The Trials of Mana demo has been temporarily taken offline following a reported exploit that allowed dishonest individuals to access the entire game.
Trials of Mana is the 3D remake of Seiken Densetsu 3, the third game in the Secret of Mana series which never made its way to the West. It was nonetheless popular thanks to fan-translated ROMs, and the release of this new remake means that many Western gamers were finally able to play it for the first time.
Unfortunately, a recent announcement mysteriously stated that the Trials of Mana demo would be taken offline "temporarily" with no reason provided. The comments, however, had some details on the problem.
According to several comments, it was possible to use the demo in order to access the full game. We won't touch on the specifics of the process here; it's a moot point anyway as the demo has been taken down, and an update has been released rendering the demo unplayable for those who had it. If you did download it, and want to play it some more (without using any weird bypasses...), you should start Steam in offline mode and play it without updating.
While some game demos are separate entities entirely, a number of them are simply the full game with a software lock in place to prevent the player from progressing past a certain point in the game or playing beyond a pre-allotted time. In this case, the pirates were able to circumvent the Denuvo DRM on the demo and then copy over files obtained in another method to that area to play the entire game.
Aside from complaining about a lack of transparency, the comments on the Steam Community announcement also complain about the inclusion of Denuvo DRM. While the demo being pulled offline has surely upset some players, it seems that many others are just as upset about the game's DRM.
Will the Trials of Mana Demo Come Back to Steam?
One question that may be on your mind is whether or not this demo will be coming back to Steam. According to the announcement, the answer is yes.
[We ]hope to have it back up again very soon," the Steam Community announcement stated. "Please rest assured, all progress made by those who have downloaded and played the demo will remain and be carried over when it’s back online."
Hopefully, it won't be too long of a wait. For now, you can buy Trials of Mana on Steam for $49.99 or your regional equivalent.
What do you think of the Trials of Mana demo being used to unlock the full game? Are you upset by the inclusion of Denuvo DRM? Let us know in the comments below!
