Mana Khemia 1 & 2 - Endless murdering of monster girls

(Well I decided to finally finish this and post it after sitting in draft mode since forever.)

Mana Khemia : Alchemists of Al-Revis

Mana Knemia 2: The fall of Alchemy

This will be a joint double review. Lets start it off as always. How I came to find this game. I was looking around when I saw Mana Khemia 2 coming out, so I checked out the first of the series. Alchemist? Sounds interesting. Then I saw NIS America made it, the same people who made Disgaea and other similar games. I thought, this must be pretty good right!? Well they also made Ar Tonelico with its infamous scene seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoODv8LVib8

Apparently from what I have heard the sexual innuendos continue for the whole game in Ar Tonelico. Then when I first started the game the graphics looks like shit while the game play felt like Persona where you are at school but at the same time hanging out with friends and killing monsters. I was horrified. In my mind, I was ready for the huge disappointment to come. I cannot express how wrong I was. This game was good. Very good in fact. There are flaws, but its a very lighthearted RPG aimed towards a younger audience but still fun to play nonetheless.

At the start of the game it lets you pick between Japanese voices and English voices. Its like the game is warning you ahead of time of the terrible voice acting. Like all games that I can switch off voice acting from Japanese games, I do it. The voices are pretty annoying at first, but eventually you'll get used to it. Didn't bother me much in the end as the characters eventually grow on you. You start off the game as Vayne, this really soft spoken passive kid living with his mana being recruited by a teacher from the academy of Al-Revis. Since he knew your father, who happens to be the most famous alchemist that has ever lived and he recently died he asked you to join the school in which you accepted. On your first day of school you immediately start meeting the four main characters and the main villains.

You meet Jessica, a fellow alchemist who is not only terrible at alchemy but a huge airhead klutz. Then as you leave the classroom you meet two seniors, Tony and Renee who tries to recruit you for their workshop. Just as this happens a man (supposed to be a student but he looks like he's 30 from a jrpg point of view) falls from the sky and recruits you first. He and Tony are rivals and he recruits you before them. Tony and Renee will be your villains. The man introduces himself as Flay and he needs people to join his workshop or he'll be closed down. Then you meet a beastman (cat people) chick named Nicole. These are your main characters.

One thing you will notice are Manas. They are magical creatures that come from another world and makes pacts with the alchemist for mutual gain. In other words a familiar for the alchemist. Without one you are weak as shit. An alchemist may choose to restrain the mana by force or to just simply make a pact. You already have a Mana, a cat named Sulpher. Sulpher is special as only you can hear and understand him, everyone else sees him as a very smart cat but with magical powers. It is part of the storyline so there is a reason. Mana are gained by storyline or by interacting with different characters during "free time" mode. To access free time, you must complete all the required credits in a term. Once you have acquired them all you automatically enter free time and can do jobs or spend time with party members to learn their stories.

So its kinda like persona? Yes it is but its much more fun. To start things off you don't have stupid bullshit like quizzes and tests, your class are like for example, Combat class IV where you enter a dungeon clear to a boss and for that boss you are given restrictions. Cannot heal and you must beat the boss while using chains and finish off with a finishing strike. You're grade will depend on your combos and time etc etc. Other times you will be sent to create items for Synthesis class or hunt for rare items in Gathering class. There is no studying as the earlier classes are mandatory to progress the storyline and to teach the players new abilities and also show them how its done. During free time, instead of fucking finding your friends and wasting days talking to them like in persona. Its like Mass Effect where they all stand around in your workshop and you can talk to them anytime. If during a free time, they will give you an option "Do you wish to spend the day with [name]?" If you do you enter character story mode. Free time depends on how early you complete your courses. It is very lenient on how many credits you need. You have around 6-7 weeks (days) to complete all the credits for your term. You only need about 2-3 A's to complete all credits but if you're struggling with C's or F's you'll probably need the full week.

The first few characters are fun but near the end they keep adding new characters. What I dislike most is adding characters near the end of the game. You don't care about them they don't do anything to the storyline and its a waste of a character. This game the girls are scary. When I thought persona 4 girls were aggressive these will literally pull you away and force you to do stuff. Half the game is you being dragged around force to do this and that. Vayne doesn't say anything to go against them. And your mana goes "sighs" and he follows you complaining all the way. Spending time with your friends will improve skills and progress the story. The ending will change depending on who you maxed your relationship with. Only one person can become the highest maxed relationship.

Here's a breakdown of the characters.
Vayne - That's you! You have super powers you learned from Sulpher and is probably the strongest character in the game because you have both physical and magical attack.
Jessica - Airhead clutz. She is a healer and caster. She has a bag with endless stuff inside it and throws random stuff inside it for skills/attacks. Shes your classmate and first person you meet. She is very important to the storyline.
Nicole - Catgirl. She is super horny and goes around flirting with guys and trying to find a husband to have tons of children with. She has a giant hammer with super strength. Highest physical attack in the game. I had her ending and you ended up going back to her village to have dozens of cat eared children with her.
Flay - Crazy hyperactive guy. He is the comic relief. He has super powers like flying through walls and jumping across the sky and lifting houses with his bare hands. But in combat he doesn't have shit. His weapon of choice is a mechsword that shoots ninja stars. These stars are extremely strong. He beats up a mana and forcefully binds it to himself. He wishes to be a super hero/villain.
Roxis - Stuck up asshole guy. This guy is a loser and sucks ass. He doesn't have a mana and can't learn skills and he happens to be a caster. He can't do shit until much later where he gets this mana who wouldn't stop picking on him and making fun of him. He's the "rival" character. Cool-headed pretty boy who hates your guts.
Pamela - Ghost girl. Shes a ghost that lives in the school and scares all the freshmen. Shes extremely overpowered as her guard skill makes her completely immune to damage. So with her as a support she can avoid a instant death move or large damage attack by taking the damage of one of the vanguard. Other than that she's annoying as hell. She doesn't seem to have a mana.
Anna - Sword wielding girl. Shes a swordsman who has no common sense like Touka from Utawarerumono. If you don't know what that is, its a chick who has no common sense and does all sort of stupid stuff. Exactly what this chick does. Except she goes into insane kill mode and starts chasing after everyone trying to cut their necks off their head. Then cries because she messed up. She doesn't seem to have a mana either.
Muppy - Some alien guy. I don't even know I don't give a shit about him as he came like one chapter before the game ends.

Now lets get to the best part of the game, Alchemy. You will spend hours upon hours in your lab making new recipes and mixing items and other stuff. Its loads of fun. When you make an item you can potentially think of new items or your party members will pitch in and say "Hey I wanna make an armor like a crab" and you go "what?" then he write down a formula and you can go mix it if you want. For example, if you add king crabs with steel and other shit you make a crab armor which is armor literally made out of crab shells. Its hilarious and fun. Also in this game there is no exp and no leveling up. The only way of leveling up is unlocking new recipes and items from alchemy and using the AP gained from combat/gathering/etc to learn it, kinda like FFX's grid.

When you combine different items you can make them with different alchemical levels, resulting in different benefits and drawbacks which also transfers into different status and effects on your equipment and items. For example, you can make a crab armor that adds bonus to attack and allows you to cast the spell Tempest. Or you can make a weapon that adds the effect to knock back the enemy's turn on attack or even sleep on strike. Each of the materials used to make an item have different stats and end up being different when you mix them all. Choosing who to upgrade items also adds different stats and effects. There are also alchemy levels from 0-100 which is based on the items you use. By say using a lv 20 water and lv 60 crab with a lv 5 steel will make you steel crab soup lv 85. It will give different effects from say a lv 25 steel crab soup. Recrafting older items can get you higher or lower amounts as well as picking different characters and the roulette system. Higher does not always mean a better item. Sometimes its a very specific amount that gives better stats. Very customizable. Unfortunately there is a downside. When you don't have the materials to make items it can really piss you off. Luckily as you advance the game you can send your friends on gathering hunts or synthesize. You can randomly get the items you want without having to make them or hunt them every week or few weeks. This can help for rare equipment and materials.

Another great thing about this game is the combat. Its turn based and reminds me of Grandia a lot. When you start the game, there is just you, Jessica and Nicole. at the top of the screen is a row of cards with different pictures on it. Its pretty much the order of actions. As you play more you start to realize, if you continuously pound on a target, they will keep moving behind on the row. If you stun them they get knocked out and gets skipped over while everyone moves ahead. When you cast a time card spell, like for example Echo Heal Alpha. You heal someone and then you see a few cards on the list. Every time its that card's turn it automatically heals. Its like a damage or heal over time skill. These skills will randomly target enemies if its offensive and allies if its supportive. The more hits you do a bar at the bottom fills up. When it fills to full a character can use his/her super move. If you hit a target's weakness they get pushed back and stunned easier while your bar gains even quicker.

That's pretty much the basics. But when you start getting more people you'll notice that you can get more than three people in combat. You can take up to six characters into combat. Three vanguards and three supports. These are interchangeable during combat. You can hit L and R to switch your active support. When you are attacking you can hit a button anytime and your support will jump out and attack the enemy switching places with you. You can switch as many times you want. However after switching that character will have a cooldown before being able to switch. Players that are in support will slowly gain hp and sp. Skill use up a lot of sp so changing around is required. Boss fights are very long. When you are being attacked, you can hit a button and the support will jump out and take the hit to save your guy from being killed or taking less damage because they auto guard when you save your teammate. This means you can drop time cards and switch your allies to the back and keep stacking and damage starts flying around everywhere and you keep combo-ing and blocking. Different characters have different effects of supportive blocking and attacking. For example when Jessica comes out to block someone she does a party heal. And Pamela completely nullifies all damage. Anna counterattacks when she blocks, etc etc. A good strategy is to load up on time cards and switch so it keeps doing damage while your character is recovering.

Seems fun right? Yeah it is. Its very fun. I recommend this game a lot. It might not appeal to everyone though, as combat is a little easy and there isn't much to do. The story isn't bad but kinda childish. Although it does get pretty dark later on. This game is targeted at high school kids. But for some reason, almost all the enemies you meet are naked monster girls. Like you have harpy girls, dragon girls, mermaid girls, squirrel girls, dryads, plant girls, sword girls, shield girls, angel girls, devil girls, cat girls, girl girls. Even some of the items are a little messed up. You have to kill angel girls to get angel panties and use it to make angel wings and use them to make an angel costume. You use devil panties to make bondage gear for your characters. Cat ears to make cat girl maid costumes. Yeah, some alchemical formulas are a little messed up.

What about Mana Khemia 2? It must be great since the first is great right? Nope. Like Persona 4, they also got lazy and used the same monsters from Mana Khemia 1. Instead of being alchemists, you get to pick between two characters. Some sword guy and some air headed chick. Naturally I picked the sword guy but he turns out to be some dense retard. You start the game as a slave to some chick and she has a mana who looks like a person with robot ears and wears a maid uniform. This chick, Lily is your first party member and then you meet this super active girl, who is a childhood friend of Lily and you. Her name is Et, and shes the rival of Lily who is vying for your attention. None of the characters are likable and the story is stupid. Every five minutes you are slamming your head into the wall from second hand embarrassment. Ok I admit Lily was a little cute the first time when shes trying so hard to get your attention but your character is completely oblivious. Then when they do it over and over it got old fast. Honestly, its like the game decided to make Mana Khemia 2 into a big giant fan service filled with cliches and shit from anime.

In combat you don't even have six people. You can get five people and one guest on special events. Every character is annoying and you don't even wanna pick any of them. The first game had a decent story, but the second one you're this guy going around killing shit and being a stupid slave and some guy comes and give you a ring and somehow you go insane and start stabbing manas and making them die permanently by sending them back to their own world. Then you somehow find out that guy is a bad guy and you fight and he kicks your ass but somehow you get super powers and beat them and all these characters appear for no reason and you don't know who is who and what is what and the game ends. You are supposed to play the game twice to find out what you're missing from the other point of view and then the secret hidden play through where you play as both. Who is going to play it three times? Fuck that shit.

Alchemy got dumbed down. Instead of mixing properly you get this weird shit that you must + and - the numbers to get whatever. Trust me it sucks. The item variety isn't as wide and when leveling up instead of unlocking a grid you get a list you scroll though on what to level up. Items are much easier to get but for some odd reason, the gear you keep making seems to keep getting shittier and you end up using old weapons for a long time. The skills you learn are garbage as well. Some characters are just useless. And sucks to be you because you can't change characters. You only have 5 characters per main character. Special events where you get together you can pick one from the other party to make it six. These are rare and the ones you get are much weaker because you don't get to upgrade their spells or items.

The characters in the first game were generally good. Even the bad ones were good. In the second game they try way too hard. Instead of having a plot they just reuse Flay from the first game and have him do his random stuff. It was funny in the first game when he breaks through a wall like the kool-aid man randomly but after seeing it used so many times in the second game it was boring. The second game you have one dimensional characters. They have stock clichéd personalities.

The only good person in the game was Yun. He is a mana without a master that will do stuff for money. He's aloof and serious. The mature member of the group basically. Later on you find out he's doing lots of jobs to get millions and millions of Cole and you find out that when his old master died, she left a daughter which he takes care as his own. He sends all the money he earned back home to her and she grows up to be a spoiled brat. One part of the game she shows up and starts insulting everyone while looking for Yun. She's not a brat she just wants her father's attention and he's completely clueless on how to raise her. As you progress through his story he slowly learns. Unfortunately, everyone else in the game is shit.

Raze is you the unfortunate hero of the game who must listen to Lily all day long. He's pretty apathetic to everything and who can blame him when he's the slave to Lily.

Lily I already talked about, then her mana is dressed like a maid who she likes to punish all the time. I don't know why but probably to get all the dumb fuckers with maid fetishes worked up.

Et is the super hyperactive big boobed girl who has a brother complex and childhood friend secretly in love with Raze blah blah blah. Pass.

Yun the mana who is the only likable person. Has a bitchy daughter.

Puniyo the little human girl that was raised by Punis and can only say puni for all her words. She is accompanied by her three puni brothers who she rides on like a mount who can speak the human language. You'd think they'd teach her but no. These three are the most annoying characters. Pretty much three retards constantly fighting with each other and you're supposed to laugh at how stupid they are blah blah blah. Fucking cringe whenever shes on screen.

Then the other characters in the game who you have to constantly meet over and over again and fight over and over and over again. They are from the other route in their own party.

Ulrika is the country bumpkin who accidentally crashes into you at the start of the school semester and the two of you start off yelling at each other. Shes in Lily's class and Lily scolds her for you only for her to get angry at the both of you. Blah blah blah angry tsundere bullshit fuckface. Pass.

Chloe is the bookworm no emotion girl who doesn't speak and when she does its always horrible words coming out her mouth. She makes evil curse charms and shit. Boring.

Peperocino is the most fucking annoying character. Not because he sucks but because his voice is horrifying. It grates on your ears and he's this giant muscleman fairy. All other fairies are kids except for him and he speaks in this squeaky voice saying the most fucking shitty things. Pass.

Ena is Et's younger brother who has a crush on Puniyo. He's ok he's not that bad but 90% of the time he's getting chased around by Et and getting fucked over by everyone. So he's shitty because whenever you see him you know Et is going to show up and fuck over everything by being in there.

Goto just magically appears and is never mentioned in Raze's route and I have no idea who he is.

So out of all the main characters only a few are likable and by likable I mean not terrible.

The worst part is the combat is just so much worse than the first. Like you know the first game has great combat, what should we do with the second one? Fuck it up thats what. They ruined the whole specialized characters and vanguards/support thing. Its there its just not as fun as it used to be because you don't have enough characters to bounce around and strategize. In the first game you can pick and choose which characters to use to fit your strategy and everyone is highly specialized in their role. The second one you HAVE to use the five you have. It gets especially shitty in boss fights where you have to fight for 30 minutes straight. You do get a bonus party member from the other party (Ulrika's if you are Raze.) You get to choose which to pick but without any idea what they are good for what their skills are or anything. These people are generally much weaker than your party members because they don't scale them. Basically you are given dead weight. However it still has the time cards and combat turn cards where you can push back enemy action cards to miss their turn. However they're now balls and its much harder to see.

Storyline is non existent. The first one focuses on you and the school and your party members. You get attached to them, even the villains aren't really villains. They're just rivals and you guys get along afterwards. The teachers are all interesting and the events are generally funny without being overbearing. Theres actually a story where you look for your father and it gets really dark really fast. Sulpher is the coolest character in the first game and he doesn't even talk that much. In fact, the twist in the first game was that you are the mana and the cat is actually the person who you made a contract with. Thats why no one can understand him but you and how he is dying of old age and everyone goes "I never seen a mana get sick before." In the second game you're just begging for shit to end and slamming your head in shame from the sheer stupidity of things. Like the country bumpkin showing up and sees your party there first so she decides to stomp all the alchemy flowers only to realize you guys already picked it up and are on your way to leave and then she goes "I need the flower for my homework!" Ha ha thats funny right? No its not. What about Lily trying to confess to Raze and he keeps getting distracted and never hears her. Groan. Piece of shit. The whole game is just slapstick comedy with no story. I wouldn't be this pissed off if the first one wasn't so fun. It would be bad still but its just an insult when compared to the first game. I played this a long time ago and I still remember how shitty the second one is whenever I see NIS America's logo or name.

I hate to say it but I enjoyed the story of Persona 3 better. Actually no, Persona 3 is pathetic because they tried too hard to sound serious and dark while Mana Khemia 2 is pathetic because they try so hard to be funny. I say they're both equally pathetic and bad.