Mana Khemia 2

Plotting Points by Tan(x)
Video Game Reviews by a Very Busy Math Teacher

Mana Khemia 2 is a Japanese role-playing game that blends the popular Harry Potter magical school vibe with a bit of Full Metal Alchemist and a dash of Alice Academy thrown in for fun. Alchemy, the ancient mythical art of transforming substances into each other (such as the proverbial lead into gold) thematically supports the item gathering and combination mechanism that drives both the game play and the plot. Only by thorough exploration and diligent fighting will you fill the in-game encyclopedia and collect all of the hundreds of items available for discovery or alchemical synthesis. Any recovering Pokemon addict will tell you... there’s a little obsessive compulsive in each of us just waiting to feed on a game such as this.

In Mana Khemia 2 you take the role of one of two prospective students. Razeluxe Meitzen is a surly kid who hates alchemy and is only attending the school because he has no choice. Alternately, you can play as Ulrika Mulberry, who doesn’t appear to have any Alchemical talent but decided to join the Academy because some old dude she met when she was a child gave her a magic rock. As you can see, the student quality is not at its best. Once you’ve made your choice play proceeds following that student’s career. While the two stories overlap, there are many scenes exclusive to each character’s journey, a device that certainly encourages replay, but also means you’ll have to go do all those fiddly quests and assignments twice to get the full experience.

On the plus side, Mana Khemia 2 is a fully developed and well-balanced JRPG. As successor to not only its direct sequel but the previous Atelier Iris games, Mana Khemia 2 takes advantage of the huge library of resource and invention the previous games have established. The story once again advances with the school year (on a side note, I thought it was clever that Mana Khemia 2’s release coincided with the start of the school year here in the States… the timing certainly helps to capture that Back To School excitement you felt as a kid.) When classes start your character completes assignments and earns grades each week until an event or a Midterm propels the plot forward. The better the grades you earn on your missions, the more weeks of free time you get for lucrative extracurricular pursuits.

As your character makes their way through the school year at Al-Revis, you can expect to fight critters both familiar and new. I was thrilled to see puni, weak little smiling blue jelly monsters, show up in the plot (“Puni”, by the way, would make a great name if you ever decide to adopt a fat kitty cat.) Combat strategy benefits from allowing some party members to be in reserve position, swapping their way into the three primary fighting positions in the midst of battle. I like the added bit of complexity this tag-team approach lends to the battles. There is also an overdrive mode that allows you to dish out extra damage when you achieve it. Otherwise, the turn-based battle system is fairly typical of the genre, as characters stand around taking punishment until it is their turn to bash back.

Forging items now requires not just the correct ingredients, but also a little bit of reflex as you try to catch the correctly colored orbs in an abstract slot machine mini-game. There is also a slot machine element to gathering ingredients… at least it isn’t that five row video slot stuff you see at the casinos these days. As a gamer I’ve always been a bit mystified by the attraction to slots. As you merely push a button to play and have no decision or control over winning or losing, I’ve always viewed them as the anti-game, or the game of no choices. Still, the casinos certainly aren’t hurting for cash, so there must be some attraction to them.

You can also upgrade character skills with experience points your characters earn in battle. You do this through your “grow book,” where new skills are tied to the types of items you’ve managed to synthesize. This is fun, although it is also one of the few areas of the game that didn’t feel as polished to me… the text was often written in strange colors with clashing backgrounds, and was a bit difficult to decipher. Mana Khemia 2 is an amazing use of the PS2, but it really is time for this venerable series to graduate to next generation graphics.

The game has drawn some criticism for its voice acting quality, but this seems to me to be an irrelevant complaint. After all, the original Japanese language track with English text is also included and easy to activate. As you might expect, the Japanese voice actors are great, communicating the right emotion and intensity even if you don’t know a bit of Nihongo (Japanese.) I’m also going to go out on a limb here and guess that a good portion of the Mana Khemia 2 demographic is made up of Japanophiles or anime Otaku who would never stoop to an English dub track anyway… I know I wouldn’t when given the choice! As a final side note, I will also mention here that the game gives you a satisfactory choice between two text speeds… you can have your slow and lazy, or you can have BAM!! Really, who wouldn’t want a little BAM!! in their lives.

Speaking of Japanese culture, I was also amused to see that each character’s blood type is listed both in the manual and in the game. Blood type is thought in Japan to predetermine aspects of personality, much as we think that birth signs do here in the West. Mana Khemia 2, however, was kind enough to supply an indicator of what each blood type implied. I present this here, for your edutainment:

Type O: simple and innocent
Type A: always getting in trouble, or losing oneself to hobbies
Type B: short-tempered
Type AB: can be difficult

Those in the know might be wondering where the Rh-antigen fits into this scheme… your guess is as good as mine.

Mana Khemia 2 is a delight to play. In both story and visual presentation the game maintains a consistently cheerful tone, making Al-Revis one of those rare worlds in the greater video game genre that you’d actually like to somehow visit. The story never takes itself too seriously, and the characters enjoy a lot of playful banter, often enough on the slightly risque side to earn that Teen rating from the ESRB. Whether you are an old pro at JRPGs or this is the first one you’ve ever attempted, Mana Khemia 2 provides an utterly satisfying, enjoyable play experience. Don’t unhook that old PS2 just yet!

Will I play it more: Are you callin’ me a dropout? Of course I’ll make it to graduation!!