There comes a time in your gaming “career” that the simple old days are, well, too simple. Not that it is a bad thing per se. It is pretty much the sole reason that video games and their developers are supposed to be doing: pushing the medium forward. And the “simple” games are there as comfort food. That is the reason the Dragon Quest (incorrectly translated over here as Dragon Warrior for eons) series has survived as long as it has. It the equivalent of role-playing game comfort food because it has been cooked to virtual perfection. Super Mario World is the platforming equivalent. I digress. This past summer, my friend gave me a game by the name of Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis. You’re probably wondering if it is any good. The short answer is that it is a bit of things from both ends of the spectrum. The long answer, as usual, is below.
But first things first, let’s get our facts straight about alchemists. (If you remember your days of learning about them through chemistry class, then skip the following paragraph.) As many people know, alchemy was the predecessor to chemistry. And the main goal was to turn lead into some sort of precious metal, preferably gold. In other words, take different things and somehow make something exceedingly valuable out of it. The chemicals they used are still used today and are historically important because they were the first to use symbols to denote an element. These were, for the most part, God-fearing men who wanted to make gold not only to help their country but to be rich as well.
OK, so now that we’ve got that cleared up, let us talk about the story. You control Vahn, a young man who lives in the middle of no-where He has issues with people, mainly that he doesn’t know how to properly deal with them because almost everyone shuns him for some odd reason. His only friend is his mana (familiar), a black cat named Sulpher. It is shortly after the time he turns 17 that a teacher from the prestigious alchemy school of Al-Revis asks him to attend. From there, he has some misadventures as he learns about himself. And along the way, he meets some interesting female characters that run the stereotypical anime gamut (do I really have to spell them out for you?). I’ll be frank: The plot itself is not bad, nor is it partially interesting — but learning about Vahn’s past is intriguing. But the game can’t seem to make up its mind in the realm of storytelling as it frequently goes from showing you what is going on in Vahn’s and his friends’ lives to telling you. And that’s a darn shame, because if it just stuck to showing everything, then the game’s story would feel much stronger than it is right now. For example, there is a humorous scene early on in which the school’s principle was making food for the students. He makes a few comments and suddenly the vice principle drags him off by his ears. And you get to sit there and read about it happening instead of watching — which would have made the entire scene much funnier.
Graphically, the game is very easy on the eyes. It sort of looks like something that the good old Super Nintendo could reproduce and is reminiscent of the downright gorgeous PlayStation 1 game Legend of Mana. Characters and monsters are well-animated, and it is cool to watch the time of day change. Telling the difference between the weak and strong monsters is easy as pie. Furthermore, the game excretes cuteness. At times, it feels contagious as if you’ll suddenly burst into a happy facial expression. OK, perhaps it’s a little girly. But there is one major problem: The game will randomly slow down during exploration and combat; there’s no excuse for it. The engine does not push the PlayStation 2’s limits, and it always occurs at the most inopportune time during exploration.
Gameplay is rather traditional. You run around, explore, jump (thankfully no taxing platforming occurs) and collect ingredients for your alchemy pot (a little more on that in a bit). Combat is turn-based, and you can see when your party and opponents move by cards up on the top of the screen. Obviously, different attacks/skills affect how long you have to wait for a character’s next turn. Victory earns you AP (ability points), money, and sometimes an item or two. A downside to this is that monsters become potent at night. However, there is no reward for fighting during this time except for bragging rights.
Thus, the only reason you’ll fight is to either pick up items or gain AP. You’ll use those AP to unlock stat improvements and skills in each character’s growth book. If you are familiar with the node system from Final Fantasy X, then you’re on the right track. The main problem with this system is that the book will EXPLODE with new nodes at various times. Let me explain: New nodes are activated as you synthesize items and equipment in your laboratory. Thus, most of the time you’ll be more than prepared to tackle the challenges ahead of you. This is especially true thanks to the game’s gentle learning curve (for the most part).
This leads us to the most intriguing aspect of the game: the alchemy system. You never go to the store to buy equipment; you make everything yourself. Instead, you’ll go to the store to help purchase healing items and other items necessary for creating things. Thus, you’re given a wide range of customization with each piece of armor and weapon. Need it to have a certain element? Or a certain spell? Go find what you need and make it. And then as you fiddle with each of the ingredients of some of your known recipes, new equipment becomes available. Sometimes a certain character is required to initiate the next step in the piece’s evolution. And sometimes I just fiddled with ingredients just to find something new to create. It is downright addictive, because the main reason I played through the game was to see what I could concoct next.
Sound wise the game is cute and catchy. Actually, it is too cute and catchy as the music can quickly become annoying. This is tempered by the mostly solid voice acting. I write mostly solid because there was some annoying voice acting, even though the voices fit the characters and help sell the story. For example, there is Pamela, the teenage ghost who haunts the school grounds. During combat, she tells her haunted teddy bear “to do your best!” in the most annoying voice. And I used to like her character because she‘s a ghost.
Overall, Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis is not a bad RPG game. In fact, if you can look past the game’s flaws, there is a very solid game to experience. But this is not a game for experienced RPGers. Instead, this game is for the novice, people who are currently learning the ropes of RPGs. As such, this game will be rental for some and an addition to their personal gaming library for others. And understandably, this will probably be a favorite for them. Everyone else should just ignore it as it will not change the mind of anyone about RPGs.
