Atelier Iris is actually part of a long running rpg series base in Japan. However the game itself is the first game in the series to actually make its way over to North America. On the surface the game is a simple 2D turn base rpg game that is played out like most rpg games. The one key unique element that the game possesses is its alchemy feature. The ability to create magic and items by combining different elements together is its main selling point that set this game apart from all the other rpg games. But will alchemy alone be enough to make this a good rpg game? The answer to that is unfortunately no. The game itself isn't too bad but it's not too good either. We'll break down each section for you to give you some better insights into this game.
STORY
Welcome to the Land of Mana.
Is she an angel from heaven?
Regallzine is a world that is sustained by the Great Spirit Mana and its elemental powers. Every substance and object in this world is formed by the elements. The people of Regallzine live under the protection of the Mana Spirits and their guidance. A small group of people are capable of creating items using the powers of Mana. These people are known as alchemist. The story begins with an alchemist name Klein Kiesling and his friend, Popo, the Mana of Wood, on a journey in search of finding lost Mana items. Their journey led them to the town of Kavok where they befriended two monster hunters by the name of Lita and Delsus. Lita advises Klein that his search for lost Mana items can best be found at the ancient city in the sky, Avenberry that overlooks Kavok. The journey there will be long and hard so Klein will need the assistant of Lita, Delsus, and other friends in Kavok. But not everyone in Kavok is so willing to lend Klein a helping hand on his journey to Avenberry. The Knights of Alkavana, who maintain law and order in Kavok, have begun attacking anyone that approaches the ancient city. Their leader, Mull, has his own agenda for Avenberry so anyone who interferes with his plan will be consider an enemy of the Knights. But this threat from the Knights of Alkavana won't stop Klein and his friends from finding the true secret of Avenberry. They are determine to make their journey into the past of Regallzine.
On the surface, the plot seems pretty good but unfortunately looks can be deceiving. The story itself is too short and really lack general direction as to where it wants to go. Add into the fact that the story itself is pretty confusing that doesn't provide much detail on what is going on. Certain characters and sub plots gets introduce that really doesn't serve much purpose in the whole story that you spend most of your time in this very short story just wandering around from one place to the next trying to accomplish jobs as monster hunters. By the end of the story, you finally learn the secret of Avenberry and the so called looming danger that awaits Regallzine that the story plot seems a bit contrived and dumb. For most of the story the world of Regallzine is fine and beautiful that there's no sign of danger awaiting the world. They just seem to add in the whole rpg story of the world is coming to an end just for the sake of having that unoriginal plot in an rpg game. Mull and the Knights of Alkavana also don't seem to have much purpose other than to provide some boss fights in the game. At the end of the game where you finally expect a big showdown with Mull as a major end game boss, you end up being disappointed because Mull just ends up being nothing more than a nameless sprite that gets pushed aside for some weird monster game boss. The Atelier Iris story is just plain flat with no lack of interesting plots that you just get bored with Klein and his journey to Avenberry. The game and story looks good but looks can be so deceiving these days.
Score 5/10
CHARACTERS
Now that we're here, what do we do?
The game carries a total of 6 main characters which are your party members with a small supporting cast of characters around them. Each character in the game has a voice actor or actress behind them. Surprisingly the voice acting is very good here. In general the characters do have their own unique distinct personality that separates them from each other giving them a life-like approach that gamers can come to love about them. The drawback to all this is that even though the characters are likeable, they are undeveloped in the game overall. The game does spend a limited and I do mean limited time on giving us a little bit of a background history to each of the 6 main characters but it really doesn't go any further than that. This is probably due to the fact that the story itself is very short and poorly developed too. And when you have a story that is short, the characters within the story won't be fully develop as you would hope they would be. Overall a likeable cast of characters but a cast that needs more depth than being just likable.
Score: 6/10
GRAPHICS
Hey look at this beautiful garden.
The biggest and nicest surprise in this game is probably the graphics. One may think that's sort of odd that the graphics are consider a nice surprise since it's based on an outdated 2D graphic engine look but the way the graphics are drawn in the game, it comes out looking very nice and even better than some of the current 3D graphic games out there. Everything in this game is done is a 2D side to side artwork format. The background artworks are drawn nicely with the right use of colors that help make this a wonderful world. The characters are drawn in short forms but not too short that they come out looking deformed in anyway. They just look a bit cartoony which is probably the desired look that the game developers wanted. But overall what makes the graphics looking better than it should for a 2D graphical look is the use of colors in this game. Everything is bright with all the colors of the rainbow shining in this game. It's the color that pretty much grabs your attention than the actual artwork itself. This pretty much shows you that even the dullest looking style of graphics out there can be shown better with just the right usage of colors to compliment it.
Score: 7/10
MUSIC
We like to request a song, please.
While the graphics were a surprise hit, the biggest and best feature of the game is its soundtrack.
Consisting of over 65 tracks in total that you can actually listen to in the Bonus feature of the game, each of the musical track are done with excellent quality. The game music also covers all the categories that a soundtrack needs to cover. You have town musical scores, battle musical scores, character musical scores, event musical scores, and of course the dungeon musical scores.
The downside with having so many tracks is that there's only one outstanding musical track from the whole selection. Midnight Illusion which is the main theme for the entire game is the one outstanding track that you will probably remember the most from the entire game. All the other tracks are good but they are not outstanding enough to leave a lasting impression on you. In the end of it all, when judging how to score on music overall in the game, you want to see just how many musical scores are the ones that will have the most impact on the players. In this case there's only one musical score out of the whole bunch. And that's not enough to give this a high rating overall for musical features.
Score: 7/10
GAMEPLAY
Lets create a mana item.
Evil has be cleansed away.
Game Information
Genre: Traditional Rpg
Publisher: NIS America
Disc: 1 DVD Disc
Memory: 350 KB
Players: 1 Player Mode
Analog Control: Yes
Rating: Teen
Release: June 2005
The gameplay is a combination of turn base rpg and alchemy synthesis. The turn base rpg element is pretty much the familiar stuff you see in all rpgs that uses a turn base system. The alchemy element is more of a synthesis element that allows you to create various mana items that will help you during battles. Let do a quick review on the alchemy synthesis first. Alchemy is pretty much broken down into 3 separate categories and they are Weapon, Shop, and Mana. The synthesis part is pretty easy since all you need to do is get the right materials or have the right mana elements to be able to combine them into an item. Both Weapon and Mana Item Synthesis requires Mana materials. You can get these Mana materials as drops from fight or just by finding them around various places and extracting the objects into elements using Klein. Materials from Shop Synthesis can be drops from battles or can be purchased from shops. Overall there are over a hundred items for players to create with alchemy synthesis but in reality you probably only end up using about 10% of the items that you actually synthesize since the game is fairly easy to complete. Alchemy synthesis is easy to learn and fun to do but the fact that you don't really need to use this feature fully sort of make the whole focal point of having this feature as the game prominent feature pointless at times. Now for the turn base element of the game, things are fairly easy to learn with tutorial lessons popping up in the game helping you understand how things work. There are 3 towns in the game and each town is fairly small providing you with shops and a save and rest point. Kavok will be your main town where your home and base is for weapon and mana synthesis. Kavok also has more shops available to you than the other 2 towns. The story and gameplay is fairly straight forward with the game tutorial telling you where to go next and even where to find the next dungeon that you are suppose to explore to advance the story further. Traveling on the world map is like walking through various roads to the next city or dungeon. There are random encounters on the world map but those aren't very frequent as you would expect. Each dungeon in the game range from small to medium in size so exploring them won't take long too. Random encounters are more frequent in the dungeons than on the world map. Once a battle begins, you are thrown into a 2D side to side battle with 3 of your party members. Even though you can have a maximum of 3 party members for each battle, you can swap in the other party members at any time during the battles. Battles are done in a turn base system where you can use regular attacks, skill attacks, magic, items, or even run from battles. Again these are all simple regular rpg elements that most rpgers should be familiar to begin with. As stated before, outside of the alchemy synthesis feature, this is your typical turn base rpg game. Unless you are a beginner or new to rpg, you shouldn't have any problems getting right into this game from the get go. But for now let's take a closer look at the more in-depth features of this game.
Action Moves: As you explore various areas you'll run into obstacles
or unreachable areas that you will need help with. This is where Action Moves
comes in. Klein using the square button will have access to various Action Moves
that will help you gain access to new areas or remove obstacles in your way. Examples
of Action Moves are the ability to fly over unreachable areas, blast obstacles
that are in the way, change to a small rabbit to go through areas that are made
for small animals, and even summon your Spirit Manas that can help decrease or
increase enemy encounters. Another way to put this is that Action Moves are like
your Tools that will help you solve puzzles that may block your progress in the
game. Elemental Extraction: The world of Regallzine is made up of elemental
manas. All things in life from trees, bushes, rocks, and items can be extracted
by an alchemist into an element mana that can be used for Mana Synthesis. Elemental
Extraction is the only way to ensure that you maintain the require amount of elements
that are needed to make Mana Items for Mana Synethesis during battles. Nothing
is worst than needing to cast a healing mana spell when you don't have enough
water element for it. Shop Synthesis: Shop synthesis is an interesting twist in this game. While
you can buy items in shops, some items in shops can only be up for sale once it
is discovered first through shop synthesis. Once you successfully synthesize an
item in a shop, the shop will then have that item up for sale. However this doesn't
always guarantee that the item will be in stock even if you manage to discover
or create the item first through shop synthesis. So shop synthesis serves 2 purposes.
One is to discover the item first so the shop can sell them to you later on. Two
is to allow you to create the item for yourself if there's no item in stock. When
synthesizing items through Shop Synthesis, the item will be given a grade base
on quality. The higher the grade, the better the effect the item will be in usage.
An example of this is when you synthesis a medicine that will cure a party member
that is low in HP. If the medicine is a low grade medicine than the amount of
HP restore will be low while a higher grade medicine will give a larger amount
of HP restoration. Mana Synthesis: Mana Synthesis is a lot like magic in this game. In fact you can treat Mana Synthesis as Magic but instead of simply casting magic right away, you have to create the magic first and that's what Mana Synthesis is about. Only the main hero, Klein, can use Mana Synthesis. Before you can Mana Synthesize you need to make sure you have the right elements and the right amount of elements. In the case where you do have the elements and right amount of elements you can than synthesize the Mana Item during battle and it will be used right away on the enemies or on your party members depending on the Mana Item you were trying to create. Outside of battle, Mana Synthesis should be treated as synthesizing an item for later usage during battle as a Mana Item. Only Klein will be able to use the Mana Item as part of his skills usage though. Weapon Synthesis: This is where the weapon customization of the game is
being handled. Weapon Synthesis is fairly easy to do but hard to understand in
terms of what the effects do to your weapon as the end result of your synthesis.
First let's start with how weapon synthesis work. In order for you to synthesize,
you first need a Mana Spirit and a Mana Stone. By using the power of the Mana
Spirit you than transform the Mana Stone into a Mana Crystal. The resulting Mana
Crystal will give a particular stats boost to your weapon depending on the Mana
Stone used and the Mana Spirit used. The next part is combining various Mana Crystals
together to stack up on each other to give a bigger stats boost. Once you have
the final result of a stack Mana Crystal that has various different stats boost
due to combining together various Mana Crystals, you can then attach the Mana
Crystal to your weapon. Not all weapons in the game are customizable though. But
this is how Weapon Synthesis works in its simplest form. In the more complicated
form, the end result of the stack Mana Crystal will give off an effect that you
won't have any idea what that effect does. Simple form of understanding a result
of a Weapon Synthesis is Attack+9. Complicated form is a Weapon Synthesis that
gives Animal Instinct. You're not going to have any idea what Animal Instinct
does unless you have an online guide to help you understand what that effect is.
That's the only drawback of Weapon Synthesis. The good news is that since the
game is pretty easy, you don't really need to get too complicated with Weapon
Synthesis. Mana Spirits: Mana Spirits has many functions in this game. Each Mana Spirit
of course corresponds to a particular element in the game. The main purpose of
a Mana Spirit is to help with Mana Synthesis as without a Mana Spirit from a particular
element, you may not be able to synthesize a mana item. Just because you have
the amount of elements doesn't mean you can just go ahead and Mana Synthesize
without the Mana Spirit from that element befriending you first. Mana Spirit can
also be equipped by your party members. When a party member is equipped with a
Mana Spirit, they will get a boost in stats base on the Mana Spirit. You also
need to maintain your Mana Spirit spirits by giving them gifts to boost their
affection and power. The higher their affection and power, the more chances of
them creating extra stuff for you during Mana Synthesis. Skills: Each party member will have their own set of skills that they will
learn and use for battles. When a party member level up, they will gain 3 skill
points. You can then distribute these skill points to whatever skills you desire.
When a skill has enough skill points, that skill will level up. The maximum level
that a skill can achieve varies from skill to skill.
The gameplay for the most part is pretty unique but its drawback is that it is really too simple and easy that there's not much fun in playing it. The game is also a bit too short too since you can finish this game in 25 hours or less. Certain key features such as Mana synthesis, Shop synthesis, and even Weapon synthesis seem pointless in the game because you really can finish the game without getting too deep into those features. All it takes to accomplish a game completion is the simple tasks of leveling up your characters and using their skills to defeat enemies and bosses. Take away the synthesis features in this game and what you really have here is nothing more than a simple turn base rpg game for beginners. Those who are craving for a much bigger and larger in-depth gameplay will need to look elsewhere. I wouldn't go so far as to say the game is boring but I would say that there wasn't much depth in the gameplay for me that held my interest in it in for the long term.
Score: 6/10
EXTRAS/REPLAY
Golden Pigs as extra bosses?
Atelier Iris does provide quite a few mini side quests in the game for you to accomplish on your journey to saving the world. The drawback to these side quests are that they are too short and somewhat a bit pointless and too difficult to unlock. This is very true with the latter part of the drawback on the side quests. You'll soon find out that meeting the conditions to unlock various small side quests are random for most people that play this game. The end result of all this is having players not bothering with side quests because they can't even get those side quests unlocked. The perfect example of this is yours truly. I wasn't able to unlock half of the available side quests until after I finished the game and re-started with a Game+ at the last save point of my old game. And even then I had a difficult time trying to figure out how to unlock those side quests and no amount of asking for help from other players was going to help due to them unlocking their side quests at different stages within their game too. So most of the side quests just end up as meaningless quests.
In terms of replay ability, the game does provide you to load up a Game+ feature once you finish the game. This isn't a New Game+ since you are basically just loading up your previous save file from your last save point from your first game. The difference is that in your Game+ file, a Bonus Dungeon has now been unlocked for you. The Bonus Dungeon itself isn't too bad or meaningful but you will be able to fight an extra hard boss as well as re-recruit a previous member of your party.
The game also has its own Bonus section that is unlocked at the title or menu screen when you load up the game for the first time. The special Bonus section provides character information, art gallery, movies, and musical tracks for gamers to listen to. Each of these sections however can only be unlocked base on your progress in the game in finding and creating various mana items and shop items.
I have a bit of a mix feeling on this section of the game. While I didn't really find the side quests and Bonus Dungeon to be that good in the game, I did however enjoy the Bonus section that was available at the title screen. Especially the musical track part in the Bonus section which allows players to listen to some of the good music in this game. So in the end I guess a score of a better than average is a decent rating for this section of the game.
Score: 7/10
The best way to describe Atelier Iris is that it's an appetizer rpg game. A game that you might want to play as a fill in rpg game if you have nothing to play while waiting for those big rpg hitters such as the Final Fantasy games or the Xenosaga games. But if you are already pre-occupied with many rpgs or a more in-depth rpg game than you can just skip Atelier Iris. You won't miss out on much of an experience if you decide not to try out Atelier Iris all together. The game by far isn't one of NIS America best rpgs in its library of rpgs.
