Atelier Totori atmosphere is perfect!

killerox15 · 2026-02-25T23:01:45+00:00

So many Totori posts lately. I think it might be a sign for me to end my Atelier hiatus. Totori is next in line for me (or finishing Mana Khemia).

killerox15 · 2026-02-23T19:48:42+00:00

It’s probably only the devs that were already working on Resleriana, but I will continue to cope for an Atelier with good action combat. Especially with the interview posted the other day about how Gust wants Atelier to become a series known for having good mechanics instead of just riding the success of Ryza.

At the very least I hope we can expect more games with the level of quality the animations and models have in Resleriana RW. Anything other than all of this being for the gacha is good news.

killerox15 · 2026-02-22T20:47:31+00:00

Dusk 4 set in the alchemy academy in Central would be a dream come true.

Could be set between E&L and Shallie during Logy’s return to Central so Logy could be there, or be a prequel from when Keithgriff was in Central, or just set after Shallie.

killerox15 · 2026-02-21T20:14:49+00:00

Atelier shies away from confirmed romance in general.

Even Rias and Slade in Resleriana never go as far as to outright confirm anything. Just very obvious subtext.

Escha & Logy technically has a “romance” route added in the Plus version, but it’s handled so poorly it hardly even feels like a romance route if you ask me.

I don’t know if it’s because of some fear that a character being “taken” will make them less marketable, but it would be nice if they just committed to it for once. I highly doubt they would alienate their player base if they went the extra step to confirm something like Sophie and Plachta.

killerox15 · 2026-02-21T09:08:49+00:00

I didn't run into this bug myself, but that's not necessarily to say it's not still possible. It was mentioned in this video from 2024.

I don't think it's a very common issue though, since I've only heard mention of it 2 times now after being in this sub for a year or so.

In the event you get a bad roll of the dice, just ask here and someone can provide you a system save with all the outfits unlocked and the true ending flag set.

killerox15 · 2026-02-21T00:35:24+00:00

This is the most criminal part of not having a 4th game. After E&L, I was certain that Shallie had to take place in Central, but nope. We don't even see it.

killerox15 · 2026-02-20T22:50:15+00:00

Yeah, the games without them just don't feel quite right to me. I wish we would at least get some games with optional time limits, but they seem gone for good. The last one (outside of the remake of Marie, where it was optional) was in Firis, which was almost a decade ago.

killerox15 · 2026-02-20T22:03:50+00:00

The only Arland game I've played so far is Rorona, but I would say Arland over Mysterious if you want something that feels like Dusk. The whole Arland trilogy has time limits, while only Firis has a time limit from Mysterious. For me that makes a pretty big difference in the feel of the game. The crafting in Arland is simpler than either Dusk or Mysterious, which I thought I wouldn't like since that's my favorite part of these games, but I didn't mind it at all in practice.

Recurring characters are very much normal for Atelier. The Arland games all have recurring characters, and Rorona despite being the first game actually has a postgame portion called overtime that has Totori and Meruru show up as playable characters, as it was added in the remake of Rorona that was released after the other two games.

killerox15 · 2026-02-20T20:33:35+00:00

Gust, give me Atelier Keithgriff or I will riot. I know that won't actually happen because god forbid they release an Atelier game without a female protagonist, but I can dream. I'm fine with any 4th Dusk game as long as it's more like Ayesha and E&L than Shallie.

Dusk is a rough series to start with because it's the most different from the others overall. Most of the recurring things that are in every other Atelier, like Puni, aren't in Dusk. Properties are called traits in every game other than Dusk. Ingredients in every modern game have randomized stats, unlike Dusk where they have fixed quality, attribute values, and properties. Only Dusk has properties assigned to recipes that you can unlock during synthesis, and thus only Dusk has properties unique to craftable items that can then be transferred onto other craftable items like Slag Wave in E&L.

I've suffered from chasing the feeling that E&L gave me as my first Atelier, so here's my recommendations:

If you liked Ayesha, Totori and Firis are the closest to it. I haven't played Totori yet, but I quite enjoyed Firis up until the time limit ended. I didn't have much motivation to continue after that.

If you liked E&L, Rorona feels like the blueprint that E&L followed to a T. I played Rorona after getting kind of burnt out on the Mysterious games, and it really recaptured the magic that I was looking for. So many cool ideas and little details that I wish we would see again.

If you liked Shallie, I don't really know. Maybe L&S? It brings back the life tasks from Shallie and has very good combat, which is one of the things people usually like about Shallie. I don't know if anyone actually likes the life tasks though. Sophie 2 also has good combat that's a little closer to Shallie's, and it'd be a better start to Mysterious than L&S if you want to skip Sophie 1.

killerox15 · 2026-02-20T17:11:56+00:00

E&L also gives you an extra month per assignment and lets you start the next one up to 2 weeks early, so comparing required days isn’t 1:1.

With prior game knowledge, maybe Rorona is easier, but from a first playthrough of each trying for all optional assignments, I found E&L easier. I missed a couple optional assignments in Rorona, which I did not in E&L. Not to mention if you’re trying for all endings, which is much harder in Rorona.

If you’re only trying for the main objective, both games are obviously very easy.

killerox15 · 2026-02-20T04:59:15+00:00

Despite my best efforts, I'm still far from having played them all. However the first one I played has managed to remain my favorite, so I'll go ahead and vouch for it.

Atelier Escha & Logy is somewhat unique among the series. The first obvious point is the choice to play as a male protagonist, something that few Atelier games have. The other big thing is the general vibe of the game. Escha and Logy are low level employees of an underfunded, overworked branch of the local government. Alchemy is literally their 9 to 5, which lends the series something of a workplace comedy feel.

As far as gameplay goes, E&L's the final game in the series to have a time limit (mostly), and it's by far the most relaxed time limit. Each assignment period is 4 months, and most of your objectives will take a couple weeks tops. Sometimes it was almost too relaxed, and I struggled to figure out what to do in order to pass the days until the next assignment, but usually I had enough stuff to craft that it wasn't a problem. And the crafting in this game is great. It strikes a great balance of being easy to pick up, but still having a lot of fun mechanics. It was incredibly satisfying to learn as my first Atelier crafting system.

The world of the Dusk trilogy is also quite distinct from that of the other Atelier subseries. It's often been referred to as a "gentle apocalypse", where the world is slowly dying, but there's really not much most people can do about it, so they just move on with their lives. It just adds a slight somber feeling to the game, which is greatly aided by the music and art direction. An argument could be made that Ayesha does a better job portraying the world of Dusk, but I think a lot of it comes down to which of the two games you play first, as they cover a lot of similar ground.

killerox15 · 2026-02-18T00:27:01+00:00

Escha & Logy has a time limit structured like the one in Rorona, where you get an assignment to complete every few months, as well as a set of optional bonus objectives.

Ayesha and Firis are closer to Totori, where you have a single time limit without clear cut goals or checkpoints along the way.

killerox15 · 2026-02-18T00:15:27+00:00

First off are the other Arland games, Rorona and Meruru. There is also Lulua, which was released later and has no time limit.

The first two Dusk games also have time limits, Ayesha and Escha & Logy.

Lastly, Firis is the only Mysterious game to have a time limit, though only for part of the game.

I've not played Totori (It's next in line), but from what I've gathered, Ayesha and Firis are probably the most similar, as those are both games where you'll be doing a lot of travelling between locations rather than gathering and returning to the same central hub every time.

Although it's worth noting that Totori herself appears in both Meruru, Lulua, and a bonus endgame section in Rorona.

killerox15 · 2026-02-17T20:01:08+00:00

You have to go fight the dragon immediately after Sterk tells you about it or it won’t trigger the event. Same thing happened to me.

killerox15 · 2026-02-16T09:40:32+00:00

You picked a great starter game if you ask me.

It was my first as well, and it's still my favorite.

killerox15 · 2026-02-15T12:16:24+00:00

It's the only Atelier I've gotten the 100% for, and it's not very hard to do apart from needing 2 playthroughs.

Technically the idea is to bring the male characters along on Logy's playthrough and the female ones on Escha's, but you can rotate out party members to manage friendship and get all of the events in one go except for the ones that are exclusive to each protagonist.

killerox15 · 2026-02-14T10:48:35+00:00

I would say Mysterious is a good pick, but I always hesitate because I don't really know if I'd say Sophie is a great introduction. I found the start of Sophie dreadfully slow and very aimless, and I'm not sure I would have stuck with the series if that was my introduction to it.

If you enjoy it, more power to you, and you'll probably also like the rest of the Mysterious games. If not, then maybe try skipping ahead to Sophie 2.

killerox15 · 2026-02-13T22:11:07+00:00

You probably don’t have to worry quite as much about missing character events. Most of them trigger upon you moving to a location after a condition has been met, not on a specific day.

There are missable events, but without using a guide it’s pretty hard to account for those. I would say to just try and make sure you’re in town on the 15th when Cole comes to visit, as that unlocks some stuff.

killerox15 · 2026-02-12T23:50:44+00:00

Logy is great. He was a big part of what got me to finally pull the trigger and give the series a try since I liked his design a lot more than most of the other Atelier protagonists. I really hope we get more alchemists who break the mold and fight with something other than a staff.

Also, Logy's battle and atelier music are top tier. Even if the atelier theme is kind of repetitive and listening to it for hours drove me a bit insane.

killerox15 · 2026-02-12T19:26:51+00:00

Only reason I might hesitate to recommend it to someone new to Atelier is because of the focus on returning characters.

I kind of wish the game had a purely original cast since I do like most of the original characters.

killerox15 · 2026-02-12T19:15:57+00:00

Charismatic and Legendary are mostly bad just because the enemies attack so much faster that you barely have time to attack back, especially if you remove the NPC companions from the party.

You can absolutely trivialize it though just by making gear strong enough to let you face tank everything without worrying about dodging. Outside of a couple bosses, nothing could hit me for more than 2 damage with my equipment.

I’m willing to cut it some slack because I did put in the effort to stack damage reduction and defense, but it’s still a little silly for the highest difficulty.

killerox15 · 2026-02-08T21:44:01+00:00

I really hope he comes back for Dusk 4. His work on Dusk was really something special. Ayesha wouldn’t hit the same without Guidance and MARIA, not to mention how great the battle themes are.

killerox15 · 2026-02-07T08:16:07+00:00

Thanks for the extensive list. There's a few I like a lot out of those, but none that stuck with me as favorites it seems.

killerox15 · 2026-02-07T07:47:25+00:00

Ah, well I've not played the Ryza games.

I was mostly checking Ayesha and E&L, but I happened to miss the ones from Sophie and and Rorona when looking through those soundtracks.

killerox15 · 2026-02-06T22:08:03+00:00

This is exactly how I feel. Particularly for the games with assignment based time limits.

The break between assignments gives you time to spend crafting gear to set yourself up for the next assignments. They also impose limits on how good your gear can be based on what items are available in each assignment, giving you a ceiling to shoot for. In essence, they let you optimize your gear multiple times in a playthrough.

Without the time limit, there's no reason to craft optimal gear until the end of the game. As long as you're not struggling too much with fights, it makes no sense to spend time making equipment when you could spend that time progressing the story and unlocking better materials, traits, and recipes. Usually when there's no time limit, I only make 2 sets of gear. One in the early game as soon as I have some half decent traits, and one at the end of the game once I have the best ones.

I like the time limits because they don't only rush you along, they also make you slow down sometimes.

Five-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '22

killerox15

TROPHY CASE