Strong roots

Series producer Masaru Oyamada talks with Oscar Taylor-Kent on nurturing the long-lived RPG series to sprout anew with Visions Of Mana

Almost 18 years will have passed between the launch of Visions Of Mana and the last main entry in the series, PS2’s Dawn Of Mana – a game that didn’t even receive a European release. It may have been a long time, but that’s not to say the garden that surrounds this Mana tree has become wild and overgrown. Rather, the team behind Mana has been taking the time to make sure the soil is ready for something new to sprout.

After getting the chance to play the game (see last issue for our first impressions!), we sat down with series producer Masaru Oyamada. His history with Mana stretches back beyond working with Square Enix. “I’ve been there right from the beginning, back from 1991,” he says about when he first started playing. Working on the titles, though, began back in 2006 when “I worked with Mr Koichi Ishii, the creator of the Mana series, on mobile versions.” These Japanese-exclusive titles included Mana Mobile and Friends Of Mana for feature phones, devices popular with Japanese commuters.

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