Current Events > Just replayed Atelier Ayesha. Kinda needed a comfort game, and it delivered

(+) Yeah! (+)

This isn't a blogfaqs talking about like personal issues, though I will say generally that I've been pretty up and down lately. My original plan was to buy the Dusk trilogy on Switch, but the whole collection is $135, or $60 per game - and I already had Atelier Ayesha on PS3.

The conceit of Atelier is fairly simple. You play as a girl who's tasked with fulfilling an objective within a set time limit - usually a couple of in-game years. Sometimes that's something like making the best shop in the world, sometimes it's solving the mystery of your family member's disappearance. Your protagonist is an alchemist of varying levels of skill or determination, and your goal is basically to teach the main character alchemy, level them up for combat encounters and complete the game's story within the assigned time limit.

In Atelier Ayesha, you play as Ayesha Altugle, a young apothecary whose sister Nio disappeared five years ago. Everyone assumed she was spirited away or otherwise died while out gathering medicinal herbs for the Altugle workshop.

One day some glowing flowers appear at her grave, and a projection of Nio appears. This is noticed by a passing alchemist who'd been investigating the local area for unstated reasons, and he gives Ayesha a push towards using alchemy to find her supposedly dead sister.

Look, the thing about Atelier games is that they're very cutesy. You're always playing as a very femme girl, they're often ditzy and scatterbrained, and most of the story is very lighthearted. That's not to say there are no stakes or that there's no gravitas to the situation - it's just that between a very personal, emotional story, you're gonna get a lot of fluff. But that's what makes Atelier Ayesha such a good comfort game.

The setting of the Atelier Dusk trilogy - of which Ayesha is the first - is within a dying world that struggles to replenish itself after a great calamity centuries ago. Plants are withering up, the ground is eroding and water sources are diminishing. Alongside your standard fantasy fare - wolves, fucked up weird bears, little elemental spirits - you have warped, gooey, slightly mechanical enemies named Slags. As far as you can tell, the world is going to continue to diminish until no-one is left.

So the tone of the game is underscored by a degree of melancholy. Its music gets really earthy and sad, and the seemingly cheerful world around you is constantly undercut by the alchemist who sets Ayesha out on her journey, teaching her about how the world was brought to the brink of ruin.

That doesn't stop the game from having a bunch of cheesecake scenes in it, most of which feel pretty inappropriate and don't add a whole lot to the experience. I'd characterise Atelier Ayesha as "fluff with texture" - you're getting a silly anime girl game, but if you get invested in the personal stakes of the game and in the gameplay systems, you're going to have a pretty robust experience. It helps that the game is very laidback and easy to enjoy despite the in-game time limit, and it has a laundry list of endings for completionists who get invested in the characters.

Also, the final boss music FUCKS HARD. I made a post about it a while back:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/9/4/AAbh80AAC4eK.jpg
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/9/5/AAbh80AAC4eL.jpg
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/9/6/AAbh80AAC4eM.jpg
Seriously, listen to the main motif of the storyline:

https://youtu.be/FcGCqjU1WwQ

It's earthy, it's melancholy, it sells the sad state of the world. I fucking love the way they use the rainstick in this song, it's always a treat to listen to. Try and get at least 30 seconds into the song so you get a feel for how the song goes.

This is the final boss theme:

https://youtu.be/EVcc16o0SaY

They took the best song in the game and did THAT with it. It is an absolute fucking treat for the senses, and it's a fantastic reward for being able to get to the final boss before you run out of time.

The worst part about games like these are when there are unnecessary cheesecake scenes, like "oh hey, this female character grabbed another female character's boobs and keeps saying she'll take the other character as her wife - for comedic effect, of course! This character is naked, and three people walked in on them! How embarrassing!" - like that shit is cringe. I dig the lighthearted anime vibe, but when you have characters comparing tit sizes out of nowhere it's really disappointing. It's inconsequential, and there's not much of it, but I don't like it. That's one downside to playing Atelier games.

But otherwise, Atelier Ayesha is a great mix of turn-based RPG gameplay, item crafting (synthesis takes up a lot of the game, but the system feels really well integrated into the game on account of the story's focus on alchemy rather than as a more impersonal form of busywork jam-packed into a game for the sake of having a crafting system), lighthearted anime hijinks and meaningful plot moments. It's not perfect, Atelier games I've played all seem to feel a bit flimsy, but when you're down and out Atelier Ayesha will probably put a smile on your face. It feels good to play, the tone of the primary storyline is pretty solid, and it's just a really pleasant time. The replayability helps too.

Sometimes you've gotta have a comfort game, or a guilty pleasure. Atelier Ayesha is mine.

I'll give this topic one bump and let it die

Ayesha was the best Dusk game

MarthGoomba posted...

Ayesha was the best Dusk game

How are the other two games? Like is there anything that makes them outright bad to play rather than just worse?

MrMallard posted...

How are the other two games? Like is there anything that makes them outright bad to play rather than just worse?

They're okay but I just felt they were steps backwards mostly and I was never fond of Dusk's crafting compared to the other series.

Ah, okay. I read the character sheets on tv tropes and it seems like the most recurring characters are Wilbell, Nio and Keith. And Ayesha only shows up in the second game's remake, not even the base game.

The one thing I'm somewhat looking forward to is learning the truth about Linca.

I definitely agree Ayesha is the best of the Dusk series (and the best Atelier overall imo), but the other two aren't so bad, just didn't really deliver on the fantastic setup and potential Ayesha had. I'd say Shallie is better than Escha to Logy, but I really *really* like Escha and Logy as characters so it balances out a little.

They made a fourth Arland game which honestly owned way harder than it had any right to, and now they're making a fourth Mysterious game, which... well, I'm not the biggest Mysterious fan, but hey, cool. Wish they'd make a fourth Dusk game and give the series better closure, but I think that trilogy sold the least overall by a wide margin so it'll probably never happen rip.

But, man, seriously, MARIA is probably the best final boss theme I've ever heard. I still listen to it all time, it rocks so hard.

It really does lmao. Like I said, it's a great reward for getting to the end of the game.

Guidance is already the best song in the game, it's basically the story's motif. Whenever something significant happens, you hear that rainstick start and the low, moody flutes, and it fucks so hard. And then MARIA turns it into a bombastic choral orchestrated piece with a fucking ripping guitar solo? I haven't experienced a final boss song this good since this game.

How do I get into this series?

Sexypwnstar posted...

How do I get into this series?

I think most of the Atelier games are part of a duo/trilogy so start with one of the games like Ayesha/Rorona/Ryza which is the first in their respective series and go from there. I've only played like the first year of Rorona myself, so I don't have much to say on the series as a whole.

Sexypwnstar posted...

How do I get into this series?

Sexypwnstar posted...

How do I get into this series?

Honestly - and this is obviously a little biased - but Ayesha is probably the best place to start.

Totori is another fan favorite, and it's more in line with the classic series apparently, but everything from the slow, VN-style cutscenes to the failable crafting system (you can end up making junk instead of what you want) holds it behind somewhat. Atelier Ayesha has in-engine cutscenes, you can't fail the crafting system (though you still need to understand the crafting system to truly master it, which you will need for some storyline bosses), and the whole game is more streamlined and slightly more lenient towards new players.

It's like going from a PS1 RPG to a PS2 RPG. Not to diminish Totori, I wanna play the Arland trilogy next, but Ayesha is probably the best starting point for a new player. If I had played Totori first, I probably wouldn't have gotten into Atelier - but since I played Ayesha first, I have fond memories and I'm planning to play more of the series from here.

All of the games have their charm, but I think starting with a more lenient game and backtracking into the more challenging ones might be a good way to go. That's just me though.

The Ayesha trilogy probably is the best of the Atelier games tbqh

Can't wait for Sophie 2 later this month!

Sexypwnstar posted...

How do I get into this series?

Beyond what was already said a major factor will be the existence of the game being timed. Not all of the games have it and it's a very "love it or hate it" sort of affair. The games also tend to ramp up in QoL and while it isn't hard to go backwards due to all of the gameplay changes (every "set" of games has its own crafting system and thus play radically different in spite of not much else changing) this means that it will be hard to really go back and 100% if you've already done a newer game.

In that line I'd say that you should decide on whether or not you want to have limited time in game to do everything and buy the oldest one that follows the philosophy that you want to go with (probably also limited to what's on Steam as well as that is the only reasonable way to get deals on the older games). If you don't really want to go super deep/don't know if you do then just grab Ryza as it is the easiest one to get into due to the QoL + the fact that the alchemy system is very "vanilla" as far as how tricky it can be to master.