The Atelier series

[Puukko]

Wanted to finally give the series a proper try, and figured Atelier Ayesha and the Dusk trilogy would be the best place for me to do that. Despite the horrendous pricing practices of KOEI, is there any reason I shouldn't get Ayesha DX on steam?

Dusk is a great place to start. The games are very barebones port wise with some stuttering issues that can be fixed with a mod, if memory serves right.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

the primary developer of dxvk released a mod to fix performance in these games fyi
https://github.com/doitsujin/atelier-sync-fix

I haven't tested this on Windows at all yet, or in any sort of long gameplay sessions. There may be stability issues.

 

[Puukko]

Huh, it even works with Sophie 2? Gotta try that for sure.

 

[Rafidur]

Yep. I bought Atelier Sophie 2 instead of Elden Ring.

Every sane person did it.

Elden Ring's crafting is about as good as Ryza's, so why not go for the game with better graphics?

 

[dacencora]

Atelier Sophie is on sale on the eShop. Worth a try? The idea of low-stakes JRPG sounds pretty great.

 

[Modron]

Elden Ring's crafting is about as good as Ryza's, so why not go for the game with better graphics?

Ryza?

 

[Hobo Elf]

Atelier Sophie is on sale on the eShop. Worth a try? The idea of low-stakes JRPG sounds pretty great.

The whole trilogy bundle is on sale and I'd say all 3 games are worth it, but dipping your feet in with the series by trying Sophie first is not a bad idea either.

 

[Puukko]

Atelier Sophie is on sale on the eShop. Worth a try? The idea of low-stakes JRPG sounds pretty great.

Sophie 1 couldn't hold my attention for long, it just felt soulless after the Dusk trilogy. Who knows, could be it gets better, but I'd always recommend Ayesha and going on from there.

 

[Puukko]

Almost made it through the week without a retard moment. In Sophie 2, you start off with a 5x5 grid to place all your ingredient Tetris blocks in. Later on, you get catalysts that add modifiers to the process as well as optional blocked slots, both of which you need to use to get higher ranks of effects on the item as seen in the bottom right here. Well, for a while now I had been thinking that damn, these blocks keep getting bigger and it's getting harder for me to craft even half decent items... yeah, because I had completely missed the bit where the catalysts should be recrafted with the effects that increase the grid size. So everything I have crafted for a long time now has been unintentionally gimped since I used a 5x5 grid instead of a 7x7 one. Now if memory serves right the game just gives you the first two catalysts and mentions nothing about grid size so it is pretty easy to miss this.

Luckily I am not autistic enough that I'd feel the need to craft everything again but if I was, that'd mean throwing everything into the trash and starting over...

 

[Hobo Elf]

Puukko yeah the game would really like you to reforge a bunch of items when you upgrade your Catalysts, and especially when you get the better ones later on (Absopta). After finishing Sophie 2 I did go back and replay Lulua like I said I would and the synthesis mechanics in that game felt like a nice vacation from Sophie 2. This game requires a lot of fiddling around to make some really good stuff.

 

[Expon]

Nora to Toki no Koubou (Item synthesis game from the creator of atelier but published by atlus) has been translated. https://www.romhacking.net/translations/6510/

 

[Rafidur]

Is Sophie 2 any good? Price's a bit high. Did they split chunks off for DLC or does it feel self-contained?

 

[Ventidius]

Bought and been playing Sophie 2 lately. It's probably the first Atelier game that I have played since the Dusk saga and it's quite a bit of fun. In fact, it makes me wonder what I might have missed by skipping the original Mysterious series. Are the Mysterious games worth trying out or is Sophie 2 just a vast improvement over them?

 

[dacencora]

I got Sophie 1 during that sale, and I liked it so much that I also snagged Firis right before the sale ended. It’s so much fun to just go out, grab materials, go back and craft stuff and then rinse and repeat. Sophie 2 looks fun, and I’ll definitely play that sometime soon.

 

[Puukko]

I got Sophie 1 during that sale, and I liked it so much that I also snagged Firis right before the sale ended. It’s so much fun to just go out, grab materials, go back and craft stuff and then rinse and repeat. Sophie 2 looks fun, and I’ll definitely play that sometime soon.

I'll have a proper review on Sophie 2 once I'm done with it. 100 hours in and I assume I have maybe 20% left to go. Oof... had to pace myself more than with Elden Ring.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Nabbed the Mysterious DX trilogy while it was on sale and replayed through them all over the course of a few weeks. Overall my feelings have not changed regarding the series. Firis remains a favorite of mine, Sophie is a lot of fun and Lydie & Suelle kind of sucks because of pacing issues but I guess it's still worth a play. Waiting for Golden Week to start this Friday to see if the Dusk and Arland trilogies will go on sale as well. I wanna replay the Arland games and I actually have not played the Dusk games yet so that should be a lot of fun.

As a side note I also got Nelke and have been playing that quite a bit as well. I'm about halfway through the main campaign, I think. It gets a bad rap from Atelier fans, and I can understand why given how mechanically it has almost zero overlap with normal fans of the series, but I don't think it's a bad game. I like setting up supply chains and that's pretty much what the entire game is all about.

 

[Puukko]

After some odd 120 hours, I'm finally done with Sophie 2. Overall it was a fairly strong entry, though with enough stepbacks compared to other entries that I am hesitant to jump on the "best Atelier ever" train.

The setting is essentially a dream world, which explains how there can be multiples of the same person and why Sophie's totally bangin' grandma is her age. The cast is... very meh, I cannot say I particularly cared about most of the characters. Ramizel is best girl, and this is a scientifically proven fact. The story beats are very predictable and there are so, so many filler cutscenes that I can't imagine anyone actually watching them with zero skipping or speeding up.

The alchemy system is naturally where the meat of the game is and it's easily the most in depth (and thus biggest time sink) of the ones I've played so far. The various catalysts add so many variables to the mix that you'll be twisting your brain in several directions trying to figure out the best angle to approach some particular recipe. I like that they've tied the friendship system to it as well but that, again, adds to an already complex system. Unlocking recipes is also an endeavour since they generally have to be unlocked in order and sometimes have requirements you need to go out of your way to meet, or may have completed already but it won't count until the recipe is visible - e.g., crafting or collecting a specific item.

Combat was pretty fun - it's a purely turn based affair with a 3+3 party. You will however be disincentivized from using items, at least bombs, against regular enemies because the CC system is gone and instead you just pay the big titted Chinese jew merchant lady to restock your used items, which can get really expensive until you get those -50/-70% cost traits. I much prefer the old CC system - it's ass backwards to have a game focused around crafting punish you for making the most out of your fruits of labor.

Difficulty on very hard was generally too much on the easier side for my liking. There were some spikes where I figured it was time to go back to the atelier for new gear, but also long sections where I was just busted and had to apply very little strategy. One such spike happened at the very end where I went from failing miserably against the boss to wiping the floor with it on the second try after some much needed armor and accessory upgrades.

On that note, holy boss reuse, Batman! You fight a few of the bosses three times, including a two reskins of the same boss back to back. After that, I wasn't interested in the boss rush mode in the slightest. There is no real post game besides it and the upcoming DLC doesn't seem to offer anything to rectify that. A serious missed opportunity. And, of course, heavy regular enemy reuse as well, as is series tradition.

I am a bit mixed on the music - I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that getting the BGM DLC revitalized my interest in the game. Before that, I had the game muted most of the time when crafting since having one single alchemy theme combined with endless repetitive chatter from the girls turned my brain into absolute mush. The DLC is not a nice bonus, it's essential.

I'm generally a fan of very long JRPGs though I think here it started to wear out its welcome. I would gladly have traded some of the game's length for a meaty postgame. Though, on the flipside, there are tons of areas to explore. I sometimes went back to older areas only to find that I had missed some side area which lead to even more areas.

So yeah, I am spent. I've had my Atelier fix for the time being.

 

[Maxie]

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

Mana Khemia port soon.

 

[Shadenuat]

Aside from marrying beastgirl, anything good about it?

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Pretty relaxing Atelier game with big cast I guess? School setting is hit or miss for people. I certainly enjoy it more than normal Atelier setting of an Alchemist trying to do X

 

[Reinhardt]

Flay. Also music is gud.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

What about combat? I see that some of these games have a weird rt/turn order hybrid system that sounds like pure cancer, but I couldn't find a clear overview of which one has what and there's like 320 of them.

Are some of these games good in general for someone who enjoys certain jap titles (Etrian, Strange Journey, Dark Spire) for tb combat, proper difficulty and overall mechanics and doesn't care for animu tiddies and "story"?

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Nah atelier games are just relaxing romp with combat outside of secret bosses if any, being a side dish. The biggest gameplay aspect is actually time management and sort if meta knowledge for the alchemy system. And about cute girls

 

[AliceAlcina]

Atelier games, especially older, have really challenging optional bosses and challenging new game plus. Newer games like Ryza have same shit, but more newcomer friendly and more shorter game loop.