starryte
2023
This review contains spoilers
Spoilers for Crystar as well as Crymachina
This is one I feel very conflicted about. To explain myself, I need to write a little about how I got to this game.
So, a few months prior to this one releasing, I played the same team's prior game, Crystar. To put it quickly, it was a very bad game, but despite the writing being rough around the edges too, it had an absolutely lovely cast of characters and a pretty depressing, Yoko Taro-esque narrative structure which allowed the game to finish off with an emotional payoff that truly hit me like a truck. It's a game that, for all its flaws, had a very strong emotional core that I couldn't help being charmed by.
So when I learned that the same team had a new game just around the corner, I was very excited, and the demo that came out not long before its full release finished selling me on it: it looked a lot better visually, seemed like a step up gameplay-wise (though the bar set by Crystar in that regard was incredibly low)... in short, if it could reproduce the strong emotional effect of Crystar or something close, I felt like it could be a true gem.
And, in some ways, it is a step up from Crystar: the setting is more fleshed out, with less of those rough edges I mentioned before. Most notably for me, the fact that this game is canonically gay helps a lot: in a game that talks about ego and being true to your heart, that kind of message is so much stronger when not all the relationships and characters just so happen to fit a narrow social norm. The setting is also much more fleshed out in general, with all the antagonists having their own motivations and allegiances... another aspect I like is how clear the game is about what kind of ideology the enemy upholds: you're not just fighting a nondescript "system", but rather a group of eugenicists who want "investors" and others to lead them into a new world.
So then, why is it that I don't like this game over Crystar? To put it simply: Crymachina critically lacks the emotional power of its predecessor. Here, the fact that the setting is much more fleshed out actually comes back to haunt Crymachina: despite it having so much more going on than Crystar, which had an extremely simple setting, it actually took me a couple hours less to finish than Crystar. And because of this, this game is packed chock full of twists; too many of them, to be honest. Even major twists, like the one about humanity not being what we thought it was, get brushed aside: after a couple dialogues, the story is back to a steady march toward its grand finale. And this is another difference which made Crystar more impactful: here we have a linear story, versus Crystar's multi-ending structure. And this structure matters, because it helps a lot with telling an emotional story in those 25 hours Crystar has: until the final few hours, you're absolutely going through it, with moments of emotional respite being few and far between. I expected Crymachina to be like this. In fact, for a while after finishing it, this expectation colored my thoughts: I read the whole game as being Ending A, pretty much, and thought I was going to start a new route until I looked up how to get the True End, and got it in a matter of minutes. (This created so much confusion and conflict in my mind, but after a few days of trying to separate expectations from experience, I think I've managed to find a middle ground in my feelings about the game). This is important because, through these many hours of strife, you get attached to the characters. A major tool Crystar uses for this tool are flashbacks where the characters are allowed to narrate their past traumas, using simple but very evocative illustrations from Hajime Ueda. Every major character gets this chance, in Crystar. Now, Crymachina didn't need to reprise this technique, but it did... only for two characters, one of them being Lilly, who is relevant for about 2-3 hours of the story. It's incomprehensible, to me. Nothing justifies using these flashbacks only for Ami and Lilly, instead of say, Leben and Enoa. Crymachina doesn't have time to let everyone talk about themselves though, and so makes these two completely arbitrary choices, and then resumes its march forward.
And so, by the time the game ended, all I felt was that I wanted more. The ending sequence is so short, too; after beating the final boss, it takes maybe five minutes for everything to be wrapped up, if you don't count the credits. That's the disappointing part to me: the ending lacks emotional impact, it lacks gravity, and those things are what I wanted most from Crystar's successor. This is where, most of all, Crymachina falls well short of Crystar.
To be clear, the core aspects of the game are still incredibly strong: the writing is better in some aspects as I mentioned, and the themes of emotional growth and self-determination expressed throughout are truly sweet. Enoa's story, in particular, is beautiful. But, with her as with all the other cast members, I didn't have time to get attached anywhere near as much I'd wanted: this game doesn't allow itself to have a Sen or a Nanami, mostly due to the setting and plot being too dense for this kind of length to also allot time to more expressive character writing. (as a more personal wish, god did I wanna see more of the Trinity! Those fools! Give me more of them!!)
To be honest, saying "this game should've been longer" is frustrating, because I truly do believe Crymachina had everything it takes to elevate itself to the level of something like Tales of Berseria as one of the best, most emotional tales in a JRPG of the past 5 years. But it's simply... too short. It's good, though! It's... just... good. It falls short of excellence by so little, a mere matter of lines of text, and it's a little bit sad, but at least, unlike Berseria's successor, it's certainly far from garbage. But I really wanted this game to be "betterer Crystar", and it was almost that... except in the one defining aspect that made Crystar so charming. A shame, really. I still like it, though, I do want to emphasize this. It's a cool story, at its core, and Enoa deserves all the happiness.
This is one I feel very conflicted about. To explain myself, I need to write a little about how I got to this game.
So, a few months prior to this one releasing, I played the same team's prior game, Crystar. To put it quickly, it was a very bad game, but despite the writing being rough around the edges too, it had an absolutely lovely cast of characters and a pretty depressing, Yoko Taro-esque narrative structure which allowed the game to finish off with an emotional payoff that truly hit me like a truck. It's a game that, for all its flaws, had a very strong emotional core that I couldn't help being charmed by.
So when I learned that the same team had a new game just around the corner, I was very excited, and the demo that came out not long before its full release finished selling me on it: it looked a lot better visually, seemed like a step up gameplay-wise (though the bar set by Crystar in that regard was incredibly low)... in short, if it could reproduce the strong emotional effect of Crystar or something close, I felt like it could be a true gem.
And, in some ways, it is a step up from Crystar: the setting is more fleshed out, with less of those rough edges I mentioned before. Most notably for me, the fact that this game is canonically gay helps a lot: in a game that talks about ego and being true to your heart, that kind of message is so much stronger when not all the relationships and characters just so happen to fit a narrow social norm. The setting is also much more fleshed out in general, with all the antagonists having their own motivations and allegiances... another aspect I like is how clear the game is about what kind of ideology the enemy upholds: you're not just fighting a nondescript "system", but rather a group of eugenicists who want "investors" and others to lead them into a new world.
So then, why is it that I don't like this game over Crystar? To put it simply: Crymachina critically lacks the emotional power of its predecessor. Here, the fact that the setting is much more fleshed out actually comes back to haunt Crymachina: despite it having so much more going on than Crystar, which had an extremely simple setting, it actually took me a couple hours less to finish than Crystar. And because of this, this game is packed chock full of twists; too many of them, to be honest. Even major twists, like the one about humanity not being what we thought it was, get brushed aside: after a couple dialogues, the story is back to a steady march toward its grand finale. And this is another difference which made Crystar more impactful: here we have a linear story, versus Crystar's multi-ending structure. And this structure matters, because it helps a lot with telling an emotional story in those 25 hours Crystar has: until the final few hours, you're absolutely going through it, with moments of emotional respite being few and far between. I expected Crymachina to be like this. In fact, for a while after finishing it, this expectation colored my thoughts: I read the whole game as being Ending A, pretty much, and thought I was going to start a new route until I looked up how to get the True End, and got it in a matter of minutes. (This created so much confusion and conflict in my mind, but after a few days of trying to separate expectations from experience, I think I've managed to find a middle ground in my feelings about the game). This is important because, through these many hours of strife, you get attached to the characters. A major tool Crystar uses for this tool are flashbacks where the characters are allowed to narrate their past traumas, using simple but very evocative illustrations from Hajime Ueda. Every major character gets this chance, in Crystar. Now, Crymachina didn't need to reprise this technique, but it did... only for two characters, one of them being Lilly, who is relevant for about 2-3 hours of the story. It's incomprehensible, to me. Nothing justifies using these flashbacks only for Ami and Lilly, instead of say, Leben and Enoa. Crymachina doesn't have time to let everyone talk about themselves though, and so makes these two completely arbitrary choices, and then resumes its march forward.
And so, by the time the game ended, all I felt was that I wanted more. The ending sequence is so short, too; after beating the final boss, it takes maybe five minutes for everything to be wrapped up, if you don't count the credits. That's the disappointing part to me: the ending lacks emotional impact, it lacks gravity, and those things are what I wanted most from Crystar's successor. This is where, most of all, Crymachina falls well short of Crystar.
To be clear, the core aspects of the game are still incredibly strong: the writing is better in some aspects as I mentioned, and the themes of emotional growth and self-determination expressed throughout are truly sweet. Enoa's story, in particular, is beautiful. But, with her as with all the other cast members, I didn't have time to get attached anywhere near as much I'd wanted: this game doesn't allow itself to have a Sen or a Nanami, mostly due to the setting and plot being too dense for this kind of length to also allot time to more expressive character writing. (as a more personal wish, god did I wanna see more of the Trinity! Those fools! Give me more of them!!)
To be honest, saying "this game should've been longer" is frustrating, because I truly do believe Crymachina had everything it takes to elevate itself to the level of something like Tales of Berseria as one of the best, most emotional tales in a JRPG of the past 5 years. But it's simply... too short. It's good, though! It's... just... good. It falls short of excellence by so little, a mere matter of lines of text, and it's a little bit sad, but at least, unlike Berseria's successor, it's certainly far from garbage. But I really wanted this game to be "betterer Crystar", and it was almost that... except in the one defining aspect that made Crystar so charming. A shame, really. I still like it, though, I do want to emphasize this. It's a cool story, at its core, and Enoa deserves all the happiness.
2018
It's a bit like listening to an amazarashi album, but in the form of a very bad video game instead. Thankfully I love amazarashi enough to have seen him live in Japan, so I still liked this a whole ton.
2023
Final Fantasy XVI, despite being a technical triumph and one of the most visually spectacular games released to date, tries to force many eclectic references into one single package only to end up with an incoherent and generic result.
Mechanically, it's stuck between a rock and a hard place: it cannot be an in-depth character action game a la Devil May Cry due to its mainstream ambitions; but because it still wants to be a character action game, it cannot be an RPG in the way hitherto Final Fantasies were. The end result is a combat system that, through a mix of visual and audio feedback, feels fantastic, but does not hold its own the whole way due to a lack of depth: this game offers so little in the way of choice that it's basically not an RPG, and once the player has figured out an effective combat routine, nothing about the opponents will push them to change anything.
But it's story-wise that FFXVI comes up way short. The ambition to make a dark, "serious" RPG is clear from the onset, but by the end the narrative is running through a checklist of JRPG clichés that make me think the writers simply didn't have the whole Game of Thrones style down, and ultimately had to fall back on what they knew to conclude their story. What I mean by this is that it's a game that will present a lot of desolation, but before any of it sinks in, the focus turns to Clive waxing poetical about human will and whatnot. The ending is utterly generic as well. ROT13: N znwbe rknzcyr, gb zr, vf gung jura Pyvir qrsrngf Hygvzn ur vafvfgf ba ubj punbgvp naq cnvashy gur jbeyq jvyy or juvyr vg gevrf gb erohvyq vgfrys jvgubhg n Tbq be zntvp; ohg gur rcvybthr vf na nofbyhgryl hgbcvna cvpgher jurer sybjref ner oybbzvat naq puvyqera ner cynlvat va gur svryqf, gur fha ng vgf mravgu. Thus here as well the game is between a rock and a hard place: it's not clear if we're supposed to read it as this mature GoT-like story because it doesn't have the harsh edges for it, but because it does try to present itself as mature, it cannot be appreciated as a candid and hopeful tale in the way FFVIIR might be read. The writing also suffers from being the most misogynistic I've seen a game be in a long, long time; even the heroine, Jill, is by and large only written as Clive's love interest. My theory is that this is also due to a lack of understanding of the whole "dark, GoT-like" style of writing: for these writers, "dark" can only mean male-centric, as it's men and men only who do the serious business in this old medieval world (see YoshiP's infamous comments on diversity in FFXVI for reference; although not directly about gender, I think they translate over pretty well to this issue). Thus women, except those who are on the side from the get-go (shout out to Mid), suffer from constant relegation to less than flattering roles, because they are deemed unfit for purpose. Ultimately I'd call the writing in FFXVI as generic in the worst ways: it picks up GoT-like clichés without any of the substance or, and ends with some of the most ancestral JRPG banalities. Whatever direction it takes, it simply fails to add any value of its own, and worse sometimes even fails to meet the standards of its sources.
All in all, I'd call FFXVI a disappointment. That said, it definitely sets the bar in some ways: visually it's a stunner, with some of the grandest cutscenes ever to be put in a video game. The amount of care put into every corner of the world is beautiful to see, whether it's in the way each area has a distinct visual identity and inner coherence, or in the exquisite technical details, such as those oh-so-beautiful shadows the game boasts. And this is what I'm hoping Final Fantasy XVI inspires: another game that might tie together the technical finesse and grandeur of XVI with more narrative and mechanical mastery. If that game comes, I think XVI will begin to age rapidly; but at least it's a game that can aspire to a heritage, so there's that.
Mechanically, it's stuck between a rock and a hard place: it cannot be an in-depth character action game a la Devil May Cry due to its mainstream ambitions; but because it still wants to be a character action game, it cannot be an RPG in the way hitherto Final Fantasies were. The end result is a combat system that, through a mix of visual and audio feedback, feels fantastic, but does not hold its own the whole way due to a lack of depth: this game offers so little in the way of choice that it's basically not an RPG, and once the player has figured out an effective combat routine, nothing about the opponents will push them to change anything.
But it's story-wise that FFXVI comes up way short. The ambition to make a dark, "serious" RPG is clear from the onset, but by the end the narrative is running through a checklist of JRPG clichés that make me think the writers simply didn't have the whole Game of Thrones style down, and ultimately had to fall back on what they knew to conclude their story. What I mean by this is that it's a game that will present a lot of desolation, but before any of it sinks in, the focus turns to Clive waxing poetical about human will and whatnot. The ending is utterly generic as well. ROT13: N znwbe rknzcyr, gb zr, vf gung jura Pyvir qrsrngf Hygvzn ur vafvfgf ba ubj punbgvp naq cnvashy gur jbeyq jvyy or juvyr vg gevrf gb erohvyq vgfrys jvgubhg n Tbq be zntvp; ohg gur rcvybthr vf na nofbyhgryl hgbcvna cvpgher jurer sybjref ner oybbzvat naq puvyqera ner cynlvat va gur svryqf, gur fha ng vgf mravgu. Thus here as well the game is between a rock and a hard place: it's not clear if we're supposed to read it as this mature GoT-like story because it doesn't have the harsh edges for it, but because it does try to present itself as mature, it cannot be appreciated as a candid and hopeful tale in the way FFVIIR might be read. The writing also suffers from being the most misogynistic I've seen a game be in a long, long time; even the heroine, Jill, is by and large only written as Clive's love interest. My theory is that this is also due to a lack of understanding of the whole "dark, GoT-like" style of writing: for these writers, "dark" can only mean male-centric, as it's men and men only who do the serious business in this old medieval world (see YoshiP's infamous comments on diversity in FFXVI for reference; although not directly about gender, I think they translate over pretty well to this issue). Thus women, except those who are on the side from the get-go (shout out to Mid), suffer from constant relegation to less than flattering roles, because they are deemed unfit for purpose. Ultimately I'd call the writing in FFXVI as generic in the worst ways: it picks up GoT-like clichés without any of the substance or, and ends with some of the most ancestral JRPG banalities. Whatever direction it takes, it simply fails to add any value of its own, and worse sometimes even fails to meet the standards of its sources.
All in all, I'd call FFXVI a disappointment. That said, it definitely sets the bar in some ways: visually it's a stunner, with some of the grandest cutscenes ever to be put in a video game. The amount of care put into every corner of the world is beautiful to see, whether it's in the way each area has a distinct visual identity and inner coherence, or in the exquisite technical details, such as those oh-so-beautiful shadows the game boasts. And this is what I'm hoping Final Fantasy XVI inspires: another game that might tie together the technical finesse and grandeur of XVI with more narrative and mechanical mastery. If that game comes, I think XVI will begin to age rapidly; but at least it's a game that can aspire to a heritage, so there's that.
This review contains spoilers
The best entry in the Ryza trilogy, despite some issues. (warning this is maybe a bit long for Backloggd review, but idk where else to put this)
In many ways, this game succeeds at feeling like the culmination of Ryza's adventure. Firstly, we have this third part's big new thing, the "open field" design, and it makes complete sense: remember when, for Ryza 2, they promoted the fact that now Ryza could swim? It seems to me that the idea, with this trilogy, was to build an Atelier game that was more like an adventure RPG, but in many ways in 2, it still felt like the pace and movement were very much that of typical Atelier game; in Ryza 3 however, movement is more free now that the field has opened up, and much, much faster. So it is that Ryza can swim, but she can now pick materials up at blistering speeds, and with some added verticality, can now jump across more obstacles than ever. There really is a sense of pleasure to traversal by this franchise's standards, and Ryza finally plays like the young, energetic traveler she is in the text. There's a few other advantages to this open field: first of all, it's now easier to do character quests at your pace, since you need to go to specific places; I found triggering them as soon as I entered one area quite fatiguing in previous titles, so I appreciate this. Secondly, the entrance into this new open field system is just excellent: walking up to this archipelago, watching it extend into the distance, being able to swim through it seamlessly, to explore different islands each of which has its own unique look and feel... it's a great way to sell this new level design, and I think they nailed that part. The idea of building new ateliers all over the world and being able to customize them each, too, is neat and lines up well with the whole fantasy of alchemy, too. In general, I appreciate the accelerated speed too, as gathering materials felt a lot easier than before. But this new design does, in my opinion, also underline that Gust are not exactly masters of level design: they're always functional, in that they allow to gather everything that you need, but they're typically very standard and lack a sense of purpose beyond that (I will say though, I prefer this one to the world of Sophie 2, which in my opinion really fell short of what it could've been based on its premise). If Gust want to pursue this open field design further--and I assume they might, given this trilogy's commercial success--they'll need to up their level design game, in my opinion.
The writing is, in my opinion, where this game succeeds the best at ending Ryza's story on a high note. Of course the story is simplistic and has little to no thematic depth, but I was pleased by how focused it seemed: on ending everyone's stories, and allowing them to talk about who they wanted to become once our right to travel alongside them had ended. The themes that had always been central to the previous two games: the desire to find purpose in one's life, the interconnectedness of all people past, present and future... are all here, and come across very well in the main storyline with its focus on ending the wrongs of the past and the prospect of collaboration between the two worlds. They are also nicely repeated on the level of the romances, and Federica's own storyline, among others. The ending especially, with Ryza departing in search of a disciple, felt extremely appropriate for her, and her concluding monologue was very touching. Really, my only complaint is they didn't make her and Klaudia kiss! C'mon, this is a game that will never miss a chance to remind us of how special their bond is... just let them KISS...
Anyway, I got the sense of a story that knew what it wanted to communicate to the player, and I was pleased by that; despite its extreme simplicity, it was a very pleasant time. That said, it really emphasized my doubts about the relevance of 2's entire story... where is Serri?! where has the whole lore gone?! and obviously, the exploration mechanic from 2 is gone. I'm not sure what all that was about, but in any case, 3 was a really nice story.
Where Ryza 3, and this trilogy as a whole, falters a bit, is the alchemy mechanics. Now, the first Ryza was the first Atelier game I truly fell in love with (after managing to reach credits in Sophie despite not really understanding the whole system much at all), and a huge part of that was that, compared to the aforementioned Sophie, the alchemy was a bit easier; no books with vague hints about how to unlock recipes, you just had to buy the books. No weird chessboard to optimize, you just put the materials where the game tells you to. But I think in 2 and now more than before in 3, this series' lost itself a bit by trying to add unnecessary mechanics. The whole "High Purity" trick, which makes it possible to break the game and reach incredibly high levels in the first hours of the game, symbolizes this: these types of loopholes are typically a sign that the developers added too many systems before they could make sure their balance was actually alright. I still remember finding the idea of a skill tree sad in 2, and this one makes it even worse: you can't even reach the highest level weapons by simply making weapons, instead you need to spend SP on weapon recipes! And given you can't see where the skill tree is headed, you can't really know where you need to go in order to unlock the most important recipes, either, which is grating to say the least. Why can't I just get lost in my alchemy? Why add unnecessary mechanics between me and the cauldron? I also don't like things like Item Rebuild, because it makes a bit too easy (in my opinion) to make stupidly good gear. Sophie 2, for me, might me the best in the franchise in terms of pure alchemy mechanics, in that it encourages making and remaking, and the rewards flow organically from engaging with the alchemy system: new recipes come, you progressively become able to make stronger and stronger items without a bunch of extra mechanics to easily make your stuff super strong... and Ryza 3 is simply a far cry from that. The other big aspect I didn't like was the key system... I barely used it, and why would I bother? If you understand the alchemy system well enough, you should be able to be strong enough even without them... but I speak as someone who just really enjoys the alchemy system. In many ways this comes back to the ambition of making an adventure RPG I talked about earlier: there's more mechanics around the alchemy, and thus less need to deepen your familiarity with that system alone compared to something like Sophie; it's easier to get into if you're a regular JRPG player, and that's why I still tend to recommend Ryza to newcomers who want to give this franchise a shot.
Finally, a few technical notes. Ryza 3 is far and away the best looking game in the franchise. The thicker outlines around character models do a lot to move away from the plastic-y look in Ryza 2, the skybox is way more pleasant to look at, the areas are more attractive overall, the long sights can be a treat too. It also seems to resolve most of 2's issues with nonsensical reflective properties on surfaces (I dare you to look at a rocky surface in 2 and not wonder if you're looking at a mirror). However, while the open field was clearly a challenge, I understand that, PS5 performance was disappointing at best. Here's my guess: they made this game for PS4, and given PS5 GPU good, higher resolution and framerate. This means: 0 CPU-level optimization. Areas with loads of NPCs? Stuttering! Random quests (a system I didn't like btw)? Stutters if the area is busy enough! Draw-in distances? Give me a hell yeah if you love seeing foliage pop up wherever you go. Also I'm pretty this game uses dynamic resolution scaling, which is fine, but it's kind of weird when in mid-battle you see the text become blurry. I guess they didn't have time to make it not apply to menu elements. Now these are not the biggest productions and overall none of this affected my experience too badly, but it's still a shame. The game is definitely pretty, and all I can hope is the people at Gust learn a lot from this big technical challenge they took on with moving to an open field design, and their next games take that next step forward technically.
This was long, but I mostly wrote this to put my own feelings in order; you see I love Atelier games, and Ryza 1 was my first experience falling in love with the franchise, and I just really, really love Ryza. And ultimately that's what this is about, and why I feel ever so slightly empty a day after finishing this game: it was a touching conclusion to her adventure, and this series is all about her. That's enough in my eyes for this game to succeed, because the Ryza series is one that's defined by its titular heroine, whose growth was wonderful to follow throughout. I still remember thinking she was a brat when I first started Ryza 1. She still kind of is, but well... she really has come into her own, hasn't she. She's just one of those protagonists who's so effortlessly charming that she can carry an entire series on her own; she kind of reminds me of Gravity Rush's Kitten, in that way. Which is to say, while none of the Ryza games may reach the heights of a Sophie 2 for me as an Atelier game, I'm still thankful to Ryza for really getting me into this franchise, and Ryza herself I'll always remember as one of my favorite video game heroines ever.
Thank you for letting me experience this journey with you, good alchemist. Goodbye!
In many ways, this game succeeds at feeling like the culmination of Ryza's adventure. Firstly, we have this third part's big new thing, the "open field" design, and it makes complete sense: remember when, for Ryza 2, they promoted the fact that now Ryza could swim? It seems to me that the idea, with this trilogy, was to build an Atelier game that was more like an adventure RPG, but in many ways in 2, it still felt like the pace and movement were very much that of typical Atelier game; in Ryza 3 however, movement is more free now that the field has opened up, and much, much faster. So it is that Ryza can swim, but she can now pick materials up at blistering speeds, and with some added verticality, can now jump across more obstacles than ever. There really is a sense of pleasure to traversal by this franchise's standards, and Ryza finally plays like the young, energetic traveler she is in the text. There's a few other advantages to this open field: first of all, it's now easier to do character quests at your pace, since you need to go to specific places; I found triggering them as soon as I entered one area quite fatiguing in previous titles, so I appreciate this. Secondly, the entrance into this new open field system is just excellent: walking up to this archipelago, watching it extend into the distance, being able to swim through it seamlessly, to explore different islands each of which has its own unique look and feel... it's a great way to sell this new level design, and I think they nailed that part. The idea of building new ateliers all over the world and being able to customize them each, too, is neat and lines up well with the whole fantasy of alchemy, too. In general, I appreciate the accelerated speed too, as gathering materials felt a lot easier than before. But this new design does, in my opinion, also underline that Gust are not exactly masters of level design: they're always functional, in that they allow to gather everything that you need, but they're typically very standard and lack a sense of purpose beyond that (I will say though, I prefer this one to the world of Sophie 2, which in my opinion really fell short of what it could've been based on its premise). If Gust want to pursue this open field design further--and I assume they might, given this trilogy's commercial success--they'll need to up their level design game, in my opinion.
The writing is, in my opinion, where this game succeeds the best at ending Ryza's story on a high note. Of course the story is simplistic and has little to no thematic depth, but I was pleased by how focused it seemed: on ending everyone's stories, and allowing them to talk about who they wanted to become once our right to travel alongside them had ended. The themes that had always been central to the previous two games: the desire to find purpose in one's life, the interconnectedness of all people past, present and future... are all here, and come across very well in the main storyline with its focus on ending the wrongs of the past and the prospect of collaboration between the two worlds. They are also nicely repeated on the level of the romances, and Federica's own storyline, among others. The ending especially, with Ryza departing in search of a disciple, felt extremely appropriate for her, and her concluding monologue was very touching. Really, my only complaint is they didn't make her and Klaudia kiss! C'mon, this is a game that will never miss a chance to remind us of how special their bond is... just let them KISS...
Anyway, I got the sense of a story that knew what it wanted to communicate to the player, and I was pleased by that; despite its extreme simplicity, it was a very pleasant time. That said, it really emphasized my doubts about the relevance of 2's entire story... where is Serri?! where has the whole lore gone?! and obviously, the exploration mechanic from 2 is gone. I'm not sure what all that was about, but in any case, 3 was a really nice story.
Where Ryza 3, and this trilogy as a whole, falters a bit, is the alchemy mechanics. Now, the first Ryza was the first Atelier game I truly fell in love with (after managing to reach credits in Sophie despite not really understanding the whole system much at all), and a huge part of that was that, compared to the aforementioned Sophie, the alchemy was a bit easier; no books with vague hints about how to unlock recipes, you just had to buy the books. No weird chessboard to optimize, you just put the materials where the game tells you to. But I think in 2 and now more than before in 3, this series' lost itself a bit by trying to add unnecessary mechanics. The whole "High Purity" trick, which makes it possible to break the game and reach incredibly high levels in the first hours of the game, symbolizes this: these types of loopholes are typically a sign that the developers added too many systems before they could make sure their balance was actually alright. I still remember finding the idea of a skill tree sad in 2, and this one makes it even worse: you can't even reach the highest level weapons by simply making weapons, instead you need to spend SP on weapon recipes! And given you can't see where the skill tree is headed, you can't really know where you need to go in order to unlock the most important recipes, either, which is grating to say the least. Why can't I just get lost in my alchemy? Why add unnecessary mechanics between me and the cauldron? I also don't like things like Item Rebuild, because it makes a bit too easy (in my opinion) to make stupidly good gear. Sophie 2, for me, might me the best in the franchise in terms of pure alchemy mechanics, in that it encourages making and remaking, and the rewards flow organically from engaging with the alchemy system: new recipes come, you progressively become able to make stronger and stronger items without a bunch of extra mechanics to easily make your stuff super strong... and Ryza 3 is simply a far cry from that. The other big aspect I didn't like was the key system... I barely used it, and why would I bother? If you understand the alchemy system well enough, you should be able to be strong enough even without them... but I speak as someone who just really enjoys the alchemy system. In many ways this comes back to the ambition of making an adventure RPG I talked about earlier: there's more mechanics around the alchemy, and thus less need to deepen your familiarity with that system alone compared to something like Sophie; it's easier to get into if you're a regular JRPG player, and that's why I still tend to recommend Ryza to newcomers who want to give this franchise a shot.
Finally, a few technical notes. Ryza 3 is far and away the best looking game in the franchise. The thicker outlines around character models do a lot to move away from the plastic-y look in Ryza 2, the skybox is way more pleasant to look at, the areas are more attractive overall, the long sights can be a treat too. It also seems to resolve most of 2's issues with nonsensical reflective properties on surfaces (I dare you to look at a rocky surface in 2 and not wonder if you're looking at a mirror). However, while the open field was clearly a challenge, I understand that, PS5 performance was disappointing at best. Here's my guess: they made this game for PS4, and given PS5 GPU good, higher resolution and framerate. This means: 0 CPU-level optimization. Areas with loads of NPCs? Stuttering! Random quests (a system I didn't like btw)? Stutters if the area is busy enough! Draw-in distances? Give me a hell yeah if you love seeing foliage pop up wherever you go. Also I'm pretty this game uses dynamic resolution scaling, which is fine, but it's kind of weird when in mid-battle you see the text become blurry. I guess they didn't have time to make it not apply to menu elements. Now these are not the biggest productions and overall none of this affected my experience too badly, but it's still a shame. The game is definitely pretty, and all I can hope is the people at Gust learn a lot from this big technical challenge they took on with moving to an open field design, and their next games take that next step forward technically.
This was long, but I mostly wrote this to put my own feelings in order; you see I love Atelier games, and Ryza 1 was my first experience falling in love with the franchise, and I just really, really love Ryza. And ultimately that's what this is about, and why I feel ever so slightly empty a day after finishing this game: it was a touching conclusion to her adventure, and this series is all about her. That's enough in my eyes for this game to succeed, because the Ryza series is one that's defined by its titular heroine, whose growth was wonderful to follow throughout. I still remember thinking she was a brat when I first started Ryza 1. She still kind of is, but well... she really has come into her own, hasn't she. She's just one of those protagonists who's so effortlessly charming that she can carry an entire series on her own; she kind of reminds me of Gravity Rush's Kitten, in that way. Which is to say, while none of the Ryza games may reach the heights of a Sophie 2 for me as an Atelier game, I'm still thankful to Ryza for really getting me into this franchise, and Ryza herself I'll always remember as one of my favorite video game heroines ever.
Thank you for letting me experience this journey with you, good alchemist. Goodbye!
Solid game overall. The alchemy system is very streamlined which is good for beginners, but imo not as satisfying as the one in e.g. Sophie 2 for players with a bit more experience. The ability to transform items into gems is smart, but I found myself needing more than I could reasonably create, which was slightly annoying. Some of the new mechanics also felt unnecessary: I never got much out of upgrading Romy's shop, and the ability to dig up materials while on the beast's back actively detracts from the need to make the proper tools to find high level stuff. Upgrading equipment at Denis' also feels a little redundant with Item Rebuild (which costs gems too). I was also very disappointed to find this game has its own version of an ability tree, and find this far inferior to the recipe books of Sophie, which feel like they reward you organically for engaging with the alchemy. Overall, I didn't find this entry to be the best at encouraging the player to invest themselves in the alchemy system. I still had fun with it, however; at the end of the day, it's still an Atelier game, and the pleasure of the base gameplay loop is still very much there in Ryza 2. It's also a very cute game, with a cute story that isn't exactly a masterpiece but gets the job done (especially for a game where I wouldn't want the story to give me too much of a sense of urgency anyway), largely thanks to its lead being one of the ultimate video game cuties. Looking forward to Ryza 3!