Mana Khemia: Student Alliance

by NIS America

Product Features

• Avatar, item and team crafting allows for complete and compregensive personalization instead of just leveling up through combat.
• Multiplayer options including a co-op mode were you can battle monsters together to get rare items via the PSP's ad-hoc wireless connection.
• Jump start functionality allows players to install part of the game on to the memory stick to make loads faster.
• Over 100 hours of game play, 20+ main dungeons, and more than 150 ways to customize your character growth.
• New academic questing system that allows players to take on quests that the professor assigns, with success or failure affecting the outcome of the story.

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001C3N0P6
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches ; 4 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: March 10, 2009
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,900 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #41 in Video Games > Sony PSP > Role-Playing
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

In Mana Khemia: Student Alliance players on the PlayStation Portable experience the spiritual sequel to the Atelier Iris series in this fourth entry in the Role-playing (RPG) series published by NIS. What makes Mana Khemia: Student Alliance different from the previous Atelier Iris games in that it's a campus sim-style RPG, where you can interact with classmates and professors to complete academic quests. Vayne Aurelius. View larger. The Story In Mana Khemia: Student Alliance you play as Vayne Aurelius, a novice alchemist from deep inside a local forest who was invited to attend Al Revis Academy. Once in your new surroundings here at the academy you and your best friend your pet cat Sulpher, will meet human and not so human alchemists, and together you will solve the mysteries of alchemy. As you attend classes you will also discover and create items, weapons, and even character stats through the use of alchemy. Everything you find in the field can be used to craft items with alchemy. Fish, hunt, dig, and search for over 400 items and ingredients hidden throughout the game that you can enjoy both in local single player action as well as multiplayer via a PSP ad-hoc wireless connection. Key Game Features: Multiplayer Options - A co-op mode were you can battle monsters together to get rare items. Jump Start Functionality - Install part of the game on to the memory stick to make loads faster. New Academic Questing System - Players will take on quests that the professor assigns. You fail your mission, you may have to stay after school. Also depending on who you work with for your assignments, the outcome of the story will change. Avatar Crafting - Personalize your characters by "crafting" skills and stats instead of just leveling up through combat. Crafting skills and stats allows the player to create unique characters like a warrior that excels in summoning magic or a magician that’s an expert at snipe shooting. Item Crafting - A comprehensive item/weapon crafting system. Create anything from healing potions to swords through alchemy. Team Crafting - Craft items using your team’s recipe. Symbol Encounters - No more random encounters. Visually confirm and engage enemies. Screenshots: School based quests. View larger. Alchemy everywhere. View larger. Exciting action. View larger. Easy character swapping. View larger.

Product Description

Mana Khemia is the spiritual sequel to the Atelier Iris series and fourth entry in the RPG series published by NIS. Mana Khemia is different from the previous Atelier Iris games in that it's a campus sim-style RPG, where you can interact with classmates and professors to complete academic quests. You play as Vayne Aurelius, a novice alchemist who was invited to attend Al Revis Academy. At the academy Vayne academy, you will meet human and not so human alchemists, and together you will solve the mysteries of alchemy. You will discover and create items, weapons, and even character stats through the use of alchemy. Everything you find in the field is used to craft items with alchemy; you can fish, hunt, dig, & search for new ingredients (over 400 items/ingredients are available) Multiplayer functions - offline co-op multiplayer (2 players); multi-cartridge multiplayer

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Loading aside, a worthwhile game, July 14, 2009

By 

Lieutenant Nikos "The Helpful Gamer" - See all my reviews

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Mana Khemia: Student Alliance (Video Game)

Most people who play this port of the PS2 title will tell you that there's a lot of loading, and it's true. It's also somewhat buggy, as the game has frozen on me several times, especially after putting the PSP on hibernate. These are major flaws, and also major turn-offs for many gamers.

If you can deal with those problems, however, you'll find a fun game with many unique features. Crafting new equipment and gaining new abilities/stats tie together in a way that is pretty fun and addictive. Battles are also enjoyable, and even though they start out simple, they get more interesting as your party grows and you can swap out members at defensive or offensive opportunities. In my mind, however, the best feature of this game is the story: getting to know the characters and having them develop through the optional free times are memorable for both humorous and heartwarming scenes. If you have patience and a PSP, and you like RPGs, you can't go wrong with this game.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lovely characters, addictive item-synthesis, really good story!, October 4, 2010

By 

M. Kreutz "MrMuk" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Mana Khemia: Student Alliance (Video Game)

Positive:
- Addictive item-synthesis-system
- Interesting grow book-system instead of the regular leveling up
- Well done characters
- Well done story
- Fights can be really interesting
- Interesting finale with multiple endings

Negative:
- Loading times (even with the download-version it's annoying sometimes)
- Fights can be boring, too
- item search can be annoying
- Annoying night time
- Repetitive gameplay

Well, the story is about Vayne, a boy with amnesia, who is called to study at the Al-Revis alchemy school where he meets many new and slowly uncovers his past.
The main characters are done quite well and detailed and by doing character quests in the free time you get to know them even more. You'll quickly like the characters. The overall mood in the game is a happy, funny one, but to the end, as the story progresses, it gets more serious.
In this game, you don't level up. Instead you have to synthesis new items, which unlock new abilities (and higher stats) for the characters.
The fight-system is round-based and some specialities like variable strike (consecutive triple attack with vayne in the end, deals high damage).
While the boss fights are interesting and can be quite hard, too, the regular fights with the monsters with the world can be quite boring/annoying.
Another annoying thing is that the monsters get double as strong at night. So either you return to home and visit the world again or... you just wait till it gets day again. So, to me, the "night"-mode was quite senseless and annoying.

The gameplay of the game is actually quite repetitive: You do some quests, you search for items, you synthesis items, again and again. Well, it won't really bother you if you enjoy the item-synthesis and the story.
The main point of the game is of course the story/characters: There are many story scenes, which are long sometimes, too.
So if you don't like animes or rather stories in games, you won't like the game.

So I can recommend this game to everyone who enjoys a nice anime-like story and the "item-collecting" thing. Also to those, who don't like final fantasy, I can recommend this game.

It took me about 50 hours to beat this game.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good game, May 1, 2009

By 

Dreux Barbier "Cajun techie" (Lafayette, LA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mana Khemia: Student Alliance (Video Game)

I find this to be a great game for the portable space. If you love games where you can synthesize items, this is for you. Great for fans of Atelier games. Combat takes getting used to but it's fun. Load times happen often, but if you load part to the memory on the PSP it goes faster and it isn't as bad as reviewers say. I don't think they had the load to memory function maybe? The best part though is the synthesizing of items you can change them a lot and come up with new stuff by changing the recipes you have. This in turn opens up your stats and makes you more powerful :) It's fun.