Customer Reviews

Mana Khemia: Student Alliance

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This game runs SUPER SLOW!!!!!! I can't blame it on the seller. I just think it was a waste of money. The load screens take forever, and the gameplay is also slowed down unlike the mana khemia on ps2

Fun game. It's easy to learn and there are plenty of optional quests to tackle. The challenge is there or you can create super powerful items and eliminate the challenge. Highly recommended.

I bought this game because I am a sucker for any rpg game. Unfortunately I only played like three-four hours of it. It was one load screen after another, and even when it was not on a load screen, you would push a button for an action and there would be like a second of lag before you saw it executed. Combat animations would cut out. It looks pretty when standing still, but animation is not fluid.

I got tired and moved the The Crinsom Gem Saga, thank god this game was waiting for me, a game that has better visuals and moves really fast even when is loading.

This game is actually really good. I have alot of fun with the battle system and the cool graphics. It can be a little frustrating when it has to load but if you have patience, it's all worth it. Most people bad mouth the game but it's actually a good buy. I feel that it uses some of the PSP's potential very well...Unlike most games on the market. If you're looking for a great JRPG (Japanese Role-Playing Game), or just a great RPG in general...GET IT!

I played this game on the PS2 and when I saw they were porting it to the PSP I was excited. I recieved the game and dug in, hoping to score all A's on my classes. The game is an exact port which is great. I love the syntesis and class schedule along with the story line of each of the characters.

I am however very disappointed about the load times and the way the game freezes, and 'hick ups' as you play. I've many times feared that the game had frozen completely and I would have to restart from an old save. While still a good game, it makes me unsure if the portablity is worth the hick ups. If you don't mind them, as they do seem to be mostly when you first load a screen then buy the game.

The game as such is great but on the psp it is an outrage. The game freezes all 30 minutes of playtime. NIS should be really ashamed for selling this not working product!

Alright I picked this game up thinking it was something else. Got home opened it up popped it in and played for about a few hours, (I was really into it) then I read the back cover and the book realizing it was the wrong game. I DID NOT take it back however I have been playing this game since then. Every so often I start all over half way through the game realizing I should have done something different and each time I start over I have more fun than the last time I played.

It is apart of the Atlier(SP?) Series of games the load time on this game is not as good as its PS2 counter part, however this is portable that is the biggest selling point for me.