The Atelier Series - Addictive alchemy RPG

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Another criticism I just thought about. Why no one visited Ryza in the 3 years between the games? The distance between Ryza's island and the capital is a short boat ride (it's an inland that's close enough to the shore that a draught creates a land path) and a distance so short you can literally walk it and have a full half day to find where to sleep. Nobody could take a week off to visit their friend who's stuck by herself?
 
wtfNeedSignUp said:
Another criticism I just thought about. Why no one visited Ryza in the 3 years between the games? The distance between Ryza's island and the capital is a short boat ride (it's an inland that's close enough to the shore that a draught creates a land path) and a distance so short you can literally walk it and have a full half day to find where to sleep. Nobody could take a week off to visit their friend who's stuck by herself?
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I mean it's not unheard of....
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I want to pick up the 2nd Ryza game but I heard on the vines that its best to play the first one before I do.
 
Double post by over a year, is this a cheevo? :lit:

I'm just looking for a read on how Atelier Sophie 2 is. This year is extremely dry on interesting games and I will be looking for something in the coming months. I've been looking at /vrpg/ but they're being mostly coomers as usual.
 
AbyssStarer said:
Double post by over a year, is this a cheevo? :lit:

I'm just looking for a read on how Atelier Sophie 2 is. This year is extremely dry on interesting games and I will be looking for something in the coming months. I've been looking at /vrpg/ but they're being mostly coomers as usual.
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Mixed to positive reception from what I've heard.
 
So I finished Atelier Sophie 2 and it's overall one of the best of the series mechanically, but the story is pretty meh.
The game takes place Between Sophie and Firis, where Sophie and Plachta get themselves to dream world populated by people from across the millenia, inluding Sophie's (pre-marriage) grandma and Plachta human self. The setting itself is intriguing but it's overall underused without playing on cameos from other games in the series, or any interesting character conflict. It's a problem that's pretty common to Atelier games where the characters are pretty dull overall to the point you'd have more success in describing them through apperal than personality. Not that I want the story to be dark, but at least have characters be more assholish and selfish rather than everyone being a goody two shoes. Unlike Rorona 2, the game being an interquel doesn't really get me expecting some conclusions to plot threads in the original trilogy, only to answer nothing.

Gamplay wise it's absolutely fantastic, the alchemy isn't convoluted enough to become a pain later on, but allows the player to go full autist and make broken gear/items without needing to make crazy amount of preperation. If I had to say anything negative is that having two alchemists can make you waste time trying to find a specific item between their two inventories. The combat is fast (especially after Ryza and even faster once I realized you can fast forward animations without skipping), with excellent animations (I'm so happy the game gives you the ability to increase attack count) and a lot of character skills that I actually use most of. The cool feature in the game is having enemy auras, which basically reduce their damage until you break them, after which the enemy gets normal damage and is stunned. It works pretty well (especially as it gives you a reason to use debuffs and status effects, which heavily reduce auras) at least until you have upgraded attack count and can basically reduce auras to 0 in a 1/2 turns with regular attacks.

The exploration is the same for the series, the game gives you the ability to change the weather which leads to some alright puzzles and different iterations of the dungeons, but it's not used so much for combat. I played it on the Switch which was alright, it looked fine and while load times were high, once I got in an area the game doesn't load anything, including battles, until you leave the area.

I kinda wish Gust went back to more story focused Atelier games like Mana Khemia or Atelier Iris. And I definitely think they should remove gear synthesis since it makes item synthesis completely pointless.
Edit: Forgot to mention, while I overall liked the cast, the character events were pretty boring and it's bullshit there's no event CGs or epilogues for the party.
 
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I've finished Sophie 2 with approx. 80 hours. This was my favorite Atelier since Escha and Logy. The alchemy system is so autistic and rewarding it's almost the opposite of Ryza 2's much more casualized alchemy. Hope they keep the same sort of style after the Ryza games are done.
The story was planned out well, the dream world necessitates characters growing and having closure. They're not the most in-depth characters, but they're serviceable for the tone of the game. Writing was a plus for me this time. It made me want to try out Sophie 1.
Exploration was fun, but I hit the level cap fast and everything fell like dominoes after. I played on hard (aka. old game normal) but should have switched to very hard. The final boss barely got opportunity in to attack and I was considering reloading my save to fight it on very hard.
The battle system was a lot of fun, it's fast and rewarding. Very glad they went back to turn based and I hope it stays that way.

I did get one DLC and I think it helped the game a lot. The one I got is the alchemy DLC, and I recommend getting it and abusing the penetria catalyst 100%. It makes components absorb and clear from the grid when you fill a row or column with one color. I don't think I could get items to max as much as I did without it, but it doesn't trivialize alchemy. This was a game where I could sit in the menus doing alchemy for hours, and that's one of my favorite things of this series.

Oh, and I played it on the Switch. It drains the battery undocked but the gwaffix are well done! No big frame drops or anything, the game just needs a few minutes to boot up. The Switch is in that period when devs can get games much more optiomized and looking good.

Sophie 2 is my goty and one of my favorite Atelier games in general. 🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅/🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅
 
Ryza 3 got announced. Despite 2 being meh, I did still have fun with it and Sophie 2 was great so I am feeling optimistic for Ryza 3.
 
Recently I've been curious about the Atelier series. Did some digging, but I'm honestly still unsure what to start with, was wondering between Rorona, Ayesha and Sophie. Basically the start of each of the trilogies, initially I was mostly inclined on Rorona to not start with a game with more quality of life features in it.

Basically is Rorona and then following along with it's sequels a fine play or am I better off just engaging with one of the newer Atelier?
 
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ShitLurker said:
Recently I've been curious about the Atelier series. Did some digging, but I'm honestly still unsure what to start with, was wondering between Rorona, Ayesha and Sophie. Basically the start of each of the trilogies, initially I was mostly inclined on Rorona to not start with a game with more quality of life features in it.

Basically is Rorona and then following along with it's sequels a fine play or am I better off just engaging with one of the newer Atelier?
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Just pick the one with the cutest cast
 
wtfNeedSignUp said:
Just pick the one with the cutest cast
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Certainly another way to parse through it, going by kawai desu neeee logic Ayesha would be my winner, but certainly not my a loony margin. I do know that older games have time limits, but I don't remember if that only applies to Rorona or Ayesha as well. Game feel wise how does Rorona feel compared to Ayesha for example? Do any become "stressful" with the time limit? Alchemy feel more satisfying in one or another?
 
ShitLurker said:
Certainly another way to parse through it, going by kawai desu neeee logic Ayesha would be my winner, but certainly not my a loony margin. I do know that older games have time limits, but I don't remember if that only applies to Rorona or Ayesha as well. Game feel wise how does Rorona feel compared to Ayesha for example? Do any become "stressful" with the time limit? Alchemy feel more satisfying in one or another?
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Only Rorona was the one where the time limit means anything (and I doubt it is as stringent in the remake). Afterwards you'd usually finish everything with 20% of the time to spare. At worst you can look up a guide for time specific events (which I think there were few in Ayesha, usually with warnings).
 
ShitLurker said:
Recently I've been curious about the Atelier series. Did some digging, but I'm honestly still unsure what to start with, was wondering between Rorona, Ayesha and Sophie. Basically the start of each of the trilogies, initially I was mostly inclined on Rorona to not start with a game with more quality of life features in it.

Basically is Rorona and then following along with it's sequels a fine play or am I better off just engaging with one of the newer Atelier?
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Looking up some gameplay videos might help. I never played Ayesha or Sophie 1 myself but I do have this input:
Rorona +/DX has more of a structured timeline of events through the game, it's rather organized to keep you on what you should be doing. Each term has a main goal to pass and side goals. You might need a guide for ending help because there's some easy missables.
All the other time limit games except Escha and Logy are much less structured, keep the player less on topic, and are pretty disorganized. The main goal essentially lasts the whole game and the side goals are in a giant list together for you to progress through the course of the game. You'll need a guide in order to get events done unless you really want to fumble around for that authentic experience.
Maybe I just sucked but when I played Totori and Meruru semi-blind I barely scraped by getting events done. If that sounds fine to you then go for it, they're not unfun and players certainly do love those games but the disorganization irritated me and wasn't to my taste. (Disorganization is a pet peeve of mine.)

Hope you have fun with what game you pick!
 
Thanks to both of you on the feedback. My only other question is if going blind, at least at the start, is very detrimental. Basically if I miss stuff and get an average ending is it satisfying enough or does it feel like crap compared to the good ending?

Aside from that I'll aim for Rorona first once I clean more of my backlog.
 
Don't know if you gamers noticed but Ryza 3 got delayed by a month to March 24th.
I don't mind since it's more time to replay Ryza 2.
 
I have only just started Ryza 3 (I fucking hate this level scaling BS) but I come double posting bearing news on where the very consequential character of Bos lays pipe.
You may know they hinted at Ryza x Bos in R2 as opposed to Kilo x Bos. (Kilo is the Oren who has like 4 lines in R1 and doesn't appear in R2.)
4chin was up in arms crying for Ryza x Klaudia and for hetshippers in Atelier to KYS.
Here in the CG revealing the outcome.
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Anyone excited about Marie? Get the deluxe edition! It includes the original 1997 title!
Its 70 bucks but honestly that is a steal, plus it seems most games are now going for 70 bucks.......Zelda, Dead Island, etc. Its depressing yes. But such is the new norm 😒

 
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