Monday, November 17, 2008

NIS Announces Mana Khemia: Student Alliance

As much as I wish this announcement was for Gust's sequel to the original Mana Khemia, Student Alliance is unfortunately just the PSP port of Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revvis.

Though Student Alliance is the exact same game as its PS2 original, the port will feature Wi-Fi support for cooperative play (not too sure how that will work at the moment), plus a little bit more content, including more things to synthesize, and all that.

While I didn't think Mana Khemia was the best Atelier game, it was also not the worst. Those who missed the PS2 version, I would definitely encourage you to pick up the PSP port. The rest of us will just have to keep our fingers crossed that Mana Khemia 2 will be announced for North America sooner than later.

You can check out NIS's official press release here.

Mana Khemia: Student Alliance will be available on PSP in North America in January, 2009. It is already available in Japan.

4 comments:

Billy said...

I've got my eye on this. I've heard that it has major slowdown issues though, so I'll wait for reviews to see how bad it is and if any improvements have been made for the USA version.

Brandon said...

After I saw screens for it, I was like "I can't believe they managed to make the graphics even blurrier."

I liked Mana Khemia, but not enough to buy it again for a handheld just for more synthesis. :(

That said, I hope NIS brings Mana Khemia 2 over... (pleasepleaseplease)

Billy said...

I'm mildly interested in the game (haven't bought the PS2 version yet). If the PSP version is passable, I'll definitely go for that. I wish more PS2 RPGs would get this treatment. It's a lot easier for me to get gaming done on a handheld these days than fight my wife for control of the television. :) But if the PSP version is terrible, I'll probably go ahead and pick up the PS2 version to throw on the backlog.

Brandon said...

sounds like you need to ask for your own TV for Christmas. ;)

I doubt the PSP version will be crazy worse than the PS2 version, but probably not crazy better either.

Like I said, I liked the game (definitely an improvement over Atelier Iris 3), but still far from my favorite. As far as Gust games go, Atelier Iris 2 and the original Ar Tonelico are the cream of the crop (imo). (Haven't played AT2, but I'm hoping its at least on par with the first one)