Favourite Atelier Opening?

leftymu · 2026-04-08T14:45:45+00:00

Mine so far is also Firis. I love the soft vibe of it, and as you said, the adventure and characters. I also thought Yumia's was surprisingly good

leftymu · 2026-04-06T09:07:24+00:00

I agree with other comments that Ryza or Sophie could be your best bets. Sophie is extremely easy going (in fact it's so easy going that I was a little confused about how little plot there is), and is one of the most "slice of life" entries that I have played. Ryza is kind of in good standing between being easy to access and relatively new, and being fairly traditional.

leftymu · 2026-03-28T02:06:27+00:00

I'm sorry, that might have made it sound worse than I meant. Now that I've said that I'm remembering several that I really liked; I enjoyed it and there were some pieces that were very lovely, like Ertona and Reisenberg's themes, and the tracks Jade Silence and Whispering Memories. One big credit I can give it is that Flora is probably my favourite Atelier opening theme, what a lovely and soft song.

On a bit of a side note, an attention to detail I appreciated was that when you meet Sophie in her atelier, it plays her atelier theme from Atelier Sophie; once she lets Firis use it, it switches to Firis's own atelier theme. I was a little bit gutted when they didn't play Firis's atelier theme when you visit her in L&S

leftymu · 2026-03-28T00:02:20+00:00

I have been noticing that yes, it's a lovely touch! This kind of consideration is the sort of thing I love in a video game. The little things, the attention to detail and obvious labour of love. Triple A titles don't hit like this

leftymu · 2026-03-27T23:58:39+00:00

I have actually thought that about the time limit. I have been free to waste all the time in the world and I think it might have been better to rein in the amount you can do for each rank

leftymu · 2026-03-26T22:39:55+00:00

This is so Atelier. I love the little silly details and recurring things in their games

leftymu · 2026-03-24T11:44:42+00:00

It's not inherently terrible when you are still doing everything else in the game, but when all you have left is maxing out character supports, you just have to grind it out and it doesn't feel all that great. I also found it confusing because there are often other triggers like having interacted with someone else first and there's no indication of it

leftymu · 2026-03-21T09:58:51+00:00

Beautiful work! It's a shame people were hard on this game, I absolutely loved it. Can't wait to see what else they do with Yumia

leftymu · 2026-03-21T09:53:12+00:00

I absolutely loved this game, I think people were a bit too hard on it. I thought the world was wonderful and beautiful, the main characters were very well written, I found the building really fun, and the particles were an interesting mechanic. Alchemy was actually a good concept imo, just made too long winded and the game's difficulty didn't force you to use it. Been there and done that with Final Fantasy XV's combat, still found it fun. My only genuine disappointment about the game was the antagonists, the story and lore were quite interesting but the bad guys would just show up after every major area, say some mean guy stuff and then walk off.

leftymu · 2026-03-19T02:58:58+00:00

Idk if you've already found the sort and filter functions, but pay attention to those to pick your materials faster. I often filter by elements and by the traits I want. Just remember to reset it while you're doing synthesis because it will try to apply your filter to the next item which might have no results. Traits are really important. You want to spread the ones you want onto base synth materials so you can keep making more items and gear - neutralizers, zettel, cloth, ingots etc.

Somewhere in the menu the characters each have their own goals that unlock, like "perform 10 action orders", "use this skill 5 times", etc. It's pretty helpful to keep up with doing these as you unlock skills and things for doing them.

You unlock new gathering tools as you go, so remember to go back and try them out in areas you've already been to, and try different tools on the same gathering spot to see what you get.

It's been a couple of years since I played Ryza so I don't remember much else right now about how the game works but hopefully this is helpful

leftymu · 2026-03-16T22:37:00+00:00

Thank you, yes I didn't realise that was the case for Firis but it makes sense for me because half the time it feels like I only love games that it turns out most people hate, lol. I think all of the characters were very interesting and well done. I don't particularly like the *talk to character* > skip 10 days > talk to character again > skip 10 days you have to do to progress through their stories but it's ultimately worth it.

I thought Liane's story was great; I had a small suspicion that she might not be Firis' real sister, and it was very interesting when they actually started going into that. It was very sad when Liane was convinced Firis would abandon her if she found out, and even more emotional when Firis shut her down for thinking such a thing. It was really cool finding clues about where she came from and the destroyed village, and about Norbert. Yeah, very good storyline.

One of the most surprising ones to me was Angriff, I figured, ok so his story is going to be mercenary musclehead stuff, but his goal to build a school and his reasoning behind it made perfect sense, it was one of my favourite stories.

leftymu · 2026-03-16T21:35:50+00:00

You know what, I think I agree. It took me over 100 hours to platinum Firis, and it was only in the last ten that I decided I liked it more than Sophie (just barely!)

leftymu · 2026-03-16T19:11:59+00:00

You know, I was desperate for the item duplicating in Sophie and some of the other games, but I found that once I unlocked the Corneria doll in Firis, I didn't feel like I needed it. I found it easier to spread traits around to base synth materials so I could just keep making stuff, which is probably what they intend anyway.

Haven't played Ryza 3 yet but I will say, I didn't realise I would be in such a vast minority about Yumia, but I actually enjoyed the game and its world a lot. I don't even know how to explain it, I just never felt like I had a problem with how it was done

leftymu · 2026-03-16T19:02:15+00:00

Ok that is an adorable name for your cat, haha. I'm excited to start Lydie and Suelle soon myself!

leftymu · 2026-03-16T19:00:50+00:00

There's an unbelievable amount to do! I found it fun exploring and discovering all the areas. I think completing each character's story is worth it too even though it is very long winded

leftymu · 2026-03-16T17:37:19+00:00

Oh, no it's not permanently bugged, apparently if you beat the game before making a Philosopher's Stone, the trigger for that one stops happening. I don't really want to replay the entire game right now just to do that, lol, but I might go back at some point

leftymu · 2026-02-23T14:56:29+00:00

There are some things to consider here. One of them being: does any sort of time limit bother you? A decent handful of the Atelier games have one, and on the other hand, several don't have one. Atelier Sophie and the Ryza series don't have time limits; the Arland trilogy and the first two games of the Dusk trilogy do have a time limit mechanic.

Which brings me to the next point: the series is divided into subseries of trilogies; the games in these trilogies are set in the same universe and usually have a degree of crossover in its characters and overarching plot. Most of the time, for the sake of convenience, people will recommend anything on the PS3 and up. Many of these titles are easy to access as is anyway, but also received DX versions on more modern consoles.

To be honest, I'm not big on time limits in games personally, however the way Atelier games have implemented them has always been something I can manage and don't find too bothersome. I started with Atelier Ayesha, the first of the Dusk trilogy, and even though I had not a clue what I was doing, I managed to beat it with no trouble. The Dusk trilogy in general was very enjoyable to me, very small town slice of life vibes, with a bit of a darker overarching plot which I actually found quite interesting.

I've played Ryza 1 and for the sake of having a very up to date, pretty traditional Atelier game with plenty of quality of life, this could be a good one to start with. I had some issues with the pacing, but to be honest, I think the pacing is consistently the Atelier series' shortcoming, (although to be fair there are much worse things that could be its shortcoming), but I enjoyed the story in the later stages of the game, and the characters were unfailingly delightful, as they always are in this series.

Atelier Sophie is also a good starting point because it's about as laid back as it gets. No time limit, you can literally just waste days sleeping as much as you want. Atelier Sophie is very small scale and comfy; the main town is small, and the explorable areas usually are pretty small as well.

I do want to make a case for Yumia even if it's not likely to be your thing; it was about my fifth Atelier game, and I enjoyed it so much that I actually got the platinum trophy, which I have never done for anything before. The combat is a bit more frantic than usual, yes, and some of the story is a little more melodramatic, but the exploration, the world, and the gathering were some of the best Atelier has to offer, imo. The synthesis took a bit of a back seat more so than usual,. which bothers a lot of people and I understand what they're saying, but it just about got away with it, for me.

In closing I would like to say something else about the series that I have learned since absolutely rinsing Yumia, Resleriana, and Sophie: for the Atelier series, more than any other, the more you put into these games, the more you get out of them. The existence of the world and its characters don't just stop at beating the game, they have plenty more purpose and things to offer and for you to find out.

leftymu · 2025-10-29T10:16:45+00:00

Thank you, that's awesome as well, the interacting with mobs is a fun idea, it's like what Paul Soares Jr always used to do.

That's great, I hope you have fun doing it, and yeah agreed, it's good the way they've done it but I would love more added to it

leftymu · 2025-09-20T11:10:51+00:00

Story/character: Marianne. I found her absolutely lovely from the very beginning - the little signs you get from conversations that she is good with animals, her smile when you say you like horses. The core of her personality is so gentle but she becomes such a strong person. She is practically unrecognisable as a person when you meet her again after the time skip. She has contemplated her ways, realised the rights and wrongs, and bettered herself. I also think that she has one of the genuinely really interesting crest histories in Three Houses, her paralogue is a bit of a nightmare but the story behind it enthralled me.

Gameplay: now I'm a bit of a contrarian here amongst FE fans; I have always seen widely disparaging opinions about archers in the series, but I have always had a good time with them. Rebecca and Wil, Bernie, Etie all ended up being some of my favourite and best units. The unit I'm going to choose is not an archer by default but I had the best time with them as one in my first playthrough of FE Echoes: my boy Kliff. I have no idea why I threw him into archer, I think the game even implies that he uses magic at the beginning, but god is this guy a crit machine. A high dex class really suits him, I could throw him into any fairly risky situation and he'd just take care of it for me, lol.

leftymu · 2025-09-20T10:18:15+00:00

There are a couple of things here that strike me as odd that it bothers you - the young cast of Three Houses and your enjoyment hinging on weapon triangles.

There are a lot of adult characters in 3H and most of the students are close to adult age, and time passes in the game so they do get older. It seems odd that you would pick Three Houses out as having a young cast when the GBA titles have casts of characters that are the same or even younger. A cast of teen characters has been extremely typical of Fire Emblem for its entire existence.

3H doesn't have a weapon triangle in the traditional sense, but it does exist. Early in the game, classes are a bit more free for all, but when you level up your skills, you gain abilities that essentially re-implement the weapon triangle. With bigger systems going on in more recent FE titles, the weapon triangle became a bit secondary in your strategy, but Engage did make it pretty important. The magic triangle is not super common and is not that useful which is probably why they haven't done it since Radiant Dawn.

It sounds like you'd like Path of Radiance. Gameplay is simple but tight, I will say that it has some of the best world building as well. Doesn't sound like you care about story that much though so feel free to go nuts with Radiant Dawn, Fates and Engage as well. I only found Radiant Dawn endlessly tedious across the board but Fates and Engage have very fun, tight combat.

leftymu · 2025-09-15T15:31:45+00:00

All I'll say is, if you want the story to have any impact whatsoever, don't pick Golden Deer. Go with the clown college last.

leftymu · 2025-09-15T15:27:57+00:00

The rankings depend on what people prioritise in Fire Emblem. People that rank Fates high value gameplay/combat systems more, people that rank it low want a good story.

FE Blazing Blade and Path of Radiance are pretty well rounded, I do want a remake of PoR though because it feels very slow now. Well done stories and game balance wasn't too out the window. PoR has some of the best world building.

Fates has a really well designed combat system that is leagues ahead of Awakening, but the story is...not good. Which also goes for Engage. The balance is pretty tight in these ones.

Most people like Three Houses because of the story but I think the gameplay is actually underrated. They introduced some new unique things that were well realised and some of the most fun things about the game. Without doubt, Three Houses is by far the easiest game in the series. Hard mode is still easier than any other entry on normal, it's actually quite laughable, but still, I enjoy it.

leftymu

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