Atelier Rorona encapsulates many of the greatest aspect from the franchise. The alchemy is intriguing and makes you invest and experiment for hours in your laboratory; the characters are simple yet engaging in their daily life; the plot tells a simple tale about commitment and growth in a capitalistic society where you are asked to deliver what is basically your tax form to the central government every three months. I find this game very relatable.
The charm of the Atelier series has always been in its depiction of a quieter, more down to earth reality than the usual JRPGs focused on parties of heroes going on world adventures to defeat the raging evil that threatens the peace and ordinary life. The Atelier series focus exactly on that peace and ordinary life, showing the ordinary occurrences of people dealing with significant life events – as much as a fantasy world can prove relatable. All of this revolving around the titular character, Rorona, a young but dreamy girl – as per the series standard – caught in an unpleasant debacle, due to her unreliable master, with the local government trying to shut down the atelier she works in as an alchemist. Compared to the later iterations of the series, Rorona will have to struggle against a time limit to fulfil the periodical requests and keep the atelier in business, with the help of a delightful cast of side characters who will help Rorona in her growth from an insecure and apprehensive girl to a confident and capable alchemist.
The narrative is certainly not anything to call masterful or insightful, but it works nicely considering that the game is all about feeling the immersion of working as an alchemist, and that is why the world built around this concept has to grow cosy and comfortable to the players, so to think that it’s worth coming back to the city Arland, to help its people and find that quiet, daily respite. The endings are also influenced by the amount of care and commitment put to fulfil each major request, so if one were to grow attached to the characters and Rorona herself the game will reward that care by showing every possible finale related to each character’s scenario.
Unfortunately, another recurring standard for the series is having both the town and the world hugely uninspired and lacking interactivity or any deeper narrative to further strengthen that feeling of attachment and importance behind the role of alchemist. There is no interesting hidden flavour text like the Legend of Heroes series, nor quests that require your full attention and devotion to explore each nook and cranny of the map at large. There is Rorona, some good side characters with nice stories and colourful personalities – Gio, Cornelia, Lionela, Esty to name a few – but that’s about it, most of the town of Arland will always be filled with characters’ models that speak when prompted but don’t necessarily say anything to make you feel like they are fellow citizens.
The adventurer gameplay is also quite standard, even though, being the debut chapter on PlayStation 3, it revamped some old mechanics from the previous games in the series. The battle system is standard turn-based combat with combo attacks and defence, whilst gathering material is entirely based on which area you are exploring, regardless of the time of the day, the level of your characters and so on. Some side bonuses will raise the quality of items but by the endgame there will be some areas easily more compelling to use as gathering points than others.
Once again, the meat of the game lies in the alchemy system. Those familiar with the Fushigi trilogy will be probably disappointed by how bare the crafting is in this game, it doesn’t have any complex grid over the cauldron and the chance to get particular good traits solely depends on mixing the right components of high enough value. Yet, considering the sheer amount of effects and traits achievable and the vast quantity of items and equipment available for crafting, one will spend tens of hours experimenting between possible combinations to achieve that perfect healing item, that perfect bomb or that perfect armours and weapons.
Graphically the DX version also presents the improved characters models from the Plus edition of the game, rather than the more simplistic and meagre ones from the original PS3 release. The sprites are wonderfully expressive and beautifully drawn to show the best of the character designer, Kishida Mel, abilities. Alas, the world and the enemies lack a general care put into making them look diverse of interesting to look at, the dungeons are mostly linear with very few details and aesthetic values and many monsters are reskins from previous weaker mobs. The secret super bosses are somewhat interesting to look at and challenging, a lot of care will be put in crafting equipment just to defeat them, but there are very few of them and with the right set of items their fights will play as precise and uneventfully mechanical as a clockwork.
Atelier Rorona began a new era for its series, the era where, from being only renowned in Japan, the series went big on console in the west and became a niche product for the foreign audience. To have the whole trilogy at disposal on Steam, and also considering the numerous porting and remasters these particular titles received, is yet again a sign that proves how Koei Tecmo is fully aware of the huge popularity of the Arland games, particularly for nostalgic fans but also to make them accessible to newer players, who’d love to try a quieter approach to JRPGs.
The charm of the Atelier series has always been in its depiction of a quieter, more down to earth reality than the usual JRPGs focused on parties of heroes going on world adventures to defeat the raging evil that threatens the peace and ordinary life. The Atelier series focus exactly on that peace and ordinary life, showing the ordinary occurrences of people dealing with significant life events – as much as a fantasy world can prove relatable. All of this revolving around the titular character, Rorona, a young but dreamy girl – as per the series standard – caught in an unpleasant debacle, due to her unreliable master, with the local government trying to shut down the atelier she works in as an alchemist. Compared to the later iterations of the series, Rorona will have to struggle against a time limit to fulfil the periodical requests and keep the atelier in business, with the help of a delightful cast of side characters who will help Rorona in her growth from an insecure and apprehensive girl to a confident and capable alchemist.
The narrative is certainly not anything to call masterful or insightful, but it works nicely considering that the game is all about feeling the immersion of working as an alchemist, and that is why the world built around this concept has to grow cosy and comfortable to the players, so to think that it’s worth coming back to the city Arland, to help its people and find that quiet, daily respite. The endings are also influenced by the amount of care and commitment put to fulfil each major request, so if one were to grow attached to the characters and Rorona herself the game will reward that care by showing every possible finale related to each character’s scenario.
Unfortunately, another recurring standard for the series is having both the town and the world hugely uninspired and lacking interactivity or any deeper narrative to further strengthen that feeling of attachment and importance behind the role of alchemist. There is no interesting hidden flavour text like the Legend of Heroes series, nor quests that require your full attention and devotion to explore each nook and cranny of the map at large. There is Rorona, some good side characters with nice stories and colourful personalities – Gio, Cornelia, Lionela, Esty to name a few – but that’s about it, most of the town of Arland will always be filled with characters’ models that speak when prompted but don’t necessarily say anything to make you feel like they are fellow citizens.
The adventurer gameplay is also quite standard, even though, being the debut chapter on PlayStation 3, it revamped some old mechanics from the previous games in the series. The battle system is standard turn-based combat with combo attacks and defence, whilst gathering material is entirely based on which area you are exploring, regardless of the time of the day, the level of your characters and so on. Some side bonuses will raise the quality of items but by the endgame there will be some areas easily more compelling to use as gathering points than others.
Once again, the meat of the game lies in the alchemy system. Those familiar with the Fushigi trilogy will be probably disappointed by how bare the crafting is in this game, it doesn’t have any complex grid over the cauldron and the chance to get particular good traits solely depends on mixing the right components of high enough value. Yet, considering the sheer amount of effects and traits achievable and the vast quantity of items and equipment available for crafting, one will spend tens of hours experimenting between possible combinations to achieve that perfect healing item, that perfect bomb or that perfect armours and weapons.
Graphically the DX version also presents the improved characters models from the Plus edition of the game, rather than the more simplistic and meagre ones from the original PS3 release. The sprites are wonderfully expressive and beautifully drawn to show the best of the character designer, Kishida Mel, abilities. Alas, the world and the enemies lack a general care put into making them look diverse of interesting to look at, the dungeons are mostly linear with very few details and aesthetic values and many monsters are reskins from previous weaker mobs. The secret super bosses are somewhat interesting to look at and challenging, a lot of care will be put in crafting equipment just to defeat them, but there are very few of them and with the right set of items their fights will play as precise and uneventfully mechanical as a clockwork.
Atelier Rorona began a new era for its series, the era where, from being only renowned in Japan, the series went big on console in the west and became a niche product for the foreign audience. To have the whole trilogy at disposal on Steam, and also considering the numerous porting and remasters these particular titles received, is yet again a sign that proves how Koei Tecmo is fully aware of the huge popularity of the Arland games, particularly for nostalgic fans but also to make them accessible to newer players, who’d love to try a quieter approach to JRPGs.