In Mimana Iyar Chronicle, an action-RPG for the PSP, play as Crais, a young guild knight. Crais is broke and down on his luck after gambling too much, and he’s a bit of a jerk, too. Luckily, a young girl soon hires Crais through the guild to be her bodyguard as they search the world for seven magical gems. In typical RPG fashion, they’ll meet up with other rag-tag adventurers and magicians who will join them as they end up saving the world in the process.

Mimana Iyar Chronicle is a typical action RPG through and through. Gather items, weapons, armor, and clues in towns. Then venture forth to forest mazes and dungeon caves to battle monsters in order to gain experience points and level up.

Battles occur randomly as you travel around dangerous areas. The view will switch from a top-down to a side-view screen, and you move and attack in real time. You can’t control your other party member directly, but you can assign certain attack and magic use strategies for them, as well as order them to perform certain tasks on the spot. Fans of Tales RPGs and sidescrolling beat-em-ups will feel right at home with the battle system.

Mimana has a few problems here and there. As it’s based on the designs of classic RPGs, it has a few of the disadvantages of those kinds of games, too. Unseen random battles get tiresome very quickly, and the game doesn’t hold your hand through any part of it. Level-grinding is a must, even at the earliest stage of the game, and bosses are tough to beat. If you’re not on the same plane as the enemies in battle, you’ll usually miss, too. Dungeons are tricky to navigate as the corridors all look the same and the game as a whole is decidedly average. However, people who can’t get enough classic styled action RPGs may enjoy this portable adventure, and being able to save anywhere is a convenient on the go feature.

Kid Factor:

Mimana Iyar Chronicle is rated T for Teen with ESRB descriptors of Alcohol Reference, Language, Mild Blood, Mild Fantasy Violence, and Sexual Themes. Like other RPGs, most of the alcohol references, language, and sexual themes are represented in text only. You can visit pubs and there are mentions of drinking and gambling. Hardly any blood can be seen in battle, and enemies just disappear when defeated, so violence is pretty tame. The game totes that you can have the hero Crais get closer to one of the female members of your party, so some sexual themes may occur there, too. Even though much of the game has spoken voice with decent acting, reading skill is still a must with all the text. Because of all this, Mimana Iyar Chronicle is best for teens and older kids.

Tags: Game Reviews