Atelie Series

[Dragon78]

So what Atelier(Alchemist) games have you played?

[atheral]

I rather liked Atelier Iris (the first one, didn't play 2 or 3) I've been wanting to play the rest of the series but haven't had time to grab any of them.

(Also I'd heard that Atelier Iris was an odd ball for the series so they got moved down on my long list of "to be played" games.)

[Caineach]

I've played the early ones, Atelier Iris 1-3, and a couple of their other games using the same engine. I felt like with each iteration they got worse, with less and less plot in favor of more grind. I haven't played any of the ones past the PS2.

[Dragon78]

I love the Atelier Iris games, along with Mana Khemia games. I have played Atelier Totori wich is fun but has thing annoying time limit thing that all but the most recent game has. I will be playing Atelier Shallie soon wich finally got rid of the time limit.

[atheral]

Oh I forgot Mana Khemia was part of this series, that was a pretty fun one as well.

[Neurophage]

I've played every Atelier game that's come out stateside. Honestly, I'm really attached to the time limits and kind of sad to see them go. In so many games, it feels like every resource, be it HP/MP, experience, money, items or anything else, is largely limited by how much time you put into them, which is an out-of-game limitation. In Atelier games, with few exceptions, every action from getting into a fight to making an item to gathering in the field requires the expenditure of a limited in-game resource: Time. It's more than generous enough for you to make a few mistakes, dally around a bit and still meet all your deadlines (in fact, complete failure requires a concentrated effort on the player's part), but if you spend too much time screwing around, you'll only get underwhelming results.

Granted, Shallie had a similarly-limited resource in the form of Motivation (which only becomes unlimited at the very end of the game), but to see all resource limitations fall away in future titles would be a little disappointing.

Also, one of the best things about the Atelier games is that you can't just find the ultimate weapons and armor like you do in so many other RPGs. You can get the recipes for some pretty alright equipment, but the only way to get the end-all be-all ultimate god-destroying gear is refine, purify and perfect the ingredients to those recipes until you're left with only the best.

[Dragon78]

The next Atelier game looks like the time limit is returning...I am not happy but you will be.

[Neurophage]

Dragon78 wrote:

The next Atelier game looks like the time limit is returning...I am not happy but you will be.

According to an interview, the devs said something like "Stressful situations were you think 'I must do this within this space of time' have been eliminated as far as possible." There's definitely a day/night cycle system, but if they do bring back time as a limited resources, it'll probably be pretty lax.

[Dragon78]

Then why the day/night cycle? Unless the enemies and/or items are different for each cycle.

[Freehold DM]

I own both mana khemia games and atlier 2 and 3.