As you'll have seen if you've been keeping an eye on my YouTube channel, I'm getting a reasonable distance into Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis now. I'm really enjoying it; it's got a lot of Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm about it — which is good, because I liked that game a lot — but it's also got its own distinct feel.
And the cast is brilliant. I jokingly referred to this as "anime Harry Potter" the other day and I kind of stand by that — even with its narrative going off in its own direction and its focus being distinct. The reason I feel like this is because of the character dynamics going on; we've got a gradually expanding central cast of loveable idiots (who are all idiots for different reasons) and a thoroughly loathsome villain.
Or perhaps I should say "antagonist"; Tony's role in Mana Khemia very much feels like that of Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter. He's one of the most unpleasant people you'll ever encounter and he does some absolutely reprehensible things, but he feels just slightly too incompetent to ever really be a "big bad". We'll see where that goes. Either way, it felt really good to kick the snot out of him at the end of Chapter 4.
And, as you'll see when I post my Gameplay Archive video tomorrow, I was having enough fun this evening to play it for nearly 4 hours non-stop without realising. Gotta love it when that happens!
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