This game another one of those games that have been sitting on my brother’s game shelve for years.
The Story:
Felt and Viese are orphans who lives together in a place called Eden, a place full of mana. The day that Viese became an alchemist, Viese went to the Belkhyde Gate where Felt always hangs out. Felt always dreams of exploring the world of Belkhyde. Felt then joined Viese for her to make a pact with the wood mana. On their way home to Noir, there was an earthquake that damaged several parts of Eden, they were going to report to the temple but even before they do that Felt heard a voice coming from the Azoth, a sword that Felt always tries to pull out. But that day Felt successfully pulled it out, the sword instructed him to go to Belkhyde because Eden is in danger. 7 days later, Eden is still damage, Felt went to wanted to go to Belkhyde and went to the Belkhyde gate where an illusion of a woman asks Felt’s help, then the gate opened for him. After Felt said good bye to Viese, Viese gave him one of the rings that Kreuz gave her.
When Felt entered the gate he ended up in a desert where he fainted and saved by Noin, a simsilt later to be revealed their goal is to liberate Belkhyde. Noin wants to save Max, the Simsilt leader. Felt helped her to return the favor. But because of Felt’s good nature that he acquired help of different people from Belkhyde to save Eden.
The Gameplay:
There’s a lot of different elements that is presented in this game. Let’s start with the map. The main map where you can view and access the places you have visited in Belkhyde and Eden. Since Eden and Belkhyde is two separate worlds there is two maps.
Consumable items such as healing items are not much of a problem since Felt and Viese are alchemists. They can create anything with the help of mana elements and recipes. You can acquire a lot of recipes throughout the game and it is important that you get them all, it would help a lot in different quests. It is also important that you have all your mana elements gauges full.
In the battle field there is no map so you’ll have to remember the places you’ve been to. There is also a gauge where it is indicated how many enemies you have to fight in an area. That’s basically 4 to 5 groups of enemies. But there are places like last battle in the castle and the Holy Temple where the enemy gauge is completely pointless.
In the actual battles there is a timeline where it is indicated who’s turn it is to attack. This could help in your strategy so you can plan if you want to attack or break. Break pretty much is pushing enemies away from the attack point of the timeline.
In battles you can play 3 characters at a time so when you feel you need some other a character's unique skill you can easily change the character by choose Change option.
The character’s can also acquire different skills and abilities when equipping an item and forging their weapons. This is the part that I missed, I only understood this part when I was about to finish the game. In equipping an item, it gives the character battle ability likes two turns, dodging, etc. The character have to wear the item to acquire these abilities but when you finally mastered that skill you can unequipped it and use another item to master another skill but you would still have that battle ability. The same goes for forging where you can acquire different SP skills unique to each character.
There is no MP or SP gauge for each character but there is an SP gauge to be used by all the playable character on the field. SP can be obtained by attacking an enemy it grows depending on how strong the attack made by any of the characters. A skill can cost to 1 to 3 SP.
It is important that before going to major battles you have enough mana elements and of course consumable items. But when you ran out of items this is where mana elements could help. Felt and Viese can synthesize during a battle and it consumes mana elements.
As I’ve said the in the story worlds are separated, luckily for these two characters they have the Share ring so Viese can create the items then Felt just have to synthesize when he needs to. Basically it means that the two characters have access to all the items they acquire along the story, the same goes for mana elements.
The Graphics:
This game is created 2005 but the graphics isn’t that impressive. Throughout the game you’ll be controlling chibi equivalent of the characters but the animation scenes are really done well. One thing I like about this is that you can choose to listen to the characters in English or Japanese but there will still be translations in English. I played this game listening to the characters speak in Japanese while reading what they were saying in English.
My Verdict:
The story was pretty good but it reminded me a little of Ragnarok Online because of all the merchants, alchemist and blacksmiths. Yeah considering one of my characters is an alchemist so I have a basic understanding on what I have to do... (-_-; ). The tuitorial throughout the game is a little confusing for me, it’s all text and some pictures. And since there’s a lot of things to read, I wasn’t able to understand a thing until it started to happen in the game. A reason why I only understood the gameplay halfway in the story. One thing I hate about this game is when I switch characters (from Felt to Viese and Viese to Felt). The switch is only activated when your reading the book found in the camp. In that book you can also access the Save and Load option, so sometimes when I feel I need to save I would accidentally choose Switch. The game is pretty easy to play, my first game is close to perfect.
Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana 2
イリスのアトリエ エターナルマナ2
Irisu no Atorie Etānaru Mana Tsū
originally posted: February 3, 2010
