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Atelier Community Thread: Punis, Barrels, and Alchemy! Oh my!
- Thread starter chrominance
- Start date
Occasionally but not often. You can slap em on a wish list and get a notice. Also, the KT twitter does giveaways constantly.
Rorona is between 35 to 39-years-old. 😅
https://www.siliconera.com/2019/03/...te-of-rorona-totori-and-merurus-current-ages/
https://www.siliconera.com/2019/03/...te-of-rorona-totori-and-merurus-current-ages/
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Found this on reddit. I think there's a chance for PS4 and Switch too.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Denyal_Solaris/status/1096215210879340546
https://mobile.twitter.com/Denyal_Solaris/status/1096215210879340546
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The remasters will run much better, and they also come with the Vita content if I remember correctly.
Rorona 1 on PS3 was often sub-30fps. Having multiple NPCs on screen kinda kills the framerate as well, but if you're not too bothered by it / don't want to spent $90 for the Arland trilogy, the PS3 versions are fine.
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Playing through Nelke, I'm finally getting familiar with the Japanese VAs for the Arland trilogy. Sorry Totori, Cassandra Lee Morris is WAY better as Totori. The Japanese version is this wispy barely-there thing that just doesn't feel like Totori's character to me.
The trilogy I REALLY want a remaster for. I really hope this becomes a reality!
The trilogy I REALLY want a remaster for. I really hope this becomes a reality!
3 season passes are coming for Atelier Lulua. Totori and Meruru as DLC.
https://www.siliconera.com/2019/04/...-with-playable-characters-and-extra-costumes/
https://www.siliconera.com/2019/04/...-with-playable-characters-and-extra-costumes/
Hewwo, after a 3-4 year hiatus in playing realconsole games because of Granblue Fantasy and other mobile games, I'm back to Atelier in 2019, baybee!
With the release of Nelke and soon, Lulua, I'm starting back where I left off... Shallie on PS3. I know I should be playing the Plus version instead but I would very much like to get Platinum on all Playstation versions of Atelier games, if possible! (That and I already got Plat on the other PS3 games aside from Rorona Plus, so it wouldn't feel right.
After Shallie PS3, the plan is Rorona Plus => the Mysterious trilogy => Nelke => Lulua! I hope I won't burn out before I finish them all!
With the release of Nelke and soon, Lulua, I'm starting back where I left off... Shallie on PS3. I know I should be playing the Plus version instead but I would very much like to get Platinum on all Playstation versions of Atelier games, if possible! (That and I already got Plat on the other PS3 games aside from Rorona Plus, so it wouldn't feel right.
After Shallie PS3, the plan is Rorona Plus => the Mysterious trilogy => Nelke => Lulua! I hope I won't burn out before I finish them all!
Have fun!. Atelier games are so relaxing to play ^_^
I just started Nelke yesterday, Lots of tutorials and I can see the budget feel people talk about but I'm enjoying it. (Also I like what I've seen of Marie so far)
Just found an English mod for atelier Marie and Elie on ps2. Time to fire up the ps2. Always wanted to try the puppy racing and see the story about the alchemist with the worst grades in the history of the academy.
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After finishing Nelke, I figured now would be as good a time as any to figure out PCSX2 and fire up Atelier Marie with the fan translation. Runs great, no issues. That said, I am doing TERRIBLY. I can't decide if I'm pacing myself well or not; pretty much any time I get in a fight I get KOed (even if I try to run away multiple times), which leads to me having low health, and that health recovers painfully slowly while you're int town. I'm not really sure what to do about this, as I can only make a handful of items and there are clearly ingredients I don't yet have access to but can't get because every time I try to go beyond the lake I get destroyed by bandits or wolves.
I'm going to keep at it but I wonder at what point do I decide to just start over. Probably not yet, I'm still in Year 1, but damn.
UPDATE: Turns out I'm not doing that terribly. I found out what the requirements are for the Normal ending and it turns out I've already achieved it in year 2. So, uh, never mind. That said, the Normal ending is pretty obviously "congratulations on barely scraping by," so I'm definitely going to keep going with my year 2 save.
I'm going to keep at it but I wonder at what point do I decide to just start over. Probably not yet, I'm still in Year 1, but damn.
UPDATE: Turns out I'm not doing that terribly. I found out what the requirements are for the Normal ending and it turns out I've already achieved it in year 2. So, uh, never mind. That said, the Normal ending is pretty obviously "congratulations on barely scraping by," so I'm definitely going to keep going with my year 2 save.
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Question, is necessary to play the entire trilogy to enjoy a game? I'm interested in the last Arland game, but would be my first Atelier game, and I'm not interested in playing the older games mostly because I don't have much time
Not necessary but you will lose some context, mainly about the characters and their backstories before Meruru.
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The main thing you miss out on is the character interactions. Later games in a trilogy have a lot of characters returning from previous games. Meruru is especially bad in this regard; the are very few new characters and they're all overshadowed by people from earlier games. That said, the stories are self-contained and you'll probably get the gist of what each character is about pretty quickly.
Any particular reason for the interest in Meruru specifically? If not, even if you only want to play one game in the series, I'd still consider playing Rorona Plus/DX instead.
Nothing too deep, is just because will be the newest entry and I kinda liked the boxart
I'm buying Lulua too despite it being my first Arland game and second Atelier game.
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Got it. Technically, Rorona Plus came out AFTER Meruru; it's a partial remake of the first Arland game, mostly because it really needed it compared to the other two games. But it also means it has the most refinements of the Arland Plus/DX games. Dunno if the release timing is that significant to you, but something to consider.
Honestly, after playing Nelke, I'm a bit more of the mind that you can jump into nearly any Atelier game and do fine, as long as you understand going in that you'll completely miss some references to character backstories and occasionally the events of previous games. If you get confused about why some characters do the things they do and want to learn more, you can almost always go back to a previous game and play through it just fine. There are definite quality-of-life improvements between titles but these days they're fairly minimal. I think you'd have a better time with Rorona Plus/DX but I don't think you'll have a BAD time with Meruru. Or at least, if you decide you hate Meruru, you probably won't like any of the other games either.
Are this games too long? sometimes I heard that they are like 100+ hours just to finish them, others 20
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I can't rule out 100 hours definitively, but I would say that if you're taking that long to finished you're either going for multiple endings/playthroughs or you are hilariously bad at the game. If it's your first time playing it is possible you'll be hilariously bad, but I think even then you'll be able to reach at least one good ending well before then.
I'll have to double-check how long my playthroughs have been, but something in the ballpark of 40-60 hours seems way more reasonable to me. I've platinumed a few Atelier games and I'm pretty sure I've never spent 100 hours on a single game even after new game plus. Beelining to a good ending after 20 hours seems doable but probably not realistic for a first-time player.
EDIT: Quick follow-up. Here are my completion times for some of the PS3 Atelier games, in the order I played them. Atelier Rorona was my first ever Atelier game.
Atelier Rorona: 30 hours (One playthrough, normal ending)
Atelier Totori: 43 hours (1.5 playthroughs, hit a bad ending but reloaded from a previous save and continued to the normal ending)
Atelier Meruru: 54 hours (Two playthroughs, normal ending and two character endings)
Atelier Ayesha: 64 hours (Two playthroughs, all endings, platinum trophy)
Atelier Escha & Logy: 95 hours (Two playthroughs, all endings, platinum trophy)
Atelier Rorona Plus: 71.5 hours (Two playthroughs + Overtime chapter, all endings, platinum trophy)
Escha & Logy is an outlier but otherwise you're looking at 30-40 hours per playthrough, roughly. The NG+ playthroughs tend to go faster. I won't get into the whole multiple endings thing because it gets a bit complicated; suffice it to say you probably shouldn't worry about this your first time out anyways.
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I assume that people would think it's about horses.
I also assume that it isn't about horses.
They decided to crop her legs out and this was the easiest way.
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Yeah, my guess is that people would think it was an equestrian game or something, and get the wrong idea. There are a few DS and 3DS games that are legit horse-riding and raising games and it wouldn't be shocking for someone to look at the cover and assume they were getting more of the same.
This is what I'd wager, alongside the whole 'show less leg' thing. Additionally, less brown color of the horse and carriage makes the rest of the colors more prominent and eye catching.
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Finished Atelier Marie. It's amazing how much of the franchise's foundations are essentially complete way at the beginning of the series. Alchemy is fairly simple, with no traits or item quality, but otherwise the interface and mechanics are a very clear and not-too-distant predecessor to Atelier Rorona. Gathering items is extremely streamlined, but the same basic idea of "get a bunch of stuff and maybe run into monsters" applies. It's really easy to lose an hour or two in Marie, just like later Atelier games.
The main issue I had with it is that there's very little hand-holding. At the beginning of the game, Ingrid tells you you're in danger of failing out of alchemy academy, and that you have five years to shape up and make an alchemy item worthy of a graduate. She leaves you a bunch of notes about the core mechanics of the game. And that's it. What's the item you're supposed to make to convince Ingrid of your worth? This isn't made clear until very late in the game and only if you satisfy certain conditions that are never telegraphed. Why do you keep dying so often at the beginning and what can you do to get stronger? Not really obvious. Hell, it's not even clear what areas are relatively safe to go to and what areas are super dangerous. Distance from town turns out not to be a good indicator, because you seem to be expected to go to the Siegel Waterfall pretty early on despite it being one of the furthest dungeons from town.
There are also times when the barebones nature of the game's systems becomes more of a drag. Sometimes you're just waiting for certain events to happen, and you'll go to all the spots in town only to discover there's nothing for you to do. Sure, you can always synthesize something (and actually you can spend a ridiculous amount of time synthesizing things if you're not careful!), but besides that you may find yourself twiddling your thumbs more than you'd like. Later games got a lot better at weaving in skits with the various characters in the game. Marie locks a lot of these interactions behind seemingly arbitrary walls. For example, I know Enderk is a prominent character because of Nelke, but in my playthrough of Marie I never once got to recruit him into my party, despite being maxed out in both fame and knowledge as well as being max level. What do I need to do to befriend him? Beats me.
Despite all this, Marie's pretty good if you can get through the rough spots. This is one Atelier game I'd maybe recommend looking at a guide for, if only so you know about certain calendar dates that can make your life way easier. For example, there's one item you may need to make later on that requires an ingredient you can ONLY buy from a fairy that drops by between the 6th and 8th day of every even month. Yeah, that's super obvious. But once you've gotten a basic idea of what's expected of you, it's not too difficult to succeed. I ended up getting what I think is the second-best ending with eight months to spare.
In terms of real time, Marie only took me about nine hours, which is kind of surprising. I'm going to try to play Elie without a guide to see if it takes me significantly longer, but somehow I kind of doubt it.
The main issue I had with it is that there's very little hand-holding. At the beginning of the game, Ingrid tells you you're in danger of failing out of alchemy academy, and that you have five years to shape up and make an alchemy item worthy of a graduate. She leaves you a bunch of notes about the core mechanics of the game. And that's it. What's the item you're supposed to make to convince Ingrid of your worth? This isn't made clear until very late in the game and only if you satisfy certain conditions that are never telegraphed. Why do you keep dying so often at the beginning and what can you do to get stronger? Not really obvious. Hell, it's not even clear what areas are relatively safe to go to and what areas are super dangerous. Distance from town turns out not to be a good indicator, because you seem to be expected to go to the Siegel Waterfall pretty early on despite it being one of the furthest dungeons from town.
There are also times when the barebones nature of the game's systems becomes more of a drag. Sometimes you're just waiting for certain events to happen, and you'll go to all the spots in town only to discover there's nothing for you to do. Sure, you can always synthesize something (and actually you can spend a ridiculous amount of time synthesizing things if you're not careful!), but besides that you may find yourself twiddling your thumbs more than you'd like. Later games got a lot better at weaving in skits with the various characters in the game. Marie locks a lot of these interactions behind seemingly arbitrary walls. For example, I know Enderk is a prominent character because of Nelke, but in my playthrough of Marie I never once got to recruit him into my party, despite being maxed out in both fame and knowledge as well as being max level. What do I need to do to befriend him? Beats me.
Despite all this, Marie's pretty good if you can get through the rough spots. This is one Atelier game I'd maybe recommend looking at a guide for, if only so you know about certain calendar dates that can make your life way easier. For example, there's one item you may need to make later on that requires an ingredient you can ONLY buy from a fairy that drops by between the 6th and 8th day of every even month. Yeah, that's super obvious. But once you've gotten a basic idea of what's expected of you, it's not too difficult to succeed. I ended up getting what I think is the second-best ending with eight months to spare.
In terms of real time, Marie only took me about nine hours, which is kind of surprising. I'm going to try to play Elie without a guide to see if it takes me significantly longer, but somehow I kind of doubt it.
huh, sounds promising. Might try it whenever I have a lull between games. Nine hours isn't too bad. (Is that with a guide?), could do it during a day where not much is happening.
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It was with a guide, but I didn't follow it very strictly and tried only to skim as much as possible. Also I kind of feel like the guide I found might not be totally accurate anyways. I can write up a few non-spoiler tips later.
EDIT: It's later.
- The entire game is built around the basics of Atelier: go to dungeons to collect ingredients, use those ingredients in recipes to make better items. When i doubt, make something you haven't made before, and if there's something you need an ingredient for, think about whether you already know how to get it or not. If you don't know, try going to one of the areas you haven't visited yet. If you can't because you're not strong enough, I have a tip for you later.
- At the start of the game, expect to be defeated in battle A LOT. Marie and Schia in particular are basically worthless early on; the game is serious when it says you'll need good adventurers as escorts.
- You can always buy Spinach from the academy store for healing items; you'll rely on these a lot, as alchemy is kind of expensive in terms of time and resources and most of the healing items you can synthesize are only marginally better.
- It's not an Atelier game unless you can make items that make your attacks stronger, and Marie is no exception. Kanone Rock (ingredient found at caves and mountains) and Nuss (found in forests) are early-game ingredients that can also be used as weapons. Later you can craft these into Flammes and Krafts respectively for greater damage. Kanone Rocks are especially useful on Marie; she's set up for magic attack/defense, so items that do magic damage are stronger on her than physical damage items. Similarly, give Nuss/Unis (and later Krafts) to your physical-leaning adventurers.
- At first you'll need to buy textbooks to acquire new recipes. You can't buy them all to start but try to keep on top of this by doing requests and earning money. Once you've bought all the textbooks, another avenue for acquiring recipes will open up. Once you start to exhaust that second source, a third option will be available to you but it'll be kind of hidden. Make sure you figure this out, because a lot of important items are locked behind this final source!
- Dio, the bartender, has rumours available. You always want to buy these. It's how you unlock the various areas of the map. I think the order in which these unlock is either semi-random or in a different order than the order you should approach them in, so be cautious when visiting a new area but don't shy away from it either. The most you'll lose if you get KOed is a couple of days return time; I don't think you even lose the items you've gathered to that point if you made it to the dungeon.
- If you can't get to a dungeon because the opposition is just too fierce, there is a workaround: fairies! It turns out YOU CAN SEND FAIRIES TO COLLECT FROM AN AREA YOU HAVEN'T VISITED YET, as long as you know about its existence. This can be a great help throughout the game, but especially early on when you're still afraid of roving bandits attacking you on the road.
- As far as leveling up friendship goes, I think the only ways to increase friendship are to a) have people in your party and/or b) accept requests from them. People won't give you requests until you put them in your party. Some people will not join your party to start; it's not always clear why this happens. Some are just busy on random days but will be free later (Kyrie, Hallesch, Ruven and My fall into this category for sure); others will have hidden requirements that I apparently never figured out. All of this is to say that if you want someone to join your party, just keep asking them; some of them will eventually accept. If you can't ever get them to accept, there's probably something you need to do. You'll need to read the guide for that.
- Try not to turn down anyone who comes to your door with a request. Not only do these characters have relatively easy requests to fulfill, they also improve friendship and can occasionally unlock character-specific skits (Hallesch's and Hagel's--I mean, "Weapons Guy"--are hilarious). Schia's requests can often lead to new characters or items as well.
- If you can, try to be in your workshop every September 30 and March 30 (except the very first September 30th). You'll get an event that makes going to dungeon areas much easier. I didn't do this and died a lot more than I probably had to as a result.
- If all you really want to do is get a taste of the game and get the normal ending as fast as possible, I'm pretty sure you can do this in ten minutes or so. There are speedruns of five minutes or less. You can literally sleep for 4+ years and get the normal ending as long as you make sure you do a few basic things. You may want to do this anyways and reload a previous save afterwards; unlocking any ending gets you an Extras menu that includes, among other things, a Theatre page that shows you the requirements for all possible endings. Handy!
- If you find yourself craving more detailed/spoiler-y information than what's here, this is pretty much the only English guide I've found for Atelier Marie.
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I... like this idea.
if I think of any others, I'll post them but a good first suggestion anyway.
US have one too, but I don't follow them since I'm in the EU. You can usually expect both accounts to do a mini contest every friday, ending before 4-5pm local time.
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There is a stupid part of me that really wants to suggest an old callback:
Arland Is Your Land
but it's not really relevant to Lulua specifically.