https://www.amiami.com/eng/detail/?gcode=FIGURE-048884
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Atelier Community Thread: Punis, Barrels, and Alchemy! Oh my!
- Thread starter chrominance
- Start date
New survey in japanese (gematsu link)
+ wallpaper (mobile version in the link above too):
edit: Atelier giveaway for NA players:
+ wallpaper (mobile version in the link above too):
edit: Atelier giveaway for NA players:
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https://www.amiami.com/eng/detail/?gcode=FIGURE-048884
please support our clumsy adorable alchemist, thank you
Cute. Wish I had the money for something like this.
it's not out for 5 months and you don't pay a penny right now if you preorder, so if you can put the money away in the next 5 months you should still bite
... tempting.
Gonna have to think about it since amiami doesn't like cancellations iirc
Finally getting around to Atelier Lydie and Suelle. Already far outshines Firis which felt like a beta for openworld stuff they wanted to use but didn't have fully built yet. It still hurts I never played the dusk or Arland trilogies since I didn't own a PS3 till the end of the era but I can always go back later since I have em now. Hard thing is they got 2 more titles now for Atelier so move forward or go back? Im excited for the atelier all stars title later, but having never gone through the arland games I feel I'd get less out of a 4th title if I played it before touching the collection...which is now outdated since the vita Plus titles are compiled for the switch.
Lydie & Suelle is great, it's just rather bloated due to trying to tie up so so so so much. I think it's the longest Atelier game. That said, it has the best crafting system in the series (imo) and the combat is the best since Mana Khemia (yet still falls just short of the majesty that was Mana Khemia.) Firis is a nightmare in combat to any foes before her due to her myriad supporter actions that just straight up decimate enemies.
The all-stars game Nelke is more of a spin-off that does its own thing and isn't indicative of the future of the series. Lulua comes out in two days, but as you mentioned, you've never played Arland so I think you'd certainly miss out on the characters growing over the course of the Arland series.
That said, I think you'd like the Dusk series. Ayesha so far has a very exploratory and almost 'open world' feel to it. I'm hopeful that they put the Dusk series on PS4/PC/Switch like they did for Arland.
Thanks for this. I'll probably duck out of Lulua till I've had a chance to experience the Arland trilogy which just got the plus titles all bundle released to switch recently. I had the PS3 ones but again...not the plus versions back then in that bundle and those apparently fixed some issues in balance in the systems.
Glad to hear Lydie and Suelle is long and ties things up. Sophie was great and the final boss was nice and key to Plachta's past. Firis...went to school and most she did was see a certain pair show up and do absolutely nothing. Lydie and Suelle seems to have a lot of folks showing up. Firis, Fritz, and a bunch are in there and its looking like the origin of how mysterious paintings came to be, what they're for, and what they may contain could tie together all the games for me. Really looking forward to that.
Also I agree the synthesis system in this is very refined. First you got the colored elements and quality of items. Get so much of a color unlock bonus traits, and quality affects its stats. Then comes using a catalyst to add "bonus" stuff to the grid you fill in . Stuff you fill in with symbols could raise or lower traits, add quality or other stuff. Finally theres enhancements that let you change parts of the grid to the colors you wanted but could get. That way if the RNG gods dont bless you with alchemy items with the right colored traits you could just throw ones that show they take up a lot of the grid on there and use an enhancement to flop the colors to more ideal ones to help fill gauges that unlock bonus traits not inherent to the items you used. Really great system and you can make some fantastic items with it.
So far I'm pretty happy. I really do need to play the Arland games sometime but I agree the Dusk titles call to me much harder. They seem more my thing.
Is this where I talk about how I collect Atelier games but haven't played any of them besides Totori (Didn't even get the true ending, just the one under it)? I might have a problem.
Mine still says processing and I've yet to receive any updates. My experience with NISA shipping has never been very good. Thankfully I forgot about my standard version from Amazon.
I still haven't gotten a notification but it showed up today! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I liked Sophie and all the ateliers have standalone stories with some references but they all share the core crafting ideas. I have to say I liked E&L more since it had an interesting plot vs let's just wander around and do tasks.
I think it's a great starting point personally. Start of a new trilogy, more accessible than older games in several ways (time limits, UI/UX, etc), and looks really nice.
I guess it's about the Steam sale?
I think it's one of the best places to start. It doesn't have any time limits so it's welcoming in that regard, is generally polished all around, is one of the better games in the franchise, doesn't have any glaring flaws, and it's a start of a new trilogy so it's independent story wise. On the other hand, I found its characters and story pretty average to bad.
But since it doesn't have time limits, it does lose an aspect that made some of the earlier games so special gameplay wise. But then again there's only really two Atelier games that actually have notable time limits, so that's not really a feature of the franchise as much as it's a feature of Totori and Meruru. Personally I like these two a lot and think they're the best example of what sets Atelier apart from other games, but I think they are pretty bad introduction to the franchise (Totori is unforgiving and lacks any sort of guidance or good tutorials, while Meruru relies a lot on characters from the previous two games for its story). So I'd actually recommend Sophie over them for an introduction to the franchise.
I recently went through Totori and Meruru on PC.
Totori crashed sometimes (about 3 times total during my playthrough) and froze for about 0.3 seconds every-time I opened a menu, but other than that it was fine. If you play it on PC, I'd advise saving as often as possible to not lose progress.
Meruru consistently crashed at the final boss, which is an issue I've seen a lot of other people online have. But there is a workaround for that (put the game into windowed mode, then close any error messages that windows pops up). Other than that though, it never crashed once, and performed mostly smoothly, but also had laggy menus (although I don't remember it being as bad as Totori).
Didn't play Rorona, but Steam forums indicate it has the same menu issues as Totori, except maybe even worse? Although apparently that's on every platform to some degree.
Overall I think they're pretty bad ports (crashes just simply shouldn't happen, particularly easily reproducible ones), but they worked well enough to get through the games for me. And lag in menus seems to be a recurring theme with Atelier PC ports, as the Mysterious games also have it.
I've won a season pass for DOA5 from them in the past.
Just sharing since there's always a chance, and there's often Atelier giveaways lately.
A lot of interesting information there. Also, the title sounds like a light novel. Atelier Raiza: The Queen of Eternal Darkness and the Secret Hideout .
I'm most interested in the skill-tree like synthesis system though. Ultimately, I expect it to end up just being a different way to express the same or very similar things as now, but I can think up some interesting ways to use a tree in order to perform synthesis. Might be time to code up a prototype to play around with...
I'm most interested in the skill-tree like synthesis system though. Ultimately, I expect it to end up just being a different way to express the same or very similar things as now, but I can think up some interesting ways to use a tree in order to perform synthesis. Might be time to code up a prototype to play around with...
It looks like Gust is trying a different approach to sell their games. 😅
Is this different? They've always done stuff like this. At least have been for quite some time.
Either way, the costume is cute!
So this is kind of a random question, but did anyone who bought the LEs for the last few games actually hang up those cloth posters they come with? I've been buying a few off eBay and really want to put some up, but I don't own an iron and can't for the life of me get those fucking wrinkles/folds out of them lol.
I haven't hung them, but maybe try hanging them in the bathroom next you take a shower? I believe the steam should help.
I've actually tried that already lol, didn't help much. Maybe I'll try again when I get some poster hangers, that extra bit of weight on the bottom might help a bit.
I've been playing the game on Switch for the last couple of days. It's great fun but the Japanese is still a little too hard for me so I'll trade it in this week. I'll probably get a lot of my money back because it's so hard to find around here lol.
The good news is that it runs great on Switch. Switch owners shouldn't have any worries about picking up that version! :3
The good news is that it runs great on Switch. Switch owners shouldn't have any worries about picking up that version! :3
Yeah, I was worried because of past ports, but having played this one it appears they made sure to keep the Switch in mind when building this new engine because with only the occasional dip it's sticking to a solid 30 most of the time. But the meshes are nice and the game looks great on the Switch. I'll probably upload some videos and screens on my twitter soon lol.
Looks great (though I still miss Arland style portraits :( )
Love that the first video is Barrel!
Looks great regardless though :D
Been awhile. I'd long since beaten Lydie and Suelle since my last time here. Just "beat" Atelier Rorona DX since I never played the ps3 titles back in the day as I was on 360.
I see now why this title seemed to be divisive and get listed low on fan lists. Also why it needed a LOT of revision work.
To be fair though I will say I enjoyed it and its characters but it is an Atelier game with flaws. You can miss SO MUCH of the game because you are at a breakneck pace to try and finish assignments on time with 10 stars and gain enough popularity to not get the bad ending. Heck it doesn't really go too hard into your popularity to remind you or keep you aware of it really. If you get a bunch of the tiny stars your popularity raises and it has to be 80 stars to even get the normal ending let alone the good or true ending.
Plus the game has character endings for everyone meaning you need to drop everything and do their requests at the desk ASAP to unlock more of each character's story. Plus you have to hire folks to be in your party and pay them so you swap folks around a lot never really maximizing friendship that way either.
Overall you end up resource depleted on cash fast in this game too because you also need a TON to buy all the books each month and have to spend time on tasks to win the awardable extra cash from the castle just to mitigate that. Sure you can have hom farm you items or build a ton of high quality stuff to sell but time is the main resource you never have enough of with the walk to and from some areas taking 6 to 7 days both ways! Most of the time Hom is on assignment items so you dont lose all your time at the cauldron as synthesis also takes time.
Plus there is so much you can miss in this game. I didn't enter a room in the catacombs till the last month of the last year and it unlocked pamela who over a month unlocks a new shop as well as 3 new alchemy books filled with things needed for the top items in the game to be made which IS your final assignment! I barely had enough time to make the items because its possible to never unlock pamela. Plus you had to venture to the 14th floor of a late level dungeon full of fast enemies and high encounter rates to find a chest to unlock the ruby prism recipe! Heck I never even unlocked the lost city area of the map because without pamela I never had air drops to go under Nabel lake and thats where you find recipes for healing stuff. I went the entire game without MP healing or KO curing! Also I didn't farm once. I got the seeds, didn't know they'd never drop again the rest of the game so I didn't register them to buy more and planted em...and then it said harvest and I was like "what?" and clicked it as it was selected and my seeds were gone. If you dont have seeds and play the farming games you can never make ingredients high enough level to get a pie to level 80 and gain any new pie recipes. You can beat the game with pies! Heck you even have a pie maker ending and its a non starter if you double clicked by mistake and killed your only seeds first try.
In short, Rorona is fun and seems initially short, but its because they abusively hid so many required things in the game from you on purpose to force multiple play throughs for character endings. You are always pushed too hard against the clock every 3 months to allow you to explore things enough. So many things are just hidden behind recipes you dont know how to find or achieve and its not intuitive without guides online at times.
I had fun. All atelier games are fun. Even Firis which was a nothing of a game. The cast is enjoyable, but yeah even Mana Khemia managed time and multiple endings better. I just feel like every playthru of Rorona would feel like I had to just outright choose to not do too many things to warrant going back again.
I see now why this title seemed to be divisive and get listed low on fan lists. Also why it needed a LOT of revision work.
To be fair though I will say I enjoyed it and its characters but it is an Atelier game with flaws. You can miss SO MUCH of the game because you are at a breakneck pace to try and finish assignments on time with 10 stars and gain enough popularity to not get the bad ending. Heck it doesn't really go too hard into your popularity to remind you or keep you aware of it really. If you get a bunch of the tiny stars your popularity raises and it has to be 80 stars to even get the normal ending let alone the good or true ending.
Plus the game has character endings for everyone meaning you need to drop everything and do their requests at the desk ASAP to unlock more of each character's story. Plus you have to hire folks to be in your party and pay them so you swap folks around a lot never really maximizing friendship that way either.
Overall you end up resource depleted on cash fast in this game too because you also need a TON to buy all the books each month and have to spend time on tasks to win the awardable extra cash from the castle just to mitigate that. Sure you can have hom farm you items or build a ton of high quality stuff to sell but time is the main resource you never have enough of with the walk to and from some areas taking 6 to 7 days both ways! Most of the time Hom is on assignment items so you dont lose all your time at the cauldron as synthesis also takes time.
Plus there is so much you can miss in this game. I didn't enter a room in the catacombs till the last month of the last year and it unlocked pamela who over a month unlocks a new shop as well as 3 new alchemy books filled with things needed for the top items in the game to be made which IS your final assignment! I barely had enough time to make the items because its possible to never unlock pamela. Plus you had to venture to the 14th floor of a late level dungeon full of fast enemies and high encounter rates to find a chest to unlock the ruby prism recipe! Heck I never even unlocked the lost city area of the map because without pamela I never had air drops to go under Nabel lake and thats where you find recipes for healing stuff. I went the entire game without MP healing or KO curing! Also I didn't farm once. I got the seeds, didn't know they'd never drop again the rest of the game so I didn't register them to buy more and planted em...and then it said harvest and I was like "what?" and clicked it as it was selected and my seeds were gone. If you dont have seeds and play the farming games you can never make ingredients high enough level to get a pie to level 80 and gain any new pie recipes. You can beat the game with pies! Heck you even have a pie maker ending and its a non starter if you double clicked by mistake and killed your only seeds first try.
In short, Rorona is fun and seems initially short, but its because they abusively hid so many required things in the game from you on purpose to force multiple play throughs for character endings. You are always pushed too hard against the clock every 3 months to allow you to explore things enough. So many things are just hidden behind recipes you dont know how to find or achieve and its not intuitive without guides online at times.
I had fun. All atelier games are fun. Even Firis which was a nothing of a game. The cast is enjoyable, but yeah even Mana Khemia managed time and multiple endings better. I just feel like every playthru of Rorona would feel like I had to just outright choose to not do too many things to warrant going back again.
It's very "different strokes for different folks". I LOVE Atelier Rorona for all the reasons listed above and it's what drew me to the Atelier series in the first place. I loved replaying the game trying to maximize my effectiveness with each playthrough. The only thing I didn't like about Rorona was that the ending structure for character specific endings was just kinda ludicrously silly because it's the kind of thing that there's no way a person would just "figure out" without a guide.
Ain't that the truth. Lost cities, chests on the 14th floor to make the final objects in the main game, popularity levels of 80 and above, get Cory her pebbles or you can never get her ending or the true ending in that run, Pamela hidden in a side path of an area you never really needed to spend time in for any item in particular, recipes hidden in odd chests that are needed to progress,balloon bombs bein the end all be all for map exploration, wholesaling seeds because they dont drop ever...
Just a ridiculous amounts of stuff there to figure out. I liked the straight forward mana khemia method better. Just be friendly and work with em on side quests.
Is totori or meruru next? I'm digging Totori in the overtime story a lot. My goal is to beat these and get to Lulua before I hit Ryza. I tend to hit games late so guides exist in case of a rorona scenario.
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OP
OP
Heh, honestly it feels like you've described a whole bunch of Atelier games. Rorona isn't all that special in that regard. Like, the way Firis is set up, I fully expect there are a bunch of people who got to the "end" of the game and stopped, never realizing that there's like a whole second half of the game waiting for you if you just go back home and think about your accomplishments for a bit. (At least I think that's the trigger, it's been a few years.) Actually, the funny thing is that your description of Rorona reminds me of how I felt running through Atelier Marie earlier this year. It really is amazing how closely Rorona follows the original formula while expanding on it greatly.
I've always felt that the PS3-era Atelier games were games that really wanted you to run through them twice, and honestly I liked that about the games. Somehow the franchise hits that sweet spot of having your first playthrough be all about discovery and your second playthrough being entirely about optimization, but not in a way that makes the game ridiculously easy. I actually kind of miss doing NG+, as later Atelier games don't really require it (usually there's a post-game section now where you can complete nearly everything you missed).
I will say that I don't remember how seeds worked in Rorona Plus but if there really is no other source for them beyond the initial drop and wholesaling, that does indeed seem like bullshit.
I beat the exam in Firis, went back home and was then allowed overtime to wonder around but nothing was really triggering events. Was there really that much left to do? Were there new areas or something?
OP
OP
Oh.
Oh man.
When I get some time I'll try and write something up for where you should go next. But yeah. At minimum, there's a ton of character events that only seem to unlock after the exam. In fact, the absence of character events was so obvious to me in the first part of the game that I wondered if they'd scrapped that whole system entirely, only to discover that no actually they just stuck 95% of it AFTER the exam for some bizarre reason. There's also at least one area that you can't get to without synthesizing an item that I think is pretty hard/impossible to make before the exam.
I'm re-reading the posts I made on the old site about Firis and yeah. There's a whole plotline about Firis and Liane that's a huge deal for both characters that you don't even know exists until after the exam. You can't even unlock the other endings without going through post-exam stuff. Actually, arguably you haven't seen any of the endings at all.
I do get why you might've dropped the game after the exam thinking you were finished, though. Firis was especially bad at telegraphing that there was a whole bunch of extra stuff to do. It's maybe the worst-paced Atelier game for this reason alone.
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And then some. 90% of the game you could walk around any fight and it never hinted at much involving character interactions and possible side stories to play out except "oh hey the twins are here again" and thats about all.
By all means lemme know what I missed. It was a complete nothing of a game for me and if it turns out 95% of character stuff is post game stuff and all the real adventures start once she's passed the exam and can finally just be an alchemist then yeah I'd love to see my experience flip on this game.