It's so charming and evokes feelings of nostalgia while moving Legend of Mana forward. The overworld map, too, keeps its original PS1 sprite look but is now in 16:9. It was the right artistic choice because the sprites – particularly the screen-filling bosses – are some of the most beautiful around and it would’ve been all but impossible to improve upon them. The juxtaposition of such gorgeous sprite work with the smooth, clean lines of the anime-style backgrounds works incredibly well. The character and enemy sprites retain their original, chunky and pixelated looks and honestly I wouldn’t have it any other way. The balance it strikes between hand-drawn and sprite work is just perfection. Each location looks absolutely stunning, a real testament to the skill and dedication of M2 when it comes to honoring our video game past.
It's quite a feat, when you think about it. Every screen has been redrawn to work with modern, 16:9 displays. The Legend of Mana remake has lost nothing in its translation to modern hardware. The backgrounds are a little chunky due to the limited rendering size of the OG PlayStation, but the colors really pop. Looking at the original version, it's surprising how well it holds up. Hand-drawn backgrounds, coupled with beautiful character and enemy sprite work, gave it a magnificence unlike anything else seen up to that point. The original PlayStation version is famous for being one of the best-looking 2D games on that system. M2 is famous for going well above and beyond expectations when it comes to emulation and restoration, and its work on The Legend of Mana is no exception.
#LEGEND OF MANA PS1 SOFTWARE#
M2 is the legendary development house behind some of the most lovingly crafted restoration and preservation works in video gaming, which includes the software in both the SEGA Genesis Mini and the TurboGrafx-16 Mini. I knew this was going to be something special right off the bat because the logo for M2 flashed across the screen during start up. It’s still very obviously an old-school game in its directionless design, but the long and short of it is the Legend of Mana remake is a fantastic example of a 2D remake done right – even if that means a lot of first-timers are going to get lost. I'm kind of glad I waited, to be honest, because as beautiful as Legend of Mana was even on PS1, on modern hardware it's astonishing in its visual charm. Now that I'm older and wiser, I recognize the error of my ways and consider myself fortunate to be able to give Legend of Mana a second chance as in its newly remade form. I had my reasons for never having played it, and in hindsight they're very stupid: for instance, back then I'd written off 2D games entirely. In spite of the fact I'm a big fan of the Mana series, I missed out on the original Legend of Mana when it first hit PlayStation way back in 1999.
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