While I agree that Secret of Mana's core gameplay has held up rather well and doesn't really need to be changed, I was kind of hoping for more work on the level design and better quality VA and cutscenes. I remember the destruction of the Mana Tree being so much cooler in the original that I felt a bit let down by the remake. Honestly, if you're going to remake something, then simply just updating the graphics but keeping the core game the same is really boring. At that point they should have just ported the original to new consoles. Its largely why the VIII remaster doesn't intrigue me that much.

In other news, reading a few of the interviews with the developers has me pretty hopeful that both the Collection and Trials of Mana remake do well, because it sounds like the team working on them really want to bring the franchise back. I would love that as Mana was always one of the core franchises of Square for me, and after the World of Mana fiasco, it would be awesome to see this franchise return to glory. It honestly sounds like the devs are waiting to see how both do in order to get the go ahead to start work on a new title in the series.