Atelier Rorona, the 11th entry in the Atelier series (and the first I’ve played), is a JRPG without much in the way of a main story, nor much emphasis on combat or character-building, and a huge emphasis instead on crafting (alchemy) and exploration. So unsurprisingly, it doesn’t actually feel much like a normal JRPG, but its relaxed, player-driven pace and character-driven approach to storytelling is a lot of fun and a nice change from other games.

Though there isn’t as much focus on combat as in some games, there is a fair amount of it at times as you explore around gathering materials for your alchemy. This combat is pretty easy, but I found it to be pretty fun as you can chain together combos between your characters, and you have to somewhat consider the enemies’ locations and the turn order when deciding how to approach the battle. The combat would benefit from more complexity or customization, but I think it fits the game well.

Exploration takes place in a series of disconnected linear areas with set spots to collect resources and fight enemies. Enemies can usually be faked out and run past, or you can preemptively strike them to get a head start in battle. The interesting thing about going out to gather is that you are limited to a small inventory, but going back and forth to your workshop takes a lot of time, so you have to make some tough choices sometimes. For the most part, I enjoyed these sections, but their linearity left something to be desired in terms of actual “exploration.”

That time actually matters, as the game’s structure is based around completing 12 three-month long alchemy assignments. Most things you do take up some amount of time, so harder assignments require a bit of planning. That being said, most of the assignments are really easy and can be completed with full marks with very little effort. Most of your time is instead spent completing optional objectives that have some pretty worthwhile rewards, as well as requests for the townsfolk and triggering story events with the many characters around town.

This structure is great for letting you drive the pace of the game and do what you want to do, but I think by the second half, it becomes the game’s downfall. With such a barebones central plot and a failure to escalate the complexity of the assignments in a meaningful way, the only real feeling of progression becomes exploring more gathering areas and progressing character storylines. The game began to feel very repetitive and constrained, especially with some uninspired objectives later on, so I’d like to see another entry that drops this format while keeping the same core gameplay loop.

The game’s presentation is very cheap-looking, even with the PS3 era in mind. Being an annualized niche franchise never let them polish it up much, I guess. However, I think it overcomes this with great character designs and fun music. The characters not only look great, but also mostly have great personalities. The game is often really funny, and the static character artwork does a great job enhancing this. Occasionally the humor missed the mark for me, and you can chalk it up as just being a little too “anime” at a few points, but mostly I loved the character scenes.

This game does a good job punching above its budget and technical qualities thanks to a fun core gameplay loop and lots of charm. I am definitely looking forward to playing more titles in the series soon.