Admirable Alchemy- Mana Khemia: Student Alliance Reviewed

Mana Khemia: Student Alliance for the Sony PSP. Developer: GUST, Publisher: NIS America

Not long ago, the most prevalent environment for role playing games was the murky, monster-filled dungeon. Thanks to the last two Shin Megami Tensei titles, Disgaea 3, and now Mana Khemia: Student Alliance, the school campus is becoming the dominant setting for RPGs. Harry Potter seems to have replaced Dungeons and Dragons as the cultural conduit of the young geek.

Last year, developer GUST delighted Playstation 2 owners with Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis, a non-traditional, turn-based RPG. Student Alliance is a gratifying port of that game with two noteworthy additions: a multiplayer battle mode, and the ability to cache game data on a memory stick to reduce load times. As the game opens, players are introduced to Vayne Aurelius, a solitary young man who lives in the forest with his feline sidekick, Sulpher. Our hero is quickly yanked from his woodland isolation and brought to the local alchemy academy. At this enchanted educational institute, students are taught the basics- everything from making fish robots to explosive food items out of everyday materials.

In sharp contrast to the predictable ‘save the world quest’, Mana Khemia’s challenges center around the difficulties of high school- from making friends, earning good grades, to prevailing through student rivalries. During the title’s journey, players will study for three years at the alchemy academy, divided into eight week sessions. Players can choose which classes they would like to take, which correspond to a variety of missions- from monster killing, questing, and item creation. At the end of each lesson, the player is graded accordingly- ‘A’ grades require supplementary efforts, while ‘F’s are given for a complete deficiency in meeting the class requirements. 

Battles are engaging affairs with the ‘ACCB’ bar showing the sequence of character and enemy turns. The gamer can cast spells or change the party line-up to alter the progression of events, adding a dose of strategy. As players pluck away at foes, they will add to the burst-mode meter. Once, this gauge has been maximized, characters assail antagonists with attacks that do mammoth amounts of damage. When not engaged in skirmishes, players will be sinking hours into the game’s synthesis mechanic. In the gamer’s workshop, party members gather to create new items formulated by collected components. The party’s level of expertise will affect the ‘ether level’ or overall quality of the item. Luckily, once an item is crafted, reproduction is easily allowed.  

Student Alliance’s hand-drawn character sprites are lovingly rendered and typically well-animated. Character portraits, used during dialogue delivery, are sufficiently detailed and pleasing to the eye. Our one caveat with the graphical presentation is the three-dimensional environments, which scroll unevenly and can be a bit blurry at times. Early on in our adventure, we had difficultly indentifying a valve on the wall as actually being a faucet. Sonically, the game has an assortment of upbeat, catchy tunes, which repeat a bit too frequently.

Without the use of the game’s caching system, load times were slightly frustrating. With the ‘jump start’ option, the game creates an additional 209MB file on the player’s memory stick. Once this was initiated, movement around the different campus was much quicker and easily reduced by half. Additionally, without having to power the spinning UMD as much, our battery life seemed slightly improved.

While Mana Khemia: Student Alliance offers 40-50 hours of playtime, gamers shouldn’t expect the journey to be especially challenging or complex.  RPG fans will certainly enjoy the game’s engaging combat and multifaceted alchemy system, and should be captivated by the game’s clever dialogue. While owners of the PS2 version of Mana Khemia won’t find enough substance to warrant a double-dip, PSP owners craving an original role playing game on the go, won’t be disappointed.

About Robert Allen

Since being a toddler, Robert Allen has been immersed in video games, anime, and tokusatsu. Currently, his days are spent teaching at two southern California colleges. But his evenings and weekends are filled with STGs, RPGs, and action titles and well at writing for Tech-Gaming since 2007.

50 comments

  1. FIRST.

    I loved the PS2 version, but like the review said, no double dipping for me.

  2. Great review. man, you dig those JRPGs dontcha Deagle?

  3. I guess this wasn’t Nippon Ichi. You win 🙂

  4. Glad to hear about the caching- The PS2 load times were pretty long without using the HDloader.

  5. After a long day at high school, I want to play a game where.. yes, I’m in school! HAHA

  6. I’ll buy this to complete my NIS collection! Best price, anyone?

  7. I don’t think there’s one he doesn’t like, which is cool.

    Most critic hated the PS2 version, while real gamers liked it. I’m glad to see the good score.

  8. You forgot to mention these are a continuation of the wonderful Atelier Iris series. Well, the third game wasn’t too hot.

  9. $10 for DIRT? Man, that’s expensive!

  10. I thought the PS2 version was cute, but nothing spectacular. I’d wait until it hits $20.

  11. Whats the HD loader?

  12. Great review. I’d like to know the lowest price too.

  13. Why do people feel the need to say “First”, it’s not like this site is getting a million comments or anything.

  14. How was the multiplayer, you never said!

  15. So far, no other reviews for the game. Metacritic has a 68 on the original PS2 game, which is a crime.

  16. It’s nice to see a non-iphone game for a change 😉

  17. Thanks for the review. I’ll be getting this one for sure.

    Did it just come out?

  18. How the voice acting? that can make or break a game for me.

  19. Two RPGs in a row! You guys know how to make a person happy.

  20. The text seems really small. is it readable?

  21. I’m just glad to see some PSP software. Between this and Resistance Retribution, things are looking up for the little black system.

  22. I wish they had made a full on sequel, but with PSP software sales they way they are it’s understandable.

  23. Ok, the one thing I enjoy about RPGs is renaming the characters. Sometimes I name them after friends, other times I give them nasty names. Can you do that with MK?

  24. Don’t forget I REALLY love those SRPGs! Disgaea is the best thing since frosted cake.

  25. Sadly, I only had one copy of the game, so I couldn’t try this out.

    I can you it’s wi-fi ad-hoc only, meaning no playing over the internet.

  26. 40-50 hours of playtime? Sounds nice, but I feel like I might get bored 20 hours in, like I do with most RPGs.

  27. I got a tinge of excitement just looking over those screens!

  28. I wish there was a way to transfer game date between the PS2 and PSP versions.

  29. When I clicked on the link, I though you’d rip this game a new one. Glad to see you are more open minded that most sites.

    It seems the smaller sites are more forgiving than the big ones.

  30. $29.99 everywhere. Not too bad a price.

  31. No Japanese voice=instant fail.

    When will the developers learn???

  32. is the game funny?

  33. The instruction booklet mentions vibration (on the PSP?), I laughed at that!

    I’d say the game is more charming than funny. One or two LOL moments.

  34. Yes, Wednesday 3/10/09.

  35. Haha, sounds like the cut and pasted the manual.

    Sad to hear to Japanese VO.

  36. After that, things are bleak.

  37. Frys has it for $29.99 today. Woohoo!

  38. Only local multiplayer kind of sucks. Why do that do this for a turn based game?

  39. I picked it up today. It’s kind of janky. Gameplay will start and stop sometimes.

  40. I think that’s the normal price

  41. Do not buy this game. Do not look at this game. Do not think about this game and hopefully the sales will send the message that ports like this won’t fly — especially when stuff like Disgaea runs flawlessly on the PSP.

    IGN 2.7

  42. I just read that review, and he basically says nothing about the gameplay, and just complains about the framerate and the loading.

    Are they really that bad?

  43. Seems like the game isn’t a perfect port, which is sad.

  44. you cant spell IGNorant without IGN.

  45. Bought the game yesterday and so far so good. Never played any of the series, but willing to give it a try.

  46. Any problems like the IGN review said?

  47. I love this quote from the IGN review:

    “Sound: Unlike Jeff, I thought the voice acting was is strictly C-grade”

    don’t forgot this one, also

    “Welcome, ladies and gents to the worst port to ever on the PSP.”

    They need to pull their digits out of their bums. They gave the original PS2 version a 5, so take their review with a grain..

  48. It’s a program you put onto a PS2’s harddrive. It allows you to put game images and play them directly off the HDD.

  49. Hi i have heard of known issues with the psp 1000 version load times are worse, and the saveing the information doesn’t work. can anyone confirm this?

  50. I played through most of the game on my PSP 1000, and didn’t have any problems at all. As for load times, the 3000 does load caching, but the difference may be small.