Mana Khemia

Tadaaa~! Well I kinda miss doing this...Hahahah. Anyway, here's my thoughts on this game...

So, what's it about?
Basically it's about this 17-year old young man named Vayne Aurelius. He's your average young man living in the mountains in an old house with his pet cat Sulphur. An Alchemy Academy called Al-Revis (that's a lot of A's) finds out about him and invites him to study in the academy. Seems his dad was a big-shot alchemist who passed away some time ago...And that's just about it. This game is about Vayne's school life more or less.

What do you do?
Well, it's an academy so you've got classes to take and assignments to accomplish. Basically in order to progress in the game you need to obtain a certain number of units. How do you get units? Well class, obviously! You get to choose certain subjects (some subjects need to be taken though), and each subject has a particular assignment you need to accomplish. Once you do that assignment, you get units according to the grade you get...Fail and it's off to detention with you!

Some assignments require you to synthesize an item, while others require you to defeat a certain monster. However, you can bet you'll constantly go out of the campus to collect ingredients in different areas...Monster-infested areas to be exact, so battle is necessary.

What are the battles like?
What are they like? Pretty simple really...Nothing we haven't really seen before. Like any other turn-based game, you control the actions of your party--attack, defend, skills, switch with a party member, use items, etc. I told you, it's nothing new. But it's not that dull actually. The uh...what do you call it? Hmm...The "visuals" are pretty good, as how the actions are executed are pretty "lively". Kinda stirs up excitement in your head if you ask me.

Apart from basic actions there's something called the "Burst Mode"--if you've played Atelier Iris 3 then I'm pretty sure you know what that is. It's a mode your party enters when a certain gauge at the lower left corner is filled up. What happens? Well, the status of your party members increase significantly, making the battle easier for you. Additionally, during burst mode, there's another bar that you can fill up if you meet certain conditions. Once that bar's filled, you'll be able to execute a special attack using one of your characters...And I can promise ya, it's not like in Wild Arms 5 (where everything is flashy and yet damage is kinda small), these special attacks can really help, and watching em is pretty cool.

Another helpful feature is you can switch one of your characters in front with a waiting character at the back of the party. This is pretty helpful when your characters are dying and you really need to do something to turn things around. Sadly you can't control who you want to switch, so if your dying character won't get to change, well...that's just bad luck.

So how do I get stronger?
Yes, training. One of the most tiring thing in any game. Lol...But battles are only secondary when it comes to training your characters. Why? Well because they don't have the normal level-up system most games have. Instead they use something called a growth book, and by synthesizing certain items, you can unlock skills, aquire stat increases and such. So don't be lazy about synthesizing!!

One more thing, you don't buy your equipment. That's right, you heard me. You make your own gear. That means your own accessory, your own armor, your own weapon. Again all you gotta do is find the ingredients, the recipe and synthesize. It's easy really.

What am I after in this game?
You're after the ending of course. If you don't want the tragic, normal ending, you can go for a better ending by finishing a character quest. It's sorta like maxing out your relationship with one of the characters. In other words, the good ending is an ending with one of the characters. Pretty simple. Of course if you really want that normal ending, avoid doing any character quests...Although I suggest you do Roxis' character quest (up to chapter 3 or so only) so you can get his mana.

Anything worth checking out in my second playthrough?
Well not really. Apart from the secret dungeon which is uber hard, there's nothing of note really, except for easier battles.

Got any tips for me?
Persevere. Lol. Because the first few hours of the game are dull and a little childish. I actually think they need more tutorials but basically everything is doable. Oh, by the way...I said childish because...because. Eh. You'll find out if you play it.

Oh yeah, the game's got a few scenes that are supposed to be funny, but it can actually get annoying depending on how you look at it. For me I never laughed the first time I played through it, but the second time around I found myself laughing. Ugh...Lol

That's about all I can say about this game. Hehehe of course, the best judge is yourself, so if you're interested go buy a copy and play the game. :D

platform: Playstation 2
genre: RPG
Publisher: Gust, NIS America, NIS Europe
Developer: Gust

Reference/s: Wikipedia