Recent reviews by Inversed

I've only played Iris 3, Mana Khemia, and recently Rorona DX and Totori DX as of this review so I will be comparing mainly to Rorona and Totori. This is my re-review after 100% achievements.

Atelier Ryza was definitely a new experience for me, and it did not disappoint. The new action based combat system is much more engaging than the older turn based games, and is less brain-dead spam basic attack to win. Fights require more micromanaging and I found myself using items much more than I did in the Arland games even up until the final boss. I cannot say how the alchemy system compares to the more recent Atelier games, but I very much enjoyed the system in this game over the RNG fest of Arland. However, the system still has issues which I will explain later. What stood out most to me about the graphically are the colors. I never felt bored exploring and revisiting areas due to the day/night cycle and the occasional rain that would switch the coloring of every area around. I hope Gust continues to implement this in their future games, with even more weather patterns.

Now, some of my complaints. While the Atelier series has never been extremely focused on the combat aspect of its game, I would've liked to have seen better balancing on the difficulty throughout the game. Hard difficulty should not allow me to reach the final boss using only Bronze/Staltium level gear I made near the beginning of the game and accessories from the merchants. The problem I have with the alchemy system, is that it allows you to chain 50+ items together to make ridiculously powerful gear midway through the game. I steamrolled the final boss after making just ONE new weapon for Ryza after not being able to clear it with the gear I mentioned earlier. The two harder difficulties and the extra bosses that unlock after you clear the game are almost immediately obsoleted by these godly gear as you'll take no damage at all.

The AI of enemies also needs be improved, either in the upcoming DLC or in a future game. Almost every enemy will almost always basic attack whoever is in the frontline center position. Once the enemy reaches about 60% hp, they'll switch over to spamming their rage attacks until they die. Only the two dragon fights were actually challenging (died multiple times to the second one) since they had attacks that varied from elemental to debuff to status ailment and did not heavily focus down one person.

Other than those complaints, Atelier Ryza is a great game for those looking for a fresh start into the Atelier series and I highly recommend it. Currently, the game has not received its announced optimization patch yet so those with interest but do not have a beefy pc (I am running a Vega 56 at 1440p and was dropping below 60fps frequently) should definitely wait until this patch releases.

Nice to see another Touhou game being released on Steam. Combo system in this game is amazing and it's fun figuring out ways to chain your attacks together. Master-Slave System adds a new mechanic to the game where you can bring along a fellow 2hu to help deal some extra damage or help you fire another Master Spark. Great artwork and OST as always (Though there's reused tracks from 14.5).