Speed-seen test
Stamped Iris, this sixth iteration of the test-tube series born on PSone is totally new and unexpected to us. Pure and hard RPG with a sweet realization, candor and good humor are the main ingredients of the particular alchemy that punctuates this adventure. Alchemy is also a question in the plot, since Klein, an alchemist by profession, travels the world to perfect his art and study the source of all life: the famous mana and its essential spirits. Besides these ethereal companions, a surly young fighter, a meowing cat girl, a dark swordsman, a member of the royal guard, and a failed seducer will constitute your fine team. Likeable as hell, the characters and situations are bathed in the most classic Japanese stereotypes, wonderfully supported by excellent Japanese voice acting! If so, the original voices are present, thank you, thank you and three times thank you to Koei who spares us the disastrous and garish English version. Digitized voices and pretty artworks are therefore present and energize an achievement that is altogether magnificent in the retrograde category. Summery and colorful decors, shimmering and sparkling, these superb 2D paintings have a rather particular atrophied sense of proportion. Overall, this can be described as an old school style that would take advantage of current-gen capabilities to shine like a little ruby. On top of this completely kawai achievement, there is therefore logically added an affordable and somewhat naive adventure, which would seem cut out for beginners. Simple quests, writing that goes to the essentials, fast dungeons... a real walk in the park that also promotes a very rapid rise in power, since you easily exceed level 45 in less than twenty hours of play, i.e. the time needed to complete the main frame. Basically, everything relies on your alchemist, who must absorb elements from various objects (water from a fruit, wood from a barrel) to create his own elixirs of healing and other support items. We also regret that all the skills are based on this single character. The difficulty of the software is actually quite poorly measured from a certain stage, where the bosses are far too powerful for your small gauge of HP. In return, we will benefit from the possibility of swapping characters in the middle of a fight. With its substantial list of objects to collect, its many Samaritan quests and an increasingly deep relationship between the character and his mana spirit, which can also serve as support, mutate or even merge with a weapon, Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana offers a simple, fun adventure, and above all well studied enough for you to have a great time.
