Alchemia Story Game Review

Alchemia Story is an Anime mobile MMORPG from Asobimo, the developers of other popular mobile MMORPGs such as Iruna Online, Elicia Online, AVABEL Online and Izanagi Online and takes place in a large, fantasy world with unique combat and beautiful Anime inspired graphics.

When I first heard that Alchemia Story was a mobile MMORPG, naturally, my first instinct was to just shrug it off as just another mobile MMORPG. Right? That’s what all of us PC MMORPG players do. We’re closed minded, after all.

Now, jumping right into the game I was met with some awkward control issues, but they were fairly easy to get around.

Character creation in Alchemia Story was some of the best I’ve seen in an Anime MMORPG, giving you control over your body – both height and weight, your face – with sliders that allow you to customize the shape of pretty much everything. You’re given control over individual parts of your characters hair – along with a large variety of hairstyles to choose from. You’re given control over your eye color, hair color, eyebrow color, hair tip color.. it’s just crazy exactly how much control you’re given over your character, truly.

The overall look of the game is fantastic. There are small pixelation issues – mainly due to the fact that I was running it on an emulator, but those aside, the graphics are by far the best I’ve seen in an Anime MMORPG for mobile devices – and possibly even in an Anime MMORPG, to date. The character models, the landscapes, the environments.. they all seem like they would be more apt to be from a single player JRPG as opposed to a Japanese MMORPG. I was impressed beyond words that a mobile MMORPG could do better, graphically, than any PC Anime MMORPG that currently exists.

Unfortunately there is no English patch for Alchemia Story as of writing this, but from what I’m able to grasp from the gratuitous cutscenes in-game is that Alchemia Story is very, very heavily story driven. In the first two hours of fumbling around I met several fully voice acted NPCs that were important to the games plot in some form or fashion, and I am more than certain that would continue to be the case the further we went.

The combat in Alchemia Story was incredibly strange. Not strange in a bad way, but strange in a unique way. I’ve never seen this specific form of combat utilized in an MMORPG before, and I was excited to try it out simply because I had never in the past.

The combat itself is turn based. Or.. more like you have a gauge, and as your portrait goes along the gauge you get closer to having your turn. Meaning you’re competing with the enemy to get your turn before theirs.

The options you’re given to use vary between choices like “Defend”, and various forms of attacks. At least from what I gathered throughout the battles I participated in.

It’s an incredibly entertaining system that both relies on luck, and skill, making for a combat system I could really get behind trying to learn.

The world in Alchemia Story is large and filled with little hidden vistas you can visit and perform cute little actions at like sitting under trees, atop crates, napping on hilltops.. it’s an adorable little feature to add. The worlds are enclosed, or instanced off from one another, more or less like Blade and Soul or Final Fantasy XIV are – so the world isn’t open nor is it a sandbox MMORPG. But that doesn’t at all detract from the overall beauty, nor the fun and excitement of exploring the world. Which is incredibly beautiful, I might add.

Finally, Alchemia Story is a very, very unique kind of MMORPG and a very, very positive step in the right direction for the entire mobile MMORPG genre. I’m more than happy if this is the direction the mobile MMORPG market is going to go, and look forward to more games employing a non-autopath, non-auto combat system like Alchemia Story is.