Atelier Recommendation

Hey Holla Forums, the Atelier series seems like something I could get into, but there's so many games that I don't know where to start, do you have any recommendations for me?

If you need some console reference, I have a ps3 and a bloodbornestation.

Go and buy Atelier Rorona Plus right now.

If you end up liking it move on to Atelier Totori and Atelier Meruru, preferably the Plus versions.

However, for Rorona it's important that you actually get the Plus version since it's greatly reworked and improved, for the other 2 games the Plus versions mostly just add costumes and stuff

Isn't release order a general rule of thumb?

I like the art

Who is worth impregnating?

all of them

I really hope that Atelier stays obscure so that we don't have to discuss this on a weekly basis like the Neptunia threads do

Arland series and start with Rorona Plus

avoid buying the physical trilogy of arland as it contains vanilla version of Rorona

Rorona Plus or Ayesha. You can honestly start with any of them but Meruru and only because it casually spoils the only interesting plot point of Totori, the game right before it.

Start with Rorona and don't let the timer get in your head. You'll have plenty of time to get everything done and if not, no big deal. Repeat playthroughs are encouraged and they all have a bunch of different endings depending on the stuff you do

If that's all you have, either Rorona Plus or Ayesha, depending on if you want to start with the Arland or Dusk trilogies. I will give you a heads up though that, with Ayesha PS3 having gotten caught between the series moving from NISA to TK and Actill for localization, and TK not being sure how much spending the money to license the Japanese dub means to series fans, Ayesha PS3 is English audio only (if you have a CFW system, you can patch a rip of the game with the undub). Also, to my knowledge, the postgame for Rorona Plus has some spoilers for Totori and Meruru.

These might potentially be of help, but there's a number of errors and the guy that made them has apparently been too lazy to fix them. Considering doing so myself once I get more experience with the series, but my backlog's pretty full as is.


Honestly, I do have to say I notice when most Atelier threads occur, they've generally been "Impreganate Rorona" tier OPs. Gets a bit annoying to see, honestly.


Atelier's a bit odd as far as that goes, for western fans anyhow. The really early entries (Atelier 1-5) aren't in English in any form as of now, localized or fan translated, and the next earliest ones (which were brought west), Iris 1-3 and Mana Khemia 1 and 2, are somewhat different than how the series had been before or after them. The Arland and Dusk trilogies are considered a bit of a return to form to my knowledge, so I suppose there you could say release order is best, but it really depends on what the person playing wants to hit up, whether they think the Iris and MK games are of interest despite not being quite the same.

IMPREGNATE REGGIE

That's true, and I hate it. I just don't want people to like Atelier only for cute girls because games like Neptune are shit

This really, really needs to stop. I can't help but feel whoever is perpetuating the threads are doing so deliberately to reduce board quality, the same way discussion for many anime series are hi-jacked maliciously with some memorable but idiotic phrase and forced until it catches on.

Which is kinda weird as there are actual male characters with proper roles within the series. The Dusk setting is one of my favorite post apocalyptic settings.

They at least see some occasional discussion in the JRPG and Vita threads (given that the Vita sees most of the Plus releases), but the former tend to be a bit few and far between, and discussion can be really hit or miss.

At least with a lot of series I'm a fan of, if there's no news about them, there's not much sense in making a bunch of threads on them that aren;'t going to see much interest before dying. But Atelier's one of the older series that's still keeping on, so I can at least see somewhat of a prompt to discuss it infrequently. I just wish the way people handled trying to start Atelier threads out, or even post in them might be of higher quality than "which 2hu wud you fug" tier posting.


I remember someone (I think it was ruggarel) using Atelier images as his go-to spam series to get various anons riled up against games with anime art styles and JRPGs in general some years back on halfchan. Only a few JRPG series (and in the case of Skies of Arcadia, stand alone games) could really escape becoming shitpost magnets after a while, and it got to the point I think most people that wanted to discuss ones aside from Tales (though also including Tales) found the JRPG general on /vg/ to discuss with instead. At least that's how I remember it. I could be remembering wrong.

I do recall hearing that /jp/ used to have Gust generals, so I suppose that might have been the place for better discussion at that time. Never really bothered to go to /jp/ much, but considering how funny I've found those jannie cat images they apparently made, I kind of wish I did.


I've seen some people call the Iris and MK games shit simply because they have male protagonists.

Gust threads were one of the many general threads which were made by shitty neo-/jp/sie who didn't belong there in the first place, and the jannycat image was a meme spammed by a bunch of literal kids who waged a personal war against the janitor of /jp/.

Trust me, I was there for it. You didn't miss anything unless you browsed /jp/ before 2012/2013

I see. Thanks for the info. Honestly haven't known that much about /jp/ as it wasn't a board I frequented, aside from it having been a touhou heavy board and moot apparently having made it to get general discussion on Japan and Japanese culture out of /a/, or something like that. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Still wish I had the full size image of this one though since I saw it once on /a/ here where some user was bitching about being banned, but the thread was deleted before I could, hence I only have a thumbnail.

So, Gust discussion should have stayed on Holla Forums anyhow? Makes sense, but that's provided someone hadn't riled up a ton of anons there to shitpost against most threads about JRPGs or anime games. I ultimately had to retreat to the JRPG general on half/vg/ at the time, which was nice as far as always having people to discuss those games with at any time of day, but eventually got too shitpost heavy, and for me personally, some anons starting a spoiler campaign for upcoming English releases because they felt the west didn't deserve such games (in retrospect, I sadly wonder if they were on to something, given the way localization quality has been trending) made me head back to Holla Forums to avoid spoilers, JRPG discussion quality there be damned.

Ah damn it, I thought I'd hit spoiler image.

Something else I found in my folder. Strikes me that it's probably out of date now, but might still be somewhat useful for OP.

Gust threads on /jp/ were mostly aimed at people who could speak japanese, but they really could have stayed in /vg/

Oh, so kind of like the occasional Japanese vidya threads I've seen on /a/ here? Took me a while to get that they meant both Japanese region of origin AND language. Certainly didn't seem like the board for it, but given how much they seem to dislike Holla Forums, maybe they'd prefer to have their own discussions.

Not Totori, that's for sure. Look at this waste of breath. A pathetic excuse for a person, really.

Bullies are not welcome in Atelier threads

...

Atelier for pc, when?

Aren't there already PC versions of some of the earlier games? Not that they're in English anyhow.

It's not like Tototi defeated a evil virgineating demon which plagued an entire country or anything.

I wouldn't call the dusk games shit, I just don't like them as much because the crafting is pretty shallow. Pretty fun if very basic JRPGs

fuck I meant Iris/MK games, please bully me

Start with Totori and work upwards. None of the pre-PS3 games are available in English iirc.
The PS3 version of Rorona is poor, so you can skip it altogether, if you want. I didn't even like the + version, though.
If you have a vita, the + versions have extras (the biggest prop is including all the DLC), but you're not missing a lot by playing the PS3 versions.


No bully. Sterk is best grill.


I dunno. Would be nice, but I don't think Gust are interested in PC.

those people are faggots and should be ignored.

Get Rorona Plus. The only Atelier on the PS4 is Sophie, which is sort of a continuation of the Dusk games (Ayesha/Escha&Logy/Shallie). If you had a Vita, I'd say you could start with either Rorona or Ayesha, but the PS3 version of Ayesha doesn't have the Japanese voices so I wouldn't recommend starting with it. Just play the Arland games first (Rorona/Totori/Meruru).

Has anyone played Sophie? Is it worth the $60 dollary-doos for my Bloodborne Station?

I've only played Ayesha+ thus far, I have E&L+, but just haven't gotten back around to it, but Sophie is the start of a new series, isn't it?

It's alright, the lack of a time limit makes the pacing of the game feel incredibly slow at times, the enemy variety is low, and a lot of filler traits were removed.
On the flip side however, the reworked alchemy system allows for much more specialization of items but it needs a little work.

So is it worth 60$? If you're a fan it's more of the same but slightly different. If not I'd wait until it drops some.
I personally enjoyed it more than shally, EL, or Totori.

And yes it's not connected to any of the other games aside from logy being a cameo character like pamela.

I enjoyed it. The lack of a time limit does change the feel of the game, but it didn't fuck things up too badly for me.

I just want Ufotable to animate the next atelier. Is that so hard to accomplish? Fucking Talesfags.

soon, i can feel it.

I'll take that as a yes then, Thanks for the info user


I don't think that'll bug me too much, I'd prefer to be able to go it at my own pace anyway. The pacing in Ayesha+ was well-done enough that I almost did feel like i was going my own pace though.

So wait, there's more content in the Vita Plus versions than in the PS3 Plus versions?

The only game with a PS3 Plus version is Rorona. All the others are only on Vita.

...

should be changed to Weebs
should be changed Holla Forums

you know the answer to that

I guess I'll also ask, how much time will I spending with each game on average? I've got plenty of time, but I also like knowing how much time I can expect from a game.

I thought about starting with the Dusk Trilogy initially, but after the recommendations here, I just might go with Rorona+ first.

fuck of totori

Entirely depends on how much of a completionist you are
If you just want to do one playthrough youll probably get a bad end and miss out on lots of stuff that you can get if you know how to optimize your time.
That should take abou 10-15hours
If you want every ending youll be busy for a while.
The folloeing playthrouhhs will be faster once you know your way around and certain story triggers, however there are roughly more than 10 different endings

bully totori


Yeah, Iris is shit because it abandons the alchemy formula of the series and makes it into a generic RPG. The protagonist is the least of its problems.

is there vita/ps4 cross save function?

The clock systems in atelier are something of an advatage, though. The game is comfy and replays let you fuck around however you want. But having that timing system really works well when you're trying to 100% the gameā€”it's a measure that keeps you on task. Otherwise you may never actually leave your Synthesis Room for all the neat shit you can create via alchemy.

I would recommend the Dusk trilogy personally, but that's only because I find Arlands aesthetic disjointed and displeasing, Dusk did a much better job of creating a coherent, living and breathing world.

See


I too would recommend Rorona Plus. It is both the beginning of the Arland trilogy and it is one of the most up to date versions of the gameplay. It's also easy to get into. If you are brave, you could jump to the newest one first and help improve it's sales.

As for the other games, play them on the PS Vita or with a Vita TV, as those versions have additional content and changes. The games work on the Vita TV and seam to scale pretty well on a TV.

I did not make the originals, but I am noting those as corrections for if I ever do get around to revising those. Thanks.

I honestly think Meruru is the worst protagonist.

Same, Rorona and Totori were such sweet and humble girls, it's cool that they decided to change it up with Merurus personality but I just liked to see clumsy Rorona and Totori grow into skillfull alchemist capable of destroying the world

Have a Vita?

Totori -> Meruru -> Rorona -> Ayesha -> Escha Logy -> space intentionally left blank -> Sophie

I want to romantically impregnate Rorona

So what is bad about shallie that they fix in sophie?

I played shallie for a bit, but it's been the first atelier game that I haven't finished.

Shallie just feels incomplete, considering what they built up with the first two games of the trilogy.

Also that Shallie plus is not out yet on this side, apparently with actual closure on the trilogy.

apparently the psv port of shallie is a shit port that struggles to get 15fps

So good luck with that shit