Fix, Keep, or Ditch: Gust's Atelier Series - Article

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With Atelier Meruru's North American release right around the corner, my review of it already done, and a new Atelier series coming to Japan in June, I thought it'd be a good time to look at the franchise and give it the "Keep, Fix, or Ditch" treatment. So here are my recommendations for the next Atelier series.

Battle System - Fix

The battle system isn't really what you should play an Atelier game for, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored. Atelier Totori and Meruru both had decent battle systems with some strategy involved for longer battles, but fighting regular mobs can get pretty dull. The turn based nature of combat is great, but it could really use some more strategy in either character positioning (to make it more SRPG-like), or focusing on enemy weakness exploitation (like Persona). News on Atelier Ayesha has mentioned positioning being an important aspect, so there's definitely hope that the series will improve in this area.

"Ecchi" or perverted scenes - Ditch

Now I know that some fans will disagree with me here, but if you ever want the series to move past its stereotype as a loli fan's wet dream then these scenes have to go. There aren't even that many of them in the game, so you aren't missing out on much. Instead of a tentacle monster attacking Totori maybe it could just be a shark or some other denizen of the deep that doesn't automatically bring perverted thoughts to mind. Atelier Meruru almost got the balance right - I only really encountered one scene where the focus seemed to be on the perverseness of the scene over the cuteness - but the series really should drop the visual scenes altogether. Innuendo for comedic value is fine, but having a young girl as the main character will always raise some eyebrows; there's no reason to prove those people right. 

Focus on Alchemy - keep

This is a no brainer. Gust are the masters of the item crafting domain as far as I'm concerned. Not many games can boast such variety in the things you can create, with every material having its own properties that can all affect the final product. It really is a brilliant system, and it's the only synthesis system that gives me true joy in not only finding a new material but managing to craft a piece of equipment that takes not only level grinding but strategy and luck in the materials used to get the result you want. What other game could make me so proud to create a wand with "Rainbow Power"?

Smaller Scale Story - keep

Many JRPG stories start out with a local, more personal story and then slowly move towards a global scale. It's nice to have a few series that keep things simple. There's no reason for Totori to save the world, she's just a girl trying to find her mother, and Meruru is too busy with her own kingdom to try and stop a war between nations. I'm sure this is a downside to some prospective RPG fans but I find it incredibly charming. Other media's narratives have no problem focusing on small-time interactions between a few people, and gaming and JRPGs in particular should learn from that. 

Voice Acting - fix

This isn't a comment on the quality of the voice acting so much as the quantity. Far too many scenes in Atelier games are not voiced for the English localization. I understand that this is a smaller title as far as sales go and I don't mean to run NISA (or whoever localizes these titles in the future) into the red financially, but I think the series has sold enough to warrant having the bulk of each game's scenes voice acted. Gust's graphical capabilities have been improving by leaps and bounds this generation and if the general presentation level is to match that then the voice acting needs to be brought up to speed.

Concrete Ending Date - ditch

I love the time management aspect of the series, but I'm not a fan of an ending date that you can't possibly get past. There's usually a New Game+ option, but this just gives you your equipment back and little or nothing more. I appreciate that some enjoy the time management aspect of the main game for the challenge of trying to fit everything in before the end date, but I think Gust needs to add in an endless mode that allows people to experience the rest of the game without having to grind their way back to the end game. I loved this mode in Recettear, since it allowed me to retain my progress and continue to explore what the game had to offer. Link all of the trophies to beating it before that date - I don't mind that at all - but please let me see more of the game without having to replay the entire thing over and over again. 

Cameos - fix

Cameos are great; allowing characters from previous games to make an appearance in your latest game gives fans something to look forward to, but by the time you get to the third game in the series you've left almost no room for new characters. I hope Gust don't allow the new series to become overly inundated with cameos like they did with Atelier Arland. Just dial it back a notch guys, so we can get greater cast variety between games in the same series.

Side-story Interruptions - ditch

Now I'm not saying that they should get rid of side-stories, but give me a way to specifically seek them out instead of tossing them in when I go around town. Sometimes I just want to head to the blacksmith and then get back to synthesizing; I don't want to see a little mini-story about Pamela no matter how funny it might be. Maybe, instead of getting rid of them altogether, they should be dialed back drastically, but I think it'd work better if you could specifically seek these scenes out instead of them automatically popping up when you travel to stores in town. 

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