Not bad, definitely more than I was expecting from a side game. It was genuinely fun to play, and I enjoyed myself!
What stops me from rating it higher is that I wish the battle system had been a little more complex, and not relied on overly-powerful offensive enemies to make the fights more challenging. I didn’t even need items most of the game, which is kind of a miss in Atelier.
Also, I wouldn’t have known how to get the true ending had I not looked it up. You can literally miss out on it from missing an event or two. Just a gaming pet peeve of mine…read the summaries for the rest of the endings, and it looks like all but the true ending are downers, which kind of sucks.
Overall, I enjoyed this, the setting, and characters! Pick it up if you like Atelier, but don’t start here.
What stops me from rating it higher is that I wish the battle system had been a little more complex, and not relied on overly-powerful offensive enemies to make the fights more challenging. I didn’t even need items most of the game, which is kind of a miss in Atelier.
Also, I wouldn’t have known how to get the true ending had I not looked it up. You can literally miss out on it from missing an event or two. Just a gaming pet peeve of mine…read the summaries for the rest of the endings, and it looks like all but the true ending are downers, which kind of sucks.
Overall, I enjoyed this, the setting, and characters! Pick it up if you like Atelier, but don’t start here.
very solid and charming entry, looved the facility management (even tho i had to savescum a lot to save days ack) it has such a good cast w so many layers. i got 2 endings (best and grandmaster alchemist) maybe ill go back to get more but getting adventurer and stuff will require some planning. also its really easy which makes it a good start. im gonna miss this as my before bed game
OK, so going into this series blind, I ended up just picking one on the console I used the most. That was my first mistake; while it's definitely a fun and well-made game, and I did enjoy it quite a bit at the start, there's so many layers on top of time management that I ended up getting overwhelmed and locking myself out of the best ending immediately. I'll eventually start a new playthrough, but for now, I'll pick a different Atelier game to start at.