disclaimer boys and girls and enbys I watched hazbin hotel and helluva boss as of late and what happened is that now angel dust singing poison is STUCK on repeat im literally gonna go fucking crazy also hi lucifer do you need a cumdump

so its not really a surprise that gust has this thing called godsent vision that lets them pump masterpiece after masterpiece out in the open and im really glad to be one of the 150 people on this site that actually gives a fuck about atelier as a series because wow this can possibly end up being a contender for one of my favorite videogame series of all times they just never ever miss its so weird how do they do that what drugs are they using in their headquarters i really need to know because im a university student i need some of that asap

all my fans (5 people considering my pookie) are well aware that atelier ayesha was a game that i really enjoyed coming straight off from rorona and seeing that the atelier formula was kept basically intact apart from some gamechangers here and there to spice the formula up a bit and of course i ended up loving ayesha serving the most cunt out of the entire atelier cast right below ryza

again ayesha was a pretty traditional atelier experience but this time with some incredible focus on intricate and emotional story beats that i felt retrospectively missing from ryza going back to the arland trilogy (totori has some heavy story beats but i gotta replay it to have a full opinion on in because of the shibuya incident aka my pc exploding) that to say that from the dusk trilogy onward the series probably will take a different direction narratively and in the good way for the most part

now escha and logy takes that premise and shatters it to the ground no more compelling storytelling just a lot of workload under capitalist consumerism trying to revert the world of dusk to a planet where you can actually live in wow this sounds like climate change how about that for you my little alchemists having to deal with the huge bs of the 2020s

so this is probably my one and only complaint about this game while the world of dusk is basically falling fucking APART the pacing of this game decides to take a chill maybe too chill approach at fetch quests little discovery and oh the so endearing power of somewhat sibling ish type of love that's edging right into the romance esque territory mh who said TITS if you know what I mean

now im not completely against this type of narrative stuff hell basically every single installment before ayesha was just character driven plot wise most of the time so it's not like I don't enjoy having some laid back tete a tete between two weird teenagers who waltz around words to convey the eros that feel for each other and fail REMARKABLY to the point that they prefer doing some scavenging or delivering or shit instead of talking about their feelings

all this to say that the pace wasn't really my thing it was way too uneven for my adhd ass and while the addictive nature of atelier was right up my alley the way the narrative is presented was always making me reluctant to continue this game which is probably the only reason why this won't get a full score because EVERYTHING ELSE is beautiful absolutely FUCKING beautiful

now escha and logy has this really weird structure where time limits are present but not really because what happens is that every 4 months you get an assignment like in rorona but the solution for the assignment is already present as soon as you start the term which means that you're gonna complete the main task in < than 10 days and youre gonna be left with like 100 days of playing with your hole and thats it

so you can ideally say time limits are nooooooot an issue in here since most of the time either the completion for the main task is instant or in the case of the final stretch youre gonna have so much fucking time left that you're gonna have to skip all the remaining 150ish days to see the finale because theres gonna be nothing left to do

now now now I like the fact that time limits aren't an issue anymore nobody likes to work on a time limit haha RIGHT ? but this weird segmented nature of the game probably added to the fact that I wasn't really feeling the groundwork for the story which to be honest is not even explored that much you got a decaying world which could present so many different topics scenarios and dramas and youre left with these 2 going like wow I wonder what another great day of work will bring us ????? tough shit

it's not like optimistic people should kts oorrrrr that I didnt enjoy the lesser focus on the literal global warming buuuuut yeah I wanted some more spicy stuff to happen storywise apart from let's wake up do our job wait for someone to assess the situation in some part of the world explore that part of the world come back and realise that the world is actually dying wow shocker but we don't care lemme just create a blimp instead because I want to explore some ruins which are in floating in the air which are conveniently called laputa wait what do you mean they're not called laputa

whatever this can all be summarized in poor pacing mid story great worldbuilding great characters great characters interactions great characters designs did I say characters ok characters that I want to FUCK

so this is called atelier escha and logy which means that escha is the only protagonist and you can't choose anybody else to play because that's what's happened since every single atelier game till now and it's gonna be like this forever no MAN can take the lead i hope this is clear now escha my widdle sweet oh how much I wuv you wow so escha is a blast she's quirky she's hilarious she's shy she's emotional she's cheerful she does what's best for others yada yada I love atelier girls AND she has probably my favorite design in all existence if shallistera wasn't a thing I think the dusk trilogy have character designs that are definitely up my alley plus hidari is a fucking genius you can't miss with the OG lord

escha is the absolutely driving force of the entire game she's so fucking charismatic it's such a weird decision for the developers to actually include a m …. m . sorry im gonna vomit a m a n n … m.. ok into the cast and particularly into the other leading role of the game now logyyyyyyy mmmmmmmmm I'm conflicted I like the guy i don't have strong feelings about him im more on the daddy side of things but I sent a pic of him to my bestie and she replied with a 30 lines mex with all the things she wants him to do to her so he's definitely a ladies man case closed AND while I dont particularly want to give him head I do LOVE the interactions between and escha they're so sweeeeeeeeeeet oh my god I love them every single interaction they have in this stupid game Is just so heartwarming so pure and so emotionally charged that it made me feel like a voyeur more than once get a room you two

so what happened is that my complaints on the story completely vanished as soon as I got to know this two this IS a character driven game and when I tell you these kids must have scoliosis due to the sheer weight of holding the entirety of the game on their shoulders because of their luuuuuuscious charismatic and full of life 2way lead UGH while I really am angry to admit this but half of the game charm is seeing this two interact with each other and with other people it's atelier what do you want me to say and I honestly cannot think of this game only with one protagonist in mind they're a pair they should go together never break them apart they will have separation anxiety and panic attacks

so yeah goated protagonists I love them a lot but I love ESCHA more I chose escha I want escha and only escha in my playthrough im so sorry logy but I don't make the rules

now while I think the character roster of ayesha was strongER the developers were intelligent enough to bring back fan favorites such as cunt server willbell queen of lesbians witch from birth jester by choice absolutely enchanting me even to this day I love her sosososososo much she's so special she's literally hilarious and this installment probably made me even more in love with her even though I miss her y'know zack zack scissors with former protagonist ayesha now vagrant drug dealer and nationally wanted criminal bless her heart

some more qu33rs make a comeback marion is the new head of chimney sweep division with her little slave linca coming along they're charming not my favorite character from xenodusk ep 1 but an interesting duo nonetheless and their interactions with escha and logy are absolutely priceless linca actually has a good outfit in this one who would've known and she's still sporting a 3kg cunt in there so brave

PowerPoint slideshow treatment for the other queers in the band im not a fan of awin I don't care for him I don't understand his gist and how he ended up being called big bro kitty eyes by escha when 1 that should be me and 2 all he does the entire day is jerking some machinery off / reyfer had a good start I was half thirsting for him I love some pseudo narcissistic over confident dumbass with muscles instead of brains but he's just too stupid for my liking still some of his events are so dumb to make me laugh my ass of so he has a spot in the gang / threia is completely neutral to me which is a shame because the ara are onee san were strong in her lost opportunity boo hoo / katla is an ANGEL and whoever dares to touch her it's gonna have to first go over ME it's not like I liked her that much in the beginning but she's so charming so fucking bad at her job which she should just quit to be a stand up comedian because wow she's hilarious what the hell also i don't understand if she's russian / lucille is fiiiiiiiiine I guess most of her events are interesting she has a nice personality I like her not in a sexual way because she's way underage but I do enjoy her company she's fun I like the girl / micie … exists , I guess … good for him

so verdict NOT as good as ayeshas cast but I learnt to enjoy each and everyone of these weirdos… apart from threia and micie i dont know their deal but it has to be said for clarity purposes that I did not put them in my party not even once which meant that the friendship level was like below zero and therefore i didnt unlock the real kiki spilling tea sis drama queen events . do i care ? no

wow umh watching hazbin hotel made me really rude im sorry

forgot to say nio also makes a return and I already loved her in ayesha and i ended up loving her MORE in escha she's just soooooo cute sososososo cute umh and thats it

supporting cast is also fine the bartender and solles dad fuck solle is definitely gay i can feel it in me also he's funny as shit i relate to him being . him clone is literally lobotomised which is something that I'm striving to be this year and harry is the guy with the diamond stick up his ass from ayesha but I kid you not i realized it was THAT harry at roughly 20 minutes from the end of the game im so embarrassed rn

so as we all know some things are spiced up from one installments to the other and this game brings to the plates a lot of different stuff like the task grid thing completion = bonus whatever absolutely ripped from rorona herself which somehow also aid a random system completely ripped from totori bits and pieces here and there from other atelier but the skeleton is here task on tasks requests time limit ranks theres something for everybody

now everything else is completely different and or new and i gotta say the alchemy system in this game is probably one of my favorite one in my entire series the way you can completely exploit the different skills to make overpowered items is sooooo fun i would be there making items for hours non stop that being said making items is veeeeeeeey slow due to the fact that every time you make something you gotta choose the ingredients trying to avoid the high quality ones because you definitely don't want to use the 130 quality gold wax thing to make a piss jar then you have to add them or not if you're freaky and start using skills one after the other and if youre experimenting with stuff and combinations it's gonna take a while then when you're done with that you're gonna load the properties and at that point you also gotta make sure that you don't put a frame compress on a fucking non usable item it's a shitshow and I LOVE IT

all this can be said for making weapons too I love life

field work is mainly the same to ayesha I don't remember if field events were a thing too but yeah theres field events a lot of different parts of the world to explore lucky me they decided to make items restockable so I don't have to lose my mind and traversing all these different places is always fun and getting a shit TON of items is better than any carnal activity I've partaken in: none

combat is similar but better and now you have the ability to bring 6 people in battle which ends up being more chaotic than not but also super fucking fun and adds a lot of strategising yada yada attacks skulls supports super attacks zzzzzz mimimi not a lot to say when atelier battle system is already perfect imho

for as much as i love ayesha this game completely obliterates that games maps even though ayesha maybe has better maps artistically but these ones are just a technical wonder after ayesha and in general the art direction really got better all around you can see how they managed to realise what to actually make with the godsent illustrations of hidari making more polished character models and arguably every single part of the planet looks surprisingly polished and detailed lots and lots of different locations even though a bit undermined by the mute sepia thing (I get it the world is dying and shit can I have more brilliant colors now)

hub worlds cool I prefer ayeshas detailed world map the days you spend doing stuff can be better distributed alchemy is good imbuing is good homunculi home delivery is good tasks areeeeeee there ranks are there too and combat and gathering is perfect and the whole gameplay loop is great moving on

art direction as always is jawdropping hidari taking the lead in character design and CGs is always a fucking blast theres some really cool scenes out there and most of them have homoeroticism I know who you are then the music is STILL absolutely incredible but I prefer ayesha more sorryyyyyy uwu there are a lot of banger tho man

yknow I'm tired I should sleep everything is good it's atelier so it's fucking good only complaint maybe the final year was a bit of a stretch because I didn't even need that long to beat the final boss I wasn't joking when I said I was left with like 150+ days left and had to skip all of them by 15 days at a time or something bitch maybe I hate this game

the final boss took a while to bring down because apparently sending feathers with 9+ turns each to kill you is a thing that's legal in jrpgs nowadays and i still dont know whats flameus deal

at the end of everything I got the good ending for escha and I for the life of me did not want to replay as logy because I hate men and I was also done with the game so I just watched the true ending on youtube and cried my eyes out (not really) suck this gust and lemme just say wow what a fucking game this is definitely some of the highlights of the entire series and im glad I got these two hotties trying to work for whats really important: giving sweets to furry creatures

ATELIER SHALLIE IM COMIIIIIIIIIIIING

This was my very first Atelier game! Prior to writing this I just got the very last achievement so I can safely say I've 100%'d the game so lemme break it down:

The Visuals: Nothing too spectacular though the character design and the art itself is pretty great, really enhances the sort of cozy soft feeling this game has.

The gameplay:Honestly pretty relaxing, sometimes some of the assignments can be a little frustrating especially if someone were to not want to use a guide or online resources. The crafting is fun and once you understand it its very addictive and fun to make overpowered items and equipment, the actual combat is...ok?? It's serviceable mostly just excuses to blow things up with your new toys.
There are some challenging fights but I think they are less challenging in the traditional jrpg sense and more a test of your understanding and usage of things you make with alchemy!

Sound: the voice acting is good except everyone pronounces "atelier" differently. The music is EXTREMELY cozy and some of the boss music is actually really cool

Story: It's kind of basic but honestly I think these games, at least from what I've heard, thrive more on character writing than a big plot and that's true here too. There are some lore hints at a bigger overarching thing but its not really important, the characters are cute and charming and while they are not particulary complex they do have memorable qualities.

Achievements: honestly a really good achievement list, getting every ending with both characters and basically doing everything the game has to offer, my favorite kind of achievements reward completion so this gets top marks from me.

My tl;dr is this is a cute, comfy jrpg with fun crafting and some neat characters. I think the time limit is perfectly balanced where its lenient for newcomers but you still need to mind it. I think this is a perfect game to start with as I now own the rest of the Dusk trilogy thanks to this one. If you want something kind of relaxing to play I recommend it!

This game was a turning point for the series in terms of time limits. This was the first point where the time limit was so lenient that it actually got in the way. You end every period with so much time on your hand that you're just not really doing anything for at least a month after every assignment.

In terms of progression, there's this really weird inexplicable gap between mid game and end game where getting any increase to your multipliers is excruciating. I don't understand why the fused traits suddenly end at this weird point in mid-late game and you just have to replace them with the super special traits.

Probably a part people normally don't really think about, but I found it really unfortunate that setpieces in the dungeons just disappear at a certain point. The first ~25% of dungeons were quite nice to look at, but the rest seemed like they were cobbled together in a rush.

The one really good thing I can say about the game is that the two protagonists are really charming. Probably among my favorite atelier MCs, falling only behind Vayne and Ryza. However, the game suffers from a pretty bad case of "the middle of the trilogy" syndrome. There's way too many referencing of Ayesha and way too many plot points are introduced in preparation for Shallie. It would have been nice if the game felt more like a standalone.

What I love about Mana Khemia 1, and Atelier Sophie 2 is the combat and the sheer gameplay loop of a very snappy, kind of hard combat system, mixed with an either very simple (mana khemia) or incredible min maxing (atelier sophie 2) crafting system.

This game perfectly matches the balance between those two games. Between the crafting system being very simple, but a ton of potential to actually min-max and it feels very rewarding to do so. The combat is in the same general vain as those two games as well.

Most of the bosses were pretty easy, but I was able to fight some of the strong monsters who were literally level 70 and they provided an incredible challenge. (they were probably also easy due to the insane amount of combat managment i did to win.

What this game does to notably stand-out is just how damn likable Escha & Logy themselves are. I feel like their dynamic is stronger than basically every other atelier protagonist combined. I was not expecting the atelier series to cover a romance pretty naturally but, here we are.

I also like how compared to the rest of the atelier games the dusk trilogy is just kinda miserable. All of the colors are super subdued and you really feel like you're just living the grind of a goverment worker in a little shitty city that's trying to survive. Of course, the game isn't that serious because it's atelier. But it's the general atmosphere for this series that I enjoy that they experimented with.

The only real flaws that I had an issue with is a weird amount of Typos (I have no clue what was going on with that.) and some of the reports are on the annoying side (filling search equipment to 50).

Also the time-limit is a non-issue. Do not worry reviewer reading this. 121 days is more than enough to do everything you need. One of the months I literally had 50+ days left. It only takes like 15 days at most to do the main objective for the month.

A very cozy and sweet game with quite a few issues. The combat is a surprising cut above the typical JRPG affair, but one of the biggest things holding it back is its arguably unintentionally obtuse crafting system UI. The crafting system in and of itself is delightfully robust and justifies its existence as a core mechanic more so than what most people think of when they hear 'crafting system', but the way the system is laid out in the UI felt less intuitive than it could be and made it difficult to truly experiment in curious ways since the game isn't very clear on what you can and can't do. Some sort of filing system where you can track the properties you've unlocked, their commonalities as well as their sources would've gone a long way in selling the experience of being an Alchemist.

I kinda wish the story had a bit more going on since the setting is pretty interesting and what few story bits they do show (mostly near the end of the game) show a lot of premise. Outside of the main duo characters range from decent to dull

PS: This may just be a me thing but playing in the alchemy menu for extended periods of time imparts a work-like stress on me that makes my brain scream. That being said I still enjoy it...I'm sorry I can't explain this...

they somehow followed up on ayesha by making the gameplay loop even more addicting and the vibes more vibing. it feels considerably less "open" than ayesha but i think i almost prefer it this way. the game is sort of on rails in terms of getting your tasks done, but it has enough going on that it feels like i still have to think about what im doing. that airship sideplot was a really cool little side gig that felt so rewarding and added to the main plot as well
also the final boss theme is a vocal track sung by kanako itou?? peak fiction

My second Atelier, coming immediately after finishing Ayesha. In some areas better than Ayesha, in other ways worse. The crafting system takes everything from Ayesha but cleans up the interface and adds some new mechanics and depth, and the result was making the crafting so much more addictive. Combat similarly takes what worked in Ayesha, changes the assist mechanics a little, and polishes into something a lot more addicting. Playing on normal difficulty however, it was also much easier for the majority of the game. Early game when you only have a couple party members and like, two bomb uses before you have to return to town, similar to Ayesha opening stuggle, but as soon as you get a full party of 6 the combat becomes absolutely trivial until pretty late in the game when there's a spike in difficulty to bring it up to something fun with strategy again, but not overly difficult. The story is a lot slower to pick up, but once it does its alright, though I like the story and characters of Ayesha and Shallie both more. Much more upbeat and optimistic tone than the other games despite the same setting of a dying world. Time limit still exists, but has been made into something almost impossible to fail, to the point it almost doesn't exist save to keep you from progressing the main story immediately. The titular Dusk, the dying world, comes a little bit more into focus than Ayesha, but its not the main focus still, but the detailed world map from Ayesha is gone and instead the geography of the land is much more vague unfortunately, and a lot of the locales feel more generic compared to Ayesha's. Still a really fun game, the stress of the time is gone leaning much more into the relaxing, comfy side.

Gameplay: Really good
Story: It's story as an Atelier is really good on both sides of the protagonists
Music: Very good
Replayable: Totally yes
Streamed: Nope

This is game is fun but long and tedious at times, while the battle system is easy to understand, the time limit, questing and alchemy are more difficult to grasp (no shame in looking into guides and other documentation for this game).
The story is fun and heartwarming with lots of interactions, you can play with both POV of the main characters and doing so will change some interactions here and there, visual department is nice, characters animations for story and exploring/battling are functional, the illustrations are so pretty (made by Hidari who also worked for Record of Lodoss and some FE games), music is nice as well (and if you don't like it you can change it with songs from other Atelier titles).
I would recommend this game to people who are willing to put long hours into rpgs and are interested in intricate mechanics.

A great follow-up to Atelier Ayesha, taking place in a new area with new characters and some returning previous characters as well. The game still has a huge focus on crafting items with special properties and effects, but the battle system has been improved a fair bit. The game encourages at least two playthroughs, once with each character to get the true ending on the second playthrough, but I don't have that kind of time, so I played from Escha's perspective and read up on everything else. Suposedly Logy's side of things isn't too terribly different (which makes sense, given they spend 99% of the game together). So, if you enjoyed the first game, definitely pick this one up!