Mana-Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy is a direct Sequel to the original Mana Khemia. It was localized and released by NIS America in late August, (wrongly subtitled, as the original Japanese title is roughly translated to the Alchemists of the Fallen Academy.) The new game features a completely unique cast of characters, except for three cameos. The class and alchemy systems remain more or less unchanged, but the grow book system, battle mechanics, and field monster AI are all retooled.The storytelling style is also changed. The events of the story are now told in two different playthroughs, each featuring a different main character and core cast. Completing both character's stories unlocks a third story which brings all the characters together and concludes the game's plot.The character sheet for this game can be found here.
Tropes featured in this game (Note- Please post/relocate any character-specific tropes on/to the characters page!)
Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Averted; everybody participates. The total number of party members has been cut down to 5 per character story, with 3 on vanguard, 2 in support, and an empty slot for guest characters.
Or 2 vanguard and 3 support.
Played straight in the extra chapter.
Axe Crazy: Reicher after being influenced by the Soul Mana.
Barrier Change Boss: Uryu will periodically changes its elemental resistance. Also the Light Mana.
Beleaguered Assistant: Poor Whim. Lily's commands have her doing everything from injecting ink into her veins to standing in front of a fire so her body can warm Lily's bed.
To be fair though, Lily provides the alchemic know-how to enhance Whim's power so it is likely that Whim needs Lily's help to achieve her full potential.
Boy In A Bag: In two Training from Hell events in Raze's route, Et brings along Enna inside a bag. It Got Worse in the first case, since Et completely forgets about the bag, causing Enna to be trapped for the whole week inside. When he finally gets out, he nearly dies from dehydration.
Butt Monkey: Puni Kichi, to the point where Puniyo offers him to Lily multiple times during the game. To a lesser extent, Enna, Pepperoni, Et, Puni Taro, and Whim.
Raze, too, considering how often he gets into trouble by other characters.
It is specifically mentioned that the primary cast is only immune to his charms because he's purposely turning his supernatural charm down. When he turns it up to its usual level and looks at the female protagonist, she blushes and acts like she has a crush on him.
Chaste Heroine: Ulrika is charmingly innocent when it comes to romance and male/female interaction. Goto points this out when the only example she can give for a date activity is "holding hands." Raze seems to be this way, since he seems rather clueless about Lily's affections, but the Lily ending during his playthrough implies that he just pretended not to notice because it was more interesting.
Cloud Cuckoolander: Et. Pepperoni and Goto to a lesser extent, but at least they manage to say something coherent on occasion.
Combination Attack: Changed from the last game into "Intimate Attacks" and "Intimate Defenses". Two characters are required to activate one, and any two will do. Pairing up the two protagonists gets special Intimate Attacks, though, and most Initmate Defenses will improve the Vanguard's durability.
Continuity Nod: the Dragon's Grave returns, albeit with differences to the original. The Millenium Tree as well, but it has grown; it's now the Millennium Forest.
Don't forget Mana Ruins, which is now separated into Deep Sea Ruins and Deep Ruins.
Cool Old Guy: The Dark Mana King and Raze's grandfather.
Country Mouse: Ulrika and Chloe come from a very rural and backwoods village. True to this trope's description, Ulrika quickly becomes a target of rivalry with Lily.
Demonic Possession: Played for laughs in one of Chloe's character quests. However, due to her nature as a Dark Chick, Ulrika ends up to be the only one who noticed this.
Disproportionate Retribution: when Corona first appears in the school to find Yun, she insults Puniyo, Ulrika, Pepperoni, Goto, Mr. Tony and even Principal Zeppel. They (with the exception of Puniyo, who instead had a comic Heroic BSOD) later deliver a beatdown not to the girl, but to the poor guy that has the least involvement: Raze!
Evolving Attack: The characters' skills can be upgraded through the Grow Book. Lily is an exception, since you only need certain materials those will trigger scenes where her skills are upgraded.
Normal attacks count towards the evolving kind, too.
The Faceless: arguably, the Dark Mana. His hood completely covers the upper portions of his face, and his beard obscures the rest.
Fairy Companion: Pepperoni would like to remind all tropers that he IS, in fact, a fairy, and will one day train himself until he's as tiny and cute as his master. A bit of a subversion, since he's later revealed to not be a fairy.
We're told fairly early on in his character quests that he's not a fairy, but it's not until near the end of either story that we find out what he really is: a Mana, or at least partly one. See Epileptic Trees above.
Faux Action Girl: Sasalina arguably qualifies. It is described that she has amazing archery skills... and yet she always ends up defeated by your party.
To be fair, she is ganged up by a group of five/six people.
Fetish: Lily sure is fond of Punis. When a few of them arrive on campus, she arranges to have her servants capture them so that she can... touch them. Later in the game, she falls in love with one for a few seconds, and when the opportunity to make her breasts larger presents itself some time afterward she tries to envision them having the texture of punis, "so she could touch a puni whenever she wants."
Lily can smell Punis. Think about that for a while.
At one point she mentions sensing the presence of Punis through the "Puni Feel", apparently having become some kind of Puni Sith.
And don't forget that onetwo three times she transformed into a Puni. The second time is only mentioned, while the party actually discovers Lily the third time. Both later instances weren't accidents...
Lily's Puni fetish is inherited. Her father is even creepier about it.
In a character quest that appears later in the game, Lily can translate Puniyo's speech as well.
At the end of Puniyo's Character Quest, Raze becomes an "honorary" Puni. This gave Lily a Fetish of her own.
Final Exam Boss: The Light Mana is simply a combination of the final bosses of both routes.
Five-Man Band:Depending on the route you take, you can get the following Five-Man Bands:
Game-Breaking Bug: Sadly, NISA doesn't seem to have done much to prevent these. While not quite as egregious as the first game, a certain boss battle in the second path followed (optional job, thankfully) will freeze the game much like the optional boss in Ar Tonelico 2, the only fix being crushing it before it gets a turn. Using Ulrika as the lead in the third path (where both teams are combined) can also lead to a bug, since, apparently, she cannot read jobs at all.
Gender Blender Name: Et (short for Etward) and Enna (short for Ennarcia). The game lampshades this with the revelation in Enna's character quest that the little brother was originally the one named Etward, and his elder sister tricked him into trading names with her when they were young.
Genghis Gambit: pulled off by Flay, as always. Three times, even, although the first two tries didn't stick.
Goldfish Poop Gang: The gang of Punis intent on attacking Puniyo throughout her character quest never quite manage to be a significant presence, either on the battlefield or in the story.
And one even manages to be sympathetic during one character quest, giving the party the cure for Taro, Jiro, and Kichi's sickness because his parents had the same disease.
Gratuitous English: If you listen closely to Goto's Japanese voice, he delivers a few of his lines in English.
He Who Must Not Be Seen: Despite his confirming on several occasions that he's a full-blooded human, Goto is never seen outside of his suit during the course of the game, and seems to exist within a very small sphere most of the time. He even booby-traps his suit to prevent the curious from trying to unmask him. His true form is only seen if you get his ending during Ulrika's playthrough, and you only see him from the back (though even from that angle you can see that his popularity with the ladies wasn't entirely undeserved).
Heroic BSOD: Raze threatens to have one a couple times over the course of his story, but doesn't finally succumb to it until after the Soul Mana's influence enrages him, causing him to strike Whim with his mana-slaying sword.
Simply stating one or two examples doesn't do justice to the fact that the Idiot Hair quotient in this game is one of the highest ever seen.
Idiot Heroine: Ulrika, arguably whose level of intelligence doesn't seem to be higher than children at Enna's age. Not to mention her inability to understand Punis (who can speak human language just fine) is said to be something that only idiots will suffer...
Jerkass: Some people view the members of Ulrika's workshop as this.
Jerkass Gods: The Light and Dark manas, as well as their supporters, treat the game's cast like pawns, and never express any particular regret about the hell their little bet puts them through.
The Dark Mana DOES express regret for everything you went through and his inability to stop the Light Mana's cheating. It is the Light Mana who is unrepentant.
Lost in Translation: A few jokes, here and there. One was even lost because of the single letter name change from Rozeluxe to Razeluxe (i.e. the mora switch joke from Puniyo's My Hero Zero ending)).
Love Makes You Crazy: Sasalina, already obsessively in love with Reicher, goes completely off the deep end following several encounters with Uryu.
The Magic Goes Away: It started going away in the Time Skip between games, as Mana became increasingly rare, and the Academy began shifting over to a mundane school.
Mood Whiplash: The background music when the party faces the Light Mana is probably the best example. For the first few seconds, the music plays in the typical way as you are about to face some kind of divine being. And then...somebody lampshaded the Blond Guys are Evil trope.
And then, they make fun of him.
Let's put this into perspective. The Light Mana is the closest thing to a Big Bad that the game has (being the man behind Reicher and Tetri), and when the party meets him, the Lampshade was hung, and he's become a Butt Monkey to everyone bar Raze and Yun.
Mr. Imagination: Lily, especially when Raze is concerned. Lampshaded often.
Multiple Endings: A total of 11: five per each character story, and one for the bonus story.
My Hero Zero: In the Puniyo ending it's suggested that Raze's Puni-name be Zero. Taro objects on the grounds that it would make him lose his place as the family badass.
Ninja Maid: Not only is she Lily's loyal servant and maid, Whim is also her source of power. In battle, Whim performs all of the attacks, while Lily stands behind her, barking orders.
Noblewoman's Laugh: Marta gives off one of these when things are usually going her way. Also Lily, occasionally.
Noob Cave: Lampshaded by the title of the area and its purpose: "Learning Bridge".
Noodle Incident: Flay's "punishment" to students in an early chapter. Et was still shaking by the mere thought of it.
Obfuscating Stupidity: Remember Flay? Not only is he now a teacher here, he's also the vice-principal.
Only Sane Man: Raze in his workshop; Enna in Ulrika's workshop.
Yun on occasion as well.
Otaku: Yun, of all people, is hinted to be one during Et's character quest. It's even harder to dismiss the possibility if you turn on the Japanese voice.
Precocious Crush: Possibly Puniyo on Raze. Her family seems to think so, anyway, and her parents even look sound like they approve of it.
And in the beginning of Chapter 8, Puniyo stated that she will trade Puni Taro for Raze. Lily gave, um... mixed reactions to this statement.
Psycho for Hire: Reicher is a more tame example of this, as he accepted the employ of the Light Mana for sheer love of battle, more than any particular murder or mayhem.
Puppy Love: an early character quest has the characters think of something along these lines when they saw Enna and Puniyo together. Et, on the other hand, thinks that it's the Punis who are attracted to her brother...
Relax-o-Vision: Whenever a character (usually Raze) is about to be beaten, the screen will usually fade to black or focus on other characters.
Rich Bitch: Lily acts this way toward Ulrika, and appears to be this to most who encounter her. Those who know her, however, notice that beneath her bitchy exterior there's a soft, caring center.
The Rival: the two protagonist workshops act this way toward each other. Also Tony and Flay, right out of the old days; it is reflected in how they teach their classes as well.
Road Cone: there is a small mention of Flay's "criminal syndicate", but that's pretty much it.
He also summons his Humongous Mecha's hand and fires it at the enemy during his Intimate Strike.
Running Gag: In many of Gust's titles, characters have a habit of stating "Barrel!" when the player examines a barrel. In this game, it's also lampshaded - during some point in the game, Lily/Whim or Pepperoni/Goto stand in front of a barrel on the Campus Grounds, commenting that "yes, that is a barrel". On Ulrika's side, Raze is also there, if only to ask Lily and Whim "what are you two doing?"
Triple Shifter: In addition to having a full-time one year contract with Lily, Yun is always seen taking jobs from other people on the side. It seems strange that a mana cares so deeply about money, until you learn the reason, of course.
Unfazed Everyman: Enna frequently has monologues where he laments being the only "normal" person in a workshop of freaks. Chloe makes similar remarks about herself from time to time, but someone else in the group (usually Ulrika) is always quick to point out that she's as weird as any of the others.
Subverted in her last character quest, for a short time. She knows full well that she is human at that point and talks normally, but goes back to speaking the Puni language near the end.
What Happened to the Mouse?: both Reicher and Sasalina don't appear in the third story for some reason. Heck, the latter disappears roughly halfway through Ulrika's story!
Xanatos Gambit: All of the bad things that occur in the game are in some way related to either The bet between the Light and Dark Mana, or the Light Mana's schemes to make sure he won it. On a character level, Flay is a master of this trope.
Yaoi Fangirl: Chloe is strongly implied to be into this (along with, apparently, a very strong desire to see strange things happen to Enna) Lily shows shades of this, as well. The yaoi fandom in general is made fun of by the game's script.
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