Preview
Platform:
PlayStation 2Developer:
Gust Co., Ltd.Publisher:
NIS America, Inc.Previewed by
Ash Paulsen on 2005-03-26
Few people cared about or had even heard of Nippon Ichi Software before August of 2003, when the Japanese developer, in cooperation with Atlus, took a chance on releasing one of their PlayStation 2 titles in America. This title was
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, and its sleeper-hit success is the stuff of legends: very few games garner such a massive fan following through word of mouth alone, but this gem of a game, from a relatively unknown (to us Americans, anyway) Japanese developer was just that good, and it turned a lot of gamers (especially those into strategy RPGs) onto the name of Nippon Ichi Software.
Now, two more successful games (one self-published and the other published by Mastiff) and one newly-opened American branch (NIS America) later, Nippon Ichi is seeing a lot of sudden, unprecedented success both in Japan and here in the States, thanks to the considerable fanbase theyíve built through their solid titles, which all exude not only a very Japanese, hardcore anime-like charm but also sport rock-solid gameplay to boot. Now NIS taking another chance on success: theyíre publishing a game that isnít a strategy RPG (all three of their games weíve seen here in America have been), and testing the waters to see if their loyal fanbase will follow them to the realm of more traditional RPGs.
The vessel, you ask? Itís none other than a game I myself reported about last year, a RPG that particularly caught my eye when it was first unveiled in Japan:
Atelier Iris ~Eternal Mana~. With its lively, vivid anime-style visuals and classically charming, superdeformed 2D sprites, itís a hard game to not pay attention to, especially if you appreciate its old-school charms. But an attractive game doesnít always translate into a good oneÖ which is why I was thrilled when GAF got a preview copy of the game straight from NIS America. Finally I was able to see this game in action, and see for myself if my gut feelings about this game being one to pay particular attention to were on the money. The following is the verdict I reached through a little time spent with this preview version of the game.
(Bear in mind that the preview build I played was only about 60% complete, meaning that the presentation was pretty rough, with picture-centering and text-spacing issues galore, as well as lots of incomplete and untranslated text. I fully expect all of this to be nonexistent in the final release version, however.)
From what Iíve gathered so far from whatís been translated (with a little help from the gameís official website), the stars of
Eternal Mana are Klein (strangely pronounced ìKlayne,î and not ìKlighneî) and Lita. The hero, 17-year old Klein, is on a journey with his friend Popo, the Mana of Wood, to surpass his late grandmother Dafune as a master alchemist. While traveling through the forest of South Esvior in the gameís opening scenes, Klein is cornered by a monster who nearly overwhelms him as his mana strength diminishes. But just when it seems all is lost, Lita ñ a beautiful young girl and a monster hunter from the neighboring town of Kavok ñ comes to his rescue and the two fight off the monster. Lita offers to escort him to Kavok safely, but Klein, being the Brash Young Hero that he is, turns down her offer in a display of bullheaded pride. After the two depart, of course, Klein laments that he acted like a jerk to Lita and didnít thank her for saving his life. His friend Popo then pokes fun at Klein, teasing that he likes her, before the two decide to press on to Kavok, where Klein and now-potential-romantic-interest Lita will invariably be drawn into a much bigger taleÖ and thankfully, thatís about as far as I was able to get before translation issues (or a lack thereof) prevented me from delving into any more of the story.
So the plot seems suitably interesting, but Iím a little less sure about the way itís being presented. Iím not sure if this is a cause of playing a preview version or not, but the scenes at the beginning of the game tended to jump around a lot without any warning; I saw a few scenes that seemed completely out of place next to each other, with little to link them or make them cohesive. In addition, there were a few instances in which the spoken dialogue (nearly every line of dialogue in the game is voice-acted; more on that later) differed from the on-screen text. Iím almost certain that this is something that will be remedied in the final version, but there are a few final release games that have suffered this problem before, so the juryís out on that one.
But things seem to be coming along very nicely otherwise. So far, the script is sharp, witty, and often very funny; and if NISí past localizations are any indication,
Eternal Mana will be loaded with the same kind of spot-on, rock-solid writing Iíve seen thus far in the preview build. Of course the build I played was loaded with untranslated and/or half-translated text as well, but the material that had already been finished was very good, and serves as a great example of what I believe can be expected of the final script.
Being that the version I played was only a little more than half-finished, a lot of
Eternal Manaís gameplay features were unavailable to me. However, what I can say is that, despite NIS being involved with localizing this game, it feels and plays just like a more traditional RPG, with nary a sign of any strategy RPG elements. Of course, this doesnít mean that there is no strategy to the gameís battles, but the game handles and feels just like a traditional RPG.
Gameplay-wise, everything is centered around Elements of Mana; or rather, your characters extracting different kinds of mana (Fire, Water, Earth, etc. ) from objects in the world and combining them to create new weapons, armor, and spells using the gameís other central point of focus, alchemy (remember, Klein is aspiring to be a master alchemist). In fact, nearly everything you make use of in the world of
Eternal Mana will be derived or created from elements, which is why itís imperative that, while youíre walking around the gameís beautifully-drawn, two-dimensional maps, you press the Square button to strike nearly every object you see ñ from rocks, bushes, and barrels to plants, crates, torches, and more ñ and extract any mana you can from them. For example, perhaps thereís a plant that stands out from the others around it. Try striking it, and you just may get a few more points of Earth Mana added to your total for eventual use in creating stuff. Nearly everything in the gameís world has mana to be extracted, and your success in the game depends entirely on how good you are at finding mana and making good use of it. The game goes to great lengths to drive this point home in its tutorials, with one of the characters vocally telling you that you will be screwed if you let your mana dwindle, because your success is based almost entirely around it.
This is a risky move for a game to make, because itís one of those things that players will either love or hate; but even in the incomplete, directionless version I played, I found myself having a rather good time experimenting with what I could do and how alchemy worked, so I have a lot of faith that once players are able to actually have some in-game help to figure out how the gameplay systems work in the final game, itíll prove to be a whole lot of fun and an interesting, different take on the traditional RPG.
Visually, the game is delightful mix of new-school and old-school. On the one hand, youíve got a really sweet half-anime, half-FMV opening and extremely nice, full-screen character drawings for when the dialogue is being spoken (think
Disgaea and
La Pucelle: Tactics), and on the other hand, youíre treated to very
Legend of Mana-esque, 2D hand-drawn landscapes, populated by super-deformed anime sprites straight out of generations past. Battles take on a two-dimensional side view a l· Namcoís
Tales games, and where the two-dimensional sprites may be charming but not visually impressive, the gameís colorful, smooth, and fluid spell effects ñ think
Final Fantasy Tactics and
Tales of Symphonia - very much are. The only real complaint I found myself coming up with in terms of the gameís visuals was that some of the backgrounds tend to be a little
too two-dimensional; some sections of areas are so flat that it can be difficult to tell where things are, and discern between different planes of distance. This same problem was present in
Legend of Mana as well, however (though to a lesser degree), so this just may be an inherent flaw of this kind of visual style. Either way, though, it can be a little invasive at times but never becomes so much of a problem that the gaming experience is marred in any big way.
Eternal Manaís soundtrack is shaping up to be nothing less than a truly ear-popping masterpiece. Those whoíve followed the gameís soundtrack from its Japanese release already know this, however;
Eternal Mana is a real treat for the ears, with outstanding compositions all over the place. This is a game thatís meant to be played with the musical experience in full effect, and it shows: composers Ken Nakagawa, Daisuke Achiwa, and Akira Tsuchiya have done an outstanding job of creating a soundtrack that not only complements and completes the narrative it was composed for, but goes beyond that to stand on its own as an incredibly listenable soundtrack in its own right, out of the context of the story. The music is sure to be one of
Eternal Manaís highlighted features upon release.
The gameís voice acting is a little less grand. Itís a mix of good and bad, thankfully with more emphasis on the ìgood.î Actually, in classic dubbing style, it would seem that the only character with real line delivery issues is the storyís hero, Klein; itís not that heís bad, but heís just bland and sounds like heíd really rather be doing something else. Iíd like to say it doesnít take away from the experience but it kind of does, seeing as heís one-half of the storyís two central characters and itís something of a shame to watch the exploits of a hero who will probably end up doing cool stuff but sound bored while he does said stuff. But everyone else Iíve heard so far runs the positive gamut from ìgoodî (Lita, two as-yet-unnamed characters) to ìoutstandingî (Popo, Kleinís hyper-energeticm bouncy best friend). In classic anime style, thereís even a cat girl in the gameís opening scenes, who sounds exactly like every other cat girl youíve ever heard in an anime dub, just in case you forgot that you were playing a very Japanese, very heavily anime-themed RPG.
In conclusion,
Atelier Iris ~Eternal Mana~ seems to pretty much be every bit the buzz-worthy RPG I thought it might be back when I reported on it last year. Considering the inherent charm of the incomplete version Iíve played, I canít wait to see how this game looks once all its pre-release bugs and problems are ironed out. Itís really very fortunate that weíre getting to play this decidedly very Japanese game over here in the States courtesy of NIS, because what Iíve played of it so far gives me the impression that this is one that should not be missed. RPG and Nippon Ichi fans, itís coming sooner than you think: look for it on shelves in May.
