Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy – PS2 – Review

Many stories have explored the
prospect of a giant meteor crashing into our planet. It’s a hard topic to ignore
when scientists frequently remind us of the real-world close calls (you know the
story: a meteor missed Earth by, oh, just a few million miles) and the impending
doom of other space junk.

But what about the legend of a
floating school that came crashing down to our land – have you heard the tale of
that one yet? If not, don’t fret: chances are Michael Bay hasn’t heard of it
either. Fortunately, the writers of Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy aren’t
waiting for scientists to confirm the school’s existence. They went ahead and
wrote the story anyway.

Starring two young whiners – ahem,
fighters – who will no doubt play a major role in saving the world, Mana Khemia
2: Fall of Alchemy focuses on two characters: Raze and Ulrika. If you expect to
start the game with both of them, chances are you’re used to the standard RPG
formula. Fall of Alchemy has taken another route, giving the player just one of
the two characters at the start of the game. This doesn’t alter the experience
as much as you’ll expect; Mana Khemia is Mana Khemia, regardless of who you
choose to play as. However, if you get into the story (not likely, but we’ll get
to that later), the separated character format definitely adds something to the
replay value.

Another Go at It

Fall of Alchemy may be telling a new
story with new characters, but not much has changed in the time between Mana
Khemia iterations. The graphics are obviously the same, so there’s no point in
rehashing a discussion on such an overly rehashed element. In slightly more
positive news, players will notice that the battles are still playable after all
these years of enduring them. But other than the types of spells and attacks
(and the expansion of multi-character assaults), you’re going to have a hard
time finding something new to do.

Once again, Fall of Alchemy takes
place in a series of linear environments. The map system remains the same as
before, which isn’t the worst thing ever, but one has to wonder why the
developers didn’t go back to the drawing board and produce a more intuitive
navigation tool.

Item synthesis has returned, and
though its functionality is no more creative than it was before, players will
now have an alchemy wheel mini-game to worry about. Whereas item ingredients
used to be the primary concern, the wheel – which consists of several colored
orbs – adds another element to think about before you’re finished synthesizing.

Likewise, the character growth
system has been given a boost with the implementation of the Grow Book, which
allows you to synthesize items and assign growth points to evolve your
characters manually. If this sounds like something you’ve seen in other RPGs,
that’s because you have.

If returning and upgraded gameplay
features are of little interest to you, Fall of Alchemy’s Bazaar system should
be right up your alley: it allows you to open your own item shop. This isn’t
merely a money-making scheme or some excuse for the game to drag out its quest –
the homegrown shop has a reason for being, and it’s a big one. In addition to
selling off items you’ve made yourself, players who open a shop and sell rare
items (to non-playable characters, for those of you who needed clarification)
will discover that other merchants want to sell them as well. When they do, this
means you’ll be able to acquire them at a later date, even if you don’t have the
right ingredients to make the item yourself.

Story Time or Time for Bed?

Unless you enjoy the cutesy, oddly
voiced and weakly acted content that most anime has to offer, you probably won’t
enjoy Fall of Alchemy’s story. The dialogue is alright but the voice acting is
atrocious, and it’s not easy to care for characters you wish would shut up.

Fall of Alchemy’s music is the
complete opposite. Building its strength from high-quality and highly compelling
orchestrations, the score is nearly everything an RPG fan could hope for. There
are moments of depth, minutes of emotion, hints of shock and surprise (the music
is far more effective than the story is at connecting the player to the
characters), and many long stretches of lighthearted bliss.

If, by some chance, you do enjoy the
story, then the divided character quests should be to your liking. They add
replay value by allowing you to see Raze and Ulrika from different perspectives.

As far as the turn-based battles are
concerned, Fall of Alchemy is a slight leap ahead that will enthrall any diehard
fan of the series. Musically, this is another big win for NIS, an RPG publisher
that’s known for delivering top-notch soundtracks. The rest of the game,
however, is the same old thing. If you’ve been with the Mana Khemia series as
long as I have (since the days of Atelier Iris), Fall of Alchemy might be the
last sequel/spin-off you’ll want to play before giving this franchise a rest.

Gameplay: 6.7
More of the same, only better than the last time around. Still flawed, still
heavily repetitive, and still nowhere near the quality of Atelier Iris.

Graphics: 5.0
Artistically, Mana Khemia 2 doesn’t look too bad. But it’s time for the
developers to try something new. PS2 is plenty powerful enough to handle a more
intense anime engine.

Sound: 8.0
There is a night and day difference between the music and the voice acting;
the former is great, the latter is unbearable.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
A little more bite than you’ll expect, Mana Khemia 2 is far from the most
challenging RPG (but is definitely not the easiest either).

Concept: 6.0
The item-selling feature was a cool addition, however, it isn’t enough to
prevent this game from being a rehash.

Overall: 6.7
Mana Khemia 2 is a step up from its predecessor, but it still doesn’t live
up to the series it spawned from (Atelier Iris).