Mana-Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy is a direct Sequel to the original Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis. It was localized and released by NIS America in late August. 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!)
- Anime Theme Song: "My Silly Days".
- Another Side, Another Story: You have the choice of playing the story with either Raze or Ulrika as the main character. The story lines are mostly separate with a few points where they intersect. Playing through both unlocks a third story that starts at the end of the previous two and wraps up the plot.
- 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 third route, as both parties combine and you can switch party members by talking to Flay.
- Clingy MacGuffin: Raze cannot remove his Ring of Light.
- Colony Drop: Al-Revis Academy used to be on a Floating Continent, but it fell to the lower world due to the weakening power of Mana.
- 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 Intimate 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.
- Flay's Mechsword and Tony's Sinister Scythe can be seen in their respective offices.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: PLENTY of them. Pepperoni wrestling with Goto while covered with oil comes to mind...
- Dope Slap: After her very little patience is run thin, Ulrika does to try and calm down Uryu when he's throwing a tantrum. Not exactly the best idea to come up with at a time like that...
- Eldritch Abomination: Chloe calls out a variety of demons for her special attacks.
- Evil Plan: 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.
- Evolving Attack: The characters' skills, as well as normal attacks, 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.
- Final-Exam Boss: The Light Mana is simply a combination of the final bosses of both routes.
- Floating Continent: Subverted with Al-Revis Academy, which used to be on one, but it has fallen to the lower world in the prologue.
- Game-Breaking Bug: While not quite as egregious as the first game, the game has a few problems while using Ulrika:
- The Space Ship boss, one of the first job in Ulrika's route, causes the game to freeze with his normal attacks. To prevent it, you have to either kill it before it gets a turn (which is easier to do in a New Game Plus, due to Raze's party equipment carrying over), or hoping it uses a skill instead of a normal attack. While it's an optional boss, defeating it unlocks a few weapon recipes for Enna, necessary for completing his Grow Book.
- Using Ulrika as the lead (whether in the party without Raze or with Raze and hers was the first route completed) in the third path (where both teams are combined) can also lead to a bug, since, apparently, she cannot read jobs at all.
- Genghis Gambit: Pulled off by Flay, as always. When the students are divided between those for and against the School Festival, Flay devises a plan to get the two faction leaders (Ulrika and Lily) together so that they can both hear what Chairwoman Marta really thinks and turn against her instead.
- 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. 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.
- Hammy Villain, Serious Hero: Raze and Reicher have this relation. Reicher is immediately friendly and outgoing with Raze who is stoic and reserved even around his companions. Reicher always claims that he has Raze's best interest at heart in making him a stronger opponent, but his overbearing personality is always getting on Raze's nerves.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: The first battle with Reicher is unwinnable. There is also an optional battle against Flay in his office.
- Impossibly Cool Weapon: The recipe for Raze's weapon: Dagger + Ring of Light = funky weird sword thing made out of energy/light that can change shape at will.
- Interface Spoiler: Both Ulrika's and Raze's Finishing Bursts spoil plot points that won't happen for several chapters by the time you unlock them. Ulrika's shows off Uryu's true form that he fights her group in, and Raze's voice line for his alludes to the fact that the Ring of Light is (to his knowledge) driving him insane
- Jerkass Gods: The Light Mana, as well as their supporters, treat the game's cast like pawns and never expresses any particular regret about the hell their little bet with the Dark Mana puts them through.
- Leitmotif
- Lily: Noble Girl in Love
- Et: Sunny Girl
- Yun: Hired Mana
- Puniyo: Cutie Puni
- Chloe: Bad-Mouthed Girl
- Pepperoni: Giant Fairy
- Enna: Rainy Boy
- Goto: Mr. Goto's Theme
- Flay: Defender of Justice Has Come 2
- Marta: THE Chairwoman
- Light Is Not Good: Arguably the point of the game's Story Arc, as it's the Light Mana who causes much of the havoc the protagonists go through, as they're trying to win their bet with the Dark Mana.
- 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)).
- 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 more of 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 talked about how blonde hair means evil. And then, they make fun of him. To 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.
- Multiple Endings: Raze and Ulrika can get one ending per party member, by completing their Character Quest. There is also a Golden Ending, unlocked by beating the game's third route.
- Non-Standard Skill Learning: Lily is the only one whose upgraded skills, instead of being learned through the Grow Book, are obtained through certain cutscenes after creating certain items.
- 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.
- Player Killing: In-universe during the School Festival Tournament Arc, Flay hires Yun, Pepperoni and Goto as "free agents" in order to get rid of weaker competition.
- 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.
- The Rival: The two protagonist's 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. In Raze's story ending, Reicher considers him his rival and promises a rematch.
- 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?"
- Save Scumming: Saving the game at the workshop before taking a class (and resetting if you didn't get the best score) can help you to fill the required units faster and gain more Free Time to do the Character Quests.
- It's also helpful during the Marathon Event, as by memorizing the answers, you can load a previously saved file and win easily next time.
- Training from Hell:
- Flay loves to inflict this on his students, with the Training Sea "vacation" being just the first of his many "lessons".
- Pepperoni and Goto aren't much better. Unarmed bear fighting and getting boiled alive are their sanest ideas.
- Underwater Ruins: Deep Sea Ruins, where the the cast take pills that allows them to breathe underwater.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Neither Reicher nor Sasalina appear in the third story for some reason. Heck, the latter disappears roughly halfway through Ulrika's story!
- Yin-Yang Bomb: Raze and Ulrika have unique Intimate Strikes between one another where they borrow the power of the other for their attack, combining the powers of the Ring of Light from the Light Mana and Uryu from the Dark Mana.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: The game ends with one group's story? Nope, there are two more. Lampshaded by Flay at the beginning of the third story.
