Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy - Gameplay

Gameplay

Mana Khemia 2 is classified as a console role-playing game and is a direct sequel to Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis also created by Gust.

Like its predecessor, the core of this game focuses on alchemy through which players can create items, weapons, armors and accessories to be used throughout the duration of the game. These alchemy recipes can be attained through field explorations, completing certain jobs or bought in shops. Each item has its own special properties, from elemental attributes to special skills (called "Common Skills") which are useful during battle. Like the previous installment, the quality of an item depends on its "Ether Level" which starts at 50 and can either increase or decrease according to the selected elemental attributes on the "alchemy wheel." New recipes can be derived from older ones depending on the ingredient selected during item creation.

In the field, players are confronted by visible monsters. Once the player bumps into a monster, one of the four PlayStation controller buttons will be displayed. If the player manages to quickly input the corresponding button, the player gets an advantage in battle allowing the characters to strike first. Unlike the first Mana Khemia, players will only have five permanent characters in their group (three in the active party, two/three in reserve), the sixth being a "Guest" character which will only participate during certain events. Guests are playable during battle but feature inaccessible equipment and status parameters. Players can call in the reserve characters for an extra attack or to defend against an incoming attack. The switched-out character will have to wait a certain amount of time before being available to switch again.

As more hits are inflicted upon the enemies, the battle gauge will build up; "Unite Mode" will initiate once it maxes out. The "Unite Mode" is akin to the "Burst Mode" from the previous game in which damage dealt will be critical and the amount of time reduced for reserve characters to act again. In Mana Khemia 2, the "Intimate Attack" (known previously as "Co-op Attack") can only be executed during "Unite Mode." An "Intimate Attack" is a combo attack achieved by switching in both characters in reserve consecutively, dealing more damage than an ordinary attack (much like "Variable Strike" from Mana Khemia). Also returning from Mana Khemia is the "Finishing Burst," a powerful single character attack which requires the player to fill up a separate gauge only available during "Unite Mode."

Like the previous game, this game has no levels and instead depends entirely on "Grow Books" to increase the characters' stats. A "Grow Book" requires the player to create items through alchemy to unlock slots containing stat boosts acquirable by distributing AP (Ability Points) gained during battle. Mana Khemia 2 adds another layer to the Grow Book by requiring an Ether Level of 100 (the highest) for an item, weapon, armor, or accessory in order to unlock the third slot for that specific creation, thus encouraging the player to plan out the synthesis before using any ingredients in alchemy.

The game is presented as a series of terms at Al-Revis Academy. Each term is made up of several weeks, typically starting and ending with an event and ultimately leading to a key battle at the conclusion. Between main story events, the player is generally required to complete two or three courses, earning grades for how well each course was completed. This is then followed by two or three days of free time unless the player should fail to make a decent cumulative grade by the end of the courses, resulting in a week of detention (involving academy-assigned tasks) before free time becomes available. Once in free time, the player is free to take jobs with Cole (money) as a reward, initiate a "Character Story" (known as "Character Quest" in Mana Khemia) which reveals more about a particular character, or participate in the "Bazaar" which allows the sale of items the player has created and leads to the resale of those items later (bypassing the need to recreate them in the alchemy workshop).