RandomNPC – Video Game RPG Reviews, Editorials, and Features

Alchemy \’al-kə-mē\ – A power or process of transforming something common into something special

-Merriam-Webster.com

One of the toughest challenges for a game in this day and age is the concept of “unique.” It’s a very nebulous term; you can take it to mean “going where no man has gone before,” or perhaps “something kinda familiar, but twisted beyond recognition.” Perhaps Mana Khemia is not a truly “unique” game. Every element of its gameplay feels like it’s been done before… but can a patchwork not be beautiful of its own right? The contrast of many fabrics may come together to create a beautiful work, just as the union of many existing concepts in game mechanics can join to create an excellent experience.

CASE ONE: HARRY POTTER

Precocious child (Vayne) enrolls in secret school for magically gifted youth (Al-Revis Academy) and joins with contemporaries (Jess, Nikki, et al.) in extracurricular adventures to investigate an unusual but heavily foreshadowed phenomenon (Vayne’s origins). In those famous words of the Barenaked Ladies, “It’s all been done (woo-oo-oo!).” Gust treads on well-worn ground here, but succeeds in avoiding digging into a rut by making the school itself as interesting a character as any you take into battle.

The game takes place over Vayne’s three-year academic career at Al-Revis. Over these three years, the upperclassmen you knew from year one will graduate, a new crop of frosh will appear, and so forth. This isn’t just a clutch of RandomNPCs with one line of dialogue through the entire course of the game; you actually get to watch these students arrive, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, acclimate to life at the school, establish their own roles, and eventually wax nostalgic before graduation.

The school environment fits the game well, as tutorials are disguised as classes and tedious fetch-quests are cloaked in the guise of tedious assignments. Your access to the outside world is linked to your scholastic age, with the dangerous zones blocked off from underclassman access. Generally speaking, everything makes sense inside the aesthetic of the game itself, except when the game wills it otherwise.

Further, the “school” structure allows for event-time (structured plot-advancement events), class-time (sometimes plot, sometimes explanation of the mechanics of the game itself) and free-time (sidequests and plot events related to your own party members). The personal quests with your teammates add a layer of depth to the experience; the relationships you forge in your off-weeks can even influence the ending of the game.

CASE TWO: SUPER MARIO RPG

Random battles are tossed aside in favor of visible mobs in dungeons, which trigger battles that pit three of your team (plus three in “support”) against various and sundry foes. The action is kinda cartoony and over-the-top, fitting with the general anime theme, and your items run from rather unusual weapons (cat collars, teddy-bear claws, and trading cards) to downright unusual armor (made from crabs, cookies, and even chocolate).

… sounds like every JRPG, right? Perhaps. (Y’know, scrap that “perhaps.” Make this a straight up “yes.”) It’s very much a familiar beast. However, “familiar” doesn’t mean there can’t be innovation. The timing of battles, rather than going on a full-turn basis, operates in the form of a row of cards lining the top-left of the screen. The rightmost “card” (a character, foe, or other effect) takes action, and then is moved back in the deck according to the action taken. Using weapons with the “Daze” parameter or “Knockback” effects can actually knock enemy cards back in time, while some skills can remove hostile effect cards or move teammates’ cards to the front of the deck. The primary issue with these abilities is that they’re intrinsic to one character and one character only (and he’s kind of a jerk).

That leads to another issue: You get a total of eight characters in your stable throughout the game. You can take a total of 6 into battle. Once you’re in the battle, you’re really going to miss those other two. Each character has such unique strengths – whether it be time-deck manipulation, recursive healing, or defensive capabilities – that tailoring your team to the task at hand becomes a serious strategic decision.

Adding to the strategy is the Support system – those three characters who are “in battle” but not “on-screen.” While in Support, teammates regain HP and SP, and can jump into the fray in place of a front-line member immediately after an offensive action or immediately before taking a hit. Later in the game, characters gain added effects onto their offensive and defensive assists, which add an even deeper layer to the strategy. All in all, the mechanics of the game feel remarkably fine-tuned and balanced; the difficulty curve provides nontrivial battles and some truly epic boss fights while never giving a sense of unfairness.

Wait just a second… visible turn order… characters swapping in at will… this “Grow Book” thing kinda looks like a sphere grid…

CASE THREE: FINAL FANTASY X

I think we’re safe; I checked the length of everyone’s pants and they match. That being said, you have a nearly-uniform grid of nodes, each one the key to 1-3 sub-nodes, activated by the AP you gain in battles, that give stat increases, new abilities, and other attributes. Alarmingly sphere-grid-esque, it’s true, but it works well for the game. Rather than actually spending “spheres” that drop in battle, the paths of the Grow Book are traversed by synthesizing certain items. (You are, after all, at the Academy to learn alchemic synthesis; how fitting is it that such a mechanic is directly tied to character development?)

The Grow Book also serves as incentive to investigate the item-creation system in as much depth as possible. Who knows, perhaps switching X ingredient with Y ingredient will result in a new result – and, by association, stat bonuses for a member of your party? What could’ve been a thankless slog through synthesis is made more pleasurable by such stakes being placed upon it. Recipes are learned either by finding them in the field (Hey, what’s in this chest? Why, it’s plans for a sushi boat…), purchasing them in shops, altering existing recipes, or having suggestions made by the members of your squad as to how to alter an existing recipe. Now, I just need to find another game about alchemy to use as a segue…

CASE FOUR: ODIN SPHERE

Ok, this is primarily for matters of aesthetic. Colorful sprites (but not Vanillaware-class, mind), vivid backgrounds, shiny over-the-top visual effects… and very visible lag. Not so much just slowdown, but jarring, stop-and-hang breaks in what really wants to be a very smooth experience. Go back to Merriam-Webster and look up “pity,” and you will see a clip of this game at its choppiest. The hardcore, fly-across-the-room, Disgaea-esque “OMG TEN THOUSAND YEARS OF PWN” crazy crazy battles would be infinitely more impressive if they didn’t break like a 13-year-old boy doing musical theatre. Speaking of ineffective segues…

CASE FIVE: SUPER PAPER MARIO

The soundtrack (which comes with the game on its own disc, how sweet) is a good thing. I’m not going to go so far as to call it superlative, but at no time did I ever think of the sound as “bad” or “unfitting.” It’s good, enough so that a friend who watched me playing a later dungeon remarked, “I need this soundtrack,” having never played the game. Two tracks in particular hit me like a ton of bricks, though.

The first was the main school theme. You’re going to hear lots of this piece, since a good chunk of the action takes place at the Academy, but after hitting the NewGame+ option and starting from the beginning, you realize… this is the Academy’s alma mater that you’ve been hearing the whole time. This is the song that is being sung, with full lyrics, at Orientation. That the game would buy in so hard into the “school” motif says something about how much they wanted this setting to work and work well, and I can say without reservation that it does.

The second: Muppy’s theme. He’s the cute pink alien-looking-thing that springs up later in the game, and provides varying levels of comic relief and absolute terror. When he’s on center stage, though, you’re treated to a piece that can only be described at 2A03tastic. Retro NES-style synth grows to fuse with heavy bass and a faint strain of something that sounds almost like rap, resulting in a sound experience that defines the term “alien.” Belonging nowhere, it finds refuge here, and it is delightful.

CASE SIX: MANA KHEMIA

The patchwork, though taken from many sources, is itself beautiful. (In stills, at least.) I won’t say “unique,” though this particular union of these particular ideas hasn’t happened in this manner before… Think of Mana Khemia, rather, as the union of several good ideas other games had but never put together before. A fantastic atmosphere, well-structured character development, and battle mechanics so tight you could bounce a quarter off of them were put into a big cauldron, and this is what came out. (And then that opened another node in someone’s Grow Book. And then they got another +25 max HP and +10 attack. Then they replaced…)