Playing Atelier Ryza *spoilers I guess*

Id kinda been interested in the game ever since it came out, but at the time I hadnt exactly been playing a ton of games, in more recent years Ive made a concerted effort to play a lot more games. And so Ive finally gotten around to this. Im aware that people who play this series have different opinions on the gameplay and which game to start with, but it seemed to me that this wasnt an unreasonable choice.

Not really too far in, game is pretty slow to start, which I suppose is to be expected in this series, based on everything Ive heard. Its slow enough that I might not end up updating this topic much, but Ill try to not let it immediately die. Only just unlocked the non-Party Quests feature.

Last atelier game I played was Firis, and I returned it within a day. Took almost 2 hours to get to the first combat, and another hour to get out of "prologue"/intro territory.

The pacing just lost me completely.
Let us know how this one feels!

meestermj posted...

Last atelier game I played was Firis, and I returned it within a day. Took almost 2 hours to get to the first combat, and another hour to get out of "prologue"/intro territory.

The pacing just lost me completely.
Let us know how this one feels!

Well, Ill say Ive been playing for a few hours and it still feels prologuey, but it didnt take super long to get to combat, though at the moment it still feels limited.

If you are looking for high octane action with key dangling raining everwhere for attention it's the wrong franchise in the first place....
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As always things gets introduced as you make certain progressions, but nothing really that will grind you to a halt. Besides maaaybe a landshark or something.

Do experiment and don't be afraid to use stuff while crafting.

The story will take time to get rolling, but the franchise is like that, so don't rush and go about it with farm girl.

PerseusRad posted...

Well, Ill say Ive been playing for a few hours and it still feels prologuey, but it didnt take super long to get to combat, though at the moment it still feels limited.

I know combat is a relatively small part of the atelier games, but if it's bad I can't get into it.
I love Stardew and Rune Factory. They both have different niches, and combat is very basic but enjoyable in both.
Firis angered me because it took forever for you to do anything meaningful. It was 3 hours of go here, talk to this person, go here and gather one flower, go here and gather one ore.
Just tedious. It's good to hear this one is better, I might pick it up!

meestermj posted...

I know combat is a relatively small part of the atelier games, but if it's bad I can't get into it.
I love Stardew and Rune Factory. They both have different niches, and combat is very basic but enjoyable in both.
Firis angered me because it took forever for you to do anything meaningful. It was 3 hours of go here, talk to this person, go here and gather one flower, go here and gather one ore.
Just tedious. It's good to hear this one is better, I might pick it up!

I mean, it's really entirely possible you just picked the wrong Atelier for you considering just how many there are.

Amakusa posted...

I mean, it's really entirely possible you just picked the wrong Atelier for you considering just how many there are.

Plus it's Totori 2.0, so experience would have been different if it was say Yumia....

If you end up linking Ryza, check out the sequel. It's amazing how well they understood what needed to be improved.

Earlier I got kinda blindsided by the Rock Puppet in the cave. Had low health and wasnt expecting something so beefy. I knew eventually Id have to be more conscientious about synthesis, but I wasnt expecting it. Theoretically I mightve been able to win, but Id been worn down earlier.

While I would exactly call it fast paced (and I knew it wouldnt be), its definitely picked up a fair amount, a more steady rhythm.

Klaudia joined a bit ago. Havent been able to use her too much, but she feels less effective than Tao, who I replaced. Might be a matter of her doing better in stuff like boss battles vs random encounters, but Im not really sure.

Amakusa posted...

I mean, it's really entirely possible you just picked the wrong Atelier for you considering just how many there are.

It's kind of that. While it definitely took me way less than two hours to get to combat, Firis is pretty specifically the slowest start out of the entire series.

PerseusRad posted...

Klaudia joined a bit ago. Havent been able to use her too much, but she feels less effective than Tao, who I replaced. Might be a matter of her doing better in stuff like boss battles vs random encounters, but Im not really sure.

Without spoiling things, the big value of any given character will always be tied to the alchemy system. So once you get particular things to synthesize then your valuation of the characters will change. Klaudia, for instance, will be better once you get something that you probably haven't gotten access to yet.

PerseusRad posted...

Klaudia joined a bit ago. Havent been able to use her too much, but she feels less effective than Tao, who I replaced. Might be a matter of her doing better in stuff like boss battles vs random encounters, but Im not really sure.

Klaudia is a very slow paced party member, which doesn't necessarily mean she can't pack a punch but in terms of DPS she's probably the worst.
It is Atelier though, you can very quickly break the balance to the point Legendary mode seems normal. I don't recommend doing it though, it takes some joy out of it since it's stupidly easy in Ryza and Yumia iirc.

Honestly she just started to feel better pretty quick, maybe I just forgot how Tao felt. It's pretty satisfying to unlock one recipe that branches out and lets you do a whole bunch of other stuff, or when you get the Item +1 after an Alchemy level that lets you synth the thing that had been out of reach for a good while.

If I had a complaint, it would be that despite kind of enjoying this branching system, it'd be nice if there were a few more recipe books you could buy. Maybe even letting you skip the branching step, if you really wanted to.

Edit: Hmm, just beat the Dragon in the castle, and it felt a bit too easy. I think I might be overleveled, was level 24, 25 after the fight. Losing to the Rock Puppet made me think that I was fine staying on Normal, but now I'm not sure. I'm not really big on 'higher number' difficulty levels, but I dunno.

Atelier's difficulty system rewards playing on higher difficulties by giving better quality loot iirc.

Tropicalwood posted...

Atelier's difficulty system rewards playing on higher difficulties by giving better quality loot iirc.

I think I mightve decided to switch to Hard mode in part cause you mentioned this. Thus far, it doesnt feel too different, though I just wiped to a Grand Tusk cause I was not expecting it to hit that hard. Got my runback though, rewarded with a pretty nice looking material.

Well well, the Dragon Lord actually beat me twice. First time, I was not expecting it at all. But then I went to get my runback and lost again. So I ended up rebuilding my Frost Armor and putting it on Lila (replaced Lent). Still was a bit shaky, tbh, Ryza easily could have died, and it mightve made things hard. Though since Lila was seemingly so resistant, I mightve had plenty of opportunity to revive her, since she was holding the Nectar (I think thats what it was)

Pretty sure Im nearing the end of the game. Discovered Kurken was an artificial island, which is a pretty cool twist. Im glad the Bos drama seems to be over, that came off as fairly poorly written all around. Like I felt as if I knew what they were going for, but it was sloppy.

Beat the game. Dunno if I'll do postgame or not. But I did like it well enough that I'd like to play 2 and probably 3 eventually, at some point. Took 42.5 hours, give or take, since there was surely a good amount of idling. It's interesting, while I don't think I'd put it at the tippy top of games I've played, a lot of long or longish games I play, I end up taking a break partway through, usually by accident. But I pretty much tore through this, doing practically all the side content that was feasible before postgame. So perhaps I liked it far more than I felt like I did, and I did like it.

I feel like it's worth reiterating that a lot of the stuff revolving around Bos felt pretty awkwardly handled through a large portion of the game. Closer to the end, it was fine, but before that, it just didn't sit right with me. It's not that it was boring or bad, exactly, it just didn't feel like it was implemented well. Other than that, characters were pretty charming, Ryza probably started off as the weakest, just because she felt a bit obnoxiously against doing anything for her parents. Which probably felt worse considering how badly Lent's dad treated him. But by the end of the game, I didn't have qualms with anyone.

Well I decided to do the postgame bonus bosses as well. Used some good old GameFAQs guides (and boards) to make the grind less tedious, Im not sure I wouldve figured out how to max Quality on my own. The Elixir, when maxed, is a hilariously broken item, considering you can get a ton of uses out of it if the items on your other party members are mostly worthless (well, like 4/6 were)