Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book (2015)

I like many individual components of this game, but they are strung together in a way that feels too careless and meandering to be a great package. In some ways it improves over the prior game I played, Atelier Rorona, but it is a downgrade in ways that matter more for longterm enjoyment.

This game frequently tops polls of fan-favorite games in the series, and I can only imagine that the main reason is its two main characters, Sophie and Plachta. I enjoyed these characters a lot, but many other characters around them are just not that interesting. This is honestly a big problem for the game, because character interaction vignettes are one of the main things driving it forward on a day-to-day basis in-game.

So much of this game has almost no story to speak of, or even a reasonable narrative structure underpinning what you’re doing. It’s just kind of going from one objective to the next at your leisure and occasionally seeing a little conversation scene between characters that may or may not advance an overarching plot or friendship arc. The rate at which you unlock new alchemy recipes and locations to gather resources and battle enemies also feels really weird and out of sync with the game’s progression in a way that was not the case in Rorona.

Luckily, the game is saved by the thing that saves many annualized franchises, which is that the core formula and style is still pretty enjoyable. Battling doesn’t feel great in this, but is decent and pretty minimal, however the gathering and crafting of resources is quite fun. There is a whole system where you get to actually place the crafting ingredients on a Tetris-y grid in ways that can boost certain attributes. To what end, it is not very clear unless you’re pursuing optional harder content I guess, but it is a gameplay loop that’s inherently fun to do for its own sake. I also enjoy the game’s art style and music and all that quite a bit, making it pleasant to spend casual time in.

The result of all this is a game that is fun to play for a while, but with little pushing the player forward besides charm and the pure base-level gameplay. It falls into a similar category for me as Rune Factory where it is fun as a casual experience, but not as an adventure. It definitely has strengths, enough that I enjoyed my time with this overall, but it is not meaty enough to stretch out over a full-length RPG.

When I played my first Atelier game earlier this year (Atelier Rorona), I was struck by how little it felt like a normal JRPG, while still obviously being one. Its low-stakes, laid-back feel didn't quite put it into the territory of something like Rune Factory or Fantasy Life or Stardew Valley or whatever, but it definitely approached it. This later entry approaches it even more. You will struggle to find a JRPG that feels this... unstructured? I don't think it's as good as Rorona, but I enjoy it almost for slightly different reasons.

Typically with JRPGs if I like them I get sucked in and don't want to put it down until its over. This one is not like that, as it has almost zero forward narrative momentum, and definitely shows some pains of a game series that puts out a brand new game every year, but somehow through a fun gameplay loop and charming feel it just works. It's that kind of game I pick up and play maybe once or twice a week and always enjoy myself. In that sense I feel like Atelier is my new Animal Crossing replacement that also happens to be a decent turn-based RPG and have a lovable main character as a bonus.

I think this is the entry that most fits this description, from what I've heard, so I'll be interested to see how others play out.

Fun: No time limit, synthesize all you want! Befriend everyone!

Peeves: Except you can't synthesize weapons and armor the same way as before, so getting the best weapons and armors won't be even half as satisfying as in Rorona/Totori/Meruru.

Making hard extra bosses can be done without making the only hard part that the bosses uses 12455 trillion status ailments on the player's characters. Aside this the extra-bosses are pretty much weaklings...once you manage to get 1-2 rounds of hits without everyone it party wheezing and dying of the bubonic plague.

This was my introduction to the Atelier series, and I absolutely loved it. I played it nonstop for a month. The art is adorable, the characters are charming, and the puzzle aspect of doing alchemy kept crafting from becoming repetitive. Time constraints were long enough that there was plenty of time to complete them in without feeling stressed, and boss battles were challenging enough to be fun. Tons of quests and character story arcs to complete.

I've now played 2 other Atelier games, and can say this one is definitely my favorite so far.