[PS2] Mana Khemia. ITT: Lace bending time/space to play more than 24 hours of game per day.

Sulpher is the best cat ever.

"What a bitch..."




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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

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.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

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:

Variable Strike:

YouTube Video

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 was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Talaysen

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.

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.

How ya doing, buddy?

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.

FELIPE NO

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.

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Originally Posted by Miles

How many chapters does this game have anyway?

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

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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.

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