I came across the Trials of Mana demo while browsing through the games on my bro’s Switch, and I realized, I’ve never played any of the Mana games before. In fact, apart from Legend of Mana, I don’t know any of the others. I know there was one on the DS, maybe one on the SNES? I know they’re action RPGs and there are cute rabbit-type monsters in them. I’m very into action RPGs these days (in theory. In practice I just play Happy Color and Wordscapes all the time) so I thought, why not.
I started the Trials of Mana demo and it looked very bright and colorful. From Square-Enix, so the basics should be sound. Bunch of protagonists to pick from with different stories… uh-oh, where have I seen that before… Many places, in fact, but there’s always room for one more. I picked the beast boy because he looked interesting, and that was my fatal mistake.
Oh, so his name was Kevin. I’d forgotten.
Barely a minute after I started playing, I was introduced to the boy’s cute wolf puppy. I… actually don’t like animals very much in real life. But the puppy was cute, and they quickly squeezed in a backstory about how the puppy was orphaned, and the boy and the puppy bonded over their mutual motherlessness. I thought “Aww” for just a few seconds.
Then it happened.
Puppy gets possessed by bad guy. Puppy attacks boy.
Boy “awakens” to his beastman blood. Boy beats puppy to death.
No… boy doesn’t beat puppy to death…
Square-Enix forces Player to beat puppy to death!
And it’s a tutorial to boot, so they hold your hand every step of the way. Press A + X to rip off his little ears. Tap B to stomp on his curly tail. Hold Y to silence his adorable yapping forever. Not in so many words, but they might as well have. I’m actually starting to see the humor in it now. I mean, who even does that? Who proposed this in a staff meeting, who signed off on it, who programmed it, who tested it… I shook my head for a long, long time.
And like I said, I’m not an animal lover. Not a fan of live, uncooked animals, anyway. Plus a puppy wouldn’t be the strangest thing I’ve killed or the worst thing I’ve ever done in a video game. I just question the good sense of 1) starting a game on this kind of tone and 2) using this kind of event for a game’s battle tutorial. It seems like a foretaste of things to come, i.e. Square-Enix is saying, “Trials of Mana is this kind of game, you sure you want to continue?” I wasn’t sure, so I played another couple of minutes to see what would happen (nothing, also boy’s dad is an idiot) and then moved on with my life.
BTW, this means I have zero idea what Trials of Mana is all about apart from PETA-baiting. For all I know, it could have a super-epic story with a grand soundtrack and the combat might be all kinds of wonderful. Unlikely, but not impossible. So in theory, I’m not ruling out trying a different protagonist’s storyline with the hopes that I might a discover a hidden but slightly distasteful gem. For now, though, I am well and truly turned off. Back to Happy Color!
Some stories not just video games, have done worse. The bad guy possesses the protagonist’s most important person and leaves him/her with no choice but to kill the possessed. I personally wouldn’t freak out over a puppy.
Yup, it’s not the worst thing I’ve done in a game. Sometimes deliberately. It’s the “opening with this kind of twist in the form of a tutorial” part that stunned me. I like the look of the game so it’s not completely ruled out yet.