Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book
released on Nov 19, 2015
Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book is an upcoming Japanese role-playing video game. It is the 17th main game in the "Atelier" series. The game features a completely reformed world view from earlier titles within the series, in addition to a new alchemy-centric system. Sophie is able to obtain ideas for recipes from activities such as harvesting, exploring, battling, or from events, and these ideas are used as a basis of improving her knowledge of alchemy. When she performs alchemy, the player is presented with various predetermined shapes representing the ingredients used, and arranges each shape on a puzzle board that represents the cauldron. This process involves visual trial-and-error, and if the shapes are arranged perfectly, the player receives a bonus. The materials selected affect the quality of the item synthesized. This system is intended to offer a high degree of freedom based on the player's own play style.
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My favourite Atelier Game. I got into the series through this one since Sophie's English voice actress was the same as Nepgear's and she's my fav english voice actress. I have since played through the game in japanese though like all of my other games
The game that introduced me to the Fallout franchise, thanks Sophie!
Replayed this as part of my Atelier replay marathon. It definitely is not the best Atelier game, but it was still a ton of fun.
There are tons of charming characters and the gameplay is leisurely enough to just make you want to sit back and chill with it. The story is somewhat cliche and isn’t my favorite, but is still decent. I really do miss the heavy humor present in the Arland sub series, but I can still appreciate this entry of the Mysterious series all the same.
I am changing my rating from back in 2020, raising it by half a star. My reason for doing so is probably due to how I played the game this time versus last time. I tried to progress in the main storyline quickly last time…and had to grind levels at the end for the final boss. This time, I played more slowly, doing side content and character quests while leveling. This is definitely how the game is supposed to be played. There is more to it than battle and narrative, as I am learning is the case with Atelier in general.
If you want a chill game that is fun, play this! Not the best game or even the best one in the series by any means, but a solid entry and beginning of a new sub series.
Edit: finally got plat!
There are tons of charming characters and the gameplay is leisurely enough to just make you want to sit back and chill with it. The story is somewhat cliche and isn’t my favorite, but is still decent. I really do miss the heavy humor present in the Arland sub series, but I can still appreciate this entry of the Mysterious series all the same.
I am changing my rating from back in 2020, raising it by half a star. My reason for doing so is probably due to how I played the game this time versus last time. I tried to progress in the main storyline quickly last time…and had to grind levels at the end for the final boss. This time, I played more slowly, doing side content and character quests while leveling. This is definitely how the game is supposed to be played. There is more to it than battle and narrative, as I am learning is the case with Atelier in general.
If you want a chill game that is fun, play this! Not the best game or even the best one in the series by any means, but a solid entry and beginning of a new sub series.
Edit: finally got plat!
Interesting that despite being the game immediately following Shallie its narrative content being orders of magnitude light make it feel like a return to an earlier point in the series. Probably the most unremarkable entry in the series, but the baseline quality is solid enough for that to not really be a mark against it. The game's still quite good. As is standard the music had some real standouts (my favourites from the soundtrack being Con Liela Xea & Juno) and the gather-craft gameplay loop was enjoyable. Its crafting method of placing material shapes on a tetris grid was really fresh too. Sophie & Plachta were nice deuteragonists, and the hometown of Kirchen Bell having such a strong non-cynical church presence makes it pretty unique within the genre.
Managed to scrape out victory against the last boss first try. Then got immediately demolished by the Wise Dragon. But it's only like half an hour of following a short guide to get the right traits to become overpowered so eh.
Managed to scrape out victory against the last boss first try. Then got immediately demolished by the Wise Dragon. But it's only like half an hour of following a short guide to get the right traits to become overpowered so eh.
This review contains spoilers
It was nice to finally get to this game and play it. I bought it back in 2016 for the PS4 because it looked really cute, never having heard of the Atelier series before. I started it back then, but I was too addicted to FFXIV to finish any other games, and then I later let my daughter take my PS4. Recently I bought a PS5 so that I could play FFXVI, and I decided to go back to this game and play it for real (and get a platinum trophy).
Again, this is my first Atelier game. I like the character designs and the voice acting (I used Japanese voices). The battle and crafting system is fun. I like how customizable it is and how you can really have a range of experiences since it's so open-ended. The story was also cute, just enough to make me want to continue it, but not too deep. I will say that the rumor system could be a little frustrating, but it's not as bad as people say online. I think people that spend hours trying to pop a rumor and don't get it are just missing prerequisites, because that never happened for me. I think for the last achievement, to beat the demon lord, I had to cycle rumors maybe 10 times at most. I did farm the DLC area some to help me get all of the achievements, and I was able to kill all the bosses, but I didn't feel like spending the time to gear up and beat all the DLC bosses on Despair. I was able to beat them on normal, which is good enough for me.
I will probably play another Atelier game in the future!
Again, this is my first Atelier game. I like the character designs and the voice acting (I used Japanese voices). The battle and crafting system is fun. I like how customizable it is and how you can really have a range of experiences since it's so open-ended. The story was also cute, just enough to make me want to continue it, but not too deep. I will say that the rumor system could be a little frustrating, but it's not as bad as people say online. I think people that spend hours trying to pop a rumor and don't get it are just missing prerequisites, because that never happened for me. I think for the last achievement, to beat the demon lord, I had to cycle rumors maybe 10 times at most. I did farm the DLC area some to help me get all of the achievements, and I was able to kill all the bosses, but I didn't feel like spending the time to gear up and beat all the DLC bosses on Despair. I was able to beat them on normal, which is good enough for me.
I will probably play another Atelier game in the future!
