Iris 2 boasts a much better story than the original, and the progression from being completely oblivious of the dangers to sitting right smack in the middle of it proves to be an enjoyable and fulfilling ride that’s worth the experience. Iris 2 is a prequel to the previous Atelier Iris title and follows the story of two young orphans who live in the world of Eden – an isolated land filled with mana and alchemist. One day the usually peaceful Eden is on the verge of distinction as the land slowly begins to disappear. This is where one of our young heroes named Felt steps to the plate, a young alchemist who has always had the intentions of travelling and exploring everything and beyond Eden. Having pulled out a talking sword known as the Azure Azoth from its imprisonment, Felt ventures off to the world of Belkhyde where he’s determine to find out exactly why Eden is slowly disappearing. Throughout his adventure you’ll come across all sorts dangers as you realise that Eden isn’t the only one facing dangers. You’ll meet all sorts of characters who also play a large role in the ever-so progressing story of Iris 2.
On the other side of things, the second orphan known as Viese is playing housewife back in Eden as she waits patiently for Felt’s return. However, she isn’t quite worthless, and often plays a vital role in progressing the game itself. You see, Viese is an extraordinary alchemist who can conjure all sorts of helpful items that’ll help Felt’s adventure. Viese also decides to do some investigating herself, as she spends a lot of her time talking with other characters and reading up on the previously imprisoned Azure Azoth. While she’s keeping out of harms way, Felt is busy trying to understand the power of the sword that he now wields and the dangers that both Eden and Belkhyde face.
A little taste of what you can expect to be brewing in your cosy little workshop.
The thing that connects these two orphans throughout the adventure is a powerful alchemy ring that allows them to communicate and exchange items with one another, despite being in two different worlds. While Felt is fighting the baddies and finding the items, Viese is faced with having to brew new items that’ll assist Felt during his adventure. Felt will usually come across new recipes and ingredients for Viese to look at. Making and discovering new items is usually quite enjoyable, however it slowly becomes tiresome as you’ll need to constantly switch back and forth between the two characters to make new items.
Seeing as though both of the main characters are from Eden, they are also both alchemists. This means that you’ll be able to extract mana that’ll assist you when trying to conjure up items, much like the original. There will be trees, boxes and plants that you’ll be able to extract mana from and will add to various elemental pools of mana available – water, fire, dark, life mana and many more. In addition, when fighting and defeating enemies, Felt will also receive more mana. Mana is vital in making items on the go rather than making items with raw materials at Viese's workshop.
The disappointing aspect of this mana extracting and item building feature is that you’ll be running back and forth trying to find materials and items to make your desired item. So, the silly errand missions and backtracking of the previous game is still very much alive in Iris 2. There are many instances in the game where characters will ask you to make certain items with resources found in areas that you have previously explored - meaning gamers will have to continuously backtrack to previously explored areas to find items. Once again, the series also suffers from a linear storyline where you’re guided to one area to the next with absolutely no exploration of your own. This also prevents the game from having any side-quests to explore either.
There's all sorts of creatures in this game - fairies, humans, dragons or even humans with dragon heads or fairies with human heads... oh wait.
Another added bonus to making mana items is that the game also allows you to create new weapons for your characters. The weapon making system is set out much like Final Fantasy X’s skill tree, whereby if you make a certain weapon it’ll later allow you to access other weapons to make afterwards. Each weapon is equipped with different attributes such as attack bonuses, as well as new skills that your characters can learn also.
Despite the aforementioned problems with the progression of the game, the story is actually quite immersing. Sure, there are many RPG clichés to be found such as an evil Empire taking over the land, dragons causing havoc and the usual dark and evil character who wants nothing but his own way. But other than that, the story is filled with many plot twists, adventures to find wise and mighty beasts and all sorts of character depth that'll keep you intrigued to the very end. In addition, the game implements a nice incentive for gamers to talk to NPCs. Gamers will learn the back stories of various characters the more you talk to them, acting as a small objective to do. Progressing these character’s stories will either help uncover more story elements, or some nice little recipes and items. So if Iris 2 improved on anything, it would easily be the inclusion of a much more inviting story that keeps you occupied throughout the entire game.
Combat has changed quite dramatically too. This time round, Iris 2 has opted for a more simplistic style that is inviting to any newcomers to the genre, but really lacks any sort of challenge or depth for the JRPG nutters out there. Whilst running around and exploring the map, there will be a metre on the left side of the screen that’ll show you how likely it is that you’ll run into an encounter. Overtime, the metre will slowly decrease meaning that you’ll be less likely to be attacked the longer in stay in an area, and even not attacked at all if the metre hits zero. The battles themselves now include a time gauge that’ll determine when you and your enemies can attack. There are abilities to knock back the enemy, meaning that they'll fall further down on the time gauge. What’s interesting though, is that the game includes break attacks, and if you knock back the enemy far enough on the time gauge it’ll actually daze them, allowing you to unleash attack after attack without any resistance. Unfortunately though, this feature makes the already simple combat system even easier, especially if you can stack up a lot of long break attack chains.
Poe has to be one of the most lady-crazed characters in any JRPG to date.
Much like the previous version, each character also has a number of skills to use. What’s different though is that when you inflict damage or heal your party members, a skill gauge will fill up at the top right corner, which indicates what attacks you can use. Filling up this gauge can usually take a long time, especially when you want to use the more powerful attacks, so it’s quite rare that you’ll be using many of these skill attacks aside from using your most powerful party member’s attack. This sort of makes this feature quite limited though, since you’re devoting all your time in learning new abilities for your characters but with a battle system that very rarely allows usage of these attacks. And this is probably the biggest letdown of Iris 2. Most battles are extremely easy and quick, with the boss battles only causing some trouble, and a lot of the features lacking any sort of depth or any purpose. So, with very little challenge to be had you can expect to fly through the game without too much trouble.
What may be appealing to some is Iris 2's anime-inspired, old school JRPG feel. The game appears very simplistic, but is equally charming and inviting to younger gamers. The character detail is done exceptionally well, but is however marred by some below average background and environment detail, which isn’t much of a step-up above the original Atelier Iris. Voice acting and the music score are much improved though. There’s a lot of variety between tunes, even if some of them are mismatched, and voice acting is much better than previously with a lot of humour added in for good measure. The only real problem with the music side of things is that there are often some ill-timed voice acting within the game. During battles your characters will shout out various words, but are sometimes cut-off. And the game also includes some attractive anime cut scenes that are dubbed with English voice actors that are off by a few seconds compared to the facial animation shown.
Iris 2 is a tough pickle to summarise. Despite featuring a lovely and charming style, a complex item creation system and an inviting story, it also lacks many gameplay elements that many JRPG fans would be accustomed to. With very little exploration, a bit of backtracking and no real challenge it’s a game that can be easily overlooked.
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