YMMV / Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis

• Alternate Character Interpretation: The "Other Vayne" can be anything from an evil jerk who plays Vayne like a violin, or just a misguided 'other half' that only grants whatever Vayne wishes since it doesn't have any of its own will.
• Awesome Music: A fair amount of the battle themes; notably Nefertiti.
• Bizarro Episode: Most of Muppy's Free Time Events fall into this category.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: The only ending with a confirmed romantic implication (not counting Vayne-as-queen in Muppy's ending) was with Nikki. And yet there's a lot of fan support for Vayne/Jess.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Amazingly, the Party Switch mechanic will save you a lot from the hard-hitting enemies in the Bonus Dungeon. It's also because a character's Guts Ability has a 100% chance of being activated if said character switches into the battle. So, no matter how powerful the enemy's attack is, Guts will keep the switched character from being killed by said attack. And with most enemies in the Bonus Dungeon (specifically the Delinquent-types) having attacks so powerful that they're practically One-Hit Kill, and said Delinquents take a really long time to beat.
  • If used repeatedly, Vayne's Over Realm can give you infinite turns for as long as your SP restoring items can last.
  • For Pamela, Cast From HP skills (plus a little knowledge on math) + "No Bullying" + her physical attack immunity = TONS of damage.
  • Muppy's high Support Speed and his Defense Support Move can make the party all but invincible.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: In Japan, the two Mana Khemia games received a fairly lukewarm reception from the established fanbase, and Mana Khemia 2 received a lot of flak from reviewers. In the West, however, it was much better received (and reportedly sold better in the West than it did in Japan). MK 2 also got a much warmer reception from the Western press than it did in Japan, scoring slightly higher on average than MK 1 did.
• Goddamned Bats: Everything becomes a Goddamned Bat at night. And the Demonic Spiders become even more demonic.
• Goddamned Boss: ZweisMunde (literally "two worlds") is actually a fun boss, but really loves to use Interface Screw attacks. One of them turns all your healing echo (and other multi-card techs) into its own multi-card attacks. Another one swaps out your entire team.
• Ho Yay:
  • Depending on how you look at Roxis and Vayne's interactions...
  • For the matter, Flay's final character quest. Hoorah, lots of cheesy "gotta save my friend from the Secret Evil Order (hiring names)" goodness.
  • Muppy kinda makes it semi-canon? Of course, Muppy can reproduce asexually, so maybe gender doesn't really matter for his species, but still, offering the position of "his Queen" to Vayne...
  • There's also Roxis's eagerness to put a "collar" on Vayne... I repeat; not Sulpher, but Vayne...
    • "If I put this on you, could I control you...?" *Noblewoman's Laugh* Considering Vayne is really a Mana this idea could actually work.. *shudder*
  • Regardless of the fact that Vayne can potentially end up with anyone in the True Companions, members of said group seem to have a fondness of citing his interests towards another character (Jess, in her second-to-last and final Character Quests, for example). Or...lack thereof, in Pamela's case. "This is Vayne we're talking about; that's impossible!~"
• Just Here for Godzilla: Flay, for his badass boisterous personality. Some people play this game just to use him (and it may have influenced Gust's decision to keep him in the sequel, as well as canonize his ending).
• Like You Would Really Do It: Like anyone would die. Really. Really, there's no sarcasm in this statement. The bad ending doesn't count.
• Moe: Pamela.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • Your chosen character's speech to Vayne at the end. Roxis's is particularly good.
  • The battle against the Great Beast in Chapter 5, where Vayne unlocks both the Variable Strike and Finishing Burst.
• Narm: The final boss's attack where it bleeds crocodile-mouthed worms from its eye is called...Brieftrunks. Da hell?
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • "A Quiet Giddiness", the final school theme that plays during the later, Mood Whiplash chapters of the game. A technically excellent song, but the sheer trepidation of it and the fact that it's played everywhere you go in school from then on, in contrast to the first, almost absurdly upbeat school theme, makes it quite hard to bear during those moments when everything's falling apart.
  • Vayne's special attacks all involve shadows, lots and lots of sharp blades, creepy red eyes, and surprisingly violent battle quotes. So it makes sense that the final boss is a horrible mass of red eyes that cry black gunk. Oh, and his true power is pretty scary too.
  • When Isolde kills one of your friends to force Vayne's powers to surface, you have to think: what if Vayne wasn't able to bring him/her back, and Isolde took the leap from slightly unbalanced teacher to murderer? Even worse than that, she didn't even flinch when she killed them. If Vayne couldn't wish him/her back to life, what was to stop Isolde from murdering all of them right then and there to keep said murder a secret?
• Player Punch: Before the second boss battle with her, Isolde crosses the Moral Event Horizon and kills one of your party members to force Vayne to use his powers to revive them, proving he's a Mana. Which party member gets killed depends on which one's character quests you did, which probably means that you have an attachment to that character. Of course, since Vayne's the Mana of Wishes, they get resurrected quickly, which can lend itself to Narm, but damn if that didn't piss the party off. And the player too, maybe.
• Ship Tease: Vayne with... well, anyone whose character quest you completed, especially Nikki, which was very explicit in showing them getting together. There's also Nikki and Roxis, Roxis and Pamela (this was shot down and used for a very funny scene), and Flay and Anna, if you squint hard enough and maybe turn your head a little... Even Muppy gets in on the action by making Vayne his queen if you follow his route to the end.
• Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: The crafting system can be surprisingly addictive, mixing and matching stuff for new stuff, and mixing and matching the new stuff for more new stuff.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: It takes around 30 minutes for the player to reach a point where they can battle regular enemies. The time before that is filled with a lot of exposition from the other characters.
• That One Boss: Chapter 11 boss, Isolde. She basically spam activates a thunder attack that puts a lot of cards on the battle sequence, clogging up your moves, and does a two round mass-kill attack, unless you can block it, or use defensive supports. You need a ton of mass revive items, and even then, you'd probably still die.

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