Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana

"Great for those of us who thought RPG progression should have stopped with SNES"

Atelier Iris is one of those obscure games that Nippon Ichi picks up and brings to US shores in limited quantities. Made by Gust, this game is a typical console RPG--taking turns and all. The game has undeniable charm, but more flaws than perks keep this boat from floating.

GRAPHICS

The graphics in this game are your standard Nippon Ichi fare. If you liked what games like La Pucelle looked like, you'll like this game. Featuring obnoxiously adorable sprites in wonderfully drawn environments, the graphics in this game are something that stick out. A lot of people have said that the graphics remind them of the Legend of Mana series. I personally say they look like what a great art project updating the SNES era would look like. That said, the characters are still obnoxiously cute. Featuring your usual anime-inspired fare the characters in this game all seem to be direct rip-offs of characters elsewhere. Watch the opening movie and tell me the shot of Klein does not look exactly like Kratos from Tales of Symphonia. The environments are all very lush and very bright. This keeps them attractive, but at the same time staring at them too long may cause temporary blindness. Moreover, the dungeons tend to be really short and the art style for them rather repetitive.

SOUND

The soundtrack to this game is horrible. It's not even standard background music. It's noticeably bad. From time to time I had to turn off my volume and go get a CD from my room instead. The songs are all fairly good when you first hear them, but end up so over-played from the sheer amount of backtracking in those areas you'll find yourself hitting mute as well. The voice acting on the other hand is fairly top-notch. Featuring an all-star cast of VAs with credits ranging everywhere from Cowboy Bebop to Witch Hunter Robin these are not unknown VAs in the game and anime world. Their performance in here is also fairly strong if you can get past Norn's squeaky voice and incessant meowing. And by meowing I mean saying the word "meow." The problem is that frequently the voice acting will cut off mid-sentence. You'll be listening to a dialogue and one of the characters will just stop speaking, sometimes mid-word. That seems pretty buggy to me (I don't care what everyone says about memory on the PS2 and whatnot) and is inexcusable for a finished product.

GAMEPLAY

Alchemy/Mana

Using various Mana (think GFs or Summons) you'll find across the land you can combine items together to create better items and weapons. The alchemy in this game is addictive and sometimes fun, but never really necessary. It's fun to play around and cook new recipes in the different towns, but you'll rarely need to use those dishes in battle with Klein's ability to synthesize healing items. Whether or not you even bother with alchemy is up to you. I'd advise it because it's infectious and can be really fun, but it's not needed. The Mana you find assist Klein's synthesize ability (think alchemy in battle). You extract elements from all across the land and put them together to make battle items. The Mana can also be equipped to different characters throughout the game in order to give them special additions when they level up. Also, in a Golden Sun-style twist the Mana can be used on the field to solve puzzles. These puzzles, however, are a complete waste of time. All they do is slow you down and never provide any real challenge.

Dungeons/Monsters

The dungeons in this game are all rather short, which is something that plays in its favor. This means you can get in, play around, get out and get moving. It helps to keep the game moving along. As you play the game you'll be glad that the dungeons are short because you'll be forced to trek through most of them quite a few times on some random mission or another. This completely counteracts the original intent of keeping things fresh and moving as you feel like for every step forward you take, you have to take a few steps back and then retrace your steps. This is not made any easier by the ridiculous encounter rate found in this game. Every 3 steps yields a random battle. This makes the game incredibly tedious in times of backtracking and almost insulting when you're forced to re-battle enemies you beat at the beginning of the game. The problem is even further compounded by the sheer lack of original enemies. Even in the last dungeon you're still fighting little blobs of slime. But the latter blobs are different colours and some have moustaches! All of the enemies in the game repeat 300 times with different colours to indicate a higher strength. This even occurs with the bosses! The glory days of fighting these big, elaborate bosses are over when you fight a boss who looks exactly like random enemy 202, but red.

Character Growth

The developers realized what they were doing with the backtracking so, in an effort to keep the early enemies from seeming completely insulting, they gave you minimal character growth. You level up and gain 4, 5, 6 HP. You get absolutely no sense of accomplishment for your time spent playing. For the most part, you don't even get that many different weapons or armor during the game. And yes, while you can upgrade some weapons (SOME) it really doesn't make you feel any more special. In battle each of the different characters have different battle abilities. The majority of these abilities are completely pointless. How often do you really need to shrink, put to sleep, create illusions and turn the enemy into candy?

SUMMARY CONS

While the graphics are well done, they begin to feel stale and repitive by the end of the game. As do the enemies. As do the mana. And the alchemy. Basically take every RPG you've ever played and make a parody taking the cliche elements from each. Unlikely boy meets girl, fights villain resurrecting ancient evil, falls for girl. Toss in a stock cast of characters--man with mysterious past, drunk and womanizer, cat girl, girl with wings, hero, and disillusioned warrior--and you feel like you've played this game 1,000 times before. None of the characters really even have any motivation to join your party either. They just sort of end up fighting with you and don't leave. With more random battles than you can count, backtracking, lame puzzles, no real growth and a been-there-done-that battle system, this game is very easily skipped.

SUMMARY PROS

I'm going to end on a positive note, because this game does have some definite perks. For one, it is very humorous. There are a lot of laugh out loud moments if you're into the goofy Japanese humor. The jokes are so lame and corny they'll make you crack a smile at least. The best thing the game really does have going for it is its old-school flavor. Simple plot, simple characters, simple battle system, simple graphics--it feels like a SNES-era RPG all over again. So for those of you who want to play SNES on the PS2 without horrid load times, this is a good game for that nostalgia flavoring. All others, approach with caution.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 07/20/05