Atelier Series - a mysterious gust in a forum of tropes

I tried to find Gust and Atelier among forum titles, and found nothing

I saw Atelier titles in my life of foraging copy-sold games, and I thought, hmmm, must be interesting. Then there's Recettear, which I hear was BASED on the fame of this series

So, what DOES a game of this series play like? I'm confused and need enlighting here. I'm trying to get myself Atelier Meruru but there's no gameplay video that can convince me to do so. Maybe some of you had played any of the series to recommend me some titles?

I only played Atelier Rorona and Atelier Totori. Basically, it's all about time management. The central aspect is, that you create various items by mixing various incredients of various quality together. It's not automatically successful, though, and the chance of success is dependent on the recipe in question and your alchemy level.

Recipes can be found in books that must be bought and you find ingredients by going out and collecting them in various areas and by fighting monsters or by buying them. When you go outside, you can take two other characters with you (which is pretty much necessary, an alchemist is not a good fighter). At least in Rorona, you have to pay them, though.

You can also accept quests by others, which can be either slaying a number of monsters, collecting certain items or creating items (the latter two overlap, since it's not important how you get the items, you could just as well buy them).

Brewing and going outside, lets time pass and you only have a limited time for completing your objectives. In the case of Rorona, you get the mission to create certain items of certain quality every month. In Totori, you have to get a high Adventurer rank in three years, which is raised by doing quests, creating stuff, fighting enemies and exploring the world (there are certain objectives that have to be done in those four categories).

Totori seems to be rather varied, while Rorona is mostly about alchemy (which is still a central part of the former).

edited 19th Apr '12 2:31:49 PM by Nyarly

What, no selling items to a bunch of people??

Well, no. Not really, at least. At least not as a special gameplay element.

Aside from the missions you can get from other people, you can also sell your stuff in shops, but that's like every other RPG.

So, this is like time management RPG?

In a word, yes.

Atelier Iris 1-2 (both available in English on Playstation 2) were not bad. They were not top-tier or high-budget games, and they never sold a million zillion copies, but I enjoyed them. Both featured mostly 2D graphics, two options for voice acting, and item crafting. Neither game was overwhelmingly serious, or placed too much emphasis on cinematics. I never got around to Iris 3.

Atelier Annie is an authentically cute DS game that's also a challenging mix of RPG and life simulation. It's a game where a player will benefit from an FAQ, as well as saving carefully. Also, it's the only one of three DS games that got translated.

I don't currently have a PS3, so I haven't tried Atelier Rorona or Totori. But I did notice that RPGamer considered Atelier Totori to be the most overlooked RPG of 2011. If you're willing to wade through a rambling three-hour NSFW discussion, then listen to their "Game of the Year 2011" podcast in the RPGCast archive, and pay attention to the segment about why they liked Totori.

I don't know if anyone is ready and willing to step up and translate the classic Atelier games. From the Playstation/Saturn era through the first couple years of the PS2 era, there were several games that went untranslated. (Was it because the main characters were women... especially since they weren't role models for kids' games, or clones of Lara Croft?) One person was trying to translate Atelier Marie back around 2009-2010, but the blog updates stopped.

edited 19th Apr '12 7:52:20 PM by dorkatlarge

I've played Atelier Iris and Atelier Annie.

Atelier Iris is kinda meh, actually. The story isn't very serious, but not remarkably funny either. It's standard JRPG gameplay except with more emphasis on the item crafting. A decent game, but not one I'd recommend.

I only recently acquired Atelier Annie. It's an interesting mix of RPG and tycoon game — you have to turn an island into a bustling settlement. Basically, kill monsters for EXP and items, forage for items relentlessly, craft like hell, and sell or enter your products into contests. Then you get to use the money to buy more items, or maybe build some places like parks, zoos, etc. I'm just getting started with the game but I already feel like I'm pressed for time... time moves really fast.

I've heard good things about Totori, though.

Thank you for the feedback, people! Now all I gotta do is to wait for the completion of PS 2 emulatah!

One of the reasons why I created this thread is that I swoon for Meruru. I saw Totori gameplay and I became more interested in this series. Watching japanese Meruru made me realize why

• Meruru is cute and looks huggable. I mean, look the level up pose!
• She counts as a royal who actually does something, making her game a part time development sim
• She appears more involved in the aspects of the previous two games

Her theme song is even more badass!

Merumeru punch, and merumeru kick.... what has gotten into Gust?! They also appeared to be throwing out a lot of Super Robot Wars homages into this game!

edited 21st Apr '12 10:18:53 PM by Cassie

I've only ever played the Atelier Iris games, but man were they fun. The only negative that I remember is that the end of the first game had a very steep difficulty spike.

Apperently Ariablarg on twitch.tv was able to get an early copy of Atelier and has been streaming it.

You guys seen Atelier Alyesha? The graphics are some of the best animesque cel-shaded graphics I've ever seen. It seems to follow the traditional JRPG battle system, but you can move around. Can't glean anything about the gathering, crafting, etc. aside from the obvious.

Why wouldn't this just go in the Nippon Ichi thread? Neptunia being primarily discussed there would lead one to believe that NIS America titles get put in there, too?

I forgot that there was a NIS thread, so I just searched for Atelier when I saw her streaming. Sorry man.

So apparently, the release date is now. *excited*

But is it really out? I heard that there are delays

well last time i check US is on 29 while EU is on 24

Well, even though some people had gotten pre-ordered copies, it seems that none of them are tropers. Can someone assist in indexing Meruru? Or shall I attempt in making a page of it completely based on what I see in gameplay vids for now?

well you can start a page

Ok, I just did. Atelier Meruru now paged and ready to go. Any players who are tropers willing to add or fix things up?

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2012-06-23/atelier-ayesha-rpg-5-combat-countdown-videos-posted

Wow, Ayesha's music sounds very folk-like. The characters' clothes look like they're from the steel age or something.

The Meruru page is in desperate need of info infusion. I don't have the game, and it doesn't look like other tropers do too. Would be nice to have more trope examples in it

gust always have great Music

Dat raindrop!

Well... I picked up Atelier Meruru yesterday (my first Atelier game) and I think I already have terminal diabetes. But I can't stop playing. God help me. It's like I'm 17 and being introduced to Harvest Moon all over again.

Except it gets much more intense than diabetes!

My first ever Atelier game in my life, GET!

Atelier Annie for DS. It's on emulator *laugh*

It's bare bones, the font size and hardware limitations meant that there are hidden stats like alchemy experience and tool levels, plus traits had to be found instead of being in items from get go. Don't know if this resembles the old Salburg games.

Luck has it with me. I got some items and turned them over instead of selling them at General Shop. Got a few grands to spare on books, which is a big YAY. I might not like the attraction spots and clerks mechanics though

Another thing I don't like: random encounters. Makes defeat x amount of enemies jobs very hard to complete around due dates unless I've got to it beforehand, meaning save scumming is in order

edited 6th Aug '12 2:22:20 AM by Cassie