Atelier games have been around a long time, nearly twenty years now, and they have been a staple of the PlayStation JRPG catalog since the PS2 days. I’ve dabbled in a few of them, especially the Arland ones on PS3, but the games I tried never had enough overall value for me to stick with for more than several hours. I haven’t played an Atelier in several years, but recently we were provided with a review code for Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea (AS:ADS) and I was curious to see how the franchise has evolved over time and with Tecmo KOEI in the publisher’s seat as opposed to Nippon Ichi.
For the curious, or the concerned series vets, the core gameplay is still the same — alchemy is of paramount importance to the gameplay with ‘standard’ JRPG turn-based battles and lots of conversations with NPCs being onboard, too. To my pleasant surprise, the story is quite interesting from the start. The game begins with Shallistera — Shallie for short, of course — who is on her way with Kortes and his father via airship to the town of Stellard. Shallistera is a young noble teenager who is the daughter of the village chief. The constant ‘creep’ of the Dusk (that was more thoroughly explained in Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky and its prequel I’m sure) continues, and the world is in yet further peril. This time, the seas are trying up — water supplies are dwindling, and the situation is growing dire. Stellard was always known for being an oasis, so Shallistera was coming here to get help for her village.
Meanwhile, Shallotte, also known as Shallie, hah — is a resident of Stellard and she has her mind set on becoming something more, someone more or less famous. She wants to do something with her life other than running errands (including literally picking up the trash) for petty money. Indeed, the paths of both Shallie’s will cross during their storylines, but they’re personalities are quite different, and the gameplay experience of playing as each is appreciably different, too. After some introductory gameplay and in-game cutscenes, you can actually choose which Shallie you want to play as. I have played some of both, yet to finish either, but in many respects having dual, intersecting stories just about doubles the replay value of AS:ADS which is pretty great for Atelier fans.
The dire water situation is the backbone of each Shallie storyline, but they have individual subplots, too. Fortunately, both stories (for what I have played thus far) are pretty interesting, more than the previous Atelier games I have played at least. I’m also really pleased that the time requirements from the other Atelier games are gone! That was another pace/fun killer for me was having to not only deal with a cumbersome and kind of boring alchemy system, but also having to get xyz done in a certain amount of time or suffer the consequences. With AS:ADS, you have goals — and you do need to complete a certain amount of combat, exploration, and alchemy before you can advance the story — but how long you take to do this is entirely up to you. Want to hit up the World Map and revisit areas multiple times to harvest additional ingredients or fight respawned enemies? Go for it, although Gust wisely keeps players from abusing this too much by limiting the amount of respawned goods. This ‘open world’ or sandbox approach is great, and you need not worry about losing track of what it is you need to do thanks to the Life Tasks, a running list of ‘to do’ items that is accessed by pressing Select.
Going hand in hand with this ‘freedom from the clock’ mechanic is the inclusion of the series’ first free-look camera. As basic a function as it seems, being able to use the right stick to pan around an area — to enjoy the cel-shaded art or just to scope out your surroundings for whatever reason — is a given in most games, but Atelier is getting it for the first time here. Clearly, it’s a welcomed change that makes the game feel more modern and, well, ‘open,’ for the lack of a better term.
Another benefit I picked up on with AS:ADS that I couldn’t quite place until doing some additional reading, was that the alchemy is less overbearing than previous games. The glut of tutorial pop-up windows and screens is greatly reduced and the process of experimenting with new recipes is less of a risk and nuisance than I recall it being in previous franchise titles. The alchemy system I think is still deep enough for those that really enjoy it, in that there are hundreds of items and variations and multi-step “brews” to concoct and refined versions of things to discover, etc., etc., but at the same time as someone who does not want to spend too much time in alchemy, I thought AS:ADS did a good job of maintaining a balance.
At this stage in my time with AS:ADS, my “list” of pros greatly exceeds the cons. This extends into the presentation quality as well. It’s funny to think the PS3 is going on nine years old this November, and compared to all of the time I am spending on PC, PS4, and X1 these days, the PS3 is starting to show its age. That’s not to say AS:ADS looks drab or runs poorly, instead the artwork and cel-shading are actually quite nice, and I have yet to experience any technical difficulties during play. The audio also gets a nod for having a very complimentary soundtrack (complimentary to the atmosphere and on-screen actions at the time).
With that, let’s get to the summary…