Summer has finally begun to descend upon us, with the temperatures rising, days lasting longer and school wrapping up. What better way to bring in the season than with a brand new RPG? NIS America are here to oblige with the next installment in their anime-and-alchemy infused series, Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm. Ditching the linear trappings of Eternal Mana and Azoth of Destiny, Grand Phantasm puts you in the shoes of the quest-conquering, material-collecting duo of Edge and Iris, as they attempt to earn a living while discovering the secrets of an ancient book on the side. The game is harmless to a fault as it bathes itself in anime and RPG clichés by the bucket, content to soak in the bare minimum instead of even attempting to nudge the genre's boundaries. If you can look past what the developers felt uncompelled to do and enjoy what they did accomplish in the ways of entertaining characters and enjoyable gameplay, it has enough charm to keep fans of the anime-inspired RPGs of yore enthralled. If you can't get over that hump though, be prepared for a painful journey.

Grand Phantasm stars the short on speech, big on attitude male lead Edge and his childhood friend, the cute but clumsy alchemist-in-training Iris. The two have formed a team to take odd jobs from the local Raiders' Guild, essentially translating into their jobs. On an unrelated job, the two stumble upon the secret of a sealed book Iris' parents left her. This book, apparently, is the lost magical tome 'Libram of Escalario,' which grants the collector of eight dragon ba…I mean gems, one wish. This starts two threads - which I have dubbed 'Skills to Pay the Bills' and 'Alchemy Ball Z' - that crisscross around each other as the game progresses.

At its best, 'Alchemy Ball Z' is forgettable rehash. There is just far too much borrowing to even slightly peak interest, unless you are the one person in the world who comes into this game having never laid an eye on all the games and anime this game lifts from. That's not to say it's all bad though, as the summon-like creatures known as Mana serve as top notch boss fights and developing Iris' alchemy proves to be a rewarding endeavor, but these points hardly outweigh the bad.

Oddly enough though, it's the 'Skills to Pay the Bills' storyline where the game's story shines enough to catch your interest. Edge and Iris have good chemistry, rubbing against each other the wrong way as much as they get along, tapping into the 'odd couple' opposites attract angle with gusto. Once you throw in the valley girl Nell, your main trio is one volatile group, providing entertainment the entire way. I just love how all three main characters bicker on and on, then come together when necessary, showing character growth and emotion - keys that end up being the only reason this story is even worth reading. The majority of the clients of your jobs only add to the fun, ranging from a girl and her eccentric cat to a busty bartender to a lonely ghost librarian. They all receive a decent helping of storytelling, filling them out well beyond your run-of-the-mill, 'I only change my lines after each chapter' NPC.

Taking on a job generally consists of three parts: accepting a job from the bulletin board (of which there are three varieties - fetch, favor and combat), meeting with the client and then carrying out what is asked. Once the first two tasks are covered, you will find yourself heading off to one of many different Alterworlds, where all of the game's action takes place and most of the items come from. This is where enemies exist in the shape of colored blobs (known as the Symbol Encounter system) until bumped into. There are three colors to watch for and two shapes; blue means you can slash them with your sword and kill them without entering battle, clear means the enemies are a fair match with you, regular red means you may have some difficulty and giant red means a mid-boss-quality bout is waiting. Why the actual bad guys couldn't have been used as symbols is beyond me, but at least it beats random battles.

Once inside a battle, you are given a list of the usual actions (attack, skill, item, etc.) to be executed in the standard turn-based manner that we all know and love or hate. On the surface it seems like that's all there is to it, but thankfully this assumption is wrong. First off, the top right corner of the screen shows the skill meter, which grows as time passes and damage is taken. This replaces MP, as all your characters' skills and magic claim a certain number of bars off the meter to be used, allowing you to always go full-tilt. The bottom left of the screen holds the Burst meter. Each attack landed adds a bar to the meter; once full, the skill meter shoots to max and your characters grow obscenely strong. This quickly becomes the key to every boss battle, as you are nearly unstoppable when the Burst Mode is active.

All in all, the combat is extremely streamlined in Grand Phantasm. This proves to be a win-win situation, as not only is time always of the essence thanks to the timed Alterworlds, but fighting is quick and dynamic. Being able to unleash all the best skills pretty much at a whim kept me in it to win it every time I went to battle, a definite feat to acknowledge for a turn-based RPG. There may only be three controllable characters for the entire game, but the bevy of skills to be learned more than makes up for the apparent lack of variety. Now, if only there were more bosses. These massive creatures are the only real tests of your party's strength throughout the entire game, so making them hard to come by ends up being battling's only sizeable letdown.

What really makes these Alterworlds unique is that they are time-based, meaning that you only have a certain amount of time to roam around before you are surrounded by fog and whisked back to town. Battle time is also factored into the equation, though dispatching enemies with haste will refund time spent fighting. On its own this would be a pretty lame game mechanic, but when coupled with a points list that gives out items by meeting certain requirements, it adds a sense of strategy mixed with urgency. Any worries about "will I have enough time to finish my quest?" can be laid to rest, as I never ran a thin line with the clock unless I was wasting time. Since the quest system sends you back to the same Alterworld a number of times throughout the game, trying to increase you total score to earn more loot does wonders to easing the burn of monotony.

Once you hit a certain part in a chapter, you will receive a mission. Unlike the quests, these story-based events are not optional and must be played right away before starting or ending another quest. I have no problem with the content within these missions, which help keep the story together and provide more than their fair share of excitement, but they can sneak up on you when you least expect it, leaving you unable to finish any quest you may have been involved in. You also cannot work on quests and a mission at the same time. These are minor complaints, but the jagged transitions the missions make between quests due to their poor implementation can leave you unnecessarily jolted.

Once you are done collecting items, finishing quests/missions and beating up bad guys, there is still much to accomplish back at town. The main attraction is definitely Iris' house and her alchemy pot. Taking the ingredients you have collected around town and from the Alterworlds, you can craft new items, weapons, armor and more by following recipes. If an item can be substituted in a recipe, a red circle appears next to that ingredient, allowing you to mix and match to create new items! Newly discovered recipes are remembered automatically, even if you don't have all the necessary components yet, which is nothing short of a godsend. That's not all that's housed within the walls of Iris' home either, as you can also change Edge and Nell's skill and weapon sets, each based on a Mana summon, giving way to new character types. If you still need to add more to your plate, you can round out your town experience by hitting the stores, chatting with the townsfolk or just collecting items strewn around the streets.

The presentation for Grand Phantasm steers for too close to just above average for my liking. Much like in Gust's last U.S. title, Ar tonelico, this game feels as if a certain graphical level was reached, then all work was abandoned because satisfaction at being just above the average game was good enough. Characters are detailed and crisp (especially the large and in charge bosses), though all non-battle models lack fluid movement and elementary details such as blinking eyes and breathing. Environments each have their own colorful palette, unique structure and easy-on-the-eyes qualities, but the lack of background movement in almost all occasions, as well as a visible lack of vibrancy, leaves them appearing more pedestrian than they should be. Finally, Alterworld entrances are brilliantly hand-drawn and breathtaking, as are a few other random interiors, but they play such a small part in the game's visual makeup that their appearances hinder the overall product for standing out more than they help it.

Musically, the same problems crop up, as the selection of songs is decent, molding an upbeat, easy-going mood, but a few have the tingy sound of cartridge MIDI and the whole is just a bit too uninspired to stick in your head or move your feet. The intro song is the cream of the crop, but as it is the intro song, I shouldn't have to tell you how many times it features in the game. The voice acting of either language choice (English or Japanese) is generally solid for both Edge and Iris, but the supporting cast seems to suffer from poor actor choice more than it should. The main trouble seems to be found in the female department, where the cast is filled to the brim with ditzy girls. Whenever Nell stopped talking with an inside voice - which is more often than not - I felt like someone was just running their fingernails down a chalkboard.

Having to come down on Gust like this is a shame, as it is very obvious they have the ability to craft amazing presentation - they've been teasing us with potential for quite awhile now. But every time they seem to be ready to push ahead of the pack, they stop dead in their tracks, leaving truly unique, outstanding work to be accomplished by anyone but them. I have no idea what their reason is for coming up short, but this has to end.

The main game shouldn't take much more than thirty hours to complete, with a few more added to take down all of the quests to achieve the best ending. Thankfully you can't miss out on any quest, so reaching that goal doesn't require a new save file. Since the game wraps up so effortlessly, after you finish Grand Phantasm though, that's pretty much it. To be honest, the game is better for its short legs, as the characters can't hold the throwaway story up forever. This way, you stay enamored with the characters enough that you'll welcome a return visit in a few months, maybe a year.

The series may take a step backwards with Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm, but as long as you are aware of what you are getting into, it should prove to be just the summer guilty pleasure you are looking for. Much like rolling down the windows in your car, popping in mix disc of ska tunes as you prepare for a long car ride in the sun, sometimes you just want to indulge in some fun-loving, upbeat, no-nonsense summer adventuring. Atelier Iris 3 is here to heed that call… at least until the Fall.

Reviewed by Tony Peters for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).