My 4th Atelier game, and the start of my second Atelier sub-series. Story is almost non-existant in this one, world isn't built up at all compared to the world of the Dusk, but Sophie and Plachta are very strong and lovable characters. The combat in this one doesn't have the swapping with the back row characters anymore, and instead has a new Defense and Offense stance system which I never felt as fun or engaging as the combat systems in the previous games and as the game went on, and in most battles can be mostly ignored. The Mysterious games have added a grid system to the crafting, where the grid represents the space in the cauldron, but the glowing bonus nodes aren't taught as well as they could be. You can acquire and swap out different cauldrons for different effects too, but the EXP gain when using anything other than the EXP cauldron feels too low. EXP gain is lower than previous games when using anything else and the exp cauldron boosts it up to around what they were, so using anything else feels bad. Sophie is the weakest entry I've played so far, but I did still have a lot of fun with the crafting despite its annoyances, and the characters and music were real nice. During the back half of my playthrough, my grandmother was taken to the hospital so the focus on what Sophie's grandmother meant to her as a person really hit me in a way.

This is one of those strong cases where the characters singly handly carried the game.
The gameplay loop is too tedious and outdated for it's own good.
Having to play Where's Waldo for 40+ hours just to trigger characters events, recipes and story stuff isn't fun at all.
The mediocre and directionless storyline doesn't help much at all, as it's just the typical JRPG stuff that you seen before.
It's just unnecessarily padding for the sake of it.
The game really needed the event/quest markers.

Barring the characters, Alchemy system is excellent and arguably better than the Ryza Trilogy, due to being more complex and rewarding.

Fortunately, Sophie has a decently compelling cast of characters with Sophie, Julio, Corneria and Plachta being the standouts.

Oskar and Monika were okay, but they felt more typical best friend/childhood characters that you have seen before with not much depth to them

Overall, Atelier Sophie is a decent game, that is held back by jarringly outdated gameplay loop and meandering padded storyline.

The characters and alchemy system were the saving graces of Atelier Sophie that ulimately prevented the game from failing for me.

Plain old iyashikei.

My entry to Atelier — there's a few annoyances like missable achievements and really cryptic instructions for recipes, what conditions you need to complete specific events and quests, etc etc. But honestly, I don't know if that's just a grievance against RPGs as a whole. Overall, the pattern of making items and staying small scale actually made it more memorable than most RPGs are to me.

I like this small German-ish village aesthetic where everyone is vaguely Christian. Like all iyashikei I feel like I will just come back to the series when I need to remember the fundamental gifts of life.

this game was my introduction to the atelier games and i have to say, i really did enjoy my time with it. the first few hours i was a bit worried i might not enjoy it as much, but after a while it just sorta clicked.

the game is sweet and relaxing. it's not really like other jrps with super dark and serious stories and the end of the world being near, but rather about the few main characters and their personal struggles, that are all very relatable. i really did like every character in the game, even if monika and oscar sorta became useless to me by the end of the game as they weren't in my party, nor did they provide any useful services like leon or cory did. i even enjoyed the side characters such as pamela or elise, who also got small but sweet story bits.

the combat is rather easy, but i still did avoid it for most of the game, meaning i got my ass kicked whenever i really did need to use it to advance the story. crafting weapons, armour, items and consumables is really fun and it helped me to go from being underleveled and weak as fuck, to being able to beat pretty much anything in my way, including the final boss.

i'm glad the game has a bit of post game content, even if i didn't get around to finishing that yet. post game just feels like a must for this sort of game.

the music is very nice as well and i'm especially glad i get the chance to listen to older games soundtracks. the digital artbook that comes with the switch version of this game is great as well and i loved looking at the characters in their silly little outfits.

overall, i really enjoyed this game and i hope that atelier sophie 2 will be just as much fun!

jogged around the town for a month in order to come up with the recipe for gatorade

The main characters and town are much more fleshed out compared to Ryza and I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with them (with the notable exception of Oskar's dialogues where someone has to get a fat joke in every time). The alchemy system is fun to learn, especially with the recipe ideas that require getting unique traits onto certain other items. The English dub is also nice to have compared to other Atelier games, even if I hate that they pronounce "atelier" as "at-lee-err".

Full video review: https://youtu.be/nQBBPr_Ce5o

I see some say that Sophie is one of the best starting places for the entirety of Atelier and then some say it is one of the worst entries. I found myself more in the middle. Atelier Sophie introduces some good elements that have now become the norm, but also has a few missteps along the way.

Crafting
If you are unfamiliar with the Mysterious subseries, the crafting in this one is done Tetris style. You don’t look at a menu and select ingredients for combining, but rather physically place those ingredients on a grid and rotate them, shape them, and select just the right patterns to fill that grid or otherwise get the result you want.

It’s a seemingly simple setup, but as with other games in the series, it becomes very involved very quickly and is a ton of fun to play with if you like to min-max, but it is also important to note that it is only as complex as you want it to be.

You certainly can sit there and spend hours crafting, but if you want to sit back, play some casual Tetris, and craft some neat stuff - you can just as easily ignore the more intricate elements. Sophie is very accommodating in this regard and as someone that likes a mix of both, I found the normal difficulty to be the perfect balance there. It’s some top-tier stuff regardless and one of the major reasons why I love this series so much.

Gathering
I have to admit I was a bit disappointed with the gathering. The actual crafting? Great. The act of going out and getting all the ingredients? Kinda basic. The environments are mostly these super-small, repetitive things and the gathering spots are just little sparkles on the ground with little indication as to what they contain.

Graphics
Sophie was the first in the series to be released on PS4, but honestly, it looks like a game designed for the PSP. The textures are super low-res, the environments are blocky, and the whole thing just looks dull. Well, aside from the character models - which are very nice in comparison and it actually makes for this weird contrast.

Combat
The combat is your traditional turn-based JRPG fare with skills, chain attacks, usable items, and the basic attacking and defending. The enemy designs are varied enough, but as usual with this series, a lot of the later variations are simple reskins of earlier ones.

Overall though, I would say the combat is satisfying enough. It’s not the best I’ve seen from the series, but it feels nice to return to the usual turn-based battles after the last couple Ryza games and their action-based systems. That and it is never not fun to spend all this time crafting some mega bomb and bust it out in battle to wipe an entire squad of enemies.

Game Loop
Unlike the more recent Atelier games, Sophie is VERY freeform. There are entire sections of the game where the plot is simply not there and you’re just going through a loop of learning a new recipe, gathering the materials for it, and then crafting it.

On one hand, this does give the game a more laidback feel to it. The freedom to go around and do what you want and when you want is nice in a way, but I also can’t deny it makes the experience feel a bit aimless - like I’m just going through a process over and over with no end in sight.

What makes it worse is that when you DO want to actually make some progress, you’re oftentimes not told what exactly that progress entails. Sometimes the next story event trigger is on a random NPC, but there are no markers to indicate this. Sometimes it’s a specific recipe or alchemy level, but again, a lot of the time you’re left without instruction. I ended up forming this mental checklist of NPCs and locations to go to in the hopes that one of them would trigger an event.

I’m fine when games leave a good amount up to player’s to figure out - and maybe I’m just spoiled by the excellent balance in the latest Atelier games - but when it’s literally the entire game loop, it does bring down the experience a bit.

Story
The characters can be interesting at times (mostly hit or miss), but given how the game loop works here, the story is hardly present until much later on and by that point it simply does not have enough time to develop something beyond your usual JRPG fare. Maybe the sequel can clean things up a bit, but Sophie has easily one of the least engaging storylines I’ve seen from this series.

Soundtrack
The graphics may be iffy, but the soundtrack absolutely slaps. Great battle themes, great field themes, great opening theme - a good range of tracks there to match both the laidback stuff and the serious stuff, even if the latter is more limited this time around.

PC Port
It runs fine at 1440p and 144 fps on my 1070 Ti without any major drops, stutters, or other such issues. The graphical options are practically nonexistent though, so don’t expect much there. And definitely don’t expect much in the way of keyboard and mouse controls. Controller works flawlessly, but the mouse movement here just does not feel right and the default layout on keyboard is clunky too. 100% a game I would recommend a controller for, but that’s pretty much the usual for this company anyways.

Overall
While not as strong as other Atelier games, I still had a good bit of fun with Sophie. It is by far the most laidback of the series, with an almost entirely freeform game loop and little in the sense of direction beyond that. This is good in that it gives you a lot of freedom to figure things out and take in the setting gradually, but it does make for a very subpar story and some frustrating moments when you are searching for direction. Still, the crafting is as good as it has ever been and the combat is nice too, even if a bit basic. I wouldn’t say Sophie would be my first recommendation for series newcomers, but if you are already into it - it is at least worth a play.

Generally fun game even if it takes a fair bit to click and give you enough options to actually get around to messing with its systems, and surprisingly for the more open-ended games without proper time limits in the series, the general story and event progression is very natural. Sadly the endgame is bogged down by the rumor mechanic. While not much, some key materials (and recipes that are unlocked by gathering those materials) are locked behind getting specific rumors to trigger in the café, leading to situations in which you can basically spend 4 hours just fishing for a rumor to gain access to a material that would let you finish specific event chains. The idea for purchasing rumors being tied to actually spawning what they're about instead of just nudging the player in the direction of a nice secret in general feels completely wrong. Thankfully the postgame is its entire own thing, so you can ignore having to deal with that.

On a more positive note, this game has some of the best tracks in the series, and considering how good the music in GUST games tends to be, that's saying something.

I played about a dozen hours of the original, shelved it, came back for the DX version, and it was like seeing an old friend. This time I managed to complete it.

Main gripes: No time limit is nice for people (like me) that would normally be scared of it, but with it comes never knowing where I'm supposed to be "at" level or alchemy wise. Lots of areas are unlocked long before you can visit them all and so you can be vastly over or underleveled without realizing (not knowing the main level cap was a mere 20 before I got there was. surprising to say the least)

Mixed: "Story" is also kind of disappointing and barebones-y whenever it tries to go beyond "Sophie is doing alchemy." Could use a lot more show, less tell. But the main cast is pretty endearing and likeable (if not necessarily that memorable).

Good: Music is great. Tetromino alchemy never gets old, and it can be fun to experiment with. There are lots of locations, but not too big to get lost in. Quest and craft system kept me engaged enough to go to the finish. Sophie and Plachta are just really cute and easy to support, so I think they carried the game.

I really like this style of Atelier! The most distinct feature from the games I've played in this series before, the tetris-like alchemy is more fun than I thought it'd be! I thought I'd grow tired of making every single thing individually, having to do the puzzle each time, but I honestly didn't, except for maybe once or twice near the end.

The characters are pretty good too, above average for Atelier. The art was great, and the combat was a good mix of everything I've played up until this point, more or less. The only thing I wasn't a big fan of was the story. I did like its initial loose direction, but the added final conflict felt generic and uninspired. Not to mention, the difficulty spike that exists during this bit was immense.

Other than that though, probably one of my favorite Atelier games I've played up to this point! It was a lot of fun, and definitely a good starting point to the series if you don't want to try Ryza first.

Um jogo bem tranquilo e afável, a história pode ser bem fraca e fiquei bem decepcionado com o vilão, que fica 500 anos planejando uma vingança pra no final ser convencido por um discurso do Jutsu... Mas fora isso a história, apesar de não ser nada demais é legal de acompanhar, os personagens são ok também.

Como o foco principal é crafting de alquimia, o jogo parece mais um anime slice of life, fazendo dele um bom passa tempo.

Apesar de não ser nada demais e faltar as belas coxas que tem na série principal foi um jogo legal pra passar o tempo e conhecer a franquia.

You play as Sophie, a young aspiring alchemist, who just inherited her grandmother’s atelier. Sophie knows she’s not great at alchemy, but she wants to do her grandmother’s memory proud and help the town. Thankfully, she finds a mysterious talking book named Plachta who tells her about the Cauldron of Knowledge. Plachta is missing most of her memories, so she doesn’t know where the cauldron can be found. But Sophie promises to help her regain her memories in exchange for alchemy lessons.

As Sophie’s alchemy skill improves, Plachta remembers more and more, and not just the location of the Cauldron of Knowledge. She has to remember her purpose, which leads her and Sophie to the ultimate showdown. Of course, this has to turn into a tale about good overcoming evil. Not the most original story, but an enjoyable one. I became quickly invested in Sophie and Plachta’s journey, as well as the side stories of all of the other characters.

Visuals

This version of the game includes a digital art book, which I flipped through twice before playing. The art is gorgeous and got me super excited to start playing. I really enjoyed the character designs. Everyone has their own unique style, but clearly belong to the same world. The only part that I felt looked a little off was the hair. It’s stiff, so the animations look a bit awkward. It’s also colored in very strangely. The hair just doesn’t fit with the rest of the visuals.

I do love the variety in monsters. There are a lot of different types with multiple variations. It was always a fun surprise to see a new color of a familiar monster, but that’s also a sign that it’s stronger. There are also some special monsters that show up during Rumors, and some of them are super cool looking!

Other than the hair issue, which isn’t really much of an issue, I found it awkward how the NPCs are just kind of there. The village looks amazing, but the people are just standing there staring off into space. You can talk to everyone, but once Sophie is done with them, they go back to just staring. It makes the village feel like a ghost town, even though there are plenty of people around.

Sound Effects + Music:

Atelier Sophie is almost fully voice acted. All of the important cutscenes are voiced in Japanese (default) and English, and some of the regular conversations are voiced as well. I did prefer the Japanese voice acting, as it’s more emotive and fit the tone of the scenes better. But I mostly played with English, even though some of the actors sound less than enthused about the script.

I really enjoyed the background music! There wasn’t a single track that annoyed me. Most of the songs are upbeat and have a fun, adventurous vibe to them. There are also some more relaxing tracks as well. It’s just a well-rounded, well-suited soundtrack. The music during the final boss battle had me on the edge of my seat, just ready to vanquish evil!

Gameplay + Controls

Atelier Sophie has three main components: gathering, synthesis, and battle. Gathering takes place in special gathering zones, where you can find the ingredients needed for alchemy. Sophie uses her cauldron for synthesis, which is essentially alchemizing those ingredients into useful items. And battle also takes place at the gathering areas, where monsters wait to attack. You’ll also get requests from Mr. Horst, which you can complete (usually killing a certain monster or synthesizing a specific item) in exchange for Cole, the main currency.

Gathering and battles go hand-in-hand. Although you can sneak around or run past enemies if you just want to collect materials without engaging them. There are many locations to unlock that contain different materials. The enemies also vary between locations. And you will have to fight them at some point, not just to level up, but because they drop unique materials when defeated.

Combat took me several battles to understand. I’m very new to RPGs, so I didn’t have much frame of reference here. It’s turn based, and the order of the participants is shown on the side of the screen. You choose actions for each of Sophie’s party members (attack, run, defend, or skill). Once the actions are confirmed, everything plays out in the order shown. It’s actually very straight forward and easy to get into, once you get the gist of it.

Synthesis is actually a ton of fun! I really liked the puzzle element to it. Each ingredient has a size and shape (think Tetris bricks) which you’ll have to fit onto a 4×4 grid to increase the quality and earn extra bonuses. It makes you think more about which ingredient to choose, since one shape may fit better than others, yielding better results. Of course, in the beginning you have poor quality ingredients anyway, but as you level up, you have access to higher quality ingredients.

And make sure that you speak to everyone! Characters have their regular locations that you’ll almost always find them at, but if you see them somewhere else, go up to them. You never know when they’ll have a side quest for you, or important information to move the story forward. Of course, you should also engage with them when they’re in their usual spots, since that will often trigger a cutscene as well. These might be necessary for the plot or just for fun. No one is superfluous.

The game also does a great job of giving you direction to progress without telling you exactly what to do. You can open Sophie’s journal to see what your current “Events” are. These are the main story progression tasks you need to be working on. One is always to unlock one of Plachta’s memories, but there’s occasionally other side missions. You’ll also find the Requests you’ve accepted here. But the most important section is the Recipes, which is laid out like a skill tree. The next recipes you need to unlock will be greyed out and contain a memo hinting at how to unlock it. Some memos are more straightforward than others.

As someone very new to JRPGs, I feel like Atelier Sophie is a great one for beginners. Each element is introduced in a way where you can practice, or get use to it, before moving onto something else. The difficulty also increases steadily, so I never felt like the game was being unfair. Sure, there will be enemies that wipe out your entire party, but there’s no real penalty for it. Sophie will wake up in her atelier, and maybe she’ll have less items than she collected. But now you know what you’re up against with that monster and can better prepare for next time.

Replayability

Atelier Sophie is a decently long game. It took me 34 hours to reach the end credits, but there still plenty left to do! With the big bad evil gone, Sophie can focus on improving her alchemy and fulfilling requests for her friends and neighbors. I’m looking forward to many more hours in this world. I don’t think I would start over from the beginning as the story would follow the same path.

There are four different difficulty settings, so it’d be interesting to see how the game differs upon changing the level. I had played on Normal, which suited me just fine. There are two more difficult levels (Hard and Despair) and one easier one (Easy).

Overall

I adored Atelier Sophie. I think it’s a great introductory JRPG and a super fun game in general. It definitely got me hooked on this series, and I can’t wait to get my hands on the other trilogies and additional games!

Quick review since there isn't too much I can say about this game that comes to mind as of right now: Interesting to play after the Dusk trilogy considering how notable aspects of it carry from Shallie while also reinventing itself into a less plot focused game and one much more focused on a small cast. It's not as if these games were never about the years of life our protagonist lives through and learns from alongside the countless peers that accompany them but Sophie leans into it much more relative to Dusk considering there isn't really much of a plot or a driving impetus, and the lack of a time limit makes it much more apparent. The game is about Sophie growing as a person and an alchemist into adulthood, and the cast generally reflects on aspects of that, and the lack of focus on combat and much bigger focus on alchemy (think about how the combat level caps at 20) reflects on that as well. The wardrobe changes and Plachta's development both as a character but mechanically speaking, etc., it's all just about growth and despite a couple of problems the game has with its events I do think it's executed well enough, I like the cast and might go back some other day to do a 100% run so I can fully see what each character holds. Regardless I like these games because they're fun and relaxing and I enjoy the amount of personal experience a player has, so I'm not in a rush. Pretty obtuse and unclear but irrelevant with the Sophie Codex. Sophie and Plachta/Corneria fucked btw