You play as Lydie and Suelle, twins who live with their artist father who is also an alchemist, but not a very good one. The twins are the ones actually running the atelier even though they're just beginners. But soon enough they start focusing on their dream to become the greatest alchemists in the kingdom! They also stumble upon a painting that sucks them into another world. And the only way to learn more about it is through alchemy!
The story of Atelier Lydie & Suelle wasn’t as strong as Atelier Sophie, and was a bit more rambling than the one in Atelier Firis which had a clear goal. There is linear progression, since the twins are taking part in the alchemist ranking program which requires them to take certain steps to upgrade their rank. But the mysterious painting and the woman within are almost immediately forgotten for quite a while. I feel like it's obvious who she is, but that story-line takes a backseat to everything else going on.
However, once we get back to the more personal story of the twins, I really enjoyed it! That middle section may have been a bit random, but the payoff is worth it.
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 as always. Suelle's outfit is probably my favorite of all of the girls so far. She just looks so cheery and cute! The hair also looks nicer than in other games, a bit more dynamic maybe?
I really love the variety in monsters. There are a lot of different types with multiple variations, some are familiar from Atelier Sophie and Firis. But most seemed to be new, with some super adorable ones and some actually kind of creepy looking ones. There was more room for creativity since the paintings are all themed rather than being real world places. For example, there's an under the sea theme, with giant jellyfish!
The real world places aren't as varied as they were in Atelier Firis, which makes sense, since it takes place in just one region. The paintings do make up a bit for this, but I did still wished for a bit more variety. However, a bunch of new locations unlock once you defeat the final boss. I believe these are all part of the DLC, which I didn't check out as of writing this review.
As for the town, I still found it awkward how the NPCs are just kind of there. Merveille is a pretty small place. It looks nice, but it's also extremely empty. Sure, a couple of the NPCs have slight animations, so they don't all look like mannequins, but most of them are just standing around with no expressions and nothing to say. They're also all the same character designs from previous games.
Sound Effects + Music
Atelier Lydie & Suelle is fully voice acted in Japanese. There is no option for English this time, which is fine. The voice acting is quite good and very expressive, which I've come to expect from these games.
The music is great and was always stuck in my head when I was done playing. Especially Hagel's track.
Gameplay + Controls
Atelier Lydie & Suelle has three main components: gathering, synthesis, and battle. Gathering takes place in specific areas on the outskirts of town, as well as in the mysterious paintings. The cauldron is used for synthesis, which is essentially alchemizing those ingredients into useful items. And battle also takes place in the gathering areas with monsters freely roaming around. You can also pick up side quests from the plaza bulletin board. Some are timed and some aren't, so pay attention. You'll earn Coll (the currency) or items by completing them.
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. But you do need to fight some monsters in order to progress the story, complete requests, and get rare materials. You can completely avoid battling otherwise, if you're just out to get specific materials.
Combat is really straight forward and similar to that in Atelier Firis. It's turn-based with the attack order shown on the side. Each action is taken immediately, which helps with planning what to do next. There's also the option for other party members to protect the twins from attacks, which comes in handy, since Lydie is especially weak. Items are definitely needed here. She's not as bad as Firis though, thank goodness. Coincidentally, the first time Firis battled with my party she was knocked out almost immediately. After that I made her a support rather than an attacker.
Supports are a new feature this one, where you pick three party members to back up the three on the front line. Everyone has their own abilities on what they can do from the back row, such as heal or attack. They also have different triggers (using an item, elemental attack, etc), so you'll need to play around with your formation a bit to get results that you like. Another new feature was the Battle Mix, which is a followup for Lydie, which I only got to play with a bit during the final boss battle.
Synthesis is straight forward but also a bit complex. It still uses the grid with different colored shapes, but the mechanics are not quite the same as in the previous two games. I actually found it easier to understand, but still difficult to make high quality, useful items, since high quality materials are rare. This time around you use catalysts to change the grid size and add colored bonus squares. There are a ton of different symbols, which are not explained at all. You just have to figure it out on your own. Once I got the hang of it, this became my favorite synthesis system so far!
There is no time limit for the main story, so feel free to take as long as you need to raise the twin's reputation and take the ranking exams. The only place were timing matters is for requests you pick up, so make sure to complete those and turn them in before you go on any synthesizing sprees. Traveling to the gathering spots also consumes time, with further locations taking longer. And the monsters present change depending on the time of day, so plan accordingly.
The way to progress the story is by completing ambitions and promotions. For each ranking you'll be given a set of ambitions which are tasks to complete to raise the atelier's reputation. Once you've gotten enough reputation, the twins can be given their exam criteria. Complete that to move up a rank and move on to the next chapter! It's very linear with some room for exploration, but it also keeps you on the right track.
You can also switch between controlling Lydie or Suelle, but there's no differences between them. Just choose whoever you feel like. You'll also notice that the recipe book has separate sections for each of them, but this doesn't matter either. It would have made sense if certain recipes could only be synthesized by one of them, such as healing items being locked to Lydie.
Replayability
While I did enjoy Atelier Lydie & Suelle more than Atelier Firis, I don't think it's as replayable since there's just one outcome. The main story is also more than twice as long, which is plenty of time to spend in this game. However, once you complete the final task, you can't keep playing, which is kind of annoying. The new locations aren't needed for the final exam, so there was no reason to visit them right away. I wish I had known that before finishing.
Overall
Atelier Lydie & Suelle is another fun game in this series. It's more balanced than Atelier Firis in terms of synthesis and battle, since both are required to advance the story. The twins were a lot of fun to get to know, and the mysterious paintings were a great way to open up the world.
The story of Atelier Lydie & Suelle wasn’t as strong as Atelier Sophie, and was a bit more rambling than the one in Atelier Firis which had a clear goal. There is linear progression, since the twins are taking part in the alchemist ranking program which requires them to take certain steps to upgrade their rank. But the mysterious painting and the woman within are almost immediately forgotten for quite a while. I feel like it's obvious who she is, but that story-line takes a backseat to everything else going on.
However, once we get back to the more personal story of the twins, I really enjoyed it! That middle section may have been a bit random, but the payoff is worth it.
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 as always. Suelle's outfit is probably my favorite of all of the girls so far. She just looks so cheery and cute! The hair also looks nicer than in other games, a bit more dynamic maybe?
I really love the variety in monsters. There are a lot of different types with multiple variations, some are familiar from Atelier Sophie and Firis. But most seemed to be new, with some super adorable ones and some actually kind of creepy looking ones. There was more room for creativity since the paintings are all themed rather than being real world places. For example, there's an under the sea theme, with giant jellyfish!
The real world places aren't as varied as they were in Atelier Firis, which makes sense, since it takes place in just one region. The paintings do make up a bit for this, but I did still wished for a bit more variety. However, a bunch of new locations unlock once you defeat the final boss. I believe these are all part of the DLC, which I didn't check out as of writing this review.
As for the town, I still found it awkward how the NPCs are just kind of there. Merveille is a pretty small place. It looks nice, but it's also extremely empty. Sure, a couple of the NPCs have slight animations, so they don't all look like mannequins, but most of them are just standing around with no expressions and nothing to say. They're also all the same character designs from previous games.
Sound Effects + Music
Atelier Lydie & Suelle is fully voice acted in Japanese. There is no option for English this time, which is fine. The voice acting is quite good and very expressive, which I've come to expect from these games.
The music is great and was always stuck in my head when I was done playing. Especially Hagel's track.
Gameplay + Controls
Atelier Lydie & Suelle has three main components: gathering, synthesis, and battle. Gathering takes place in specific areas on the outskirts of town, as well as in the mysterious paintings. The cauldron is used for synthesis, which is essentially alchemizing those ingredients into useful items. And battle also takes place in the gathering areas with monsters freely roaming around. You can also pick up side quests from the plaza bulletin board. Some are timed and some aren't, so pay attention. You'll earn Coll (the currency) or items by completing them.
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. But you do need to fight some monsters in order to progress the story, complete requests, and get rare materials. You can completely avoid battling otherwise, if you're just out to get specific materials.
Combat is really straight forward and similar to that in Atelier Firis. It's turn-based with the attack order shown on the side. Each action is taken immediately, which helps with planning what to do next. There's also the option for other party members to protect the twins from attacks, which comes in handy, since Lydie is especially weak. Items are definitely needed here. She's not as bad as Firis though, thank goodness. Coincidentally, the first time Firis battled with my party she was knocked out almost immediately. After that I made her a support rather than an attacker.
Supports are a new feature this one, where you pick three party members to back up the three on the front line. Everyone has their own abilities on what they can do from the back row, such as heal or attack. They also have different triggers (using an item, elemental attack, etc), so you'll need to play around with your formation a bit to get results that you like. Another new feature was the Battle Mix, which is a followup for Lydie, which I only got to play with a bit during the final boss battle.
Synthesis is straight forward but also a bit complex. It still uses the grid with different colored shapes, but the mechanics are not quite the same as in the previous two games. I actually found it easier to understand, but still difficult to make high quality, useful items, since high quality materials are rare. This time around you use catalysts to change the grid size and add colored bonus squares. There are a ton of different symbols, which are not explained at all. You just have to figure it out on your own. Once I got the hang of it, this became my favorite synthesis system so far!
There is no time limit for the main story, so feel free to take as long as you need to raise the twin's reputation and take the ranking exams. The only place were timing matters is for requests you pick up, so make sure to complete those and turn them in before you go on any synthesizing sprees. Traveling to the gathering spots also consumes time, with further locations taking longer. And the monsters present change depending on the time of day, so plan accordingly.
The way to progress the story is by completing ambitions and promotions. For each ranking you'll be given a set of ambitions which are tasks to complete to raise the atelier's reputation. Once you've gotten enough reputation, the twins can be given their exam criteria. Complete that to move up a rank and move on to the next chapter! It's very linear with some room for exploration, but it also keeps you on the right track.
You can also switch between controlling Lydie or Suelle, but there's no differences between them. Just choose whoever you feel like. You'll also notice that the recipe book has separate sections for each of them, but this doesn't matter either. It would have made sense if certain recipes could only be synthesized by one of them, such as healing items being locked to Lydie.
Replayability
While I did enjoy Atelier Lydie & Suelle more than Atelier Firis, I don't think it's as replayable since there's just one outcome. The main story is also more than twice as long, which is plenty of time to spend in this game. However, once you complete the final task, you can't keep playing, which is kind of annoying. The new locations aren't needed for the final exam, so there was no reason to visit them right away. I wish I had known that before finishing.
Overall
Atelier Lydie & Suelle is another fun game in this series. It's more balanced than Atelier Firis in terms of synthesis and battle, since both are required to advance the story. The twins were a lot of fun to get to know, and the mysterious paintings were a great way to open up the world.