so I finished Sophie
yes yes, I know ur reaction i do it myself :
anyway, first of all
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=860403840
it did not exist when I first tried it.
first of second of all, Sophie is not bad, but it is EXTREMELY slow by all standarts, and characters are pretty shallow even by anime standarts. Sophie is basically NEUTRAL GOOD stamped on her forehead, Plachta is... interesting, but holy fuck story goes slow, Oskar likes plants, etc. there are some cute moments but it is all pretty shallow.
the story lifts off forever and completes itself before you notice.
the synthesis and recipy ideas are... interesting. my problem is I forget every past synthesis system because I have to re-learn new one in every new game I play, so hard to make comparisons, but it is nuanced, although not as anal as Firis where multiple colored ingredients kick in.
for me it clicked when I had to fail on purpose in TIME LIMIT cauldron, get ash, turn ash into elixir, turn elixir into paper, well you know the drill.
also this gaem is very... lewd. I mean whole doll thing.
the endgame bosses are quite rapey.
overall I'd call it icewind dale of Ateliers: it teaches mechanics well, and is pretty, but falls flat in other areas.
I ALSO FINISHED MORROWIND OF ATELIERS: FIRIS
now Valkyrie said Firis failed at sales because it's not like other Ateliers. don't believe her. Firis failed because it is an open world game where you run for hours made by people who cannot do open world games. YOU RUN A LOT IN THIS GAME. it also features one of the GRINDIEST syntheses I ever played, and is basically very, very grindy. the tetris system becomes even more obtuse and frustrating, although even more powerful, although it's hard to point out a particular problem; but it also introduces a terrible, terrible mechanic: leveling up item recipes. basically, in Sophie to transfer traits from item to item or rotate tetris all you need is good cauldron.
well here's the kicker: to get traits and rotates you need to craft particular item multiple times to get xp, to level recipe up. if you don't do this, you cannot get traits/rotate stuff. unless you use cathalyst: additional item to mod your crafting. you can craft catalyst, but see previous paragraph.
bonus: u cannot copy items (no homo), only restock bombs/medicine.
it also introduces MEGA SYNTHESIS. what it means is crafting some quest big item. it goes like this: you need 15 distilled waters for it, and say 30 reagents. to craft 30 reagents, you also need distilled water... I hope you see where this is going.
at the same time there are very many interesting things in Firis. like you have portable Atelier. you choose your party and they travel with you and you do quests for them and level their friendship (hurr dragon age). you need to reach baldurs gate city (on time limit but it's ez, but of course you can do better or worse by completing more quests) and pass exam which picks from 100 random questions about alchemy (because developer is autist), craft high quality item on TIME LIMIT, and check your bomb damage on puni, and you can then fight 2 bosses (other alchemists) who are super secret and strong.
once you pass exam which is p easy unless you aim for high score, time limit is off, and GAME BEGINS. (the xx hours before is tutorial lmao). you get magic broom and fly around over water in Kiki Delivery costume. you open new areas like castlevania n shiet. and craft magic ship. and reach areas with lvl 55 bosses and quality 220 ingredients and everything everything in this game one-shots you unless you are a master autist, i mean alchemisst, and make 10000 damage bomb and one shot them all first.
suffice to say I just chosen ending where you travel with your cute sister and uninstal.exe but this game is enourmous, probably biggest atelier game I ever seen.
it was also insufferable in terms of boring companions and awful bring 10 leather open world quest design and fuckton of walking.
I ALSO TRIED RYZA.
Ryza is popamole decline garbage with garbage non-tb combat and some sort of dumbed down "shove all ingredients into it and be done with it" crafting. uninstalled p quickly. also while it's pretty I did not feel any improvements in writing at all and liked other games more.
TL DR DUSK is best, ARLAND is good, mysterious stop on SOPHIE, and Ryza is popamole garbo.
dun
