Games I Played in 2025 - Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana
Console: PS2
Developer: Gust
Release Date: June 28th, 2005
Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana is a turn-based RPG with a focus on item crafting. Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana is the first game in the Atelier series to be released outside of Japan, and is the sixth game in the franchise. Pretty notably, the Atelier games are, more or less, yearly releases, and have been since 1997's Atelier Marie. As a result, these games are typically a bit lower in terms of quality and budget than other big JRPG series like Final Fantasy. Fittingly, Atelier Iris is the first game I played in the series back as a teenager through emulation, but I wasn't able to defeat the final boss despite loving the game. Now, I actually have the game and played it on my PS2. I've more or less completed 100% of the game: the bestiary is filled (though not all item drops are registered), the item list is complete, and there's nothing left for me to do except mindlessly grind.
THE QUEST TO REACH AVENBERRY
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| Klein, the main character, looks over the town of Kavoc, with the legendary city of Avenberry looming over it. |
Atelier Iris takes place in the world of Regallzine, where alchemists have become rare. The game follows Klein, an alchemist who is travelling to Regallzine to learn more about alchemy and to find alchemic items, as he gets wrapped up into stopping a mad alchemist's world domination plans. The Atelier series is, to my knowledge, more often cozy and low-stakes than this, so it makes sense that Atelier Iris would be the first game to get localized, as it's more of a "real" JRPG. Nevertheless, the story is quite basic, though it's executed fairly well. The main thing is that it often devolves into the same trope: to do X, we need to go get Y. It's a nonstop carousel of "gotta get the McGuffin to progress the story," so it results in a bit of a dull story. You get to see the world quite well, at least, with some nice worldbuilding and some pretty good character moments, and it's all wrapped in a pretty consistent stream of amusing comedy; it'll rarely ever you laugh out loud since most of it is a bit cliché, juvenile, or outdated, but it put a smile on my face pretty consistently and there's some good lines in there. However, the game's a bit unstable, and sometimes spoken dialogue will be cut-off or repeat the first second until another line plays, including in battle or when doing synthesis.
The party in Atelier Iris is quite small: while there's a total of 6 characters, you only get 5 at any given time due to the narrative, with the player only getting access to every character in the post-game. Klein is a bit of a cookie-cutter protagonist, being a slightly oblivious goodie-two-shoes that ends up getting a (pretty poorly executed) crisis of confidence. He's likable enough, but nothing special. Lita, a monster hunter (which are called Galgazits), is the first person he meets in the game, and they end up growing close quite quickly. Lita's a pretty fun character: instead of being a basic female lead, she's compassionate and strong, but also quick-tempered and jealous. It's one of those situations where even though Klein is the protagonist, Lita is kind of the main character of the game; a lot of the game's events revolves around her and her mysterious backstory.
The four other party members are considerably less developed to various degrees, but are still quite fun. Delsus, a shady, sarcastic Galgazit who's a bit of a failure of a womanizer and who is a bit too willing to go along with illegal activities, brings some levity to the game by being the butt of jokes fairly often and also delivering quite a few of them. Norn, a cat girl magician, is in a similar boat, mostly adding levity with her childish, adorable personality and sudden cat behavior. Arlin, a quiet swordsman with a mysterious past, is the most serious character in the game, and his visual similarities to the main villain create immediate intrigue. And lastly, Marietta, a disgraced knight with a whip sword, is woefully underdeveloped due to a lack of screen-time, but what you get to see is easily likable as she's more soft-spoken than she looks.
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| After synthesizing an Angel Quill Pen at Veola's Magic Shop, she teases Lita while explaining what it does. |
The same kind of basic character development is also seen in a majority of antagonists and side characters, with a notable exception: the synthesis merchants. Or at least, some of them. I'll get more in detail of their mechanics at a later point, but in terms of story, this is where you get the most meat from the game. There's six merchants you can synthesize with, with two being quite late in the game, two being quite good, one being utterly forgettable, and one being excellent. Quite simply, these merchants have side stories and quests tied to their synthesis mechanics, with more and more scenes being unlocked the more you help them. The two "good" ones, Norman and Blaire, have nice little story arcs that are revealed the more you help them, though Norman's scenes can feel a bit too short and basic.
The clear stand-out is Veola, who handles the main shop in the game and has a ton of scenes, items and development, starting off as a cold, stand-offish merchant and ending up a close friend of Klein and Lita's (the rest of the cast is rarely, if ever, involved in her scenes, weirdly enough). It's genuinely heartwarming seeing Veola break out of her shell, going from barely ever smiling to finally seeing her emote, tease, make jokes and be more of a person. Her story is tragic, and as with the rest of the game, sometimes dips into darker subjects, namely suicidal ideation, depression, and nihilism. Her story takes so much effort to go through that it takes the entire game and post-game to reach its conclusion, so calling it a sidequest feels wrong. It's one of the best parallel stories I've seen in an RPG, and Veola's pretty easily one of my favorite characters in the genre, and 99% of her scenes, if not all of them, have no voice acting. It's genuinely the best part of the game to me, at least for the narrative aspect.
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| A mountainous area that showcases one of the visibility issues the game faces: the cliff on the left with the chest is much higher in elevation, but it can be hard to tell in the moment. |
Atelier Iris isn't the best-looking game in the world, whether for the console, genre, or time it came out. However, due to being a 2D game with sparse 3D visuals, it's a game that's aged quite nicely in terms of graphics thanks to its artstyle. The game has an isometric perspective and what seems to be pre-rendered backgrounds, which can make things a bit awkward to navigate at times due to the visibility being hampered a bit. Something that looks close can be far higher up than you'd assume, or a small gap may be present where you couldn't see it. Sometimes, it's a bit hard to tell if something is too high to jump onto as well.
The character illustrations are by Jun Futaba (as well as the designs, potentially), and I think they're really lovely. As far as I can tell, Futaba's work only features in some Suikoden games and the Atelier Iris trilogy, which is a shame because I really enjoy it and wish it were in more games. Nevertheless, Futaba's art is wonderful and really fits the game's bright visuals, and it was just a treat to see all the character portraits, the cutesy chibi sprites (which somewhat remind me of MapleStory at times, for some reason), and the rest of the game's colorful art. The game takes the old-school tactic of recoloring enemies for stronger variants, which I always feel ambivalent towards: I find it charming and it's an easy way to do it, but it also makes me wish there were different enemies. In this case, though, it makes more sense since items are so important for crafting, so having "families" of enemies to have them drop similar items.
SYNTHESIS, SYNTHESIS, SYNTHESIS
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| The Mana Synthesis menu, showing battle items you can synthesize as well as which Elements are needed and currently held. |
With any Atelier game, synthesis is the name of the game. From what I've seen, Atelier Iris is one of the few, if not only, games in the series to actually deemphasize synthesis to focus more on combat and the RPG mechanics. However, it's still the main feature of the game with a lot of importance tied to it, and is the focus of three different crafting mechanics: Mana Synthesis, Item Synthesis, and Weapon Synthesis. With Atelier Iris having a whopping 384 items (which includes materials, equipment, and anything inbetween), there's a lot to be done with these systems, though it can get a bit tedious.
First, Mana Synthesis is used to create items that can be used in battle exclusively by Klein, with some healing items also usable on the field. Mana Synthesis is the "true" synthesis narratively-speaking, since it requires Elements and Mana to do, and is done exclusively by Klein himself. First, there's 14 kinds of Elements in the game, ranging from obvious ones like Water and Fire to more abstract ones like Power, Time and Holy. These can be obtained in a few ways. First, by using Elemental Extraction on objects such as plants, rocks, boxes, barrels, and more in the field, you can get Elements pretty easily. Second, by killing an enemy using Klein's basic attack in battle, every enemy will give a different amount of a fitting Element. Finally, you can use Elemental Extraction on your own items from the menu, and each item gives different (usually small) amounts of Element(s).
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| Finding a Mana Statue in a field area, meaning a new Mana will be unlocked after interacting with it. |
Uniquely, Mana Synthesis is also possible during battle as one of Klein's abilities. It's also one of the only ways to get easy access to elemental damage outside of regular items, as well as major healing and status effect healing. As a result, more than anything, it's extremely important to stay on top of your Elements and Mana Items. As with every item in the game, you can hold up to 9 Mana Items at the same time, so you can prepare at your leisure. However, I did find that while this mechanic is quite fun, a lot of the items are very situational, or it's hard to tell which elemental item to use since enemy weaknesses aren't displayed anywhere in the game. I found myself sticking to a few reliable ones and never needing the rest even though there's 30 Mana Items available.
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| A typical scene after creating an item for the first time for one of the main merchants. Here, Norn is complaining that a spicy bread's smell hurts her little nosey nose. Poor girl! |
Item Synthesis is where the bulk of the game's side content is found, and it's also some of the most fun in the game to me. There are six shops in the game with a synthesis merchant, which allows you to help their store by bringing them materials to synthesize new items and expand their store's menu. This requires no Elements or Mana, since it's not true alchemy narratively speaking, but the result is the same: you create new items. These are items meant for general use, so every character can use them, or it's equipment. To create these items, you need to bring other items, with some being purely used as materials like flour and others being other general use items.
It's quite in-depth, especially since multiple items can only be created by experimenting with the ingredients. For example, bread will need flour and water, but multiple items can be used to substitute either ingredient with similar things, so you could make a different kind of bread with wax and milk instead. Sometimes it'll result in a better (or worse) quality item, or it could make a new item, which the merchant will notify you of, so there's no real guesswork involved. As I mentioned, synthesizing an item for the first time will have a brief voiceless scene play out where the party members and the merchant talk about the item, which is usually a comedy bit. The more a store is supported this way, the more scenes will occur randomly as you either enter the store, talk to the merchant, or exit their menu where more synthesis recipes are added or their story is advanced. Like I mentioned, Veola gets the most by far, but the others also get quite a few.
Unfortunately, a few of the mechanics here are not explained at all, or their significance aren't made clear. An item's quality is decided by its "reviews," which are rather poorly translated qualifiers such as "a little too hot" and "really smells... odd." These change depending on the ingredients used, and it's never made clear what higher quality means or does. Similarly, you can see how a shop is doing, what the most popular item is, and why it's the most popular... but I never understood what the point of it was. There'll be more NPCs in the shop, but they'll merely say generic phrases that are clearly taking the popular item and review of it like a mad lib. Item Synthesis can also get a bit tedious if you try to do everything, since closer to the endgame, multiple items will require items made only in one store, which require ingredients from a different store, and so on. I also found it a bit disappointing that so much of it is essentially just cooking.
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| An example of the NPCs talking about the contents of a store, and how awkwardly it comes off. |
Finally, there's Weapon Synthesis. It's unfortunately not as fun as it sounds, and I found that it was easily one of the most flawed systems in the game. Once unlocked, Weapon Synthesis can only be done at the party's main base in Kavoc, and it involves items that are called elemental mana (not to be confused by Elements or Mana). These are rare materials found throughout the world or dropped rarely by items. By selecting an elemental mana and a Mana, you can transform it into a crystal, with each combination of mana and Mana (confusing, I know) resulting in different potential stat boosts in crystal form. These stat boosts range from elemental defenses to attack, magic, speed, or defense buffs, to some passive abilities that aren't really explained like "Battle Lord PWR". Fusing two crystals with the same effect will result in a more powerful version of that effect, and this can be done until hitting the +9 (or sometimes +5) cap. Furthermore, up to 3 effects can be added onto a crystal at the same time.
Where I find this mechanic falters is twofold. First, I just think that with the rarity of the elemental manas, the semi-randomness and trial-and-error nature of figuring out what each combo does is counterproductive. Sure, you can savescum it or look up a guide online, but I'd rather have a way to figure it out in-game. Second, and most importantly, the crystals cannot be applied to every piece of equipment, but instead only select few pieces of equipment can be infused with a crystal. Not only that, but it feels really arbitrary what can and can't be augmented, and there's no indication outside of it being available in the Weapon Synthesis menu. With how expensive most weapons and accessories are, I didn't find myself drawn to experimenting much with this feature. It also results in the bulk of equipment feeling borderline useless because you can't augment it through Weapon Synthesis. It's a deep mechanic and will allow players to min-max, but it's easily the least interesting part of the game to me.
THE DANGERS OF REGALLZINE
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| A look at the game's overworld. It's not much to look at, and weirdly foggy. An early game area, the Tower of Airfen, is visible to the left. |
Atelier Iris is a JRPG with random encounters, and this might be an unpopular opinion, but after playing so many RPGs with environmental encounters where you encounter monsters in the field, I found it really refreshing to have random encounters and I realised I enjoy them quite a lot; it just brings a different kind of experience closer to dungeon crawling when in a hostile area. Even though the game isn't too difficult outside of a handful of hard bosses, I enjoyed having to keep my Elements topped off and having to synthesize healing items as necessary. I have to note, though, that the encounter rate seems a little low, especially in the overworld.
Something I really enjoyed is the field abilities that are unlocked throughout the game, going from object destruction to spawning a platform or even flying. Some of these abilities are also more passive, such as protecting you from hazards, removing enemy encounters until you change screens, raising the encounter rate, or even just healing. It's worth noting, however, that using the more passive ones will lower a Mana's love and mood with each use, meaning they can't be abused that much. Flight is probably my favorite due to the game teasing it the entire time by showing out-of-reach items in almost every field area. I have to mention, however, that the game is a little unstable, and will rarely seem to freeze when loading an asset, whether it's doing a field ability or changing screens. While it seems frozen, it's not: waiting for around 2 minutes let the game load and then proceed as needed.
The overworld exploration, on the other hand, is really nothing special, though I do enjoy how some of it is handled. Visually, it's probably the one part of the game I found ugly: it's full of lifeless brown paths and featureless forest walls, it's oddly foggy, and there really isn't much to explore. None of the game's abilities can be used in the overworld either. Of the main gameplay aspects, this is very easily the weakest; you don't really get a sense that Regallzine is a real place, and I'd argue even old RPGs on 2D consoles did their overworlds better. However, I do like how late-game areas need to be unlocked through the story, revealing new paths and making it easier to get your bearings in the lifeless, featureless corridors. The game even allows you to see where the new area is.
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| A good look at the battle screen and, more importantly, the attack range mechanics: the enemies that are highlighted will be hit by Lita's attack, while the darker ones won't. |
Like most of the game's features, the battle system in Atelier Iris is pretty basic, but with a small unique(?) twist that helps it not feel too simple. The party has three members active, with three lanes available in a 3x3 square (i.e. one character per row), and I believe the enemies follow a similar format, though there can be way more. Every attack has a range, whether it's one "square," a horizontal line, a vertical line, or more. These are ostensibly invisible, but when choosing a target, the enemies that'll get hit will be highlighted. It's a fun system, but it makes characters with basic attacks that only hit a single target feel quite a bit weaker.
There are a few design quirks with the battle system that also help the game feel unique, but I'm still undecided on whether it's overall a positive or negative thing. First, most character skills (which cost MP) are not necessarily the best choice, and sometimes a basic attack is a better choice. Instead, skills are just that: skills that fulfill different functions, like giving a physical attacker a magic attack and vice-versa, or different ranges, or some status effects. Something that is never explained, however, is the significance of positioning; is it like some older games where the backrow deals less damage but receives less as well? It's never explained and I never really noticed a big difference. Many attacks knock back characters, and some will change your character's positioning when you do them (this is, unfortunately, not stated in the move's description). You don't get to reposition characters mid-battle without using moves that do it. Some skills also seem redundant, which is a shame.
Something quite interesting, though, is how these skills can be leveled up. When a character levels up, they get 3 skill points to invest into their available skills, which will level up at certain thresholds. At first, it seems incredibly daunting to level these up, with some skills requiring as many as 30 points to level up once. A bit into the game, you unlock the ability to equip Mana to a character, which will give some passive buffs, some stat buffs (these aren't clear without equipping and unequipping, unfortunately), and most importantly, skill buffs. After each battle following this, characters gain Character EXP and Mana EXP separately, and each Mana will automatically put a predetermined amount of points into set skills for each character, should they be equipped when the Mana EXP bar fills up. This allows some flexibility with leveling up characters as most Mana help level up multiple skills, and it's pretty fun to play around with, though I do wish it had a more noticeable effect in battle instead of being almost purely passive.
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| Some pretty amusing dialogue before a boss fight rather late in the game. |
All 6 characters have a different use in battle, which does make them all stand out in a unique manner. Back when I played this game on emulator in my teenage years, I had Klein alongside Lita and Delsus at all times, while this time around I felt more comfortable with Klein accompanied by Norn and Marietta. Something quite fun is that you can switch characters as you wish without wasting a turn, even when a character is KO'd. The one thing I found strange is that Norn, despite being a mage, has no elemental skills and instead has two physical ones, which feels very strange.
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| A boss fight against a dragon, with the party hurting quite a bit and the formation being broken, leaving Arlin stranded in the frontline, unable to receive AoE healing from Klein. |
The boss battles in Atelier Iris are nothing to write home about, and the majority of them are just against a recolored, stronger enemy that serves as an obstacle to the doohickey you're looking for rather than a meaningful threat from an antagonistic character. While it makes the latter stand out much more when it happens, it does really make the story feel like a bunch of fetch quests disguised as a grand story. There's a few boss fights with unique enemies, and these are great, with gorgeous art and animation. I just wish there were more of these, to be frank. As much as I enjoyed the game, fighting a unique blue dragon as a boss, or a reskinned succubus enemy kind of sucks the joy out of the moment.
The difficulty, as you'd expect, is nothing to write home about for the most part. Some enemies and bosses are only vulnerable to magic attacks, which does add some strategy to the proceedings, but it's actually not that big of a deal once you see a physical attack miss with the "invalid" message. There's a few noticeable difficulty spikes, with one boss about halfway through being a pretty big wall, but the final boss is a pretty extreme one considering what comes before it: it has four times the amount of health the previous tankiest boss has, and has many powerful attacks that require preparation and good strategy. It wouldn't surprise me if most casual players are unable to beat it. The post-game superboss is also really difficult, but doable with the correct strategy.
I have to be very clear about this though: the game has a notorious game-breaking glitch. After beating the final boss, it's very likely that, if the game's voice language is set to English, the game will hang on the loading screen before the final scene that then triggers the credits. Since there's no way to save your cleared data and thus access the post-game before the credits, this will lock you out of the post-game. The fix, outside of being lucky (and do you want to test your luck with a really difficult final boss, relatively speaking?), is to set the game's voice language to Japanese, as far as I can tell. It's what I did, and it worked like a charm. But it really shouldn't be a thing.
THE SOUND OF ALCHEMY
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| Lector is a side character whose purpose is to track your item list, giving you small rewards for each item found. With nearly 400 items to see, it's a big endeavor! |
In terms of voice acting, it's about what you'd expect from an English dub in 2005: it's got some charm and fun moments, the voices are pretty fitting, but the direction is all over the place. Grant George as Klein is unfortunately the weak link, as a lot of his lines come across as flat or showing the wrong emotion, as if he wasn't aware of the context they'd be played in. Conversely, Wendee Lee does a great job as Lita, and Crispin Freeman also does really well with Delsus with some of the funniest line deliveries in the game. Steve Blum is perfect for Arlin, and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn does a good job with Marietta, though you rarely hear from her. My highlight for the main cast is actually Melissa Fahn as Norn; not only does she make Norn absolutely adorable, she somehow manages to draw out some chuckles with funny line deliveries and, more importantly, manages to not make a character that says "meow" almost every line annoying. I also have to point out that, as you'd expect, Jamieson Price is a delight as recurring goofy antagonist Beggur. I didn't play with the Japanese voices for very long, but they seemed to be of lower audio quality and volume, and I wasn't a fan of the casting for Lita in particular.
PROS AND CONS
PROS
• Visually aged quite well, with some gorgeous sprite work and beautiful art.
• Fantastic soundtrack all around.
• A fun script that's often amusing and heartwarming, but isn't afraid to dip into darker subjects here and there.
• Simple but solid battle system.
• Each party member feels unique, counteracting the small party size.
• Tons of items to collect and synthesize.
• Veola's enormous Item Synthesis parallel quest is a huge highlight.
• Having both EN and JP voices is great.
• Just an overall solidly executed game from top to bottom, and I think it punches a bit above its weight in terms of quality.
CONS
• Weapon synthesis is oddly and arbitrarily limited as well as unclear.
• The English dub isn't the best quality due to lackluster direction, especially Grant George as Klein.
• The Japanese voice-over seems to have low audio quality and is more quiet than the English dub.
• The overworld is really dull.
• The story is very basic, and all the sidequests are unvoiced.
• Some tedious back-and-forth between cities when trying to synthesize stronger items.
• Lots of Mana Items are too situational, seemingly in a quantity over quality way.
• At least two big difficulty spikes, including a huge one at the final boss, could discourage players that haven't done enough Item Synthesis.
• While there's lovely, funny tutorials, quite a few mechanics are never explained.
• Some instability causes a variety of bugs, including a pseudo-freeze that lasts for over 2 minutes.
• A game-breaking bug with the English dub can prevent the credits from properly triggering, not allowing the player to save their data and access the post-game.
WORTH PLAYING?
Before I answer that, I'd like to get a bit personal with my feelings on this game. I first played Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana as a teenager on emulator, and it was during a pretty low period for me personally. Not because I was depressed or unhappy, but because I was in a phase of watching many gaming Youtubers that were hyper critical of games, whether knowingly or jokingly, it affected the way I'd see games. I'd dismiss games entirely because of one perceived flaw, or parrot videos that I'd watch. I basically was an elitist about games, only seeking pure quality out of anything I'd watch or play.
And frankly? It was pretty miserable. Without realising, I was stuck in a spiral and slowly losing my passion for video games, instead wallowing in cynicism. At the same time, since renting games was getting more expensive and less accessible in my area, I found myself trying games through emulators a lot, and I ended up in a JRPG mood, so I tried Atelier Iris, and I found myself really enjoying it in spite of my "better" judgment. I wasn't very good at RPGs back then so I didn't interact with the game's mechanics as much as I should have, and ended up walled at the final boss, so I dropped it.
But Atelier Iris had done its job: it not only rekindled my love of games and broke me out of the cynical spiral I was stuck in, but it helped me redevelop not just my critical thinking skills but my emotional honesty. Does it really matter if a game is "bad" or "lacking" if you had fun with it? In fact, I think I'd argue that a flawed game you love will often stick more with you than a nearly perfect game, because the flaws reflect the humanity of the developers and that makes the positives shine brighter.
I'm definitely making it sound dramatic, but with hindsight, it's absolutely what was happening during some of my more formative years. Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana is one of the most important games I've played, and I have it to thank for making me a more open-minded player. Playing it again on actual hardware, rediscovering why it had such an impact on me, and finally beating the final boss to see the ending after all these years was genuinely one of the best feelings, and I was emotional just due to the closure.
Of course, if I'm selfish, I think Atelier Iris is worth playing by everyone that enjoys turn-based RPGs, especially if a more simple, laidback experience is what you're after. Realistically, it won't leave a huge impression on most people; it's a pretty standard JRPG all things considered, with a basic story, solid but unremarkable combat, some clunky mechanics, and some fun writing with shaky performances. It's about as aggressively 7/10 as a game from this time can be. I adore it for what it is and for how it snapped me out of a cynical loop all these years ago. I had an absolute blast playing it again and it brought back some great memories. I can't really put into words how much this game means to me, though I just tried. Unfortunately, this game as well as the rest of the trilogy is stuck on PS2 and was never rereleased or ported, so there's no way to officially play it unless you buy the PS2 game and have all the necessary hardware, which makes it harder to recommend. At least emulating it is free, and feels more appropriate than how expensive the game would be to play nowadays.
I'm incredibly excited to play the rest of the Iris trilogy since I know so little about Atelier Iris 2 and Atelier Iris 3. I've also got plans to play through the entire Atelier series eventually, so I'm excited to do that as well.
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