Atelier Ryza’s small scaled world and short paced story are a refreshing touch and way to experience JRPGs. It’s a small game, but every single corner is gorgeous and beautifully detailed and decorated. Small but excellent, in the truest sense possible.
There is hardly a game that makes gathering ingredients as useful and meaningful as Atelier Ryza or the Atelier series in general. It’s this game’s essence and I enjoy how you can create anything from these ingredients: weapons, combat and healing items, tools and anything that’s essentially needed in a JRPG. That drives the motivation to explore its beautiful and interconnected world.
Its original soundtrack is a serene and atmospherical experience at any point of the game and with a free DLC, you’re able to listen to the series’ entire soundtrack and assign your favorite tracks to any area and any type of battle. The Japanese voice acting is flawlessly executed. However, it does not contain an English voice over.
Photo mode and accessibility are two additional plus points I want to mention.
In conclusion, thick thighs save lives.
There is hardly a game that makes gathering ingredients as useful and meaningful as Atelier Ryza or the Atelier series in general. It’s this game’s essence and I enjoy how you can create anything from these ingredients: weapons, combat and healing items, tools and anything that’s essentially needed in a JRPG. That drives the motivation to explore its beautiful and interconnected world.
Its original soundtrack is a serene and atmospherical experience at any point of the game and with a free DLC, you’re able to listen to the series’ entire soundtrack and assign your favorite tracks to any area and any type of battle. The Japanese voice acting is flawlessly executed. However, it does not contain an English voice over.
Photo mode and accessibility are two additional plus points I want to mention.
In conclusion, thick thighs save lives.
So far the thighs are nice but they dont fix everything
First Atelier game I've played and some reservations aside I had a fun time with it.
Ryza is an interesting RPG to me, it's more about slice of life of a group of teenagers finding their way in life and it took my head some getting around in the way it played as for sometime it felt like nothing was even happening and then it all clicked and I really got into an enjoyable rhythm playing it.
The game is heavily set around small scenes that unveil between characters in their town mixed with exploration and combat nearby to gather resources to craft. The crafting is easier than I expected but can give varied results depending on what you put into it quality and skill wise. You can craft potions, weapons, armour, materials etc. many of which people in your town will request of you to complete side quests for yet more crafting resources as rewards.
Combat is similar to the game loop in that it took a bit to adjust to but is actually really good. It's sort of an atb system where the battles are turn based but everything continues to happen as you choose what to do. You control one character at a time but can swap on the fly using skills, attacks or items but each has their own limitations. You must attack to build up AP to upgrade your tactics bar which allows you to attack more but skills take AP to use and special attacks often need skills or items to trigger. Everything has it's own positive and negative so understanding and balancing what you have are key to winning. That said, the battles aren't too difficult especially when you master how it all works.
The graphics were surprisingly good, or more the art design? The game is really colourful and has some gorgeous views. It took me a second to adjust playing this on PS5 from all the 60fps games I've been playing though it initially felt chuggish. I loved the music to the game, almost every track really stood out.
My biggest complaint against the game are actually Lila's costume which was clearly designed by some horny goth dude and Ryza's completely unneeded boob jiggle. Even at a slow walk they bounce around like jelly in an earthquake, it's just cringey. Otherwise I had a pretty good time with this and would buy the sequel in the future.
Recommended.
+ Slice of life laid back game loop
+ Interesting battle system.
+ Great visuals and music.
- Some needless objectification for the male gaze.
Ryza is an interesting RPG to me, it's more about slice of life of a group of teenagers finding their way in life and it took my head some getting around in the way it played as for sometime it felt like nothing was even happening and then it all clicked and I really got into an enjoyable rhythm playing it.
The game is heavily set around small scenes that unveil between characters in their town mixed with exploration and combat nearby to gather resources to craft. The crafting is easier than I expected but can give varied results depending on what you put into it quality and skill wise. You can craft potions, weapons, armour, materials etc. many of which people in your town will request of you to complete side quests for yet more crafting resources as rewards.
Combat is similar to the game loop in that it took a bit to adjust to but is actually really good. It's sort of an atb system where the battles are turn based but everything continues to happen as you choose what to do. You control one character at a time but can swap on the fly using skills, attacks or items but each has their own limitations. You must attack to build up AP to upgrade your tactics bar which allows you to attack more but skills take AP to use and special attacks often need skills or items to trigger. Everything has it's own positive and negative so understanding and balancing what you have are key to winning. That said, the battles aren't too difficult especially when you master how it all works.
The graphics were surprisingly good, or more the art design? The game is really colourful and has some gorgeous views. It took me a second to adjust playing this on PS5 from all the 60fps games I've been playing though it initially felt chuggish. I loved the music to the game, almost every track really stood out.
My biggest complaint against the game are actually Lila's costume which was clearly designed by some horny goth dude and Ryza's completely unneeded boob jiggle. Even at a slow walk they bounce around like jelly in an earthquake, it's just cringey. Otherwise I had a pretty good time with this and would buy the sequel in the future.
Recommended.
+ Slice of life laid back game loop
+ Interesting battle system.
+ Great visuals and music.
- Some needless objectification for the male gaze.
This game somehow managed to take everything from the previous 6 games and just make all of it so much worse besides the music and graphics.
The story feels so halfassed and also like a stupid ripoff of what made Dusk great.
The best way to experience this game is to look up the OST on Youtube and stop there
The story feels so halfassed and also like a stupid ripoff of what made Dusk great.
The best way to experience this game is to look up the OST on Youtube and stop there
Atelier Ryza is a good game? Yeah, something like that.
To skip and save you time, if you only care about a complex story and characters, or even combat, you will not find so much here. But if you like a nice and chill atmosphere to farm and craft and listen to your favorite podcasts while having a cool adventure, you could give it a try.
The story is really underwhelming, nothing more i have to say. The only real good character is Ryza (no, not because of the thighs). She is charismatic, the rest of the cast is... forgetable.
The big star of the game is the alchemy system. I don't know about the other Atelier games, but i really liked this system. I stayed hours and hours making the best items i could (and obliterated the last boss).
Anyway, a fun game, nothing really remarkable, but i sure had a good time playing, no regrets (no, not because of the thighs).
To skip and save you time, if you only care about a complex story and characters, or even combat, you will not find so much here. But if you like a nice and chill atmosphere to farm and craft and listen to your favorite podcasts while having a cool adventure, you could give it a try.
The story is really underwhelming, nothing more i have to say. The only real good character is Ryza (no, not because of the thighs). She is charismatic, the rest of the cast is... forgetable.
The big star of the game is the alchemy system. I don't know about the other Atelier games, but i really liked this system. I stayed hours and hours making the best items i could (and obliterated the last boss).
Anyway, a fun game, nothing really remarkable, but i sure had a good time playing, no regrets (no, not because of the thighs).
Story: B+
Characters: B
Music: S
Gameplay: B+
Misc: A
Overall 7.75/10
For my first Atelier game I was surprised as to how fun this ended up being. It has a lot of things that makes me think of games I hold really dear; good world building, consequences, characters that doesn't insult your intelligence, some good twists, and of course a female protag (there's something Kino about female leads in games)
I was also surprised with how "safe" this game is, always saw Ryza's arts and thought the game was too lewd pandering to people that likes thighs, and besides 2 character designs (and some slight jiggly physics and butt camera), the game is actually very tame and does not use stupid generic trope jokes.
Game is quite easy (that depends mostly on the learning curve tho), but it's still very fun to play, the gameplay loop is fun and sometimes the game has some difficulty spikes that are well received, I was also amazed with how polished it is as there are certain things that makes things quite balanced, in this case, Item and Skill usage. Also, Small numbers goes brrrrrrrrrrrr.
Soundtrack is full of bangers as expected of GUST.
Now, there's some things that I wish were done a little better, I understand the idea behind not being able to carry a bunch of items in your explorations, but it's quite annoying having to go back to the Atelier to get rid of items to continue exploring, and you only get the bag expansion somewhere midgame, and the item scanner further into the game, which would have saved me a lot of trouble early, but it is what it is. Other than that, it was a solid experience.
This game is hella beautiful holy cow
Characters: B
Music: S
Gameplay: B+
Misc: A
Overall 7.75/10
For my first Atelier game I was surprised as to how fun this ended up being. It has a lot of things that makes me think of games I hold really dear; good world building, consequences, characters that doesn't insult your intelligence, some good twists, and of course a female protag (there's something Kino about female leads in games)
I was also surprised with how "safe" this game is, always saw Ryza's arts and thought the game was too lewd pandering to people that likes thighs, and besides 2 character designs (and some slight jiggly physics and butt camera), the game is actually very tame and does not use stupid generic trope jokes.
Game is quite easy (that depends mostly on the learning curve tho), but it's still very fun to play, the gameplay loop is fun and sometimes the game has some difficulty spikes that are well received, I was also amazed with how polished it is as there are certain things that makes things quite balanced, in this case, Item and Skill usage. Also, Small numbers goes brrrrrrrrrrrr.
Soundtrack is full of bangers as expected of GUST.
Now, there's some things that I wish were done a little better, I understand the idea behind not being able to carry a bunch of items in your explorations, but it's quite annoying having to go back to the Atelier to get rid of items to continue exploring, and you only get the bag expansion somewhere midgame, and the item scanner further into the game, which would have saved me a lot of trouble early, but it is what it is. Other than that, it was a solid experience.
This game is hella beautiful holy cow
Didn't really care much for the characters except like two of them.
Battle System is slow and bland for my liking. Also not a fan of the alchemy, especially what they did to traits.
Battle System is slow and bland for my liking. Also not a fan of the alchemy, especially what they did to traits.
Probably the most well-constructed and realized plot in the Atelier series; hiring Takahashi Yashichirou worked out very well. The story has a few silly moments, but is overall a charming coming-of-age story with surprisingly thoughtful writing. (I also liked that it had an adult man and woman who had an intimate relationship with one another that wasn't romantic in nature; that sort of thing is incredibly rare and it was nice to see here.)
The game itself is a little light on content compared to other recent entries, but the battle system couldn't be more engaging and the alchemy system is as fun as you would expect. There's a lot of room to expand both the gameplay and setting, so I'm quite looking forward to subsequent entries in the series.
I admittedly wasn't really a fan of the direction they took the soundtrack in, but it was nice to have Asano Hayato back.
The game itself is a little light on content compared to other recent entries, but the battle system couldn't be more engaging and the alchemy system is as fun as you would expect. There's a lot of room to expand both the gameplay and setting, so I'm quite looking forward to subsequent entries in the series.
I admittedly wasn't really a fan of the direction they took the soundtrack in, but it was nice to have Asano Hayato back.
After getting this game on sale for $30 being very curious about the game beforehand. I really liked my time with Atelier Ryza, yes it does have its issues but that didn't stop it being a very good game to me. I did like the battles and alchemy stuff presented in this game.
I also just want to say I like actually playing a game on Switch and it actually runs good enough, it's not perfect but it works and that's all I can ask. The music gets a special shoutout for being amazing like omg it's so amazing! I do hope that if I ever play the sequel it'll fix some of the issues I had with it but I'm glad this game got me at least curious in trying the other games in the series. Give it a try if you haven't though I should warn that physical copies on Switch are sadly overpriced so get it on PS4 if you can or just buy it digitally on Switch.
I also just want to say I like actually playing a game on Switch and it actually runs good enough, it's not perfect but it works and that's all I can ask. The music gets a special shoutout for being amazing like omg it's so amazing! I do hope that if I ever play the sequel it'll fix some of the issues I had with it but I'm glad this game got me at least curious in trying the other games in the series. Give it a try if you haven't though I should warn that physical copies on Switch are sadly overpriced so get it on PS4 if you can or just buy it digitally on Switch.
I got this game for thicc thighs. What I got was a really engaging and addicting crafting (alchemy) and gathering simulator with an anime fantasy coat of paint on top. And thicc thighs.
Seriously though, I was really impressed with just how fun this game was. I bought the game for a meme, and ended up seriously having a fun time. Absolutely getting Ryza 2 when it releases this winter.
Seriously though, I was really impressed with just how fun this game was. I bought the game for a meme, and ended up seriously having a fun time. Absolutely getting Ryza 2 when it releases this winter.
A really nice time! I think this rpg was one of the most pleasant i've played, the overall vibe and aura were lovely. The game is not that difficult (except for the final boss which is a bit of a spike) making it very accessible for even those not too into rpgs. Great music as well, my favourite song is 'rainy season wheat wind'. Worth a play for sure
ジュブナイルな物語だと思えばこれでいいけど、せっかく魅力的なキャラクターが多いのならもっとモーションのパターンが多かったら嬉しかったなぁ。
It's so good and cute, the alchemy system is the best it's been, as is the combat. All these games in my experience have been good but deeply flawed except for this one, which has been a total delight. It's not perfect by any means, but sometimes it's just what I needed.
my first atelier game ive played/finished !!
this game is so chill & fun with great characters
klaudia x ryza is so real btw
this game is so chill & fun with great characters
klaudia x ryza is so real btw
This review contains spoilers
This is a computer game in which the final boss is nationalising a town's water supply, from an oligarch's monopoly. Like what more do you need? That's rad as hell.
Ryza is a highlight in the Atelier series in two ways, it continues the raise in new twists and quality each new entry in the series has been masterfly building on, but it was so refreshing to play one of these games that legitmtly had something, anything, to say.
I would never thought a game with this asthetic and tone would be genuinly relatable, but the way Ryza nails the feeling of growing up in a working class town, where your tallents are villified and pursuits are treated like an inconvenience. The struggle between commitment to a place and the unreasonable compromises said place demands of you.
Oh and it's SO queer-coded, like moving form your tory island hometown to live in a commune so you can finaly persue your intrests and kiss your new aristocrat girlfriend? Immaculate narritive.
There's a reason this is the new standard for Atelier and is the title everyone recomends. If you're looking for your first Atelier, this is THE one!
~ Soffie
Ryza is a highlight in the Atelier series in two ways, it continues the raise in new twists and quality each new entry in the series has been masterfly building on, but it was so refreshing to play one of these games that legitmtly had something, anything, to say.
I would never thought a game with this asthetic and tone would be genuinly relatable, but the way Ryza nails the feeling of growing up in a working class town, where your tallents are villified and pursuits are treated like an inconvenience. The struggle between commitment to a place and the unreasonable compromises said place demands of you.
Oh and it's SO queer-coded, like moving form your tory island hometown to live in a commune so you can finaly persue your intrests and kiss your new aristocrat girlfriend? Immaculate narritive.
There's a reason this is the new standard for Atelier and is the title everyone recomends. If you're looking for your first Atelier, this is THE one!
~ Soffie
if I had a remnant of doubt whether or not I would enjoy the atelier series this game smacked my face and made me come back to reality as soon as it was necessary
can't believe I bawled at the ending
atelier ryza is my first iteration with the entire series and while I have never played ANY atelier game in my entire life after being advised by trustworthy gaming sites (gamefaq lmao don't @ me) this game elevated the bar so high already i'm surrounded by stars and planets and I cannot drop down anymore
as my first dive into this franchise I was expecting a lot of things and its so weird that they managed to crush them eat them and spit them in my mouth in a runtime of something like 30 hours what the fuck how did they even do that
talking meat of the game the gameplay is probably the most intoxicatingly addictive loop I've ever experienced since the binding of Isaac i started the game by chance one day when I just wanted a quick look into this and ended up play for like 10 hours in a row it was MAGICAL SHIT don't get me started
while I have zero means to cross examine this title what I saw here can be already peak of the series for what it's worth the exploration of the different and unique places gathering and foraging for items is so fucking fun I swear to god if you had told me picking flowers up and breaking stones and cutting grass would be so entertaining I wouldve not believed you (no actually I wouldve I've played stardew valley yknow) and thats probably the whole meat of the game just going around getting as much material as possible to just throw it in the cauldron and wait for something to happen
and this may be boring at first sight but it has such a lit of nuance there's genuinely infinite amount of items to get a lot of variety to not make it as redundant as it would probably get and when you think it could not be better the game shoves different gathering items that can be used to get DIFFERENT LOOT from places you already visited before this is insane the depth of this mechanic is so deep I can't see the bottom
while it could probably not impress other people as much as it did to me it's probably unfair to say that this is not a great mechanic like just going around living your life getting some ingredients for a couple of potions likeeeeeee I wish that were ME OK??????
this is probably the main reason why filled the container in like a single day (real life day) and I was like umhhhhh… so what now
sure getting items is the main focus but I gotta say the whole sense of exploration here feels so fucking tight every single part of the world is filled with so much wonder to look at points of interest to note on your diary and stuff to get apart from being fucking gorgeous but that's something for later
this all culminates in the alchemy system which is just so fun as a whole you get a lot of items into the thing and new stuff comes out wow greatest premise ever . gotta say at first this system confused me a lot it's really intricate when you have like items quality traits effects materials elemental balls to fill (sounded better in my mind) to think about and at first it's just so fucking intimidating you're like “ok lemme make a cute little potion teehee” and university level maths diagrams come out worst jumpscare of my life genuinely what the hell
that being said when you get in the flow you realise how actually all this is tied together and its actually not that hard but since the tutorial is less comprehensive than I thought it would be (maybe it is but I'm adhd) I ended up walking in the dark maybe because I've also never played an atelier game that could be also the reason and I kid you not theres insurmountable amount of stuff to make that range from flower potions to fucking lintels to construct the hideout im not joking what the fuck is ryza cooking in there and for most of the stuff you will get a recipe at some point but if you fuck around enough you can get new recipes from the ones you already have and that shit is cool as fuck don't touch me
there's some more nuance to this like the item worlds or the duplicator or the forge but they're just some more addendum to the already intrinsically deep alchemy system so that's a plus
something that really confused me was the battle system . i read everywhere that the fighting is the weaker part of the entire game and while I think that is definitely not the focus of the game how dare you say its terrible when I had so much fucking fun with it you deserve nothing in your life but drakengard 1 type of gameplay
sure it's simple sure it's not as bad as people say and I gotta tell you they worked with what they had and made a super engaging way of slaying enemies and I will not disrespect this kind of effort theres nothing more fun than upgrading your tactics and seeing your main combos and skill go from 1 hit slashes to a full 100 attacks assault in a couple of levels
the shit is simple . turn based combat . some kind of final fantasy ATB . normal attacks and skills and items . special moves and tactics and when you want you can actually switch to the other party members to issue commands
as I said simple ! but effective the action is super fast and the battles go super smoothly for the most part as soon as you realise how this combat system works youre gonna be enthralled just trust me
only gripe: items are a pain in the ass somehow they have a super low counter of like 10 points for use and when you have no more points you either have to temporarily sacrifice an item for the sake of more points or go all the way back to the hideout to replenish it . not the greatest item system I've ever seen but its serviceable for the type of combat you're gonna engage in
so all this to say
atelier ryza as a character story and an overall narrative absolutely struck me im not joking here
ryzas story is simple yet effective an adhd tomboyish girl with fat ass cheeks and thicc thighs is tired of her ordinary life in a island in nowhere and with her friends the hung cavalier lent with a huge sword and a huge heart and also another sword that he carries all the time if you know you know and tao a … knowledgeable blonde twink ? I'm not sounding very professional here so I was saying
girls tired so as soon as she meets new visiting alchemists from overseas she decides to mix drugs and help the townspeople and theres that
the plot thickens a lot during the last ⅓ part of the game there's a lot of political intrigue and invasion war typa talk I was not expecting and the lore of the entire island really is the center of this entire plotpoint which is definitely a cool highlight it's good to have a “lives are at stake” trope for the tension but while I think this is also great what really bewitched me of atelier ryza are characters their little interactions and their little development arcs
ryza goes from a bratty child with family farm duty to a powerful alchemist genuinely interested to townspeople and the towns entire wellbeing lent gets more and more courageous and hunk ish as time goes on tao umh… likes books !!! I think !!! and klaudia is my sweet little sweetheart with daddy issues and lesbian energy to boot
I love all my children dearly I have nothing bad to say about this apart from the fact that maybe having klaudia and ryza scissor for 2 and a half hours in a 3d rendered lesbian cutscene was a bit too much
really tho the sexual tension between those too… women
empel and lila are also nice characters with good backstories and arcs but the main 4some is what I really liked of this entire affair they're just ughhhhh I love them so much I can see them caring for each other and shit they're sweethearts
bos is a pretty nifty addition and it's definitely a huge part of the game dealing with him and his superiority complex but his character arc pays out and I can't wait for him to actually be a cool lad in the sequels
last but not least the art direction is incredibly tight the little character portraits for each one of the crewmembers is super charming and even the 3d models have a lot of character to them sure you're gonna have ryzas fat ass in your face for the entire game but is that a bad thing
I can really respect the fact that they indeed put horny designs like lila has an H cup and all her coochie out ryza has pants that hold her entire butt with the help of the Holy spirit klaudia isn't inherently a horny design but she's my favorite one and the girl I want as my wife for the rest of the years to come so it's horny design FOR ME and lent is also horny design FOR ME because you put a knight with his man tits out and pretend I won't thirst cmon but what I was saying is that even though they put these designs they never used them in an oversexualised way belittling the characters and their arcs so there's that
the environments are lushly constructed and super diverse from one another the hometown is cozy the mountains are as dangerous as ever and the pixie forest is dreamlike and soothing and the ruins are haunting and shit like theres a lot of variety in the places this game is gonna opt for and I genuinely had so much fun exploring the nooks and crannies of each one of them
unfortunately the monster design falls flat not because of the monster designs in themselves (they're gorgeous) but the fact that they're really heavy on recolors something that i sure don't like in dragon quest and here the monsters aren't as numerous or as iconic to actually have a reason to be reused for the entire game but I digress they're still pretty good looking….. if you know what I mean I like the scissor hands
last point of note the side quests and the character quests are pretty straightforward but very fun to do I don't know I usually don't care for side quests and here they aren't even as deep as some other side quests I saw in other games but they're so fun wtf
OH and the music is great but I put some restrictions on the amount of stuff I'm gonna link but in the meantime I can say that every single ost hits whether it be a soundtrack for a certain place in the game or a recurrent theme during your stay in the secret hideout or even battle themes for some reason atelier games have the sickest battle themes like just listen to this one why did they have to snap this hard I don't get it I don't get it what the hell anyway the entire ost is a gem just listen to it honestly
I said everything I wanted to say and last but not least I cant wait to play the next games in the ryza trilogy and in the series as a whole the finale of the game left me no tears in my eyes it's not even that sad but I care for each and every one of my sweet children so when I say it hit it HIT
I wasn't expecting atelier ryza to be the game for me or even actually have this much on an impact on my current videogame backlog situation and shit but now I know why it has such an affectionate cult following there's nothing else that felt like this till now
ryza can't wait to play your second game and for you to actually have a french kiss with klaudia im literally aching here please please please
I'm trying to convince a friend to actually get this game but it's 59.99 lmao OK whatever
can't believe I bawled at the ending
atelier ryza is my first iteration with the entire series and while I have never played ANY atelier game in my entire life after being advised by trustworthy gaming sites (gamefaq lmao don't @ me) this game elevated the bar so high already i'm surrounded by stars and planets and I cannot drop down anymore
as my first dive into this franchise I was expecting a lot of things and its so weird that they managed to crush them eat them and spit them in my mouth in a runtime of something like 30 hours what the fuck how did they even do that
talking meat of the game the gameplay is probably the most intoxicatingly addictive loop I've ever experienced since the binding of Isaac i started the game by chance one day when I just wanted a quick look into this and ended up play for like 10 hours in a row it was MAGICAL SHIT don't get me started
while I have zero means to cross examine this title what I saw here can be already peak of the series for what it's worth the exploration of the different and unique places gathering and foraging for items is so fucking fun I swear to god if you had told me picking flowers up and breaking stones and cutting grass would be so entertaining I wouldve not believed you (no actually I wouldve I've played stardew valley yknow) and thats probably the whole meat of the game just going around getting as much material as possible to just throw it in the cauldron and wait for something to happen
and this may be boring at first sight but it has such a lit of nuance there's genuinely infinite amount of items to get a lot of variety to not make it as redundant as it would probably get and when you think it could not be better the game shoves different gathering items that can be used to get DIFFERENT LOOT from places you already visited before this is insane the depth of this mechanic is so deep I can't see the bottom
while it could probably not impress other people as much as it did to me it's probably unfair to say that this is not a great mechanic like just going around living your life getting some ingredients for a couple of potions likeeeeeee I wish that were ME OK??????
this is probably the main reason why filled the container in like a single day (real life day) and I was like umhhhhh… so what now
sure getting items is the main focus but I gotta say the whole sense of exploration here feels so fucking tight every single part of the world is filled with so much wonder to look at points of interest to note on your diary and stuff to get apart from being fucking gorgeous but that's something for later
this all culminates in the alchemy system which is just so fun as a whole you get a lot of items into the thing and new stuff comes out wow greatest premise ever . gotta say at first this system confused me a lot it's really intricate when you have like items quality traits effects materials elemental balls to fill (sounded better in my mind) to think about and at first it's just so fucking intimidating you're like “ok lemme make a cute little potion teehee” and university level maths diagrams come out worst jumpscare of my life genuinely what the hell
that being said when you get in the flow you realise how actually all this is tied together and its actually not that hard but since the tutorial is less comprehensive than I thought it would be (maybe it is but I'm adhd) I ended up walking in the dark maybe because I've also never played an atelier game that could be also the reason and I kid you not theres insurmountable amount of stuff to make that range from flower potions to fucking lintels to construct the hideout im not joking what the fuck is ryza cooking in there and for most of the stuff you will get a recipe at some point but if you fuck around enough you can get new recipes from the ones you already have and that shit is cool as fuck don't touch me
there's some more nuance to this like the item worlds or the duplicator or the forge but they're just some more addendum to the already intrinsically deep alchemy system so that's a plus
something that really confused me was the battle system . i read everywhere that the fighting is the weaker part of the entire game and while I think that is definitely not the focus of the game how dare you say its terrible when I had so much fucking fun with it you deserve nothing in your life but drakengard 1 type of gameplay
sure it's simple sure it's not as bad as people say and I gotta tell you they worked with what they had and made a super engaging way of slaying enemies and I will not disrespect this kind of effort theres nothing more fun than upgrading your tactics and seeing your main combos and skill go from 1 hit slashes to a full 100 attacks assault in a couple of levels
the shit is simple . turn based combat . some kind of final fantasy ATB . normal attacks and skills and items . special moves and tactics and when you want you can actually switch to the other party members to issue commands
as I said simple ! but effective the action is super fast and the battles go super smoothly for the most part as soon as you realise how this combat system works youre gonna be enthralled just trust me
only gripe: items are a pain in the ass somehow they have a super low counter of like 10 points for use and when you have no more points you either have to temporarily sacrifice an item for the sake of more points or go all the way back to the hideout to replenish it . not the greatest item system I've ever seen but its serviceable for the type of combat you're gonna engage in
so all this to say
atelier ryza as a character story and an overall narrative absolutely struck me im not joking here
ryzas story is simple yet effective an adhd tomboyish girl with fat ass cheeks and thicc thighs is tired of her ordinary life in a island in nowhere and with her friends the hung cavalier lent with a huge sword and a huge heart and also another sword that he carries all the time if you know you know and tao a … knowledgeable blonde twink ? I'm not sounding very professional here so I was saying
girls tired so as soon as she meets new visiting alchemists from overseas she decides to mix drugs and help the townspeople and theres that
the plot thickens a lot during the last ⅓ part of the game there's a lot of political intrigue and invasion war typa talk I was not expecting and the lore of the entire island really is the center of this entire plotpoint which is definitely a cool highlight it's good to have a “lives are at stake” trope for the tension but while I think this is also great what really bewitched me of atelier ryza are characters their little interactions and their little development arcs
ryza goes from a bratty child with family farm duty to a powerful alchemist genuinely interested to townspeople and the towns entire wellbeing lent gets more and more courageous and hunk ish as time goes on tao umh… likes books !!! I think !!! and klaudia is my sweet little sweetheart with daddy issues and lesbian energy to boot
I love all my children dearly I have nothing bad to say about this apart from the fact that maybe having klaudia and ryza scissor for 2 and a half hours in a 3d rendered lesbian cutscene was a bit too much
really tho the sexual tension between those too… women
empel and lila are also nice characters with good backstories and arcs but the main 4some is what I really liked of this entire affair they're just ughhhhh I love them so much I can see them caring for each other and shit they're sweethearts
bos is a pretty nifty addition and it's definitely a huge part of the game dealing with him and his superiority complex but his character arc pays out and I can't wait for him to actually be a cool lad in the sequels
last but not least the art direction is incredibly tight the little character portraits for each one of the crewmembers is super charming and even the 3d models have a lot of character to them sure you're gonna have ryzas fat ass in your face for the entire game but is that a bad thing
I can really respect the fact that they indeed put horny designs like lila has an H cup and all her coochie out ryza has pants that hold her entire butt with the help of the Holy spirit klaudia isn't inherently a horny design but she's my favorite one and the girl I want as my wife for the rest of the years to come so it's horny design FOR ME and lent is also horny design FOR ME because you put a knight with his man tits out and pretend I won't thirst cmon but what I was saying is that even though they put these designs they never used them in an oversexualised way belittling the characters and their arcs so there's that
the environments are lushly constructed and super diverse from one another the hometown is cozy the mountains are as dangerous as ever and the pixie forest is dreamlike and soothing and the ruins are haunting and shit like theres a lot of variety in the places this game is gonna opt for and I genuinely had so much fun exploring the nooks and crannies of each one of them
unfortunately the monster design falls flat not because of the monster designs in themselves (they're gorgeous) but the fact that they're really heavy on recolors something that i sure don't like in dragon quest and here the monsters aren't as numerous or as iconic to actually have a reason to be reused for the entire game but I digress they're still pretty good looking….. if you know what I mean I like the scissor hands
last point of note the side quests and the character quests are pretty straightforward but very fun to do I don't know I usually don't care for side quests and here they aren't even as deep as some other side quests I saw in other games but they're so fun wtf
OH and the music is great but I put some restrictions on the amount of stuff I'm gonna link but in the meantime I can say that every single ost hits whether it be a soundtrack for a certain place in the game or a recurrent theme during your stay in the secret hideout or even battle themes for some reason atelier games have the sickest battle themes like just listen to this one why did they have to snap this hard I don't get it I don't get it what the hell anyway the entire ost is a gem just listen to it honestly
I said everything I wanted to say and last but not least I cant wait to play the next games in the ryza trilogy and in the series as a whole the finale of the game left me no tears in my eyes it's not even that sad but I care for each and every one of my sweet children so when I say it hit it HIT
I wasn't expecting atelier ryza to be the game for me or even actually have this much on an impact on my current videogame backlog situation and shit but now I know why it has such an affectionate cult following there's nothing else that felt like this till now
ryza can't wait to play your second game and for you to actually have a french kiss with klaudia im literally aching here please please please
I'm trying to convince a friend to actually get this game but it's 59.99 lmao OK whatever
ryza big hefty chonkers
I went into this game pretty skeptical about it. I like crafting in games but honestly it can be really hit or miss, sometimes it just doesn't feel worth doing vs just obtaining items normally. I decided to play Ryza since it was new and all my friends liked it, and I was pretty damn satisfied.
The combat is fun. The alchemy is incredibly addicting with a fun grid system that requires planning every piece you use to get the perfect system, though some mechanics are a tad poorly explained. The characters are cute and charming, and the story is just the right length (it took me about 35 hours to beat, though about 10 of those hours were just minmaxing my crafting). I liked the sidequests that really fleshed out the village characters and gave them all their cute little stories, to the point I even continued playing the admittedly quite barren post game to finish up the rest of the sidequests I missed.
The game relies a little bit too frequently on color swaps for my taste, especially with post game bosses, and I don't feel like it has enough enemies to feel spread out like Dragon Quest does, but honestly wasn't a big deal, combat isn't the focus of this game.
I decided after this to play either Atelier Rorona or Ryza 2, most likely Ryza 2 since I wanna see where the story goes, but older Atelier games interest me with the time limit since I love good time management in games!
also haha thighs
4.5 Barrels/5
The combat is fun. The alchemy is incredibly addicting with a fun grid system that requires planning every piece you use to get the perfect system, though some mechanics are a tad poorly explained. The characters are cute and charming, and the story is just the right length (it took me about 35 hours to beat, though about 10 of those hours were just minmaxing my crafting). I liked the sidequests that really fleshed out the village characters and gave them all their cute little stories, to the point I even continued playing the admittedly quite barren post game to finish up the rest of the sidequests I missed.
The game relies a little bit too frequently on color swaps for my taste, especially with post game bosses, and I don't feel like it has enough enemies to feel spread out like Dragon Quest does, but honestly wasn't a big deal, combat isn't the focus of this game.
I decided after this to play either Atelier Rorona or Ryza 2, most likely Ryza 2 since I wanna see where the story goes, but older Atelier games interest me with the time limit since I love good time management in games!
also haha thighs
4.5 Barrels/5
Feels-good-man type beat. You meet some bums and you kick their butt but nothing terrifying is aluded to in the course of your life as Ryza (or is it?). I wouldn't have it any other way. Being faced with the prospect of finding a real job, there are no thoughts in Ryza's head... Same, girl. It goes well with the mandatory quest system where this time it's limited mostly to people Ryza has known for some time, and new skills are locked behind personal achievements for the characters. Diegetic achievement system?? So, no trope of meeting a bunch of random people and changing the course of their lives forever (yeah I played Octopath recently), Ryza gossips and does shopping, there's literally a quest where you talk to this old dude Ryza knows who's back from traveling for some time and that's it, the quest is completed without doing anything... feels like half the quests don't require you to do anything but talk actually.
The battle mechanics are a bit goofy BUT I appreciate it trying to be unique (inb4 dozens of games pop up on my feed with that exact system) and it gets better as the mechanics start to sink in, and don't be surprised when the Pokémon syndrome of bosses going from house-sized to goat-sized during battles starts to creep in. The movements are jank but not too severely, I don't really see the point of adding a jump other than having me mash the jump button when I'm running because yes, I'm that restless. I also wanna point out this hoe is insulting me every 30 seconds in the background while I'm writing this review, so I'll wrap this up... farm girls smh.
The battle mechanics are a bit goofy BUT I appreciate it trying to be unique (inb4 dozens of games pop up on my feed with that exact system) and it gets better as the mechanics start to sink in, and don't be surprised when the Pokémon syndrome of bosses going from house-sized to goat-sized during battles starts to creep in. The movements are jank but not too severely, I don't really see the point of adding a jump other than having me mash the jump button when I'm running because yes, I'm that restless. I also wanna point out this hoe is insulting me every 30 seconds in the background while I'm writing this review, so I'll wrap this up... farm girls smh.
Hard to play? (X)
Hard while playing? (✓)
Hard while playing? (✓)
Atelier Ryza is nothing short of pure excellence, and here I'll list all the good points of the game, as I have basically nothing bad to say about it, spoiler-free. There is a TL;DR at the bottom.
1) The Characters
Ryza is a bored tomboy who dislikes working on her family farm and wants some adventure out of life. She has two friends, Tao, a meek bookworm, and Lent, an aspiring warrior. Soon you also get introduced to Klaudia, a very lady-like girl who is the daughter to a rich businessman, Empel, a seasoned alchemist, and Lila, a mysterious (and incredibly buxom) woman who faithfully accompanies Empel. Throughout the course of the story, you will see these characters have their fair share of development and growth as they pursue their goals and reach them as they embark on their adventure. I don't want to give away too much about their individual developments, but just know Ryza has a heart of gold and she's genuinely a fantastic character; there is so much more to her than just her physical assets. Just as well, the larger supporting characters such as Bos, his father, Klaudia's father, and quite a few others also see considerable development as the story progresses. Another thing of note are the NPCs themselves, as some of them have questlines that continue on for multiple quests, and a few even intersect and conjoin! Over the course of these quests, the NPCs even grow and change as characters. This right here lends itself QUITE well to the entire island population feeling very real and lived in, as though these are ACTUAL people you're helping and not stock vague NPCs that plague many other JRPGs. The NPCs' requests and the stories behind them, in conjunction with the fact that I don't think there was a single "Kill x amount of [monster]" quests really went a long way.
2) The Story
I don't want to say anything here. I would rather people go in blind such as I did. All you need to know is that it all starts off innocently enough and eventually does turn into Ryza & friends having to confront a force of malice that threatens her home island and even the mainland. I do wish they explored a bit more of the ancient history side of things, however, I'm almost certain they'll do this in the sequel, as they also did this sort of thing in the Dusk games.
3) The Battle System
This is the only part of the game that tripped me up and gave me some grief. It's quite different from the battle systems seen in any other recent Atelier games, as it IS technically turn-based, but it's very fast-paced and frantic. Your companions are AI-controlled, but you can quickly swap to one of them and issue them a command yourself, though you can only control one at a time. However, I did find the two you don't have actively selected to be VERY reliable AI companions. During the course of a battle, they will shout out "Battle Orders" where they'll ask you to perform certain actions or use certain kinds of items or deal a specific kind of damage, whether that be physical, magical, or elemental. Upon doing as they've asked, they'll immediately perform a special attack, and if you manage to fulfill two Battle Orders at once, their attacks happen back-to-back for some big damage. The strength of these attacks and even the moves themselves change depending on your Tactic Level, which increases as you gather AP from your party dealing damage to and defeating enemies. Raising the Tactic Level not only boosts the power of Battle Order attacks but also boosts the damage and combo length of your basic attacks. Your basic attack starts off as just one or two hits usually, but as you raise your Tactic level, continue pressing 'A' after selecting to do a basic attack, and you'll perform a flurry of attacks! Not only does your increased Tactic Level boost basic attack damage and the combo length of them, but it boosts the amount of damage your items and skills do! BUT using skills eats up some of your accrued AP, so do you keep yourself at a lower tactic level and unleash some skills, OR do you wait and raise it for more powerful attacks later? So as you see, managing your Tactic level is crucial. Another great addition to this combat system is the ability to press a button to take a turn in advance, and perform a Skill or use an Item. Doing this eats ups quite a large chunk of your AP, however, if you're in a bind and need to get off a quick heal or get a big hit in to interrupt an enemy before it unleashes a strong attack, it's a worthwhile sacrifice.
At first, this was all quite overwhelming for me, especially since the battles can move so fast, but as fully came to understand it, when it all clicked, I absolutely fell in love with it. The only thing that bothered me still was the item limitations, but I suppose that had to be for balancing purposes, due to the following point.
4) The Alchemy System
Ryza has a very unique and new Alchemy synthesis system compared to previous entries. The way that you have a proper visual of the ingredients you add and where things branch off to and what effects you'll get would've already made this the best alchemy system in the entire Atelier series, but they didn't just stop there. Keeping in-line with Ryza being a budding alchemist and Empel encouraging her to experiment as much as she can, you actually get MANY of your alchemy recipes from your weak/standard ones, they branch out and upgrade when you have the materials and the alchemy level to reach that new recipe node. This really makes it feel like you're almost an alchemist yourself, experimenting on how to creates similar but even more powerful items. On top of this, there's also Rebuild. Rebuilding allows you to FURTHER strengthen items you've already created, so long as you have the alchemy level and gems for it. Gems you acquire quite simply by breaking down any kind of item. Rebuilding can REALLY break the game, even just at the mid-point, if you know what you're doing. I can't properly describe the feeling of satisfaction and contentedness you get out of improving all your equipment and items and then making NEWER items and making other items so you can make even newer, bigger, more powerful items and equipment. It's very addicting AND rewarding.
5) NO TIME LIMITS, NO DEADLINES
Atelier Ryza has NO in-game clock countdown or deadline like previous games. You can do things at your own pace and not worry a single bit about how much time has passed. It never bothered me TOO much in the first two Dusk games, as it was plenty manageable there, but I hear it was a bit more stressful in the entries prior to Dusk. But it's not even a factor now. Take all the time you want or need; synthesize, explore, and gather at your leisure.
6) Exploration
Every single location in this game is unique and interesting to explore and gather in. The environments run the full range from forests and caves to a volcano and ruins and a few others I won't mention due to spoilers. Many of these locations have items you won't be able to find anywhere else, so they're worth checking out thoroughly. Each location also has several landmarks to discover as well, and there are even treasure map pieces you can find scattered around to find special treasure chests with some really nice items inside them.
7) Gathering
Gathering items for alchemy isn't too complicated. You can catch bugs and fish, smash rocks and crystals with a hammer, use a sickle to harvest plants, chop trees and logs with an ax, smack various things with Ryza's staff, or explode huge road-block with a bomb rod. On many occasions, using a different gathering tool on the same item yields different materials! For example, for some bushes, you can swing a sickle at them to obtain the plant inside, or if you use a hammer, you receive Plant Essence instead! Some items can only be gathered by using specific gathering tools. So, just like with the alchemy system, you're encouraged to experiment and see what different results you get!
8) Enemies
For the most part, the enemy designs are pretty nice. Some are really cute while others are suitably threatening. Though Ryza DOES have enemy recolor syndrome, which isn't a bother to me personally, but it's worth mentioning since I know it does bother some people.
8) The Music & Sounds
The soundtrack to Atelier Ryza is pretty good. It has some pretty excellent tracks of note are "Southern White Wind," which has some killer violin and guitar segments with an upbeat tempo, "Emerald Climbing," containing more violin, castanets, and some really jazzy piano, and "Grain Rain, Wheat Wind" featuring some flute, bagpipes, bass, and a spanish guitar, giving this particular such a particularly unique feeling. The only remote "negative" (ie a very petty easily-dismissed grip) I have to give the soundtrack is that there aren't nearly as many vocal tracks as there were in Atelier Ayesha. The few vocal tracks that are here though are quite great however.
Just as well, the sound effects are pretty on-point. All your thwacks and meaty and your slashes quite sharp-sounding. The scarier monsters sound convincingly threatening. Ryza's callouts, while she's gathering are sometimes cute, and the game continues the series tradition of exclaiming at barrels when you interact with one.
9) Wrap-Up and TL;DR
Atelier Ryza is a wonderful game. It's a fresh breath of warm, summery air. There's plenty here to enjoy, whether you're a JRPG fan or not. The battle system is fast enough to assuage any dissatisfaction anyone might've had with traditional turn-based combat, but still strategic enough to please traditional JRPG fans. The characters and world as a whole are quite well-fleshed out. The story is quite engaging, and it doesn't overstay its welcome, as the game takes about 30 hours to finish. All of this is set to some nice sound design and a really great soundtrack. Do give it a try!
1) The Characters
Ryza is a bored tomboy who dislikes working on her family farm and wants some adventure out of life. She has two friends, Tao, a meek bookworm, and Lent, an aspiring warrior. Soon you also get introduced to Klaudia, a very lady-like girl who is the daughter to a rich businessman, Empel, a seasoned alchemist, and Lila, a mysterious (and incredibly buxom) woman who faithfully accompanies Empel. Throughout the course of the story, you will see these characters have their fair share of development and growth as they pursue their goals and reach them as they embark on their adventure. I don't want to give away too much about their individual developments, but just know Ryza has a heart of gold and she's genuinely a fantastic character; there is so much more to her than just her physical assets. Just as well, the larger supporting characters such as Bos, his father, Klaudia's father, and quite a few others also see considerable development as the story progresses. Another thing of note are the NPCs themselves, as some of them have questlines that continue on for multiple quests, and a few even intersect and conjoin! Over the course of these quests, the NPCs even grow and change as characters. This right here lends itself QUITE well to the entire island population feeling very real and lived in, as though these are ACTUAL people you're helping and not stock vague NPCs that plague many other JRPGs. The NPCs' requests and the stories behind them, in conjunction with the fact that I don't think there was a single "Kill x amount of [monster]" quests really went a long way.
2) The Story
I don't want to say anything here. I would rather people go in blind such as I did. All you need to know is that it all starts off innocently enough and eventually does turn into Ryza & friends having to confront a force of malice that threatens her home island and even the mainland. I do wish they explored a bit more of the ancient history side of things, however, I'm almost certain they'll do this in the sequel, as they also did this sort of thing in the Dusk games.
3) The Battle System
This is the only part of the game that tripped me up and gave me some grief. It's quite different from the battle systems seen in any other recent Atelier games, as it IS technically turn-based, but it's very fast-paced and frantic. Your companions are AI-controlled, but you can quickly swap to one of them and issue them a command yourself, though you can only control one at a time. However, I did find the two you don't have actively selected to be VERY reliable AI companions. During the course of a battle, they will shout out "Battle Orders" where they'll ask you to perform certain actions or use certain kinds of items or deal a specific kind of damage, whether that be physical, magical, or elemental. Upon doing as they've asked, they'll immediately perform a special attack, and if you manage to fulfill two Battle Orders at once, their attacks happen back-to-back for some big damage. The strength of these attacks and even the moves themselves change depending on your Tactic Level, which increases as you gather AP from your party dealing damage to and defeating enemies. Raising the Tactic Level not only boosts the power of Battle Order attacks but also boosts the damage and combo length of your basic attacks. Your basic attack starts off as just one or two hits usually, but as you raise your Tactic level, continue pressing 'A' after selecting to do a basic attack, and you'll perform a flurry of attacks! Not only does your increased Tactic Level boost basic attack damage and the combo length of them, but it boosts the amount of damage your items and skills do! BUT using skills eats up some of your accrued AP, so do you keep yourself at a lower tactic level and unleash some skills, OR do you wait and raise it for more powerful attacks later? So as you see, managing your Tactic level is crucial. Another great addition to this combat system is the ability to press a button to take a turn in advance, and perform a Skill or use an Item. Doing this eats ups quite a large chunk of your AP, however, if you're in a bind and need to get off a quick heal or get a big hit in to interrupt an enemy before it unleashes a strong attack, it's a worthwhile sacrifice.
At first, this was all quite overwhelming for me, especially since the battles can move so fast, but as fully came to understand it, when it all clicked, I absolutely fell in love with it. The only thing that bothered me still was the item limitations, but I suppose that had to be for balancing purposes, due to the following point.
4) The Alchemy System
Ryza has a very unique and new Alchemy synthesis system compared to previous entries. The way that you have a proper visual of the ingredients you add and where things branch off to and what effects you'll get would've already made this the best alchemy system in the entire Atelier series, but they didn't just stop there. Keeping in-line with Ryza being a budding alchemist and Empel encouraging her to experiment as much as she can, you actually get MANY of your alchemy recipes from your weak/standard ones, they branch out and upgrade when you have the materials and the alchemy level to reach that new recipe node. This really makes it feel like you're almost an alchemist yourself, experimenting on how to creates similar but even more powerful items. On top of this, there's also Rebuild. Rebuilding allows you to FURTHER strengthen items you've already created, so long as you have the alchemy level and gems for it. Gems you acquire quite simply by breaking down any kind of item. Rebuilding can REALLY break the game, even just at the mid-point, if you know what you're doing. I can't properly describe the feeling of satisfaction and contentedness you get out of improving all your equipment and items and then making NEWER items and making other items so you can make even newer, bigger, more powerful items and equipment. It's very addicting AND rewarding.
5) NO TIME LIMITS, NO DEADLINES
Atelier Ryza has NO in-game clock countdown or deadline like previous games. You can do things at your own pace and not worry a single bit about how much time has passed. It never bothered me TOO much in the first two Dusk games, as it was plenty manageable there, but I hear it was a bit more stressful in the entries prior to Dusk. But it's not even a factor now. Take all the time you want or need; synthesize, explore, and gather at your leisure.
6) Exploration
Every single location in this game is unique and interesting to explore and gather in. The environments run the full range from forests and caves to a volcano and ruins and a few others I won't mention due to spoilers. Many of these locations have items you won't be able to find anywhere else, so they're worth checking out thoroughly. Each location also has several landmarks to discover as well, and there are even treasure map pieces you can find scattered around to find special treasure chests with some really nice items inside them.
7) Gathering
Gathering items for alchemy isn't too complicated. You can catch bugs and fish, smash rocks and crystals with a hammer, use a sickle to harvest plants, chop trees and logs with an ax, smack various things with Ryza's staff, or explode huge road-block with a bomb rod. On many occasions, using a different gathering tool on the same item yields different materials! For example, for some bushes, you can swing a sickle at them to obtain the plant inside, or if you use a hammer, you receive Plant Essence instead! Some items can only be gathered by using specific gathering tools. So, just like with the alchemy system, you're encouraged to experiment and see what different results you get!
8) Enemies
For the most part, the enemy designs are pretty nice. Some are really cute while others are suitably threatening. Though Ryza DOES have enemy recolor syndrome, which isn't a bother to me personally, but it's worth mentioning since I know it does bother some people.
8) The Music & Sounds
The soundtrack to Atelier Ryza is pretty good. It has some pretty excellent tracks of note are "Southern White Wind," which has some killer violin and guitar segments with an upbeat tempo, "Emerald Climbing," containing more violin, castanets, and some really jazzy piano, and "Grain Rain, Wheat Wind" featuring some flute, bagpipes, bass, and a spanish guitar, giving this particular such a particularly unique feeling. The only remote "negative" (ie a very petty easily-dismissed grip) I have to give the soundtrack is that there aren't nearly as many vocal tracks as there were in Atelier Ayesha. The few vocal tracks that are here though are quite great however.
Just as well, the sound effects are pretty on-point. All your thwacks and meaty and your slashes quite sharp-sounding. The scarier monsters sound convincingly threatening. Ryza's callouts, while she's gathering are sometimes cute, and the game continues the series tradition of exclaiming at barrels when you interact with one.
9) Wrap-Up and TL;DR
Atelier Ryza is a wonderful game. It's a fresh breath of warm, summery air. There's plenty here to enjoy, whether you're a JRPG fan or not. The battle system is fast enough to assuage any dissatisfaction anyone might've had with traditional turn-based combat, but still strategic enough to please traditional JRPG fans. The characters and world as a whole are quite well-fleshed out. The story is quite engaging, and it doesn't overstay its welcome, as the game takes about 30 hours to finish. All of this is set to some nice sound design and a really great soundtrack. Do give it a try!
cute anime girl crafts pipebombs with black magic: the game
Atelier Ryza is pretty high on the upper end of mediocre RPGs, despite only having one interesting system in the game in its alchemy system. The advantage it has though, is that this one system is fleshed out so much that the rest of the game does not really matter much, and as it leaves many options for the player to approach the challenges the game poses.
The story is barely worth mentioning, and the characters and their motivations are basically walking cliches, but it at least doesn’t pretend to be an epic about saving the world, and it does generally convey the relaxedness you feel when playing the game. The combat is also lackluster in all its aspects, as even superficial things like skill animations and damage numbers do not feel satisfying for the first time you see them, but it at least gets the job done of posing as a genuine skill check for whether your know how to use the alchemy system. You can’t just steamroll the enemies by fighting in many random encounters and expecting the leveling to do, well, anything, really, because the stat increases you gain are negligible compared to the equipment you build. This is a good thing, because this means that Atelier Ryza can not really make you grind mindlessly.
While many other middle-budget RPGs would be content to browbeat you either into fighting the same enemy formations 50 times or to make everything so easy that nothing really matters, Atelier Ryza derives its satisfaction from you discovering and remembering where you got which material to synthesize what item, and it excels at making you feel excited for a material that the alchemy list showed you is necessary for the bomb with the biggest boom. (I played the game on hard and I would recommend anyone to do the same, because it seems to be the only difficulty where anything can realistically pose a threat to your party.)
Even if you started from scratch to gather these materials, Atelier Ryza has made 3 very smart moves in the process to not make this feel tedious:
a) There are no super-rare materials at gathering points or from enemies, and the drop chances are all so high that – stochastically speaking – you will not get frustrated by a material not appearing.
b) The game lets you fast travel anywhere at any time, which makes the material gathering a fairly short and sweet affair, that builds tension for only 5-10 minutes until you can build that item or equipment you wanted and finally go and explode some enemies.
c) After a certain point in the game, it lets you multiply materials and equipment you synthesized, so if you have made a really good armor or materials to synthesize a weapon, you can just multiply these for your party members and generally don’t have to repeat synthesize much from this point on.
This all leads to Atelier Ryza having the feeling of a really solid incremental game that gives you enough choices to impact how fast and in what way the numbers go up. This might sound like a backhanded compliment, but it isn’t. I imagine it would have been easy to make this kind of game feel tedious and grindy, but instead Atelier Ryza feels… relaxing. It rarely annoyed me, it never browbeat me into 3-hour grinds just to be able to continue, and it was very up-front from almost the very beginning what kind of game it was. I appreciate this upfrontness. I could put it on when I just wanted to have a very chill evening playing a game. It’s trying to be comfort food, and it’s pretty good at it.
The story is barely worth mentioning, and the characters and their motivations are basically walking cliches, but it at least doesn’t pretend to be an epic about saving the world, and it does generally convey the relaxedness you feel when playing the game. The combat is also lackluster in all its aspects, as even superficial things like skill animations and damage numbers do not feel satisfying for the first time you see them, but it at least gets the job done of posing as a genuine skill check for whether your know how to use the alchemy system. You can’t just steamroll the enemies by fighting in many random encounters and expecting the leveling to do, well, anything, really, because the stat increases you gain are negligible compared to the equipment you build. This is a good thing, because this means that Atelier Ryza can not really make you grind mindlessly.
While many other middle-budget RPGs would be content to browbeat you either into fighting the same enemy formations 50 times or to make everything so easy that nothing really matters, Atelier Ryza derives its satisfaction from you discovering and remembering where you got which material to synthesize what item, and it excels at making you feel excited for a material that the alchemy list showed you is necessary for the bomb with the biggest boom. (I played the game on hard and I would recommend anyone to do the same, because it seems to be the only difficulty where anything can realistically pose a threat to your party.)
Even if you started from scratch to gather these materials, Atelier Ryza has made 3 very smart moves in the process to not make this feel tedious:
a) There are no super-rare materials at gathering points or from enemies, and the drop chances are all so high that – stochastically speaking – you will not get frustrated by a material not appearing.
b) The game lets you fast travel anywhere at any time, which makes the material gathering a fairly short and sweet affair, that builds tension for only 5-10 minutes until you can build that item or equipment you wanted and finally go and explode some enemies.
c) After a certain point in the game, it lets you multiply materials and equipment you synthesized, so if you have made a really good armor or materials to synthesize a weapon, you can just multiply these for your party members and generally don’t have to repeat synthesize much from this point on.
This all leads to Atelier Ryza having the feeling of a really solid incremental game that gives you enough choices to impact how fast and in what way the numbers go up. This might sound like a backhanded compliment, but it isn’t. I imagine it would have been easy to make this kind of game feel tedious and grindy, but instead Atelier Ryza feels… relaxing. It rarely annoyed me, it never browbeat me into 3-hour grinds just to be able to continue, and it was very up-front from almost the very beginning what kind of game it was. I appreciate this upfrontness. I could put it on when I just wanted to have a very chill evening playing a game. It’s trying to be comfort food, and it’s pretty good at it.
Came for the thighs, stayed for the crafting and the thighs
Atelier Ryza is a fun and enjoyable RPG, and as my first Atelier game, I really enjoyed it a lot. The alchemy system was a bit confusing to me at first, but I think I understood it fairly well at the end. I also really liked the characters, especially Klaudia and Ryza are great. It would've also been nice if the game had an English dub. As far as I know, the other older Atelier games had one, so I think it's a bit of a shame that this one and the other Atelier Ryza games have no English dub. Overall, I can recommend trying this game out. (And btw, the game has so many German words that, despite the fact the game has no German translation, I sometimes almost thought I would play it with a German translation.)
Atelier Ryza? More like Atelier Boring.
You know how there are multiple types of Atelier games:
adventure type (Totori, Firis), cozy games with one town or a mix of both.
This game is the first in the series to introduce innovative "shit" type as I call it.
What makes atelier towns charming? Yes, the people.
There are legit 6 characters in the entire game (not joking, you see them all in first 15 minutes). All the people in town are generic NPCs with little to no importance.
These shitty NPCs have quests, for some godforsaken reason when you take the quest they have to tell you their entire life story and make 20 lines long exchanges, it could be the same as in older games, just display quest window or 1 dialogue line " i need X item". Even better solution would be to have a well designed charming character to handle quests. But I guess the entire budget went to 5 normal character designs and the 6th with giant boobs for no fucking reason.
There is no friendship system, different character endings, and no new companions. (holy shit it's worse then Lulua)
OK let's move on from charming town talk, there surely are other aspects that are better, right? RIGHT??!!
5 characters aside from Ryza are generic in the worst ways:
- a small nerd that gets to piss his pants in every cutscene he is the only important character in the game (if all others weren't there nothing would change), because of his nerdy expositions he does all the time.
- a big chad character (literally nothing to say about him I guess he has dad issues, whatever...)
-a girl that wants to play a flute, the culmination of her arc is that she did in fact played the flute (peak writing)
-girl with big boobs (she is important in one single cutscene to drop the twist about underworld)
-a mentor alchemist (when he joins at the end of the game he becomes the same character as the nerd, but I guess he is an alchemist so it changes something?
OK surely the gameplay loop is good? gust will never fuck up the gameplay loop in atelier game, right?
the synthesis - oh god, spending time on it as agonizing, the recipe morph is shit, it makes navigating menus a nightmare. It doesn't help that after adding a single ingredient you have to spend 3 seconds on "level up" animation and watch Ryza clap or some shit.
This game also introduced new exclusive to "shit" type gameplay mechanics: bloodborne chalice, item rebuild (which defeats the entire purpose of synthesys), forging thing from Dusk but worse and some other useless shit.
The next paragraph is prologue and story runt.
Running around with awful speed for 3 hours and watching cutscenes before unlocking world map. I dropped the game 3 times at this point. Does it get better after teleportation is unlocked? No. Press start - do what is says like: rest for 1-3 days, go to X, go to X, go to X, make item with X quality.
This "handholdy" approach to the story ruins the pace.
The game tries to be "story-rich" and it doesn't work with atelier writing. It creates a giant bloat of useless dialogue that has no purpose, like nerd saying he is scared, chad being confident with Ryza and ignoring him. At some point you climb the tower and nerd reads some backstory lore notes every floor, it's hilarious how bad it was.
BTW there are no story hooks, for example in Sophie you want to know more about the mysterious book, in Ayesha if you fail her sister fucking dies, in Firis if she fails she'll be sent home. Yes, hooks like these. Even fucking Lulua wanted to open the door the entire game. There a shitty boring plot is constantly happening, everything is super scripted, no cool characters visiting atelier (back to character issue)
Ok let's talk combat. It's stupid, if you don't hit the enemy, you spend entire minute to lvl up tactics level, then another minute to build AP and turn on aggressive mode.
You control one character at a time and can use items on any character. I dislike it, it's slow, you do the same thing over and over. My verdict: Lulua combat was better (It did get worse)
In the end it's insulting to me as big Gust fan that this game got 2 fucking sequels and big youtubers recommend people to start atelier from this game. New people will drop the game after 3 hours of walking and say that the entire series is shit. It also gets a fucking anime.
The guy that wrote this game only worked on Ryza. (second game might be better without him but for some fucking reason he came back for third)
The guy who directed it worked on Blue Archive. Is this game also shit?
If you got to this point, thank you for bearing with me, haha. My condolences if you played Ryza too. Otherwise I recommend spending your time for better games.
You know how there are multiple types of Atelier games:
adventure type (Totori, Firis), cozy games with one town or a mix of both.
This game is the first in the series to introduce innovative "shit" type as I call it.
What makes atelier towns charming? Yes, the people.
There are legit 6 characters in the entire game (not joking, you see them all in first 15 minutes). All the people in town are generic NPCs with little to no importance.
These shitty NPCs have quests, for some godforsaken reason when you take the quest they have to tell you their entire life story and make 20 lines long exchanges, it could be the same as in older games, just display quest window or 1 dialogue line " i need X item". Even better solution would be to have a well designed charming character to handle quests. But I guess the entire budget went to 5 normal character designs and the 6th with giant boobs for no fucking reason.
There is no friendship system, different character endings, and no new companions. (holy shit it's worse then Lulua)
OK let's move on from charming town talk, there surely are other aspects that are better, right? RIGHT??!!
5 characters aside from Ryza are generic in the worst ways:
- a small nerd that gets to piss his pants in every cutscene he is the only important character in the game (if all others weren't there nothing would change), because of his nerdy expositions he does all the time.
- a big chad character (literally nothing to say about him I guess he has dad issues, whatever...)
-a girl that wants to play a flute, the culmination of her arc is that she did in fact played the flute (peak writing)
-girl with big boobs (she is important in one single cutscene to drop the twist about underworld)
-a mentor alchemist (when he joins at the end of the game he becomes the same character as the nerd, but I guess he is an alchemist so it changes something?
OK surely the gameplay loop is good? gust will never fuck up the gameplay loop in atelier game, right?
the synthesis - oh god, spending time on it as agonizing, the recipe morph is shit, it makes navigating menus a nightmare. It doesn't help that after adding a single ingredient you have to spend 3 seconds on "level up" animation and watch Ryza clap or some shit.
This game also introduced new exclusive to "shit" type gameplay mechanics: bloodborne chalice, item rebuild (which defeats the entire purpose of synthesys), forging thing from Dusk but worse and some other useless shit.
The next paragraph is prologue and story runt.
Running around with awful speed for 3 hours and watching cutscenes before unlocking world map. I dropped the game 3 times at this point. Does it get better after teleportation is unlocked? No. Press start - do what is says like: rest for 1-3 days, go to X, go to X, go to X, make item with X quality.
This "handholdy" approach to the story ruins the pace.
The game tries to be "story-rich" and it doesn't work with atelier writing. It creates a giant bloat of useless dialogue that has no purpose, like nerd saying he is scared, chad being confident with Ryza and ignoring him. At some point you climb the tower and nerd reads some backstory lore notes every floor, it's hilarious how bad it was.
BTW there are no story hooks, for example in Sophie you want to know more about the mysterious book, in Ayesha if you fail her sister fucking dies, in Firis if she fails she'll be sent home. Yes, hooks like these. Even fucking Lulua wanted to open the door the entire game. There a shitty boring plot is constantly happening, everything is super scripted, no cool characters visiting atelier (back to character issue)
Ok let's talk combat. It's stupid, if you don't hit the enemy, you spend entire minute to lvl up tactics level, then another minute to build AP and turn on aggressive mode.
You control one character at a time and can use items on any character. I dislike it, it's slow, you do the same thing over and over. My verdict: Lulua combat was better (It did get worse)
In the end it's insulting to me as big Gust fan that this game got 2 fucking sequels and big youtubers recommend people to start atelier from this game. New people will drop the game after 3 hours of walking and say that the entire series is shit. It also gets a fucking anime.
The guy that wrote this game only worked on Ryza. (second game might be better without him but for some fucking reason he came back for third)
The guy who directed it worked on Blue Archive. Is this game also shit?
If you got to this point, thank you for bearing with me, haha. My condolences if you played Ryza too. Otherwise I recommend spending your time for better games.
Atelier Ryza is brimming with hangoutitude. It's all about chilling out with your childhood friends, making potions, and realizing that maybe your hometown isn't so bad after all.
This review contains spoilers
Really cute JRPG with addicting gameplay loops, the switch struggles a bit (what else is new) but it all runs quite well. Characters are a joy, especially Klaudia and Ryza's relationship, as well as Bos' past with the three brats. Story is quite cool, twists are twisty, I need Lila IRL.
I'm a first time Atelier player, and this is definitely a series I'm coming back to, as Ryza was a fantastic introduction to the eccentricity of those games. It is certainly not the usual kind of JRPG, and it differs not only because of its gameplay conventions, but also because of the way it employs its story telling. It reminds me of a summertime adventure type of story, where the stakes are low but the events that unfold signify a very big change for the characters, and memories that will last a lifetime. It was nice to see a story about a bunch of kids solving a mystery on the island they grew up on, rather than fighting gods to save the entire world. Atelier Ryza is a coming of age story that despite its fantastical setting, it manages to feel both quite personal and relatable, and each character embodies feelings that most of us have in such a turbulent transition from a child to an adult, like the need for independence or the need for recognition. Suffice it to say, I was very pleased with the core cast of the game, and Ryza herself proved to be an exceptional protagonist with a lot of charm. It's really not surprising that she gave the series a significant popularity boost.
Regarding the gameplay of the game, the focus is entirely on alchemy, which consists of gathering materials and crafting items. Combat and exploration certainly exist, and are important to the game for sure, but they're also secondary compared to the alchemy loop, and act more supportive to it, rather than being the main driving forces of the game. I was surprised for example that before the endgame, it was really light in boss encounters, but your progress can easily stall if you ignore alchemy. That said, while I often find gathering and crafting obnoxious and kind of grindy, a game built around them like Atelier Ryza was relaxing more than anything. The drop rates aren't obnoxious like in many other games, and you can generally create everything you want without much hassle, as long as you're somewhat diligent with the collection of materials when you visit a new area. It's a system that doesn't feel like an afterthought at all, as the game is built around it. Of course, some aspects of alchemy go much deeper, to get the most out of a new creation you might need to be attentive with the quality or the traits and skills you pass down to it. This won't be an issue for most of the game, but if anyone plans to tackle the optional super bosses, it is certainly something they'll have to delve into, and honestly, it's quite fun on its own.
The rest of the game feels much more standard, though that's not really a bad thing. The combat is turn based but fast paced and relies on the synergy between the characters, the fights usually end by performing special moves after certain actions. Alchemy obviously is also a significant benefit during them, as it allows the creation of really powerful items, in addition to better weapons or equipment. Ryza has a slow start, and a lot of options are locked, but once it gets going you get access to quite a few QoL additions. The ease of fast travel and the need for resources combine quite well, though the constant jumping from area to area, often felt quite disorienting.
Overall, Ryza was a really neat experience, and a very wholesome one at that. A nice story, some really fine gameplay mechanics and a very relaxing and chill tone, if you're in the mood for something somewhat different, it's certainly a game worth playing, and a series worth getting into.
Regarding the gameplay of the game, the focus is entirely on alchemy, which consists of gathering materials and crafting items. Combat and exploration certainly exist, and are important to the game for sure, but they're also secondary compared to the alchemy loop, and act more supportive to it, rather than being the main driving forces of the game. I was surprised for example that before the endgame, it was really light in boss encounters, but your progress can easily stall if you ignore alchemy. That said, while I often find gathering and crafting obnoxious and kind of grindy, a game built around them like Atelier Ryza was relaxing more than anything. The drop rates aren't obnoxious like in many other games, and you can generally create everything you want without much hassle, as long as you're somewhat diligent with the collection of materials when you visit a new area. It's a system that doesn't feel like an afterthought at all, as the game is built around it. Of course, some aspects of alchemy go much deeper, to get the most out of a new creation you might need to be attentive with the quality or the traits and skills you pass down to it. This won't be an issue for most of the game, but if anyone plans to tackle the optional super bosses, it is certainly something they'll have to delve into, and honestly, it's quite fun on its own.
The rest of the game feels much more standard, though that's not really a bad thing. The combat is turn based but fast paced and relies on the synergy between the characters, the fights usually end by performing special moves after certain actions. Alchemy obviously is also a significant benefit during them, as it allows the creation of really powerful items, in addition to better weapons or equipment. Ryza has a slow start, and a lot of options are locked, but once it gets going you get access to quite a few QoL additions. The ease of fast travel and the need for resources combine quite well, though the constant jumping from area to area, often felt quite disorienting.
Overall, Ryza was a really neat experience, and a very wholesome one at that. A nice story, some really fine gameplay mechanics and a very relaxing and chill tone, if you're in the mood for something somewhat different, it's certainly a game worth playing, and a series worth getting into.
My first foray with Atelier after several years of saying to myself "I should try those games sometime," and needless to say, yeah, I should have played this sooner.
Buying this game to hold me over on a road trip was the best possible first impression I could get for this game. The lack of access to any sort of walkthrough meant I had to figure everything out myself, and that made things so much more fun. This is the exact type of game that benefits so much from the player experimenting with what they can figure out themselves, adding on several layers of immersion.
Sometimes, I'd spend literal hours, not exaggerating, just making random shit. In all honestly, the combat and story were mostly an afterthought for me, because of how fun it is to just make shit through alchemy with all the stuff I spent the past 30 minutes gathering. This game figured out a way to make doing chores feel rewarding and fun. That's an impressive feat in its own right.
Anyway, I bought the second one, and intend to jump into that after finishing the Xenoblade 3 DLC campaign. Consider me hooked.
Buying this game to hold me over on a road trip was the best possible first impression I could get for this game. The lack of access to any sort of walkthrough meant I had to figure everything out myself, and that made things so much more fun. This is the exact type of game that benefits so much from the player experimenting with what they can figure out themselves, adding on several layers of immersion.
Sometimes, I'd spend literal hours, not exaggerating, just making random shit. In all honestly, the combat and story were mostly an afterthought for me, because of how fun it is to just make shit through alchemy with all the stuff I spent the past 30 minutes gathering. This game figured out a way to make doing chores feel rewarding and fun. That's an impressive feat in its own right.
Anyway, I bought the second one, and intend to jump into that after finishing the Xenoblade 3 DLC campaign. Consider me hooked.