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Atelier Series Appreciation Thread
wateyad
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I've been in an Atelier-y mood recently and with the American release of Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm within a week (although unfortunately, being in the UK, I have to wait until the end of July for it) I figured it was a good time for a thread.
The Salburg sub-series
Violet Trailer starting with a couple of seconds of footage of each of the previous four games.
Violet OP
The Iris sub-series
The Eternal Mana sub-sub-series
Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana (PS2)
The first Atelier game to be released in the west and the first Atelier game to focus more on the RPG than the sime component, Atelier Iris was, apparently, a big let down for fans of the older games. The game abandoned the older titles non-linearity for a traditional linear JRPG plot.
On the surface the game looks like it shouldn't be worth bothering with. The core of both the storyline and the batle system (previously a minor part of the games, now brought into focus) are tired old hat and the whole thing feels kinda' rough around the edges and in places even amateurish. The thing is, none of that matters, the game is carried (at least for me) by charm and personality. The characters, while hardly the most original bunch, are all extemely likeable and, if you dive into the huge amount of non-compulsory stuff (and if you're not going to do that then there really is no point in playing this game) extremely well fleshed out. I'd hesitate to call them deep but they aren't exactly cardboard cut-outs either. Signs of the old de-centralised storytelling show through the cracks absolutly everywhere, being that basically all the side stuff (and there's probably more of that than compulsory plot) is essentially a thinned down form of it. Trying out different ingredients in shop synthesis in an atempt to create new items and trigger events was strangely addictive. Even the fights are less tedious than they could be thanks to the (admittedly confusing and badly explained) mess of exceptions and special cases dumped on top of the extremely basic core mechanics.
I can see why not everyone would but (if I hadn't already made it clear) I really, really, like this game.
A couple of notes about the weapon crafting system (yes, there are THREE seperate synthesis systems in this game) for those spurred into buying Iris 1 by this thread:
A trailer, I guess, it really shouldn't be difficult to find stuff about this game.
Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana 2 / Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth of Destiny (PS2)
Actually a prequel set a few hundred years before the first Atelier Iris, Azoth of Destiny is somewhat of a mixed bag that, in my opinion, came out almost exclusively for the worse. The main quest is somewhat longer and more fleshed out and the whole thing feels more deliberately put together but it just doesn't have the charm of it' immeadiate predecessor. The alchemy system has been simplified and there's almost none of the optional character development from the previous game, leaving the characters (who for the most part are less interessting and likable to begin with) with the bare minimum of fleshing out. The core of the battle system is a lot more interesting but the execution is kinda' wonky and there's very little variety between most characters' move sets. Almost all of the platformer-like exploration element from A6 is gone, replaced with not a lot. To top it all off, the whole thing seemed like one big exercise in creating a game with as little new material as possible. 99% of the sprites are re-used from the first Iris, most locations consist of one of the same 3 or 4 tile sets and the new sprites have less frames in an average animation and animations that are quite blatently designed to involve as few frames as possible to begin with. This was by no means a terrible game, I enjoyed it but I can see no reason to recommend anyone play it unless they're really starving for a slightly quirky 2d JRPG.
Again, here's a trailer but it shouldn't be difficult to find stuff.
The other Iris
Atelier Iris: Grand Fantasm / Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm (PS2)
Grand Phantasm is set in another world / timeline from the other two Irises and is sructured quite differently from just about any RPG I've ever played. Despite this, Iris Fortner look distinctly like a teenaged version of Iris Blanchimont from the Eternal Mana games. The whole game is based around a single town where you synthesize items and take missions from various NPCs. These missions send you into one of a few "Alterworlds" which effectively act as the game's dungeons. While in the Alterworld you have limited time to explore before being automatically returned to town, this time limit can be extended by pick ups and searching these out is a must as Alterworlds change over time while you're there, only allowing access to certain areas after an alloted time has passed. The platforming and various actions performable on the field from A6 make their return to the series. While the game does have a fixed main storyline, progression between bits of it is handled by acumalating quest points from tasks you take on from NPCs, apparently repeatedly doing quests for the same NPC will better your relationship with them, could this be the return of the sort of character development seen in A6?
The Alchemy is even further simplified. There's no such thing as quality anymore and only equipment has property reviews. Mana synthesis is just gone completley. Despite all this, it's gone back to a situation where there's a ton of suff you can make by modifying other recipes, which along with a silly little inspiration system for aquiing new recipes makes it a ton more fun than the system in AI2 was.
Instead of having a party of six characters to swith between, what I've read seems to indicate that you have a fixed party of three but two of them have their own sets of "Blades" to switch between though effectively acting like the job systems occasionally seen in other JRPGs. The other character, Iris, has no such options but she can summon mana to perform various functions and her battle capability is affected by her alchemy level (raised by synthesizing). Encounters are now visible in the field and can be avoided, or entered on favorable terms by slashing them with your sword. Similar to Eartbound, encounters of a level lower than your own can be instantly defeated by striking them, immeadiately giving you all the gains to be gotten from them.The mechanics are clearly developed from the ones in A7, although the've undergone some pretty radical changes. The skill gauge now carries over between battles and in fact actually builds up as you explore the alterworld. the ability to perform a specific break attack to delay an enemy's turn is gone but there seems to be some way of causing a similar effect. Breaking enemies by pushing them into the orange portion of the initiative gauge in A6 has been replaced with a new burst meter, dealing damage fills the meter, taking damage depletes it, fill the meter and the skill gauge will immeadiately max out and all damage you deal will be affected by some sort of insane multiplier for a while.
This game is far more polished than either of its two immeadiate forebears although AI1 may still be the winner when it comes to heart.
Official website, it's actually fairly informative and there's a trailer on there somewhere.
Atelier Lise (DS)
The first traditional Atelier in a while, Atelier Lise has you play Lisette Lander, princess of the kingdom of Lander (known as Lise to her friends). Your parents have bankrupted the country and you have an amount of time in which to earn a rediculous sum of money to pay the bank, or else the country is going to be reposessed. It's apparently pretty massively simplified in comparison to Violet, possibly in an atempt to prevent people stumbleing in from the Iris games from getting lost. New features include synthesis occasionaly triggering a mini game that will affect the outcome and a bizzare oversimplified SRPG battle system where characters can only move one space forward or back but as many as they want left or right. Not much information out there in English for this one. can't find any videos either.
Official japanese site.
Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-revis (PS2)
This is apparently the official project A9, what that makes Lise I don't know. The main characters in this one are students in an alchemy academy. You actually have to deal with school stuff like alchemy exams and things and judging from the website playing up some kind of day/night system, I'd say they weren't going to wait for you.
The alchemy system has been overhauled, requireing you to assign a party member to each ingredient. Something analogous to quality is back, affected by compatability between ingredients and the characters assigned to them. The whole thing is forced back into the spotlight by the levelling sytem being heavily dependant on it. Instead of leveling normally, each character has their own sphere grid type thing that you spend AP earned from battle on activating nodes of, the twist is that each node requires you to have made a particular item.
The battle system appears to be based on the one from A8. The skill gauge is gone in favour of traditional per-character SP. The burst gauge system has been (pretty damn heavily) expanded on, seriously, watching videos of this game reveals a whole array of bewildering engrishy terms with the word burst in them. In addition, there's some sort of weird tag attack system where you have three characters in the battle and three in reserve out of an eventual total of eight, unless there are others not featured on the website. Each of the three characters in reserve has a little gauge that when it fills you can press circle (although I'm guessing this will be changed to cross, should the game ever get an english version) while a character is making an attack to have them immeadiately afterwards switch out for the first reserve character (you don't seem to get a choice but presumably the order they are in is player defined) who will do some sort of attack as they enter, I believe you can string these together.
The environments are now in proper 3d although the actual geometry is extremely basic and all the real visual work is being done by high res, high detail textures.
Out now in Japan, no announcement for the rest of us yet though.
Official japanese site, five trailers are on there under special along with a bunch of shorter videos on individual character pages.
The Salburg sub-series
- Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg (PSOne)
- Atelier Ellie: The Alchemist of Salburg 2 (PSOne)
- Atelier Lillie: The Alchemist of Salburg 3 (PS2)
- Atelier Judie: The Alchemist of Gramnad (PS2)
- Atelier Violet: The Alchemist of Gramnad 2 (PS2)
Violet Trailer starting with a couple of seconds of footage of each of the previous four games.
Violet OP
The Iris sub-series
The Eternal Mana sub-sub-series
Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana (PS2)
The first Atelier game to be released in the west and the first Atelier game to focus more on the RPG than the sime component, Atelier Iris was, apparently, a big let down for fans of the older games. The game abandoned the older titles non-linearity for a traditional linear JRPG plot.
On the surface the game looks like it shouldn't be worth bothering with. The core of both the storyline and the batle system (previously a minor part of the games, now brought into focus) are tired old hat and the whole thing feels kinda' rough around the edges and in places even amateurish. The thing is, none of that matters, the game is carried (at least for me) by charm and personality. The characters, while hardly the most original bunch, are all extemely likeable and, if you dive into the huge amount of non-compulsory stuff (and if you're not going to do that then there really is no point in playing this game) extremely well fleshed out. I'd hesitate to call them deep but they aren't exactly cardboard cut-outs either. Signs of the old de-centralised storytelling show through the cracks absolutly everywhere, being that basically all the side stuff (and there's probably more of that than compulsory plot) is essentially a thinned down form of it. Trying out different ingredients in shop synthesis in an atempt to create new items and trigger events was strangely addictive. Even the fights are less tedious than they could be thanks to the (admittedly confusing and badly explained) mess of exceptions and special cases dumped on top of the extremely basic core mechanics.
I can see why not everyone would but (if I hadn't already made it clear) I really, really, like this game.
A couple of notes about the weapon crafting system (yes, there are THREE seperate synthesis systems in this game) for those spurred into buying Iris 1 by this thread:
- Don't even touch it untill you atempt the secret dungeon or run out of room for a colour of mana stones (and in the latter case make crystals but don't do anything with them), you'll only turn an already extremely easy game into a joke.
- Atempting to complete the secret dungeon without abusing the weapon crafting system is pretty much suicide.
- The Mana + Colour -> Crystal combinations aren't quite absolut, some have a 25% - 50% chance of producing a different type of crystal than they normally would.
- Some combinations of effects that you wouldn't expect will combine to produce tottaly different ones
- Don't be afraid to experiment. Once you can get into the secret dungeon you can get every colour of mana stone as drops and/or random items lying on the floor from somewhere.
A trailer, I guess, it really shouldn't be difficult to find stuff about this game.
Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana 2 / Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth of Destiny (PS2)
Actually a prequel set a few hundred years before the first Atelier Iris, Azoth of Destiny is somewhat of a mixed bag that, in my opinion, came out almost exclusively for the worse. The main quest is somewhat longer and more fleshed out and the whole thing feels more deliberately put together but it just doesn't have the charm of it' immeadiate predecessor. The alchemy system has been simplified and there's almost none of the optional character development from the previous game, leaving the characters (who for the most part are less interessting and likable to begin with) with the bare minimum of fleshing out. The core of the battle system is a lot more interesting but the execution is kinda' wonky and there's very little variety between most characters' move sets. Almost all of the platformer-like exploration element from A6 is gone, replaced with not a lot. To top it all off, the whole thing seemed like one big exercise in creating a game with as little new material as possible. 99% of the sprites are re-used from the first Iris, most locations consist of one of the same 3 or 4 tile sets and the new sprites have less frames in an average animation and animations that are quite blatently designed to involve as few frames as possible to begin with. This was by no means a terrible game, I enjoyed it but I can see no reason to recommend anyone play it unless they're really starving for a slightly quirky 2d JRPG.
Again, here's a trailer but it shouldn't be difficult to find stuff.
The other Iris
Atelier Iris: Grand Fantasm / Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm (PS2)
Grand Phantasm is set in another world / timeline from the other two Irises and is sructured quite differently from just about any RPG I've ever played. Despite this, Iris Fortner look distinctly like a teenaged version of Iris Blanchimont from the Eternal Mana games. The whole game is based around a single town where you synthesize items and take missions from various NPCs. These missions send you into one of a few "Alterworlds" which effectively act as the game's dungeons. While in the Alterworld you have limited time to explore before being automatically returned to town, this time limit can be extended by pick ups and searching these out is a must as Alterworlds change over time while you're there, only allowing access to certain areas after an alloted time has passed. The platforming and various actions performable on the field from A6 make their return to the series. While the game does have a fixed main storyline, progression between bits of it is handled by acumalating quest points from tasks you take on from NPCs, apparently repeatedly doing quests for the same NPC will better your relationship with them, could this be the return of the sort of character development seen in A6?
The Alchemy is even further simplified. There's no such thing as quality anymore and only equipment has property reviews. Mana synthesis is just gone completley. Despite all this, it's gone back to a situation where there's a ton of suff you can make by modifying other recipes, which along with a silly little inspiration system for aquiing new recipes makes it a ton more fun than the system in AI2 was.
Instead of having a party of six characters to swith between, what I've read seems to indicate that you have a fixed party of three but two of them have their own sets of "Blades" to switch between though effectively acting like the job systems occasionally seen in other JRPGs. The other character, Iris, has no such options but she can summon mana to perform various functions and her battle capability is affected by her alchemy level (raised by synthesizing). Encounters are now visible in the field and can be avoided, or entered on favorable terms by slashing them with your sword. Similar to Eartbound, encounters of a level lower than your own can be instantly defeated by striking them, immeadiately giving you all the gains to be gotten from them.The mechanics are clearly developed from the ones in A7, although the've undergone some pretty radical changes. The skill gauge now carries over between battles and in fact actually builds up as you explore the alterworld. the ability to perform a specific break attack to delay an enemy's turn is gone but there seems to be some way of causing a similar effect. Breaking enemies by pushing them into the orange portion of the initiative gauge in A6 has been replaced with a new burst meter, dealing damage fills the meter, taking damage depletes it, fill the meter and the skill gauge will immeadiately max out and all damage you deal will be affected by some sort of insane multiplier for a while.
This game is far more polished than either of its two immeadiate forebears although AI1 may still be the winner when it comes to heart.
Official website, it's actually fairly informative and there's a trailer on there somewhere.
Atelier Lise (DS)
The first traditional Atelier in a while, Atelier Lise has you play Lisette Lander, princess of the kingdom of Lander (known as Lise to her friends). Your parents have bankrupted the country and you have an amount of time in which to earn a rediculous sum of money to pay the bank, or else the country is going to be reposessed. It's apparently pretty massively simplified in comparison to Violet, possibly in an atempt to prevent people stumbleing in from the Iris games from getting lost. New features include synthesis occasionaly triggering a mini game that will affect the outcome and a bizzare oversimplified SRPG battle system where characters can only move one space forward or back but as many as they want left or right. Not much information out there in English for this one. can't find any videos either.
Official japanese site.
Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-revis (PS2)
This is apparently the official project A9, what that makes Lise I don't know. The main characters in this one are students in an alchemy academy. You actually have to deal with school stuff like alchemy exams and things and judging from the website playing up some kind of day/night system, I'd say they weren't going to wait for you.
The alchemy system has been overhauled, requireing you to assign a party member to each ingredient. Something analogous to quality is back, affected by compatability between ingredients and the characters assigned to them. The whole thing is forced back into the spotlight by the levelling sytem being heavily dependant on it. Instead of leveling normally, each character has their own sphere grid type thing that you spend AP earned from battle on activating nodes of, the twist is that each node requires you to have made a particular item.
The battle system appears to be based on the one from A8. The skill gauge is gone in favour of traditional per-character SP. The burst gauge system has been (pretty damn heavily) expanded on, seriously, watching videos of this game reveals a whole array of bewildering engrishy terms with the word burst in them. In addition, there's some sort of weird tag attack system where you have three characters in the battle and three in reserve out of an eventual total of eight, unless there are others not featured on the website. Each of the three characters in reserve has a little gauge that when it fills you can press circle (although I'm guessing this will be changed to cross, should the game ever get an english version) while a character is making an attack to have them immeadiately afterwards switch out for the first reserve character (you don't seem to get a choice but presumably the order they are in is player defined) who will do some sort of attack as they enter, I believe you can string these together.
The environments are now in proper 3d although the actual geometry is extremely basic and all the real visual work is being done by high res, high detail textures.
Out now in Japan, no announcement for the rest of us yet though.
Official japanese site, five trailers are on there under special along with a bunch of shorter videos on individual character pages.
wateyad on
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Plus, even though they're seperated by a few games, I think the stories of Elie and Violet link directly into each other in that a now-much-older Elie is Violet's teacher, or is at least somehow involved in Violet's story. It's damnably hard to get concrete information on these games in English, though.
I would desperately love to see the earlier Atelier games over here, and in fact I spoke with a certain Mr. Houk about it several times previously, but he told me that the older games would need to be on newer platforms before they'd consider bringing them over.
He did tell me, however, that Nippon Ichi America does currently have the option of bringing over Atelier Lise.
EDIT:
OK, I just found out another neat little fact: it seems the first five games (and I assume Atelier Lise too) has Chrono-Trigger-like multiple endings. Depending on how well you do, the ending is good or bad. As an example, from Atelier Marie, the first game.
As for Elie, it seems to go like I indicated above. The best ending again involves saving the kingdom from the ravages of the plague, with the worst being Elie contracting the plague herself and dying horribly.
This thread is making me want these games in English even worse.
I knew some of them had multiple endings but I thought it was more of a case of there being multiple good ones based oin which of the several possible win conditions you went for and one bad one if you failed to do whatever you were trying to within the time limit rather than a bad -> good scale.
I'll admit I don't "get" the Iris sub-series. They're way more of a "traditional" RPG series and that was never the Atelier series' strong suit. For clarification, the original five games had essentially two game modes: "walkabout" mode which played a bit like a traditional RPG experience in that you'd walk around, collect alchemy materials, fight random critters, etc. The real meat of the game, though, was the "atelier" mode where your character returns to her pad and makes stuff from the materials she's gathered, and then sells or delivers her work to advance the story.
The Iris series basically flipped the focus of the game around: while there's still an "atelier" mode of sorts, it's now secondary to the "walkabout" mode where most of the game takes place. That always seemed to me to be a mistake, because the focus on making stuff is what set apart the Atelier series in the first place.
Most of them are varying levels of good, yeah, but there's definitely at least one bad ending available where you fuck up EVERYTHING. There's still a ton of possible endings in the first five games is the point, which I know is something people loved about Chrono Trigger and gave the game a lot of replay value. Same thing applies here.
Also, as an interesting factoid, I managed to find a repository of a TON of official Atelier Elie art a few years back and I saved it all. I dunno what this is all from (an artbook or something I assume), but it's really neat and I'll upload the lot a little later.
I do really want to play an old style one though, any of them will do but I get the feeling that I'd prefer the more complicated Gramnads to the Salburgs or Lise.
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_c003.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_c004.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_c005.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_c006.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_c007.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_c008.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_c009.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_c012.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_c016.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_g001.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_g003.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_g004.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_g005.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_g006.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_g007.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_g008.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_g009.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_g010.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_g013.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_g016.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_g017.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_g021.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k140/SpaceDrake/Atelier%20Elie/ae_g023.jpg
Enjoy!
As for the Iris series, there is an early review of Iris 3 in, and it's... unflattering. I'm a bit unsure how professional it is (the reviewer seems to be particularly hung up on originality and seems to want to ignore the fact that he's enjoying himself) but it does say that the fights are engaging and that the graphics are great.
Of course, fighting isn't what the Atelier series is supposed to be about.
http://www.rightstuf.com/1-800-338-6827/catalogmgr/ijlzKdnXNQOno8FGVn/browse/item/71361/4/0/0
This was about the last thing I was expecting. The first two games make it over to the U.S... in manga form. Unfortunately the art seems to be QUALITY, but if they get Elie's story right I'm not going to give a shit. (They also did some quality translation there - that's supposed to be "Salburg", guys.)
Finding that pretty much made my damn month. So long as the translation doesn't COMPLETELY suck I'm going to buy the hell out of this in hopes that, if it sells well, the games will be brought over. God the cover would look better with some of the art from above, though.
No but it seems to be what the Iris sub-series is about. If that review is correct then the stuff that I thought was toned down far too much between A6 and A7 is even further atrophied *sigh* but I still get the feeling that my opinion on some things may differ dramatically.
Oh well, as far as I can tell from the official site (which isn't very far admittedly, as I can't read Japanese) Mana-Khemia may not look like traditional Atelier but it doesn't really look much like a traditional anything. It does at least look like it's going to drag the focus back towards where it belongs. My guess is that it'll have you juggling "studying" for alchemy exams with something closer to a traditional JRPG plot. The fighting doesn't seem de-emphasized from the Iris games or anything but having a decent battle system is hardly something to come down on a game for. Whatever, I get the feeling that we're a hell of a lot more likely to see this one leave Japan than Lise, whether that's a good or bad thing I'm not really in a position to judge.
0431-6094-6446-7088
Iris 1 is better than Iris 2 if you want something different from the norm and is a better game overall despite being more than a little rough around the edges IMO YMMV etc. Iris 2 is more consistant and better at being a traditional JRPG, it isn't terrible but it doesn't really deliver on any of what made the first one worthwhile, I guess that overall I'd say that it was enjoyable but pretty average and kind of forgettable.
Houk isn't a decision-maker over at NISA, though, he's just their main English editor. (Not to diminish how awesome he is of course, but unfortunately he doesn't make the money decisions about what to bring over.) I was kind of hoping Houkykins would appear from the Heavens, as though on the wings of angels, and give us any update he can on what NISA has planned for the Atelier series. The licensing of the manga is something I find quite interesting and it really is the absolute last thing I ever expected.
And Tarnok, yeah, none of the first five made it Stateside, unfortunately. Atelier Marie and Atelier Elie saw really nice PS2 re-releases not too long ago though, so I hold out some hope.
To satisfy the pains though, I'm finally going to go out and pick up a copy of Iris 1 today.
Tokyopop publish the translated manga so I wouldn't read too much into it. For the most part they seem to go for quantity over quality of liscences. I imagine they grabbed the Atelier manga for cheap in the vague hope that it would sell off the back of the games that have been released in English.
Anyone tried this yet? What do you think?
Doesn't sound too good for those of us who've waited for the "real" Atelier series to land here. Argents like me will still hold out hope, though. Someday...
Anyway, my desire for Iris 1 seems to be becoming a QUEST, as I can't find a copy locally. More on this as it develops. And Tw4win, as I said above, some places have really been taking Iris 3 to task in reviews. It's currently got the lowest GameRankings score of the three Iris games. (Iris 1 has the highest.)
IN FACT! we just recently picked up a game based in large part on my recommendation and assurance that it would sell. which now means if it tanks, my head is gone. (it's a pretty awesome departure from our norm, and hopefully EVERYONE will dig and buy it).
In other news, did anyone else hear about the game-breaking bug they found in Atelier Lise shortly after it was released in japan? i just found out about it yesterday, and have no idea what the bug even is. sounds like they have to go back, fix it, and probably replace a lot of peoples' copies though.
This mention of a mystery game is intriguing yet infuriating. However, if it's anything particularly weird and wonderful I may not even get a chance at it, unless it's on a handheld, seeing as KOEI seem to have skipped Ar Tonelico completely for European release.
Reading reviews gives me hope that at least I'll like Iris 3, even if no one else does. A couple of them remind me of my experience with Iris 1. Most of the reviews seem to be complaining about the main plot progressing slowly or the normal quests being pointless. I don't mind the plot moving slowly as long as there's lots of character development going on outside of it, this includes the NPCs you do quests for. Whether or not I agree with it getting low review scores seems like it's basically going to depend on how well I "get to know" the characters. Iris 1 was great in this department, Iris 2... wasn't.
If everyone has that much say, NISA sounds like a neat place to work.
Oh, Houk, if you're taunting us...
And no, I didn't hear about a bug in Lise at all. Unfortunately the game didn't sell too well in Japan, so even if carts need to be replaced I fear it wouldn't take too long to do so...
Seeing Atelier sales "decline" some kind of breaks my heart, because the early games in the series made selling six-figures look easy. It's been on the decline since then, though, and really seems to have declined since the Iris series began. I do hope a return to the "roots" of the series with Lise allows the franchise to recapture some of the old magic.
Also, I finally managed to get a copy.
I'd really like to pick up the 3rd game since it sounds like they took the best parts of the first two games and mixed them and threw on a job system to boot, but I'm still working on Etrian Odyssey and money isn't that plentiful right now (moving and starting college) and my next console game purchase is already tied up with the Asian dual language (Chinese/English) version of Blue Dragon.
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
1) Holy shit, this game is funny and charming. Like, not even "crude jokes" funny but it honestly had me laughing aloud a lot of the time. The characters are charming and endearing, the "fourth wall" tutorials are magnificent and the dialogue is sharp for the most part. A few of the secondary voice cast (like the ghost towards the beginning) are a bit off but most of the characters are excellent. Klein and Lita bounce off of each other very well.
2) Combat's pretty well done though I'm a little unsure how initiative works - Lita seems to be able to get multiple swings in a turn but I dunno quite how she's MANAGING that, yet.
3) Music kinda blows my mind. I was expecting good but this has been epic so far.
4) I do wish the alchemy was a bit more complicated.
5) The opening move was admittedly kind of :roll:. Angel wings on Lita? Peppy Jpop? Come on now. There's a lot more to the game than the opening might suggest. And of course the opening reminds us that this is the sixth Atelier project game, taunting us with the missing five.
6) Graphically, very VERY fucking awesome areas, although on the maps the characters are "floatier" than I was expecting. Their steps don't have as much weight as I was expecting, although perhaps I was just expecting too much from the PS2.
Anyway, initial impresions of Atelier Iris 1 = REAL DAMN GOOD and I wish I had gotten this game much sooner. It's only increased my hunger for other Atelier games more, although the schitzo reviews for 3 are scaring me off a bit.
My only issue with the OP was that it looked like it was made in flash, the song fits the theme of the game pretty well IMO. Judging from your reaction to it, you're obviously not very far yet. The one with the really iffy intro is AI2. For what it's worth, I think I like the AI3 one best.
The initiative is... odd. I think there's an FFX style count thing going on in the background for the main part so a high speed value can result in a character getting more goes than the rest to begin with but there's this weird "half-turn" mechanic as well whereby certain things (including Lita and Norn's normal attacks) only "cost" half a turn and when they save up a whole spare turn they get two turns at once, or something, it's not always consistant but that's how it seemed to work for the most part.
The movement is floaty because it's not actually 2d. While everything you can see is flat textures, you're actually running around on invisible 3d scnery laid over the top, it gets a bit awkward sometimes but not to a game breaking degree. I'm suprised it took them as long as it did to come up with the compromise / fix to this they're using in Mana-Khemia.
I wasn't amazingly fond of the English voices but that's probably less due to any inherent lack of quality than my immeadiately flicking them into Japanese and getting used to that. Most of the English voice actors have somewhat different takes on their characters than the Japanese ones (Lita's Japanese voice doesn't play up her tomboy side quite as much and Delsus is a lot less gruff for example). They're certainly a lot better done than some stuff I've played. Oh, except for the battle voices, the English battle voices really annoy me a lot of the time, some of the monsters voices were changed to sillier / screechier / generally more annoying ones when they didn't even speak words to begin with. The character battle quotes are annoying and, to me, a lot of them seem out of character in English, the Japanese may be just as bad in this sense for all I know but not understanding them means it doesn't matter.
I picked up 3 this week but I noticed that my local Gamestop still has 1 and two. I guess I should pick those up as well.
I'm not sure what constitutes the "secret dungeon", but my wife managed to beat the golden pigs without ever touching the weapon crafting system. I was pretty damn impressed. I think that's the hardest battle in the game?
I'm sure she abused the mana items as much as possible, she just never crafted any weapons.
Reading all this really reminds me of how awesome AI1 really was. What's amazing is that it was an impulse buy for us. I had never even heard of it before; I figured it was going to be some generic crap. It turned out to be the best RPG I'd played in years. The sucky thing is that the doofuses at Gamestop couldn't find the disc for the new copy they had, so I had to buy some crappy used copy. In the unlikely event I ever run across a new copy, I'm going to buy it and sell my current copy. The game deserves it.