing, I noticed that weapons have weight to them in battle, which tells me that your team is taking time with this battle system. I’d like to know how your approach to weapon design came to be.
Masaru Oyamada: This is definitely a tricky, nuanced question to answer. However, originally, when we think about the fact that this series was an action RPG game and think about ways that we can sort of evolve that further, even taking into account the fact that it’s been 15 years since the latest game was released prior to this one. One thing that we really did have to think a lot about and struggled to even make the decision on our end was how much we wanted to push that action element further. Originally, in the Mana series, especially the Secrets of Mana, there was always an aspect where you could change your weapons while you were playing the game.
We wanted to make sure that that sort of appeal was also found in this game. It just so happens that the director of Visions of Mana [Koichi Ishii] is someone who is extremely familiar with creating battle systems. By utilizing his skills and talent, we felt we were able to balance all these various elements within the battle system to incorporate a layer of dimensionality to everything from not just the movement but also the field exploration, which was a very big part of this game’s design. Bringing that dimensionality and verticality to the battle system improved field exploration and movement in general. We’re really proud of the way we’ve implemented that dimensionality.
Azario Lopez: You mentioned that it’s been 15 years since a new Mana title was created. When you first started on the Visions of Mana project, was it tough to contain the team’s ambitions, given that there had to have been a lot of ideas thrown around?
Masaru Oyamada: When we first started working on this new installment, we had the big question of how to approach creating this new game for the longest time. Also, when I took over the role as a series producer in 2014, it had already been seven years since the most recent entry had launched.
When I first took on this role, we were mostly focused on launching and releasing remakes of older games for the modern generation. But at that stage, one big challenge was that many of the original staff members who had already worked on the original games had already left the company. That made things fairly difficult. But while experimenting with different systems throughout the process of making these remakes, we ultimately launched Trials of Mana in 2020. That project was ambitious in its own right, but it was also a game that was thankfully received incredibly well by fans.
At that point, we felt we had a much stronger vision of what we wanted to do with this latest installment, too. And it was really at that stage that I, as a regular fan of the series, really wanted to pack this game in with everything that I thought was the best parts of all the previous games to the point where it’s like, can anything more could even be implemented? That was the main intention there; we wanted to make it so that people would pick up the game and they just know they are playing a good game. I hope we can achieve that.
Azario Lopez: Since you’ve become the producer, have your feelings about the Mana series changed?
Masaru Oyamada: Well, I don’t think anything really has fundamentally changed on my end.
Azario Lopez: Maybe a few grey hairs?
Masaru Oyamada: Well, definitely, my appearance has changed *laughs*
Masaru Oyamada: To answer, the original creator of the series, Koichi Ishii, has always had a philosophy that he wanted to introduce new game systems and gameplay mechanics with each release. When it comes to my approach, rather than taking things and drastically changing everything, I actually wanted to focus more on all the elements that I felt were the strongest and best parts of the series and bring them into this game. I wanted to be able to take that and deliver an adventure that I would be proud to present to fans as this latest installment. This is what I’ve felt very strongly about over the past ten years.
Azario Lopez: Is there anything you’d like to share with fans awaiting the release of Visions of Mana?
Masaru Oyamada: It has been 15 years since the last mainline entry of the Mana series. With Visions of Mana, we wanted to create the largest explorable field in the series to add a degree of freedom for all who play. We’ve also created so many different elements that fans have loved in the past, but they’re used in so many different ways that we can’t wait for you to discover. I hope that those of you who are anticipating the release of VVisions of Mana will look forward to its completion very soon. And for those who are newcomers to the series who’ve never actually played a game before, I do think that this is a perfect entry point for anybody to be able to pick up the game.
Visions of Mana is coming to PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC in 2024.
