It doesn't get thirstier than this.
So... it's pretty much what I expected, it's sort of a cozy, uninteresting somewhat girly JRPG. The stakes never feel too high, Ryza is a farmgirl who doesn't want to be a farm girl, and alongside her buddies, Lent and Tao, meet with two mysterious characters, Empel and animal-girl Lila. who teach her the ways of Alchemy. With this newfound passion of hers, she and her friends set up a hideout on a nearby Island, the only area/dungeon/environment you get to explore in this adventure, and find out htat you must fight beings from another dimension to stop them from ransacking her town. That's the story. There's a whole subplot about Bos, an ex-friend of her and her friends, and how he is a big meanie but they used to be so close and.... honestly, the plot lulled me to sleep. It had some interesting beats, like Lent having a father that beat him up... but nobody ever does anything about it, and Lent's resolution by the end of the game is "I shouldn't have let him push me around". Seriously? At first I thought it was kinda interesting, having parental abuse in a JRPG, but they never delve too much into it and the resolution is dumb. It feels like a pseudo-slice of life JRPG, the reason I mentioned that the game feels somewhat cozy is not only because of how small the world is, how low the stakes are, but also the way the story is told. Many cutscenes trigger when you go into different parts of the main town, and they add nothing more than "Hey! This is what these characters are up to!". There's probably an audience for this type of story, but I ain't.
As you'd expect out of a game in the Atelier series, crafting, called alchemy in this game, plays a big part in it. It's relatively straightforward, find/purchase alchemy books to get more recipes, gather the right elements and then go at it. While the game has plenty of tutorials, at first it felt a bit overwhelming. Different element colors, adding elements on slots to increase the orbs, the quality of the items... it felt like too much, but the more I played and the more I crafted, the more I understood the entire system, and by the end it felt like second-nature, and almost fun to plan out which ingredients to use to get the desired effects. That said, even after spending all 25 hours it took me to beat it, I'm sure I didn't understand every bit and piece of it.
I found the gathering system a bit tedious. Thing is, when you go out into the Island you can gather all sorts of ingredients from different areas... but you also must carry tools. A Scythe, Hammer, Rod Hammer and a bug net... but different sources may provide different ingredients DEPENDING on which tools you use. That in a by of itself already makes it a bit of a chore to keep track of how to get everything you want, but you must also contend with a very tiny inventory. To make up for that, you can press '-' at any time and fast travel ANYWHERE, so you can quickly return to the Atelier, drop off everything, and then quick travel to where you were, but that still means sitting through two loading screens. And you'll want to collect everything that you want, because you never know when you'll need something again. Later in the game you can unlock the duplicator, letting you dupe anything you own... but it costs gems, gems which you get by turning equipment and ingredients into them... so you still have to gather stuff, and the cost is quite high.
Oh, and the inventory system kinda sucks. You can have up to 500 items, so the list is quite lengthy, when trying to sell stuff or something. You can use different sorting filters, but none of them is good enough. Grouping items could've helped a lot. The guide, so that you can quickly check where to find ingredients before, is also not good enough, particularly when it comes to items dropped by enemies. You can check what an enemy drops, but not check what enemy drops an item, if that makes any sense. It's counterintuitive.
And the sidequests that require crafting something? Those sucked! I didn't want to waste my hard-earned ingredients on the paltry rewards you get by completing them. It also sucked when I had to waste good stuff since the sidequest required a "X number quality item".
The combat system was interesting, to say the least. It's turn based but with an active-time twist to it. For starters, you take control of one character, and the CPU plays as the other characters. You can swap at any time by pressing L or R to rotate between your three-man party. The thing about the CPU, is that you can order it to go on the offensive and waster CC on their special moves, but they'll never opt to heal or use items. In a way, if the game gets too hard, it could be a good idea to take control of your support character. That said, I never really had to depend on that, but I can remember a few tense moments, when fighting the optional Throne bosses, in which I had to desperately swap between characters BEFORE the CPU used them so that I could use items to heal them. It was sorta fun.
As for the system itself, whenever your characters land basic attacks, you gain AP. After a certain threshold, 10 AP at first, you can spend it all to increase your Tactics level, up to level 5. Each level of Tactics enhances your characters' basic attacks and adds special properties to their AP-consuming super moves! It's an interesting system in which you are always choosing between instant damage or bonuses in the long run. As for consumables, they don't run out, but they must be equipped on your characters. They consume CC, a resource that can only be refilled by resting at the hideout... or by 'sacrificing' an equipped consumable. These sacrificed items are restored when you return to the hideout, so no biggie.
Then there are special orders. Sometimes, the CPU allies will tell you something like "Land a physical special attack!" or "Hurt them with Ice!", if you do as they say, they'll follow up with an even more special move. The system is alright at first and in the end game, but when you are around the game's midpoint... it gets a bit ridiculous. Take Lent, he gains access to a thunder move at level 40, but before that... CPU allies may order you to deal Ice or Lightning damage, and you won't be able to unless you have Lent equipped with an Ice Elemental or Lightning elemental item. Midway through the game I was pretty much ignoring orders since I couldn't fulfill them. But by the end of the game, you not only gain more special moves, but also more items slots for everyone, so you can finally fulfill most conditions.
Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout was alright. It felt pretty decent, and at times it was actually fun, but the gathering aspect was a bit too boring for my liking, and the plot... oh god, the plot was so incredibly lame. That said, I'm sure that there's an audience for this kind of game, and in that respect, I can appreciate it for what it is. That said, my first impressions of the Atelier series were right on the money, and I can skip the next ones... if only my thirst hadn't been so strong as for me to also buy Atelier Ryza 2.... plus, I've purchased Escha and Logi back in the day.
7.0
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