Gust Announces Atelier Annie

So, Mana Khemia 2 has been out in Japan for a while, and while we all know that Gust is working on a PSP port of Mana Khemia, that certainly shouldn't be tying up all their resources.

Well, thanks to the latest issue of Famitsu, we now know what they've been up to: Atelier Annie for the Nintendo DS.

Following the young (and apparently good-for-nothing) alchemist Annie Irenberk, Atelier Annie looks like its building off of Atelier Lise's engine, feauturing heavy graphic novel elements and super SUPER deformed character sprites. The character artist from Lise is back as well (unfortunately, I don't know who it is). Unlike Atelier Lise, however, Atelier Annie will feature combat on what looks like a system similar to Enchanted Arms battle system (i.e. allows for strategic placement of characters on an SRPG-esque grid, but separated between allies and enemies).

The game is vaguely slated for release sometime in 2009 in Japan. There has been no announcement regarding North American or European release.

You can check out the Famitsu scans below (thanks Gamekyo). As usual, I will translate them if you are interested.