Mana Khemia: Alchemists Of Al-Revis

Focus. Some games embrace it, others actively ignore it. Falling firmly into the second of those two categories, Mana Khemia is at least three different games at once – a complex fusion of concepts and features with no clear emphasis on any one over the rest. It’s not often you’re asked to juggle lecture schedules, ingredient collection and management, and traditional RPG battle mechanics within the space of mere minutes, and Gust’s latest benefits from this original and well-imagined recipe.

Following the exploits of Vayne – an aspiring alchemist newly enrolled at Al-Revis Academy – Mana Khemia’s individual components impress, but it’s the fact they come together to form one congruent whole that’s worthy of most praise. They intertwine brilliantly, school assignments calling upon your skills both in battle and in item creation, with each in turn affected by your performance in other areas. Alchemy itself is by far the most complicated of the three core components, a plethora of variables changing success rates and resultant items accordingly. Replacing a necessary ingredient with a similar item might give the end product unique properties or, in rare cases, produce something altogether different, so with ingredients on the whole plentiful, experimentation is encouraged.

Reinforcing this drive to create is the ingenious Grow Book, a character-progression system with its roots in the alchemy side of things. Each character has their own web of items similar to Final Fantasy X’s Sphere Grid and forging each item in turn allows the associated ability orbs to be ‘purchased’ with AP earned from battle. As it opens up, this offers significant freedom in tailoring each character to your own needs – while each has a loosely defined aptitude for, say, melee or magical combat, kitting out your team with the right skills and bonuses to have them form a well-oiled unit is left very much up to the player.

With so much reliance on sitting over a cauldron and trying out new ingredients in place of old, Mana Khemia is far from an exciting game. ‘Enthralling’ is a far better word for it, each of the game’s elements interesting and appealing in their own way. Turn-based combat introduces some novel ideas: alchemy is a whole new science to learn and even the classes usually take the form of practical work as opposed to blocks of text or tests.

Chuck into the pot some brilliant characters and presentation that reminds us that the PlayStation 2 is still capable of impressing and you have a charming and unique RPG experience.