It Was Briefly Possible To Get Trials Of Mana For Free On PC
Trials of Mana is receiving raves from critics as the first Mana remake from Square to get it right. It is also $50 on all systems, and if you think that’s a bit steep, you briefly had the chance to play the game for free. And no, we’re not talking about the demo, though we kind of are.
In some cases Square has been known to send patched versions of finalized games out as demos. The Final Fantasy 7 Remake demo was not the full game code, because that would’ve been too massive to send over the wifi pipes as a demo file. The Trials of Mana demo, however, DOES contain the full game but with limits programmed in place to prevent the player from going past a certain point. And that’s why it is possible to use your save from the demo in the retail product.
Players of the PC version found a way around this, though. A few days ago, it was discovered that by copying and pasting a few files into the game’s folders, it was possible to hack out the demo limit and play the full game. If you’re rushing to Steam to download that demo, think again — Square already knows about the error, and has removed the demo from the platform.
A similar snafu happened with Sega’s Yakuza 6, but in that case, the game didn’t even need to be hacked — the demo lockout did not work for some downloaders. If the Trials of Mana demo returns to PC at some point, expect a patched version to prevent tampering.