Tag Archives: crafting

Atelier, Atelier Mysterious

Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book – Stirring the Pot

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As is tradition for the series at this point, Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book shakes things up considerably when it comes to its core alchemy mechanics.

And again in keeping with past installments, the reinvention isn’t so radical that it feels incongruous with the rest of the series, but it’s distinctive enough to makeΒ Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book stand out nicely amid its many, many peers.

So today let’s take a closer look at that alchemy system — along with how the people around the town of Kirchen Bell can help out with your studies!

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Atelier, Atelier Dusk

Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea – The Art of Shalchemy

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It would have been easy for the Atelier series to just stick with one alchemy system and trot it out for every new installment. And people would have probably been fine if Gust had chosen to keep the exact same alchemy system for all the games in each of the franchise’s subseries.

But as we’ve seen numerous times by this point, that isn’t how Gust does things. Gust likes to experiment, refine, reinvent and occasionally revisit past ideas, all in the name of providing an interesting and varied experience — say, for anyone undertaking some sort of ridiculous mission like playing all of the AtelierΒ games one after another.

Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk SeaΒ is one of those installments where Gust decided to reinvent the alchemy mechanics, rather than refining the systems we’d previously seen inΒ Atelier Escha & LogyΒ andΒ Atelier Ayesha. And it presents us with an interesting new angle to this aspect of gameplay.

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Atelier, Atelier Dusk

Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky – A Question of Technique

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As always for the Atelier series, alchemy is at the core of almost everything you do in Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky.

This time around, there’s an interesting distinction made between female protagonist Escha’s “traditional” approach, taught to her by her mother, and male protagonist Logy’s “modern” approach that he learned in the mysterious Central City. Mechanically speaking, both are pretty much the same — though they are each used for different purposes in the game as a whole.

Today we’re going to take a closer look at that alchemy system, see how it differs fromΒ Atelier Ayesha’s approach — and give a firm thumbs-up to some quality of life features that longstandingΒ Atelier fans will find very welcome, particularly if they haven’t playedΒ Atelier Lulua yet.

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Atelier, Atelier Arland

Atelier Lulua: The Scion of Arland – Fourth-Generation Alchemy

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Given that there was a gap of eight years and six games between Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland and Atelier Lulua: The Scion of Arland, it will doubtless not surprise you to learn that the latter’s mechanics aren’t just a rehash of the former’s.

Instead, upon the game’s initial announcement in Japan’s Weekly Famitsu, Gust revealed that the new game would feature an alchemy system that blended elements of the classic Arland games with more recent additions to the formula — specifically, incorporating some elements that had proven popular from the primarily PS4-basedΒ MysteriousΒ series.

The result is a mechanical core to the game that is accessible to newcomers but filled with a considerable amount of hidden depth — and which feels fresh and interesting to series veterans, even if they’re coming to Atelier LuluaΒ directly from the previous threeΒ ArlandΒ games. Let’s take a closer look.

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Atelier, Atelier Arland

Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland – A Princess’ Work is Never Done

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As Princess Merurulince Rede Arls faces down the formidable task of expanding the tiny little hamlet that is Arls kingdom into a bustling city of 30,000 residents in the space of three years, she clearly has a lot of work ahead of her.

More to the point, she has a lot of differentΒ typesΒ of work ahead of her, too, meaning she’ll need to carefully balance her time between cooking up alchemical creations in her workshop and heading out into the field to listen to the requests of the people, slap down the local monster populations and generally go rather above and beyond the expectations of someone of her social standing.

She loves every minute, though, and you’ll be right there alongside her as she takes on her many and varied challenges. In this part of the Atelier MegaFeature, we take a look at how Meruru crafts items, and how that helps her long-term objective of developing the kingdom.

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Atelier, Atelier Arland

Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland – A New Generation of Alchemy

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In the previous part of this feature, we took a high-level look at how Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland represented a return to theΒ AtelierΒ series’ roots, after Gust experimented with the formula quite a bit throughout the latter days of the PS2 era.

Today, we’re going to examine one of the main ways that the game combines this “traditional” feel with more complex, in-depth and modern mechanics: its revamped alchemy system. As the centrepiece of theΒ AtelierΒ series as a whole, this has always been where Gust has been at its most experimental and iterative, building on the best aspects of what had come before while casting aside the things that didn’t work quite so well or which couldn’t practically be fleshed out any further.

WhileΒ Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland’sΒ alchemy system is distinctive in its own right, it also clearly learns a lot of lessons from what immediately preceded it. So get that fire lit under your cauldron, and let’s get cookin’!

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Atelier, Atelier Arland

Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland – A Matter of Time

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A year after Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy bid a fond (and very late) farewell to the PlayStation 2, the Atelier series finally entered the high-definition era with the 2009 Japanese release of Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland for PlayStation 3.

Since the original release of the game and its 2010 localisation, we’ve seen a few other versions. In 2013,Β Atelier Rorona PlusΒ revamped the entire game for PlayStation 3 and Vita with the graphics engine and alchemy mechanics from Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland,Β the third game in theΒ ArlandΒ trilogy. In 2015, Japan got a peculiar chibified remake for Nintendo 3DS. And then in 2018, Atelier Rorona DX,Β a port ofΒ Atelier Rorona PlusΒ that included all its downloadable content, was released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Windows PC.

From hereon, we’ll primarily be looking at Atelier Rorona DX,Β since that is the most readily accessible version at the time of writing — but most of what we’ll talk about applies to all the different versions. So grab your Basket and let’s begin a whole new adventure!

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Atelier, Mana Khemia

Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy – Back to School

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After the Atelier Iris subseries marked a period of dabbling with a more “traditional” RPG-style structure, Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis demonstrated a clearly defined shift back towards Atelier’s roots. And Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy continues that trend.

Indeed, while the three Atelier IrisΒ games are largely unrelated to one another — aside from some long-term lore connections between Atelier Iris: Eternal ManaΒ andΒ Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth of Destiny —Β Mana Khemia 2: Fall of AlchemyΒ returns to the series’ original model of installments in the same subseries standing by themselves as self-contained narratives, but unfolding in the same world about 5-10 years later.

As the title suggests, time has not been especially kind to the world ofΒ Mana Khemia, but that’s part of what makes what’s going on here so interesting. Let’s take a first look!

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Atelier, Mana Khemia

Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis – The Ninth Atelier

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With the ninth installment in the mainline Atelier series, Gust took the curious decision to temporarily drop the “Atelier [x]” naming convention and instead start a new subseries.

Except it’s not quite that simple; the twoΒ Mana KhemiaΒ games actually have a fair bit in common with theΒ Atelier IrisΒ subseries in terms of presentation, mechanics, tone and themes, leading some people to consider them an unofficial part of theΒ Atelier IrisΒ “trilogy”.

Ultimately it doesn’t really matter too much;Β Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-RevisΒ certainly stands by itself as a solid title in the franchise as a whole, so let’s begin with a general overview of what it’s all about.

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Atelier, Atelier Iris, Cover Games

Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth of Destiny – Alchemy Evolution

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Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana was very clearly an attempt to do something different with the Atelier series… and also a bit of a playground for the development team to experiment with a wide variety of ideas.

This much becomes obvious almost from the moment you boot up 2005’s Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth of Destiny,Β which takes many of the things that worked from Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana,Β fixes the things thatΒ almostΒ worked and ditches the things that didn’t.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at howΒ Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth of DestinyΒ builds on its predecessor, and how this becomes clear over the course of the game’s early hours.

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