"The best RPG on the PS2 since Final Fantasy X"

Introduction
Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana is the sixth installment in the Atelier series, the first five of which did not have an English translation and I did not play. From what I read online, the series is generally based on getting items, synthesizing items and supporting a community, something akin to Harvest Moon I am guessing. This sixth installment however is a ‘traditional' RPG with the synthesizing element integrated within it.
Story: 9/10

The backdrop of sort of the story is the legendary city of Avenberry, where people and mana used to coexist. This people were known as alchemist and they helped get Avenberry into an age of prosperity, which unsurprisingly, suddenly died out. And many years later, well the story begins.

Unlike some RPG where you are chucked into a character and must save the world, this game doesn't start as such. In fact the characters are usually motivated by their own self interest. Your characters are Galgazits, something like your all purpose mercenary. Initially, you set out to various places running errands for people for cash, and then your party will cross path with the bad guy, who pisses the party off and thus your party have a personal reason to kick his ass, and yeah save the world.

The story is not particularly striking or original in itself, but the in game dialogues and interactions between your characters and the NPCs are full of light hearted humor. For instance, there is a collector with an obsession for touching a cat girl's ears (one of your character) as well as dumb looking knight ala Team Rocket from Pokemon who keep coming and getting kicked in the ass.

Graphics: 9.5/10

The graphics in this game is 2d-ish, and it seems hand drawn to me. For some reason, it reminds me of Tales of Symphonia, but that one is cell shaded while this isn't, I think. However, you shouldn't dismiss this game as having crappy graphics just because it is 2d, in fact, it looks great - bright and cheerful with varying environments for most parts of the game. There is also a great deal of details into the graphics. Sadly, the 3d world map is absolutely bland and pathetic looking, though this fault can quite easily be overlooked.

The character designs look very animeish and although they are generally very well done, certain characters look out of proportion (example: Lita).

Sound: 10/10

The game has many great tunes which somehow fits with the game very well. The music also comes to me as being generally cheerful and happy. This game also has voice acting so this is a good plus. I think the English voice acting is pretty good, but I must say that I am not a very fussy person.

Gameplay: 10/10

First and foremost, the battle system. When looking at the screenshots I was somehow mislead to thinking that this game has an active battle system like the Tales series. Well I was wrong – this is a conventional turned base battle system. There really isn't anything really special about the battle system itself but the fact that each characters are very different from each other and that the characters will stay that way till the end is a huge plus. You can also switch back and forth between the characters just like in Final Fantasy X and also you can only have 3 characters fighting at a time.

The leveling up system in this game is a sort of mix between Final Fantasy 7 and 9. Firstly, your characters that is not in the main party will also gain experience (half of the normal experience) and whoever deals the last blow will get 10% bonus experience. As you level up, you will also get skill points that can be spent on upgrading your skills (be it passive or active).

Okay next, the in game movement system. This feels somewhat like Paper Mario game – you could jump around, use your wand to extract elements from all sorts of things, as well as use action abilities learned throughout the game to proceed (for instance, use the fire mana to shoot fire balls to destroy obstacles). I will not reveal more action abilities so as not to spoil it too much for you.

A major chunk of the sidequests involve synthesizing items. This is similar to cooking or inventing items in Star Ocean games. Throughout the game, you will collect various items, and along the way you can create various new items, such as accessories to equip, things to throw at the opponent and restorative stuff. Of course this is also not lacking in humour, and you can create sexy outfits for your female characters that will seduce your opponents in battle, among some other ridiculous things. Some items are available for synthesis at the beginning (like the shop keepers telling you what is needed) but the real fun part is varying those ingredients to create completely new items. I know this all sounds really boring but trust me on this – it is fun.

You can also customize your weapons with beneficial properties, like fire resistance or speed up. This is done by extracting characteristics from mana stone and imbuing it to your weapon. This allows for a great deal of customizability for your accessories, and I think that making your ‘ultimate weapon' yourself can be very fun.

I believe that there is some sort of relationship system between your characters and NPC's (mainly shopekeepers). As you do favours for them as well as talk to them every now and then, you will get scenes with them and you will learn more about them. I do not think that these scenes will definitely happen, you have to trigger it. This element adds some sort of realism to the game and I find that doing this makes the game more rewarding.

Other Information

Difficulty: 8/10
The dungeons and puzzles aren't too difficult compared to other RPG in general, but the boss battle can get very very difficult and leveling up your characters like mad doesn't boost stats much and so the battle will not be much easier just because your characters are 5 level higher.

Learning Curve: Easy
There is an in game tutorial which is quite humorous so anyone that actually spends time watching them all won't have any problem. Heck, even my sister that has never played an RPG before could play this game. Yes, you could play this game straight without reading the manual.

Length: Variable
Depending on the amount of time spent on the sidequests and leveling up, this game can take anywhere from 25-80 hours of recorded game time (you will most likely spend more time than what is recorded since you may need to repeat bosses a couple of times or to load a bad synthesis decision).

Weighted Average Score: 9.8/10

Simply put, this is one of the best RPG ever, and definitely the best RPG on the PS2 since Final Fantasy X. Everyone who has nothing against the cutesy looking visuals and likes RPG should give this game a shot.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/30/05