Mana Khemia. ITT: Lace bending time/space to play more than 24 hours of game per day.
 

Proving that the PS2 will never die NIS just announced Mana Khemia will be coming to the US in March. I'm just going to quote RPGFan here (hoping this isn't another hoax):

Now all they need to do is announce Ar Tonelico 2 and I think I can happily put my PS2 to rest.

It would be super if Gust could make a game that doesn't look exactly like every other game they've ever made ever.

That said, it seems that companies like NIS America and Atlus aren't really sure as to how they should make the jump into the current generation. They're sort of dragging their feet, it seems like. Probably because they haven't had to deal with real hardware competition in a long time, and can't be guaranteed that they're reaching the largest or best-suited audience for their chosen project.

Well NIS American and Atlus need something made first before they can publish it. The Japanese developers they normally deal with are just now jumping into a next gen project since most of them have just wrapped up their late PS2 projects.

But it looks like the small groups of Japanese developers have already chosen the PS3 as the next jRPG platform with NIS already on Disgaea 3, Atlus with Persona 4 and Steamboat Chronicles II with Irem, GUST with an announced PS3 project in the works, From Software with a few titles (mostly SRPGs we'll never see here), and Banpresto with some PS3 RPGs in the works as well. Plus I'm forgetting a whole lot from the even smaller developers that have PS3 RPG projects in the works.

It's really no different from the PS2 though. We didn't see any major projects from these companies on the PS2 until Final Fantasy X came out on it and established it as the go-to system for RPGs.

Atlus and NIS America tend to publish stuff willy-nilly, and don't just rely solely on a core group. It seems more like they're not sure how they should approach this generation-- full-blown third party or stick with their format of "most on one console".

The RPG genre has hardly gotten any sort of position in the current generation, as it stands. I mean, if we looked at it straight away, the 360 would be the choice of the RPG player. There's stuff on either side of the fence that's coming out in the future, so we'll see what becomes the more popular console for the genre.

I liked the First Atelier Iris game a lot but after 2 the series started to grow boring to me. I'll probably pass on this spinoff. However, I really really want Ar Tonelico 2 to come out here. Announce the bloody thing already!

+1 vote for Ar Tonelico 2, please.

Wonder how long PS2 will drag out. Seems to be doing a decent job at it; at least the pacing of decent releases seems to be helping.

Even thought the Atelier Iris games aren't anything super special, I enjoyed them a lot. I also had a lot of fun with Ar tonelico, so I hope we get the second game. I only wish they were even slightly difficult. Anyway, I'll probably pick up Mana Khemia if it's anything like the other games. I'm just glad rpgs are still being released in the PS2.

Prepare for no difficulties, and an easy game. That's their tradition.

Sure, but at least there's plenty to do and a decent storyline. I'm going to be buying Mana-Khemia, either on American import or if we're lucky enough to get a PAL version.

Like so many others in this thread, I'm also waiting for Ar Tonelico 2 before I put an end to my PS2 collection, but I'd also quite like to see Persona 3 FES if at all possible.

My post basically echoes Elegy's sentiments. The Gust titles aren't bad, even though they lack challenge. I've got plenty of other games to challenge me.

Ar Tonelico 2 breaks that tradition. While not an incredibly hard game, it's probably the toughest title they've turned out.

And this doesn't come as much of a surprise as NIS America seems to be not only a US branch of NIS Japan, but also Gust. Another hoping for an Ar Tonelico 2 stateside release.

Game came out today. For once RosenQueen shipped my order on time. In fact, they shipped it on Friday and I received it today. I guess they are getting better at sending these games out on time. I got the premium box figurine with it and its 100% imported from Japan. Nice extra for an additional 10 dollars. I haven't had a chance to play the game yet (busy schedule) but I did at least get to listen to some of the soundtrack in my car on my way from work to school. I like the sound team they have at Gust. :3

Can't really recommend the game to other people at this point. RPGfan gave the game a fairly positive review. I'm personally looking forward to the school elements. Especially since I enjoyed Persona 3 though these are two very different titles.

Sulpher is the best cat ever.

"What a bitch..."

http://oic.houyokusen.com/mkfront.jpg
http://oic.houyokusen.com/studyhalljess.jpg

Not sure where I'll put Jessica, but I guess I'll find a spot.

Only complaint so far is that the sprites are the same type of sprites we've seen time and time again, but the artwork is amazing. Nice soundtrack too.

I have the sinking feeling that I will fail the school aspect of the game and become dumb forever. If it ends up like Persona 3 though then it won't be too bad I suppose.

I just... lost a battle.

A random enouncter.

In a game by Gust.

I'm... not sure what to think here. This is, without a doubt, the hardest game by them I've ever played. That being said, it's about on par with other RPGs in terms of difficulty, by that's a very welcome change from the Gust norm.

The character artwork is amazing, but they really need to get someone new to do their sprites. The out of battle sprites look awful. The in battle ones look good, though. Also digging the battle system. It's fast, fun, and flashy.

Typical Gust soundtrack, too, no epic tracks so far but the tough encounter battle theme is pretty awesome.

OMG widescreen boxart.

Anyway yeah I was expecting just another GUST game which would have been find by me but this game has really surprised me with the amount of refinement and evolution they put into this one. They have also listened to the difficulty criticism for sure.

My only (non)complaint might be that the 'E' rating will probably prevent some of the crude humor I find oh-so-entertaining in NIS games. Well that and I wish NIS would starting giving us full OSTs rather than select song CDs since the CD just gets shelved in favor of the full OSTs I end up downloading.

Haha! I don't know about that. One of the first lines in the game is the cat calling someone a bitch. Unexpected in a E rated game. XD

Ah this is true, but they probably used up their entire quota on that line as I haven't seen much else, though I'm not far into the game at all.

Also, while the sprites are the same old style at least it doesn't look like they re-used many. And the field sprites are of the same quality of past GUST games but they did a really nice job layering backgrounds this time for a faux-3D effect in a lot of areas.

So, I am at the end of the first week (Where I must create a Nicro Cloth) and good lord is this game hard.

Since there are zero levels, you can't "grind" yourself to victory, the only real grinding you can do is to gather materials, AP, and such so you can have enough supplies to BE PREPARED (Lorr would probably say so you can just barely win), but nothing more.

I've synthesized everyone's starting weapon, maxed out all the current possible growth options for the trio (which included synthesizing Flour for Vayne and Heal Jar for Jessica), and during my exploration found an accessory that provided +30 HP. It went to Jessica obviously.

It's actually not the normal battles that are hard, it's the rough encounters, and battles during nightfall. Nothing like bumping into a giant blob only to discover it is a Sword Geist that has the power to make all forms of healing not work.

I'm slightly prepared for this Event to get the Nicro Cloth now though, Vayne's Ether setup is Lightning element, ATK+ DEF+, Jessica is MGK+ CRIT+, Nikki is Ice element, ATK+ DEF+; really don't have much options for the stat raising Ethers since the materials you can use or substitute in place of one all end up producing ATK or DEF anyway.

The crude humor is still there, you just have to look for it.

That's a damn good looking boxset, Lacerta. Goin to go pick this game up some time soon, though it'll be the regular box set now. I would have liked the super box, but by the time I found out it was too late.

Just hit Chapter 2, 4th Week (when Free Time officially starts if you meet the requirements).

Some things to note about Free Time:

Character quests only appear here (and can be missed)
Part-Time Jobs only appear here (and can be missed, they go by terms (chapters))
You can choose just to head to your dorm and pass out, ending the current week.

Finishing a Character Quest will end your current week of Free Time
Finishing a Part-Time Job will not.

I've been spending a lot of time running back and forth (except for the classes this week, they were timed) picking up Materials.

At the moment everyone is still using their starting weapons, but I have upgraded their armors to Altered Uniform M//F. They are also using my crappily Ethered Puppy Paw Gloves (HP+30, Stun+ (S), Daze+ (S)) and Gloves of Artorius (DEF+20, Def+ (M), Def+ (S), Lightning)) in their accessory slots.

I synthesized pretty much everything I could possibly find or substitute and experimented and came up with tons of new recipes and what not. As such, my Grow Book has gone to around 11% each, with Vayne having 140HP/60SP, Jess having 150HP/85SP, and Nikki hvaing 153HP/55SP.

I still need to experiment with the base materials (now that I fully grasp how this synthesis system actually works) to try to get the "best" possible Ethers on them, so when I throw them into the other equipment I have better selections.

It's kind of a bummer that Jessica and Nicole's Altered Uniform F, I was able to put HP+ (S), MGK+ (S), and Healing (gives them Healing spell), but Vayne is just stuck with DEF+ (M) and ATK+ (S)

EDIT: I've also had the game lock up on me about twice. Once was because I was in a field for like 2 hours trying not to die so bad. The other was during some random switching in the menu. In the amount of hours I've spent in it though, it's only happened those two times, and I guess it's just from playing so long in a period of time.

Not really surprised though, since Gust games tend to have the rare chance of freezing, or if they didn't then somewhere along the line when NIS was bringing it over, it happens. Hope it doesn't end up being one of those cases though where putting it in moonspeak makes it run (relatively) flawlessly, and leaving it on default has the chance to screw you over, as was the case with some previous Gust works.

Is this game as refreshing as Ar Tonelico was? That game was simply win. I'll be satisfied as long as it's not a Aterlier Iris 3. It wasn't completely bad, but it wasn't great either.

Not that that really makes a big difference...I'll probably buy the game simply because of the composers, which I really loved ever since I played my first Gust game.

This game is closer to Aterlier Iris 3 in that it borrows and refines a lot of the ideas setup for that game. I seem to pretty much be under the same opinion as you about AI3 but I'm enjoying this game far more because it takes a lot of the AI3 concepts in the right direction.

And I have not experienced any lock-ups yet and I'm using the surprisingly excellent English dialog. But I am getting some massive framerate issues in some areas on fields. I'm playing this on a PS3 though. Are people experiencing framerate issues on the PS2s?

The framerate issues are still there on PS2. I was kind of hoping NIS could probably try to reduce them or something, but they aren't too bad.

A lot more of the game has been made available to me, and my characters are capable of doing 4 hits per regular attack, all around 200~300 HP & SP, and using decent stuff.

The game is still challenging, even after spreading the rumor that makes fighting at night less of a pain.

Wait, this game employs a "rumor -> truth" system like Persona 2?

If true, then sold.

^
Not exactly, the rumor system is more of a mean to boost your party's stats, change drop rates, etc...(haven't gotten a lot of them yet). You basically "do something" to open up an option to spread a type of rumor. For example, jumping 200 times would open up the "Jumpy People" rumor which boosts your HP a bit. However, you could only have one rumor going at a time. These rumors don't have any effect on the story line or environment whatsoever. So it is not much like the rumor system in Persona 2

Overall, I am thoroughly enjoying this game. The battle system is definitely more exciting than AI 3 (due to actually having more than 3 members in the game). Having the support system really opens up a lot of opportunities for strategy in battle (since it is somewhat more challenging than the other gust titles).

My only gripe so far is the stat boosting system which requires you to create a lot of different items through alchemy...eh I had a hard time finding certain formulas. Likewise, there are obvious framerate issues but they aren't too horrible (at least it doesn't happen in battle...only in the fields/dungeons). Aside from that, the game is fantastic so far! :cool:

(Sidenote: Pretty worried about Ar Tonelico II however....)

I love the stat boosting system. Its like Chrono Cross were it's impossible to be over-leveled for an area thus making it boring. The item stat boosting in this pretty much keeps the game challenging and actually keeps mini-boss battles that were introduced in AI3 difficult as they should be and it obviously allowed GUST to make this a much better balanced game battlewise compared to their past games.

And Ar Tonelico II...won't stake my reputation on it or anything, but keep looking for updates sometime soon.

I've put in 22 hours now so far (spend a lot of time farming materials and grinding AP), midway through Chapter 5, and my opinion of the game, and the difficulty has not changed one bit.

Like Cetra said, it really is impossible to be too powerful for the next area. Even if you are like me and have synthesized everything possible up to that current point, and tried to maximize the best possible Ether Effects, it still is not enough to give you the edge.

I have 7 party members now, 3 actively fight, 3 you can switch in to do an attack, or to take damage for someone, and 1 person just doesn't participate (and gets no AP sadly). I really want to gather their Offensive Supports so I can do stuff like this:



I do not like how most things end up falling on the same base materials, or using a material that was a result of it, so you end up getting near the same Ether Effects on a lot of things. I can tweak it though, and I'm definitely going to try to get ATK/CRIT on Weapons, DEF/RES on Armor, and the rest on Accessories.

I like the personality Flay has with his English voice much more than his personality with his Japanese voice.

I'll give it a shot then. AI3 may have been a lot worse then the previous AI games, but I still had fun playing it. It wasn't a total trainwreck.

You say it has many AI3 elements, which might those be? I hope it's not the limited time you can spent in each area, or the whole quest system that made you go back to the same areas constantly. That's 2 of the things I really didn't like from AI3.

This game should be coming to me later this week. It should be a nice change of pace from all the BRAWLing I've been doing lately. I haven't played any of the AI games, but I've enjoyed some other NIS titles; and I'm becoming a fan of the company.

Hah well it has both aspects, but not exactly like AI3. There is a passage of time in fields but it won't kick you out of the field. Rather day turns to night and during the night time the enemy blobs become really fast making it hard to sword them for battle advantage. Enemies also become much stronger and so far during night I've had to avoid the mini-boss blobs as I simply can't kill them during the night-time. So you still feel this need to rush to get things done before night but at least the game won't kick you out of the area after a specific amount of time. I found that annoying in AI3 as well but the day-night cycle system in this is a much better refinement to that idea.

You also do return to the same areas on a regular basis. The school serves as a hub like the town did in AI3. However there is A LOT more to do inside the school than there was in the town in AI3. The areas in this are also much bigger than they were in AI3 and each one is better divided into sub-areas so you usually get to explore some new looking areas for a lot of the tasks even if they send you to a repeat area.

The battle system is also pretty much a highly refined AI3 system. Stuff like the burst gauge, card based turns, stunning, charged attacks, etc are all there like they were in AI3 but some of the aspects work slightly different. For example its really hard to get the burst gauge to fill up now.

I just want to point out that this statement is misleading. Character quests cannot be missed forever, however you do have limited chances to do them (once per Free Time). If you don't do a Character quest during Chapter 2, the ones you do in Chapter 3 would be the ones that you would've gotten in Chapter 2 if you did them then.



The battle system at its core is AI3, but with a bunch of improvements. Also, the school campus serves as a hub as AI3's town did. Time flows during dungeon crawling, but rather than limiting the time you can be in an area, once night falls, enemies get doubled stats and start kicking your ass. So while it's still a good idea to finish things quickly, you don't have to. Just prepare to fight some mean baddies.

The quest system is back in a sense, but completely optional. Doing the "jobs", as they call them give you cash, which WILL be needed unless you want to grind for cash later on. But it IS possible to skip them all. Also, they've narrowed down the quest types so there's no "kill X of Y enemy" quests anymore, which is good because those were boring as hell.

The assignment system (which is required) is kind of similar to the quest system, but the variety in assignments makes it a lot more fun than AI3 was. And the fact that there's a lot more dungeons certainly helps it.

Edit since Cetra posted as I was:

Actually, the Burst Gauge is arguably EASIER to fill up if you tweak Critical rate and hit weaknesses. But other than that, you're right. It is harder, but it does make you focus more on hitting weakness and Breaking the enemy rather than just hitting them with all your biggest damage or whatever.

Also, as an addendum, Burst damage now increases ALL damage (not just special skills), but by a lesser amount, and generally lasts longer.

Well, technically during Chapter 11 there is a cutoff point for everything Char Quest related.

As soon as you hit Free Time in 11, all other possible quests for any character is cut-off once you finish the set for someone. If you did all of Jessica's, then you can't do Nicole's. If you do not end up finishing anyone then you can't do any. It's sort of a critical decision point that locks you into a certain ending.

Almost everyone have 5 quests (one has 4), some of which do not appear until certain Chapters, and others are available in every Chapter.

8 Endings as a result of this.

Okay, I bought this. If it sucks, Miles, you are gonna suffer. >>:U

No but seriously, I don't think I've ever played a game by these folks so I'm not sure what to expect, but for some reason I have a lot of faith in this. The artwork looks really nice, and from the generic reactions in this thread (I've tried not to read any of the technical stuff since I like finding that kinda thing out for myself), it definitely seems good.

Here's to good faith!

I do sort of wish there was more voice work in the game. Or rather, I wish a lot of the things that they chose not to dub (a good 40~50% of the game has no voices in english), they would have.

A minor issue that I can overlook though. Despite it being a big chunk, it goes by rather fast, and at least 25% of that is entirely optional. Plus I am more focused on the battle system, despite Gust designing the game so you do not want to fight all the time.

I'm tempted to start this right away. Does the plot depend in any way on having played the previous Gust releases?

Not that I've seen, considering so far out of what we have, the only games that are related are Atelier Iris 1 & 2 (which comes before 1). 3 is in an "alternate universe" but makes references to 1 & 2, and Ar Tonelico is its own series.

Mana Khemia is also its own series, although I wouldn't put it past Gust to make references to one of their previous works in some shape or form.

Yeah, this is correct, even that side comment about references!

Just made it to chapter 5. I really like the way the support characters work in this game. Plus having more than 3 characters makes it easy to send someone low on SP out of the current team to regain it really quickly. This makes it easier to explore at night since I have unlimited healing. How many chapters does this game have anyway?

I noticed that NISAmerica is getting better at localization. I haven't noticed as many bugs and typos this time around. The voice acting isn't bad either. I like the nice fonts they use in the menu system too. The past Gust games they localized were a bit sloppy but this one seems professional so far. I just hope it holds out for the rest of the game. I won't really whine about the voice cuts. From what I heard voice acting can be costly in the US so smaller companies can't always fully voice games like the Japanese versions.

Twelve. Eleven is your point of no return, in a sense.

So... you're saying I'm not the only one who noticed all the bugs and typos in their other localisations? I'm telling ya, sometimes I wondered if I imagined them all. Nobody ever talks about that.

This game does seem to be localised well, but I'm only a little way into of the first chapter so... what do I know? It seems like a lot of fun so far. It also seems really deep. The whole thing in Atelier Iris where you select the ingredients to try and make your synthesized items as good as can be... the equivalent system here seems a lot more in depth. Good thing, because I loved that aspect.

I can't claim to understand... anything much about the in depth aspects of synthesis right now though. I dare say it all will become clear as I get further into the game.

There are some typos later on, but they are very few, and of course the one thing most purists have been ranting about is how the personalities of the characters are much different in Japanese than they are in English.

I finished the game yesterday, after clocking in around 75 hours. Quite possibly the most challenging Gust game ever to date.

The only REAL complaint I have about everything is that the first five chapters are pretty much a tutorial to the game itself. Once you're past that then you are good to go for the remainder of the game.

I will probably spend any extra free time I have working on getting the other endings in the game, and then on the last ending I choose go with, work on completely maxing out the Grow Book so I will be prepared in New Game Plus and can focus on just creating the needed stuff.

Just finished it today, gotta say, loving Gust! With the exception of Atelier Iris 3, the games seem to get better. I enjoyed this game as much as Ar Tonelico, a feat I thought was impossible for them.

I was especially happy with the way the combat system was refined, support characters can step in to take hits, and later on they even get unique traits for doing these step-ins both the defend type and the assault type. Love these fast paced battle systems. Also the burst gauge and the finishing strike was a nice touch, though I would have prefered they would work with others as well, I really didn't want to keep Vayne in the support group. Hope the AT2 combat system is as refreshing as this.

Oh yes, and the music <3 god the music. Especially the battle music <3

For anyone that missed this on the PS2, this is also coming to the PSP in January, I believe.

Damn, I was hoping this thread had been bumped because of Gust announcing Mana Khemia 2 being localized. I bought it on a whim at the beginning of the summer and couldn't put it down. The only thing I really disliked about MK was the strange lag it encountered in dungeons whenever there were more than 3 enemies roaming around on the screen. Shop synthesis was my favorite part of Atelier Iris, so having the whole game essentially based around that was fantastic.

Everyone had their own finishing strike, at least by the end. It was the only way to see Anna's mana.

Woah back up. They announced Mana Khemia 2 for release outside of Japan? If so awesome but the 2nd game is supposed to be vastly superior to the first in every way and the first game was pretty damned good.

No, I'm saying I was disappointed that's not the reason this thread was bumped. :(

Oh I get it now, sorry I totally misread that.

Unfortunately I haven't heard of anything about the second game coming over. If they starting recording the voice overs for it I'd probably learn about it right away.

Sorry i ment Variable Strike not the finishing bursts.

I was googling for some RPG Logos on a Lark, and I just happened to come across the flash website for the second game:

Mana Khemia 2

That should give you an idea of what to expect, if you can read moonlanguage that is :erm:

Don't put your PS2s away after AT2 this January!

I read that earlier and debated on whether or not such a brief interview line was worth bumping this thread for. The conflict was resolved by my internet dying for several hours, but regardless I'm extremely happy to hear that there's still a strong possibility of Mana Khemia 2 being localized. If nothing else, maybe we'll see a PSP port eventually like the first one.