After over two dozen mainline video games, I can solely think about how tough it have to be to innovate and keep related in an period the place an ideal sport is popping out each few weeks, however that’s precisely what KOEI TECMO goals to do with the subsequent entry in its long-running Atelier JRPG sequence, Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories and the Envisioned Land. After spending over six hours gathering assets, doing Sailor Moon-esque magical dancing rituals, and driving round on a bike, I’m inclined to consider they’ll pull off simply that, but once more. With extra partaking fight, improved visuals, extra handy crafting, and a wholly new constructing system that permits you to put your individual private contact on the world, there’s fairly a bit to be optimistic about, even when what I noticed of the story and characters was, not less than to date in the opening hours, fairly boilerplate stuff for the style.
In case you’ve performed any of the latest Atelier video games, then you definately in all probability received’t be shocked by Atelier Yumia at first look. All three of the pillars which were round since its conception are nonetheless alive and effectively: exploration, the place you run round amassing assets and fixing puzzles; fight, the place you battle baddens with a celebration chock-full of fairly anime buddies, and synthesis, the place you mix your hard-won assets into alchemical creations that make you stronger. However every has been given a considerable overhaul (to not point out a critical facelift) that breathes new life into a well-known method.
Fight appears to be getting the largest rework, with action-based techniques that allow you to excellent parry, dodge out of the means, and swap to totally different vary bands relying on whether or not you’d prefer to thwack enemies in melee or take them down from a distance. At decrease ranges, fight appeared pretty undemanding, as I used to be capable of simply unload each capacity I had, swap to different characters to do the identical, then repeat all of it once more, ending most encounters in a matter of seconds, however afterward (and particularly after I wasn’t correctly leveled) I significantly obtained rinsed if I wasn’t taking note of enemy assault patterns and dealing on my timing. It by no means obtained particularly difficult as long as I used to be correctly leveled, nevertheless it was good to see a much less passive fight system that I couldn’t simply steamroll via whereas on autopilot.
Exploration additionally had some enhancements, like having a gun to stun enemies and gather assets at a distance, ziplines that make it easier to navigate the map extra simply as soon as you discover and activate each side of the line, and, crucially, a badass bike so that you can pace round on that makes getting round a lot simpler. Lastly, there’s Synthesis, which in usually Atelier vogue is so dang difficult, you may spend fairly a bit of time customizing and min-maxing each facet of your gear and crafting new objects and assaults to make use of in battle. Or, in case you don’t have the persistence like me, you’ll be able to simply hit “auto mode” and it’ll routinely optimize all of it for you. Not that I don’t take pleasure in this facet of the sequence, nevertheless it’s definitely good to have the choice of leaping again into the motion rapidly for instances the place I wasn’t in the temper to tinker.
Atelier Yumia additionally shakes issues up by including a fourth pretty vital exercise to the checklist of issues to do as you discover and stage up: the capacity to construct and customise settlements all through the world map. That’s proper – Atelier Yumia appears to be leaning into the cozy craze, so now you’ll be able to have a bit bit of Animal Crossing or Sims together with your JRPG by setting up your fantasy cottage on a patch of land and spending some high quality downtime together with your get together members. I used to be solely capable of dabble on this a bit, given the constraint of the assets accessible to me in the early half of the story, however I might undoubtedly see myself sinking fairly a bit of time into taming the wilds with an elaborately embellished residence.
With all Atelier has going for it, I’ll say that it did little or no to make itself stand out in phrases of story. The characters and foreshadowing of the undoubtedly epic and convoluted story that begins to develop in the opening hours aren’t dangerous by any means, however not less than to date every thing has been fairly predictable and retreads loads of floor we’ve seen from JRPGs of the previous. That is very true of the characters I met throughout my explorations, like the ditzy by healthful Isla and the stoic and no-nonsense Viktor, each of whom I really feel like I’ve seen half 100 instances already. However that is the starting of a JRPG, so in all probability it’s simply going to take some time for the story to start out rolling or for characters to indicate their true colours to any stage of satisfaction, leaving loads of alternative for my issues to vanish given extra time.
I might be remiss if I didn’t point out that Atelier Yumia marks the first time the sequence will seem on the Xbox platform, and as a Westerner who would fairly like extra JRPGs to be available, that’s fairly superior to see. Achievement unlocked!