Where shall I begin? This is my least favourite of the five Atelier games I have played so far. It's the closest in the series to a traditional modern JRPG (an oxymoronic sentiment I know). There are huge areas to explore as opposed to tiny zones. Multiple smaller seamless towns and cities as opposed to one single zoned city. Etc, etc. Some people may prefer this, but I certainly don't.

Even while Ayesha took me on a continent-spanning journey similar to that of Firis, there were constant fixtures in her travels that built up that sense of familiarity and comfort that I have grown to love from the Atelier series. I suppose I should expect a game with 'Mysterious' in the title to fill me instead with mystery(!) and anxiety, though that is not what I come to this series for. Ayesha's quest to save her sister was also much more of an engaging narrative hook, whereas the narrative in Firis comes across as an anime filler arc. The 'postgame', in reality the true narrative playground, did turn me around on the game quite a bit

Firis herself is a certain downgrade from the wonderfully charming Sophie, who despite appearing for a very limited time in this game all things considered absolutely makes her presence...well, present. That brings me to the greatest issue I have with this game - the character events, and the lack of presence that side characters have. With most of the events shoved to the post-exam period, save for Liane and Ilmeria to an extent, everyone feels two dimensional and replaceable. Even in past Atelier games where I was ambivalent to much of the cast, Escha and Logy's extended cast being such a case, I could simply never forget Micie or Threia despite never using them in battle. Drussel would be lucky if I remember her tomorrow.

All that said, Nicola's letter to Firis that she receives when she is homesick made me cry. Sincerely hoping Lydie and Suelle are closer to the games I love, and I hope to see Firis come into her own as well.

Legitimately one of the best (and also most underrated) JRPGs of the modern era. While the story itself isn't really any more flavorful than Sophie's, there's a huge world to explore, and the non-linear nature of the game progression sort of gives rise to a narrative all its own. The core systems are also very solid, as one would expect from the Atelier series; you'll spend just as much time crafting items as you do exploring.

Honestly this is a really wonderful game that left a major impression on me and something I want everyone to play. It's by no means perfect, but there was a ton of love put into this game -- and it has the content to match! The soundtrack is also more or less on par with Sophie's, which is no mean feat.

This is a review of the DX version on Nintendo Switch

After the disappointment that was Atelier Sophie, i am pleased to say that Atelier Firis was a much better improvement. While it's not quite as good as some of the other titles, it still proved to be a very chill game and it was that chillness that really helps it with it's rather unique structure. See, Atelier Firis is really weird in that the post-game is the real meat and bones of the game. Everything else prior to that is basically a prologue and while that may sound bad on paper, the "main story" is honestly really short compared to the amount of time i spent getting all the character events in the post-game. Said main story is the first time Atelier has had a legitimate time-limit since Atelier Escha & Logy and this is probably the easiest time-limit in the entire series. I've seen a lot of Atelier fans say that it's way too easy but admittedly, i did get lost more than a few times so i can feasibly see someone run out of time and get locked out of the post-game. And because of this structure, i found playing on and off with this game. I started playing this game on the first week of June 2021 and if you look at my Backloggd journal, you will see just how many games i've played between them and now. Atelier Firis' "post-game is the real game" completely changed my mindset as to how i would approach this game.

Now playing this game in a post-Atelier Ryza world is really interesting to me because it's very clear to me that this game basically served as a prototype to what would eventually be in the Ryza games, Ryza 2 especially. This was the first Atelier game to update the engine after sticking to it for several years and Gust took advantage of it by making this an open-world-lite game. Now of course, these games have never had much of a budget in the first place so the areas are not that big but compared to Atelier's usual bite-sized areas, this was something new for the series at the time. Firis would be able to craft vehicles to traverse these lands faster and even find a way to walk underwater and pretty much all of this would return and be expanded upon in Atelier Ryza and Atelier Ryza 2 and it gives me some newfound appreciation for both this game and two games it would directly inspire later in the series (at least i think that's what happened).

As for the combat and synthesis itself, i personally found it to be rather weak. Synthesis is explained horribly to you so i pretty much winged it the entire game. I was playing on easy as a result but that's fine, i don't play this series for the difficulty. But because i was winging it with the synthesis, i couldn't really bring the combat to it's full potential, a mistake on my part.

As far as characters go, it's a fairly decent improvement over Atelier Sophie. I enjoyed a lot more of the characters this time around although some other games in the series still have it beat. I'd say the character quality is comparable to that of Atelier Shallie. That being said, Firis is honestly in the top tier of Atelier protagonists because damn bro, her optimism is extremely infectious. She can be too loud at times but man, i just know i'm going to miss her for the time being (she shows up in the next game).

Atelier Firis is a decent, relaxing game, complete with the banger Atelier soundtrack from Gust. I still have one more Mysterious title to play and the improvements that this game saw over Atelier Sophie have given me hope that this trilogy isn't a bust.