I know people are mixed on this game but it was just so charming to me. I love Firis, I love her journey, I love her dynamic with her sister, I love how Sophie and Plachta are written in this game.

I honestly really enjoyed the semi-open world design. Exploring to find new materials and things to do was really fun and made for possibly my favorite gameplay loop in the series. This game does this feeling of childlike wonder so well and I loved it.

My main complaints are most side characters I don't really care for that much and I just don't like how grindy the endgame is if you try to optimize. I get why it's mixed but personally I adore this game

I really do respect that after the relatively safe, straightforward Sophie (which I love), that the team here decided to just swing for the fences and try something wildly ambitious. Honestly, it's really cool seeing what they went for on a pretty small budget and tight deadline. Still, it's a messy game, and that became a lot harder to ignore the longer it went on.

The first half here, with a time limit to reach the other side of the map and pass an exam, is honestly terrific. It has a nice sense of scale that the series doesn't often go for, and the little stories you encounter in every town along the way are super cute, if sometimes frustratingly structured.

The second half, though, is where things fall apart. Firis wants to find a path in life, and the game really commits to just letting you do whatever. There are different endings for every single character here, and that's super cool. But when your objectives at this point are literally just "talk to various people and do various things", it can feel more than a tad aimless. It's worse when completing character stories often boils down to "do one cutscene, sleep three days, do another cutscene, rinse and repeat". With more time, I'm sure this team could've figured out a more satisfying loop, but it's still a bummer how much the pacing falls apart here.

I'm pretty mixed on changes to alchemy, too. I think Sophie's panel system was really smart and fun, and all the changes here kinda just make things longer and more tedious.

Still, for as negative as a lot of this sounds, I really did like this game. I think the cast is super charming and fun (a huge step up from Sophie's pretty dry supporting cast), Firis is a great protagonist, and a lot of the ideas here would be executed far better in both Lydie and Suelle and the Ryza games. It's an important step forward that I'm glad they took, ultimately.

Probably my last Atelier replay for a bit, but I really enjoyed it! I am putting it at half a star higher than a few years ago.

This game is a pleasure to play, and is in my opinion, an improvement on Sophie. As the Atelier series’ first open-world game, they really nailed some things here. The world is fun to explore, the characters are charming, crafting is well thought out, and the enemies are enough to be somewhat challenging, but not ridiculously overpowered. I am not a completionist, but I am only two trophies away from platinum and I have 95% of the in-game database.

The flaws…for one, I wish there was more of an overarching narrative with more conflict and some higher stakes. Here, you have many slice of life type stories, which are fun, cute, and provide some nice world-building after Sophie, but I wanted more. While I prefer this game to Sophie, I will admit Sophie did better in this regard.

There are a few little things about the open-world that don’t work as well. A couple of glitches here and there, repeated conversations as you travel, and in my opinion, it takes much too long to get a fast travel option. In addition, there is a quest line/boss that is too hidden away for how much lore it provides. I know it is relevant in the sequel as well, so I don’t know why it is difficult to access…

Finally, this can be an extremely misleading Atelier game for newcomers. It leaves the impression that the pre-exam portion of the game is most of the game, when it is indeed the opposite. I have seen many posts with people asking what they are supposed to do after, or if after the exam is just an “epilogue.” Gust could have really touted that this is where the adventure actually begins.

Overall, solid experience that I put 120 hours into, and am still not completely finished with. The good outweighs the bad, but I won’t give it 5 stars since I mainly give that score to my really special games. Highly recommended after playing Sophie though!

This is a really charming entry in the Atelier series! A lot of characters return from Sophie which is nice, the puzzle alchemy is as fun as ever, and Firis is super cute and likable. The only thing I wasn't a big fan of was the second half of the game; it's really open, and there's no obvious 'main' ending to pursue. After a while if you keep playing, you'll eventually unlock it, but there was a bit where I was kind of wandering aimlessly, trying to figure out what I needed to do. But overall, I had fun!

You play as Firis, a young girl who lives in an underground village. She’s never been outside, only seeing a sliver of sky from an opening in their cave system. Of course, Firis yearns to go outside, but she’s always told it’s far too dangerous. Then Sophie and Plachta literally blast their way into Firis’ world (it’s never explained why)! Sophie introduces Firis to alchemy after learning that Firis has a special talent to sense ores. Now, Firis can synthesize items to protect and heal herself, so going outside shouldn’t be a problem, right?

Firis’ parents are super jerks. I hate her mother for telling Firis that she’s a pathetic little crybaby who must stay at home where it’s safe. Her father simply follows what his wife says; he has no spine. The only person who stands up for Firis is her older sister, Liane, who regularly gets to go outside to hunt for the village. Obviously, she’ll be accompanying Firis on her journey to protect her from monsters.

The story of Atelier Firis wasn’t as strong as Atelier Sophie, but it did actually have a clear final goal. Firis is going to learn alchemy, take the licensing exam, and be free of her suffocating underground life! However, I found it strange how Sophie agrees to teach Firis alchemy and then immediately abandons her. Sophie is also on her way to take the exam, so why aren’t they traveling together? If Sophie had some other plans and was going to meet up with Firis later, cool. But it’s just a weird set up.

Visuals

This version of the game includes a digital art book, which I flipped through before playing. The art is gorgeous and got me super excited to start playing. I really enjoyed the character designs. Everyone has their own unique style, but clearly belong to the same world. The only part that I felt looked a little off was the hair. It’s stiff, so the animations look a bit awkward, especially Liane’s super long locks. It’s also colored in very strangely, which was extra noticeable on Firis since she already has a line around her hear from her headband, but then another sharp line from strange hair highlights.

I do love the variety in monsters. There are a lot of different types with multiple variations, some are familiar from Atelier Sophie. But there are plenty of new ones too, since Firis is of course journeying across the world. Some were really cute, and I didn’t want to kill them!

I love the costumes! Not only can you change Firis into a variety of costumes (some of which actually give her different benefits), you also get three outfits for Liane, Ilmeria, and Drossel. It was fun to switch up what they were wearing, and they all look great, with amazing detail. Too bad the boys don’t get the play dress-up as well.

There are also so many different landscapes and biomes! The game starts inside a mountain, so it’s very grey with some pops of color. Then Firis goes out into the world and travels through desert, snow, jungle, seaside towns, and so many more! Even within each environment, there were little micro-areas that had their own details and characteristics. No two places looked the same, even if populated by the same monsters. My only complaint is that in some places it was hard to see where Firis was going. I don’t know if this was by design to up the difficulty in evading monsters, or if these places really were just too populated.

Other than the same hair issue, which isn’t really much of an issue, I still found it awkward how the NPCs are just kind of there. It’s even more noticeable in Atelier Firis, since a lot of the time you’re in wide open areas, then suddenly there’s another traveler, except they’re just standing there. In the middle of nowhere. Doing nothing. Like the guy surround by ghosts who didn’t have any kind of expression or animation.

Sound Effects + Music

Atelier Firis is partially voice acted. Only the most important story cutscenes are voiced, at least in English. I don’t know if the Japanese language setting has more voiced dialogue or not. So you’ll mostly be reading the dialogue, which I don’t mind at all. The voice acting is fine. I do feel like the characters had the correct tone unlike in Atelier Sophie, where it sometimes felt like they were just reading from a script.

The music is also nice, although didn’t really stand out to me too much. Some of the background music is reminiscent of Atelier Sophie.

Gameplay + Controls

Atelier Firis has three main components: gathering, synthesis, and battle. Gathering takes place all over the map rather than in specified areas. You’ll need to run around to find the ingredients needed for alchemy. Firis uses her cauldron for synthesis, which is essentially alchemizing those ingredients into useful items. And battle also takes place anywhere on the map with monsters freely roaming around. You’ll also be assigned quests from different NPCs as Firis progresses in her travels. Some are required to progress the story, while others are optional. The optional ones can be done at anytime, even after completing the main story.

Gathering and battles go hand-in-hand. Although you can sneak around or run past enemies if you just want to collect materials without engaging them. Unlike Atelier Sophie, you don’t unlock new gathering grounds. This game has more of an open world feel, where the entire region is open for exploration and populated with monsters. The enemies do vary between locations, although many are found in multiple places. Having more space to explore also made it easier to avoid combat, which has its pros and cons. You can gather without interruption, but you also won’t level up Firis’ awful 1 damage attacks.

Combat is really straight forward. At first I felt like I was missing something, but nope. It’s just easy. Much like Atelier Sophie, you’re shown the order your party and the enemy will attack. But instead of choosing all your actions at once, then having it play out, each action is performed immediately. I did prefer this, because I liked seeing how much damage was actually done by an attack, so I could better decide what to do with the next party member.

Firis is a delicate little flower though, so if an enemy aims an attack at her, there’s the option for another character to shield her and take the damage instead. You’ll only have Firis and Liane for a good portion of the game, but eventually you’ll be able to add three more characters to your party, although only two of them will be in your battle formation. They vary in amount of HP/MP and the type of weapons used, so you can mix and match to form a party that suits your battle style.

I did not enjoy combat though. I liked the battle system, but with such weak weapons, poor defenses, and low HP/MP on every character, it wasn’t fun. The only monsters that were easy to defeat were the blue, green, and red punis. Nearly everything else wiped me out every time. Maybe I was missing something, but weapon upgrades seem extremely rare, nearly nonexistent. Even paying 5,000 for a mercenary was a waste of money. Sure he had better attacks than everyone else, but he had extremely low HP, so he’d get knocked out quickly. Thankfully, combat isn’t necessary to finish the story, and enemies are generally easy to evade. Although, there is a battle portion of the exam, but it’s more focused on your item stats.

Synthesis is straight forward but also incredibly complex. Depending on how you want to play and how much time you want to put into selecting and arranging materials. I wasn’t sure about it at first. You still have to select the materials to use and they still have sizes and shapes to fit with the grid system. But now you have bonus lines set into the grid (these change based on the catalyst used) which give bonuses if you completely cover the lines.

You also still get special traits based on the component value of each material, but instead of being a simple bar, it’s a star level system. Bonuses also depend on the color of the material components (and sometimes the catalyst bonus lines). When making an item for the first time, I didn’t pay too much attention to all of these factors. But for equipped items, it pays to take a closer look to get the best traits and effects.

There is a time limit, but I felt like it was super generous. You have 361 in-game days to make it to Reisenberg and pass the alchemist exam. During that year, you’ll traverse a variety of landscapes, meet other travelers, and collect the three required letters of recommendation from established alchemists. I was worried about the time limit in the beginning, since synthesis does take quite a bit of time. It’s important to synthesize every recipe you unlock in order to level up, but before you know it several days have passed! This made me feel rushed, so I didn’t take as much time in each region as I should have. As soon as I found the entrance to the next area, I moved on.

The only area where you’re forced to spend a significant amount of time is Flussheim, since there is literally no way to leave at first. There’s a pretty lengthy quest to build a ship to carry everyone on to the next town. On top of that, there’s an alchemist who will have assignments for Firis before writing her a letter of recommendation. You are able to travel backwards though, so it’s not impossible to visit a couple of close areas to gather some much needed materials.

I still made it to Reisenberg with 120 days left, so instead of taking the exam, I backtracked to find the regions I missed on the way. I had traveled south to Reisenberg, so I had completely missed the areas in the north, including a village with an alchemist. I was able to travel there, get a fourth letter of recommendation, and explore a bit more. I tried to get the fifth letter, since I had plenty of time, but I couldn’t find the last alchemist. Instead of continuing to search, I just went back to take the exam with 72 days left.

But after registering for the exam, Firis can’t leave Reisenberg while waiting for the exam day to come! So the time limit isn’t really a limit, it’s more of a countdown. There is no reason to hurry across the map to take the exam, because you won’t be allowed to take it until the specified day anyway. You can run around the city, collecting the meager amount of materials, synthesize with whatever materials you already have, or sleep until exam day.

All of this to say that the time limit is extremely generous and a nonissue. I wish I had realized this sooner, so I could have taken more time in each area, rather than feeling rushed. Sure, I was able to go back and do more quests and fill in a few more places on the map, but I was just killing time until the exam. After passing, Firis is free to go wherever she wants, whenever she wants.

Replayability

I do think Atelier Firis is more replayable than Atelier Sophie, even though I didn’t enjoy it as much. The main story is way shorter, if you accidentally (or intentionally) rush through it like I did. In fact, I did immediately start this one again, since I now know that 361 days is way more than enough to get everything done. Firis failed her exam on my first playthrough, because she wasn’t prepared. On the second playthrough, I plan to level up Firis and Liane’s battle skills and upgrade their weapons, rather than running past every monster I saw. I’ll also pay more attention during synthesis to get the best items possible for the exam.

Overall

Atelier Firis is another fun game in this series. It is more focused on gathering and synthesis, with combat being more of a optional feature, so that’s something to keep in mind, if you do prefer more action. I think it fits the story and Firis’ journey though, since she is not a warrior. She just wants to become a great alchemist and explore the world on her own terms.

"Decided to go on a never-ending, mysterious journey."

The idea of an open-world isn't necessarily a new concept for contemporary game design; you could argue most of the Legend of Zelda's games are "open world", with being set in a world for the player to explore and crack open, learning of its various mysteries and details. The term has absolutely caught on more nowadays; Breath of the Wild, in an attempt to harken back to more "outdated" game design, heralded a new era of open world exploration, which multiple games have either succeeded at replicating or disastrously failed.

None of this is as important as two key components of the open-world; gameplay loop and exploration. A common complaint levied against various open world games is the fact that their worlds are "empty". Personally, I consider it to be somewhat of a misnomer. Open world games are never necessarily empty as much as it simply fails to disguise and vary its gameplay loop in an effective manner. Sonic Frontiers is the premiere example to me where I could say that the world in Sonic Frontiers is simply "empty", but that's not an accurate complaint. One could simply point at all the content and say hey, see, it's not empty! However, think of what you do in Sonic Frontiers. The loop is consistently finding resources to unlock more scenarios. You go through the world to find more stat boosts, keys, or emblems for story, leading up to the final fight in that area. Personally, I find this incredibly dull for two reasons. The world is dull, and the gameplay is always exactly the same.

Atelier Firis, in that regard, is the first attempt Gust had to create an "open world" Atelier game. Based entirely around our protagonist, Firis, and her journey thorought a part of the world that the Mysterious Trilogy is set in. The entire world that Firis travels thorought is one we, as the players, are forced to travel on foot through the process of an entire in-game year, incentivizing the players to explore as much as they can. And to reach the conclusion a little earlier than the end, I think Atelier Firis nailed the concept of an open-world to a degree no other game has ever really reached.

The game centers around the eponymous Firis, alongside her sister/siscon Liane, who go on a journey after Sophie and Plachta blew up the door of their village of Ertona, an underground sealed mining village, entirely self-sufficient. Firis has always wanted to go outside, bedazzled by the tales of the outside world given by Liane and various books she owns. Regardless, her parents forbid her to due to the dangers. As Sophie arrives and Firis gains a liking to alchemy, a deal is struck; if Firis is able to obtain an alchemy license in a year's time, she will be able to go outside as she pleases, setting off the events of the game.

The plot in Firis is sparse after that point, but Atelier games are generally never about the plot as much as they are about the characters. However, in Firis, I'd say the characters are secondary to the real crux of this game: Exploration. Since Firis is on a journey, the game's open-world formula unfolds. Rather than the world being a set of areas, separated thorought time intervals accessed in the world map, Atelier Firis does not let you fast travel through the world map, instead having to walk directly thorought all of the zones, as they are all huge, varied areas interconnected with each other. Regardless, this departure from the original style of Atelier doesn't really stop here. This isn't a guide, so I won't get too deep into the differences between Sophie and Firis (and to an extent, Ryza and the Dusk trilogy), however I will say that the one thing I thought was a little weaker was the alchemy. I enjoy Sophie's alchemy despite being very confusing at first, but the Catalyst system seemed somewhat underwhelming and I never exactly understood the best way to synthesize stuff outside of simply having decent materials.

The way Firis incentivizes exploration is great as well. Thorought the game, you obtain sidequests. These sidequests aren't always given by characters, but are more like thoughts Firis has. She usually will comment about hearing a voice, or water, and wondering what there would be in said location, thus ensuing a small trek to find the source of it. These usually give you landmarks, which are locations one can fast travel to if you're in the same area as it. There was a specific highlight with these little sidequests; during my exploration of the Traveler's Grove, I got a sidequest about a man with medicine. The location it led me to was Dona; a location which had an alchemist. Thanks to that, I was able to get a letter of recommendation as the player requires three in order to participate in the exam. Alongside that, the White Fog Forest also holds a lot of Dona Wood among other ingredients which are crucial for a lot of alchemy, so being aware of it helped a lot for later, when I could simply return and gather more.

Regardless, as said, despite the time limit present in Atelier Firis, you are very incentivized to explore the world. Through these sidequests with legitimate rewards, the more merchants you find, the bigger variety of items and the more recipes you discover, the more allies you find in the world, the very process of exploration is the most crucial aspect of the game. Everything about it lends to the game, and it helps that the exploration itself is a joy. The game, visually, is absolutely fantastic. While the character models are a little off when seen up close, the enviorments are absolutely beautiful and mesh very well with the enemy design. The one exception is that the Atelier looks kind of bad, but you get used to it.

Regardless, as you explore more, meet more of the cast, such as Angriff, a mercenary you hire, and Ilmeria, Firis's girlfriend, and as you see more of the world, meet more alchemists, obtain more clothing with different effects, resolve more sidequests, and finally reach Reisenberg and clear the exam, the credits roll. While the journey might have been a straight line, Firis was able to succeed and see the world through her eyes, learning more and growing.

Until, of course, the second part of the game. I actually love this part of the game much more than the first part; I consider it the best aspect of Firis. Gone is the time limit, you gain the ability to make many more tools to ease exploration, and the characters really start gaining more depth. After all, this aspect is less about Firis rushing to secure her freedom, but now that she has it, what will she do? From here we really do undestand more and more of these characters. Personally, I did only the necessary endings for the true ending; that being Ilmeria, Sophie, Meklet/Atomina, Liane, and Angriff's endings. All their events are absolutely great; Ilmeria and Firis's relationship is very nice and cute, with both improving each other. Liane had some of the strongest writing yet here, graduating from being just a funny siscon to someone much more genuine to watch and see how she cares for Firis as family. Sophie isn't a huge improvement from how she's written in her game, but she was great then, and just seeing her take a teaching role is nice to see. Angriff's funny, but he feels like a very genuine role model to Firis in a sense, despite still being a very unprofessional man. He cares, however; and that's great! I loved going through their events and learning of them, and by the end I loved them all almost-equallly.

Regardless, the real crux of Atelier Firis is exploration and growth. While Atelier is a series that has always been about growth, Firis's spin on it is a much more unique iteration of it. It's not simply inner growth as a human or with skills in alchemy, but it's the emergence from an egg. She leaves her nest and her growth comes from her environment and peers. It's something which is why I consider it one of the absolute best in terms of an open-world game. It isn't just good in its exploration and in the variety of its gameplay loop. The fact it IS an open world enhances it to heights the series never really saw until this point. My journey through the world that the Mysterious trilogy is nowhere near over, not simply because I'm missing two games after this, but because this game's world by itself is so dense that I feel I will never really stop loving it, the same way Firis will never really finish the mysterious journey she longed for years.

Adventurous departure from the usual Atelier formula with partial success only:
+ surprisingly large open world containing much more impressive environments than previous entries
+ interesting prologue with actual character struggles
+ relaxed time limit to reach the first goal with a little pressure
- hardly any incentive to keep playing afterward
- scarce interactions underselling the characters
- less homely atmosphere due to a decentralized setting
- needlessly tricky and grindy additions to an already great crafting system
- ridiculous amount of asset reuse particularly noticeable on NPCs

I greatly respect the pivot that Atelier Firis makes from Atelier Sophie to a game that's far more open and exploratory. It has a far better cast and so much more to see and do than Sophie.

Unfortunately, the second part of the game is where it loses me, as it makes you amble towards endings as you unravel the complicated event system in the game, all while squaring up against the rather harsh difficulty of the combat and generally unfulfilling alchemy system that seems more geared toward sheer grinding than smart material use.

It's neat, it's fascinating, it's definitely a look at what would come later in Ryza, but it's also messy, sometimes quite tedious, and a bit too often unfun.