Mimana Iyar Chronicle (ミマナ イアルクロニクル) is a Japanese RPG developed by Kogado Studio and released in 2009 for the PlayStation Portable. I only played this recently in 2023 as it completely passed under my radar back in the day.

The story follows Craiss Sewell, a mercenary with quite a bad personality who gets hired as a bodyguard by a young girl called Sophie Rothorn. Her plan is to visit various shrines around the world to collect a special kind of gem for unknown purposes, and she needs protection while doing so.

Craiss is reluctant to help her, but faced with the need for money, he decides to start their collaboration. Of course, things aren't that simple when it comes to JRPGs, so the initial quest becomes larger and larger as the implications of the gems' purpose become evident. You get to recruit various allies along the journey and face increasingly powerful enemies.

While most of the bosses are not that memorable, we have three enemies that we will be facing for most of the story: Heidar, who is searching for the gems just like Sophie; Feide, who seems to be working as Heidar's pawn; and the Dark Knight, a mysterious figure who seems to know about Sophie's secret and is also targeting the gems.

The playable characters in this game are:

Craiss Sewell

A very moody mercenary who uses a sword to fight and seems to hate kids for unknown reasons. He has some deep trauma in the past related to his family, and Sophie's presence triggers it in the worst way. I have to say that it was kind of hard to play at the beginning because I really despised his behavior. He does get better later on, though.

Sophie Rothorn

A young girl who uses songs to buff/heal allies and wields a small knife. She is sweet, naive, and innocent—basically a little angel. This only makes Craiss even more irritated whenever she talks. Her motives for searching for the gems are unknown for a good chunk of the story.

Melrose Kirsch

A sorceress who wanders around the world trying to find something interesting to research, be it some ancient civilization, mysterious creatures, or simply our protagonist (because of the strange aura he emanates). She is the main source of comedy in the game with her teasing of everyone in the party.

Tinon Elliot

A young warrior girl using a pole-axe who is currently learning to control her magic. She joins the team forcibly after Craiss sees her naked while she was bathing in a forest. You know, usual ecchi situations the protagonist enters without even thinking. She calls him "future husband" and claims she will follow him forever.

Patty Sucrer

Craiss's cousin. She runs a shop and is in deep debt (as shown from the first encounter). She uses magical artifacts and has various ways to heal the party. She is the "older sister" of the party, always worried about the other characters and trying to cater to them.

Feide

She starts as an enemy working under Heidar, but eventually becomes a party member later in the story. Her identity and purpose aren't revealed until much later, but she seems to be some sort of homunculus.

My favorite character would be a tie between Tinon and Melrose. Melrose was definitely a lot more entertaining and literally carried the comedy of the game, but Tinon was such a sweetheart trying her best for Craiss while also having a solid backstory so I'm not still completely sure. In the end I picked Tinon for the ending scene (each character has their own separate ending scene depending on who you choose in one particular scene).

The gameplay is extremely similar to the Tales series (the old ones at least) with real-time combat while moving across the map, featuring the ability to use items and skills. You only control one unit while the other two automatically fight via AI following your orders.

One thing you will notice almost immediately is that the game has weird difficulty spikes across the story. You may pass from "easily waltzing through enemies" to "dying in a few hits" just by progressing a little in the story. Of course, you can just stay put and farm levels for a while to solve this problem.

The rest of the mechanics are standard RPG fare with shops to buy items and upgrades, various NPCs that can give you hints about where to go next, etc. Nothing really stands out in this game, but it still shows that they put effort into making it.

As I said, I cannot say this is a masterpiece. But considering the short length (14 hours for me to complete it) and the fully voiced story, I can say "give it a shot" and see if it sticks.