I had a surprisingly difficult time finding information on this game. The only things that most sites seem to know is that there are two scenarios that you can choose from - Goddess and Demon King - and depending on which you choose, you'll be able to use different characters from Disgaea (Etna, Flonne, and Prinny) or Atelier Viorate (Viorate Platane and Pamela Ibis). Luckily, rykomatsu over at the ramblings of a japanese gamer blog translated an e-Digi piece on the game. Here are some of the highlights:

how the game flows:

The game primarily consists of events, dungeon searching, and battles.

By examining debris that flows into the world map, you may be able to enter a dungeon, encounter events, etc.

In dungeons, your primary goal is to destroy the gravity well of that particular debris. After finding the gravity well, eliminating the boss guarding it, and destroying the gravity well, you will have a limited time to exit the dungeon. Upon destruction of the gravity well, the space time continuum in the surrounding area becomes unstable. As a result, various rare items will start to be drawn into the local area. If you spend too much time collecting the rare items, you will be unable to escape in time.

After you've cleared a set number of dungeons, the story will progress with various events and previews being sandwiched in between.

synthesis:

You will be able to use materials gathered to synthesize items used to power up your characters.

In the demon lord scenario, you can use materials to create powerful monsters. Then, by defeating the monsters you create in the "arena," you are able earn items which will increase your stats.

In the goddess scenario, you can use the materials to create meteorites, which, when multiple are equipped, will allow your characters to gain new skills depending on what combination of meteorites are equipped.

the battle system:

Time Encounter Battle

You will have a limited amount of time in the attack phase. Further, attack skills are associated with AP (action points), and the amount of time you have remaining will decrease with AP consumption. The stronger the attack, the more AP will be required to use it. Thus, in order to move the battle forward in your party's favor, you will need to adapt your battle strategy as the situation requires.

One Button Skill Link

The basic attack skills are divided into 3 types: combination attacks, heavy blows, and magic. By executing these skills in various orders, you will be able to execute stronger skills.

Fury Chain

Before your attack phase timer runs out, you can swap to the next character and maintain a chain of attacks. In addition to in-battle benefits, such as increase in attack power and filling of the image gauge, this may also result in additional XP or money earned as well as other post-battle bonuses.

Furthermore, by meeting certain criteria by chaining, you will be able to execute combination attacks between 2 to 4 characters.

Image Gauge

The image gauge will fill by various means such as attacking or exploiting an enemy's weak spot, and will ultimately allow you to unleash mana graphics in-battle.

By unleashing mana graphics, you will be able to do the following:

1. Unleash character specific special attacks
2. Recover HP (it is possible to recover beyond your Max HP)
3. Deploy a shield that will reduce your damage taken

Action Ability

This will allow you to use various support skills such as using items, recovery, and stat boosts. You will, for the most part, be able to freely set the various support skills between rank 1 and 4, with rank 1 aspects being usable immediately and further ranks requiring progressively more time to become usable.

Because of the limited amount of time during the attack phase, skills which are used frequently can be set to a lower rank whereas aspects which are used less frequently can be set to higher ranks. The player can adjust these to suit their needs and style of play.

Soul Barrier

By exploiting weaknesses and making good use of chains, it will be possible to destroy a monster's soul barrier. A monster whose soul barrier is destroyed will have various changes associated with it. From the basic enrage where defense goes down and attack power goes up, to a change in weakness, change in attack strategy, or change in items that are dropped, destroying a monster's soul barrier will result in quite a few situations where you will need to actively alter your strategy, increasing the depth of battle.

Mana Khemia 2's developer, Gust, has a knack for creating item-crafting-heavy games that are actually fun to play. As it has been pumping out Atelier Iris games continually since 1997, the company has had a lot of time to refine its games' combat and synthesis systems. The first Mana Khemia, often considered the spiritual successor to the Atelier Iris series, can be seen as the culmination of all that Gust has learned over the years, at least when it comes to gameplay. As far as the story goes, MK left a lot to be desired. In fact, the story was fairly non-existent. MK2 fixes that by not only providing a more fleshed out story, but by also allowing gamers to play through two separate scenarios with different main and secondary characters. The superior story, along with improvements to the already solid combat and synthesis systems, should make Mana Khemia 2 a must buy for Gust fans as well as those who are still in the market for a decent RPG on the PSP.