13 posts tagged “atelier series”
Dear GUST, please hold off on the video games for a while. I still haven't finished the last four games you released. Really, just cut it out for a sec.
- I love the character art. It's more detaily than the cel-shaded style of Grand Fantasm, and there's a strong downward trend in the number of exposed midriffs. With Grand Fantasm, Iris joined Shion Uzuki in the club of heroines who went from reserved to lurid; Mana-Khemia's heroine Philo is much more tastefully cute.
- The characters are way more likable, in the Atelier tradition. Philo is endearingly clumsy, Gunnar is outrageously manly, Vain (unlike Edge) actually shows human emotions, and so on. I even like Nike, contrary to my normal anti-cat-ears stance.
- Missions feel more fun because they are presented as field assignments at the alchemy school. There are also part-time jobs that work like the quest board in GF. Now, instead of the frustrating time-limit mist, if you stay out too long it just becomes night-time and monsters get tougher.
- Between the assignment episodes, you have free time to pursue quests of your own choosing or play character-based side-quests. The character quests feel a little bit like Ar tonelico, in that you can spend more quality time with the party members you like best.
- The alchemy-based level-up system is cool. On a big FFX sphere-grid-like field, locations open up as you synthesize new items. You can use AP gained in battles to unlock the power-ups at each location; there are no traditional levels or automatic stat advancement. Tying advancement to the alchemy system makes for a fun positive-feedback loop: the more you synthesize, the stronger you get, and the more ambitious you can be in dungeons, so the more recipes and ingredients you earn, so the more you synthesize...
Gods, I'm spoiled these days. First the limited edition Sing "Yesterday" comic, now this limited edition of the newest Atelier game, Mana-Khemia. From the screenshots, it looks Ar-tonelicoesquely fun. I have put the figure on my Mac Pro at work, but I had to do some serious arrangement and experimentation with my Haru-at-the-bar figure and the little included briefcase to make sure she's not showing too much to passersby...
I found another good, tangible example of The Difference today: No matter what happens in this crazy universe, not Sakura Taisen, nor Ar tonelico, nor Atelier Iris will ever be promoted by the exhibition of a freshly decapitated goat. Do I have any reason left to like Sony? My mental list of the awful things they've done has gotten out of control.
If there's something that can get me to post, it's GUST news. Snackbar Games seems to have scooped the story that Atelier Iris: Grand Fantasm is coming to the USA. I must admit that I never made it to the end of that game; I kind of missed the high adventure and sentiment of The Azoth of Destiny. Maybe I'll go back and give it another chance. It's certainly not a bad game by any means; the battle system in particular is great fun. Maybe if Ana had had more speaking lines...
GUST has announced the ninth Atelier game, though this seems to be the first one without the word "Atelier" in its title. Meanwhile, Atelier Lise has been delayed until April. This makes three non-Ar-tonelico games since Ar tonelico! Where could our sequel be?
Mana-Khemia looks like it could be good, too, though. It puts the Atelier template of alchemy, battles, and quests into a school setting. I hope it ties into the storyline of the other games; so far the only clue that it might is that Pamela makes an appearance. Grand Fantasm could have tied itself in really well, especially considering that Iris was a main character, but for some reason it seemed to nearly ignore the other AI games.
So I've got a lot of products on my mind these days, and I just got my bonus today. What should I buy? Who deserves my attention when I'm in the mood to be entertained?
In the order I think of them:
Utawarerumono: A 4-year old Leaf PC game cleaned up, fitted with a new tactics system by Flight-Plan, and ported to PS2. It looks like it could be good, but how many tactical RPGs do I need? And how many medieval fantasy worlds do I want to task myself with keeping track of?
Summon Night: I bought Swordcraft Story, the first English-localized title in this venerable series from Flight-Plan, on a whim. I just thought it was dang cool to find such stuff on the shelf in my home country. I still haven't even put it in the DS yet. Again, how many tactical RPGs do I need?
Atelier Series: I'm looking forward to Atelier Lise on the DS, but I have pretty much stalled out on finishing Grand Fantasm. I still love GUST.
Ar tonelico: I think I'd rather just play this again than try most games on my to-play list. I'm quite ready for GUST to announce part 2.
Fire Emblem: Serious, high-grade tactical RPGs from Intelligent Systems, the guys who invented the genre. I found Path of Radiance this weekend for $20 brand new, and I couldn't resist. Should I even bother with the quirky, stylish ones from Nippon1 and Flight-Plan?
Yggdra Union: More quirky and stylish tactical RPGs, this time from Sting. Do I need them? Who knows?
Riviera: While I'm considering Yggdra Union, why not its predecessor, too.
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: This visual novel is intriguing and it has become quite a phenomenon. I'd like to get through it, but it seems hard enough to decipher for native speakers of the language, let alone me.
12 Kingdoms: Not a game, but the novels. I'm reading them now, but do I need to? Should I get into another medieval fantasy world that's barely distinguishable from all the others?
Melty Blood: A PS2 port of a NAOMI arcade port of a tuned revision of a PC doujin fighting game based on a PC doujin visual novel. It looks fantastic, and I'm ready for a new 2D fighting game, but I'm afraid I'd be a bit late to the whole Tsukihime party after all this time, and I am not sure I could convince Jon B to play it seriously with me.
Okay, there's my psyche-dump for Japanese pop-culture products. I guess I'll just stick to my "buy them all, try them all, and stick with them as long as you are honestly interested" method. It's all just keeping me entertained between major milestone playing experiences like Sakura Taisen or Xenogears.
Two authentic Japanese futons arrived in the (express) mail this morning. These were a (surprising and inexplicable) gift, and probably cost more to mail than they did to buy. I won't complain, though; they are nice, comfortable, and reminiscent of days in Japan. :D
The repair of my car door will cost $65 (if I just want the bent metal molding replaced), or $710 (if I also want the tiny little dent removed). I was quite happy to just ask for the molding. That's a small price to pay for the knowledge that I'm better off parking in the street from now on.
My new Sega Surf Wave wireless PS2 controller exhibits none of the insane behavior of the previous one. Now I can truly say that it's the best controller of any kind that I've ever used.
Five new books arrived from Amazon, including the new Dawkins. It's taking a lot of resolution to avoid reading them all at once.
I was going to sit down and cancel my order for Amie Grand's Goth-Loli Rei garage kit, which has been on back-order at HLJ for months, when I got an e-mail that it had shipped! This is the same day that I worked on my Dokusho Suru Rei kit for the first time in over a month. Her shoes cleaned up quite nicely with fine sandpaper, and now they have a fresh coat of paint. Next up is airbrushing the skin; it'll be a challenge.
Atelier Iris: Grand Fantasm is fun and rewarding. But I'm worried about the characters. The Azoth of Destiny had such warmth and positivity, while so many people in this game are mean, insecure, cruel, dishonest, or chauvinistic. Iris and Ana are the only purely nice characters who come to mind. Even the main character Edge is kind of a jerk, especially to Iris herself. I kind of miss Felt and Viese. :\
A few things...
I love the hand-painted backgrounds, just like King's Quest VI... No 3D rendering can beat 'em.
I finished Atelier Iris 2 tonight, finally. The last dungeon and final boss took a lot of leveling up and backtracking to collect better items.
Awesomes:
- The story of Felt and Viese, exchanging letters between two different worlds, and finally reuniting, is heartwarming. They did a great job of telling that story. Viese is one of my favorite game characters of all time.
- This series is a legendary story in which you actually get to see the legends. Many stories make reference to legendary people, events, and artifacts from the distant past; if they were so great, why is the game about some people who lived way after them? In AI2 you actually go back and meet the people, experience the events, and create the artifacts that were legendary in AI1.
- The combat system felt quite fun, trying to balance Break attacks (which can delay the enemy's turn and earn you chains for big experience bonuses) and Charge attacks (which can set you up for special moves). The encounter bar, which I liked from Ar tonelico, made random battles way less annoying than in AI1.
- As I posted before, the localization was not ideal. It was better than AI1, but it still had a lot of mistakes. The worst was the way they localized the name エラスムス. It's obviously supposed to be "Erasmus", a real name belonging to historical figures such as Erasmus Darwin, Erasmus of Rotterdam, and Saint Erasmus. They spelled it "Elusmus" for some reason. Likewise, a tablet became a "doublet", even though in the dialogue someone says "what's this tablet?"
- The game has some bugs. Like in AI1, character's voices sometimes skip or get cut off. Many localized strings don't fit in their boxes, so they dangle outside the boxes or just get chopped. Likewise, some boxes are too tall for their contents, so you end up with an empty line at the bottom of a speech bubble. This is all stuff I probably would have let go back before I became a part of the QA process at a software company.
- A few times in the story, when "Elusmus" is speaking (and it's obvious because his voice has some digital effects on it), the dialogue label says "Felt". If I wasn't paying close enough attention that could have gotten confusing, especially because almost everyone speaks with the same dialect whether they're an easygoing teenaged swordfighter or a centuries-old alchemist's soul trapped in a gem.
