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Ayesha's goal is to save her sister, whereas Escha & Logy want to explore some ruins.
Shallie does continue the plot from both games to some extend. However its still its own story as well.
Put it like this: you can place each game on its own, but playing the games in order games more background story about the world and the story for the individual games.
Is the end of Shallie one big conclusion or does it only conclude its own story?
Part of the fallout in regards to Shallie not having enough characters from previous games was due to Escha & Logy lacking them even more.
In terms of sales Shallie suffered/suffers from being the third entry in a series, and coming after Escha & Logy. Keep in mind that sales for games in series depends largely on how well the games before then did.
I didn't play Shally yet, BUT this is still something I strongly disagree with.
I am a big fan of the music, chara design and characters of E&L.
Maybe I will change my opinion after playing Shally, but that's unlikely
That's a pretty big flaw considering that one thing Atelier games always have for them is a great soundtrack. Even the Mysterious games have lots of great tracks. (that's one thing they do get right)
If you consider E&L's ost good, then I also doubt that. Even more so since you also love the character design and characters of E&L, which most people other then myself also consider some of the worst Atelier has to offer. Even most people that loved the game recognise that one as one of its flaws.
Dusk is the worst series when it comes to music. Ayesha's tracklist wasnt particularly strong either, Shallie does a bit better tho. Its most surprising that Ayesha and E&L have weak battle themes, considering that Gust's sound team is very good at making excellent (and diverse) battle themes.
Its evident they too felt it lacking considering how much effort was put into the Mysterious games music and other games after that.
What fascinates me about E&S's soundtrack is that almost every track conveys this withering world theme.
Yes, I agree that the battle themes aren't special, but the vocal songs are all the more great.
Well, in the end it's completely subjective ;)
Take YS VIII. It has a lot of tracks that work really well in game, but are lacking when listened to outside of game. Due to the lack of pay off after the build up. Since tracks ingame are repeated anyway, theres less of a need for that pay off.
Noting E&L's track again, there's a few interesting ones but they are pretty well hidden. Most of the tracks lack direction.
Take https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmx-D_RKaGs&feature=youtu.be&list=PLnRMug4bWXztI0-8Vm8kFfqrfDZiSadW4
It does a few interesting things with the sound but it never goes anywhere. Blue Reflection has a similar issue. Only one or two really good tracks because its too much sound, not enough music. Both are very interesting as a study into what you could do with sound, but music not so much.
In other words, they made great sound, but not so great music.
A good example of that is :
https://youtu.be/_Kh4LMWHLeU?list=PLnRMug4bWXztI0-8Vm8kFfqrfDZiSadW4
(Awin's theme) Note how it relies on the sounds used. If they had used different instruments it would have sounded worse. Great music however, would still sound good regardless of the instrument used.
The vocal tracks are indeed of better quality, but they also clash with the rest of the track and they are a pretty niche style at that. Still, I would say these are mostly up to preference.
https://youtu.be/pDdPKh6KyA8?list=PLnRMug4bWXztI0-8Vm8kFfqrfDZiSadW4
This is an example of a track that is better as music then a collection of sound. In the first bit it has excellent direction but then falls off.
Ofcourse the subjective bit here is that regardless of how something is made, you can still enjoy or like it. Even if something had ''the worst soundtrack ever'' its absolutely okay to enjoy it regardless. Likewise, having ''the best soundtrack ever'' doesnt mean its always enjoyable to listen to. A lot of that even depends on mood.
I can see that you would enjoy E&L's track more then Sophie's tho. Their style is very different. I prefer Sophie in that respect, since I have much higher quality standards when it comes to slow/tragic music then I do with the ''carefree, genki, adventerous'' kind of music that Sophie uses.
ps: respect to the Gust sound team for making as many tracks as they do. Have you ever checked just how many tracks there are in each Atelier game? o_O;;
I think it's a bit unfair to rate them outside the game, since most of them are relying also on visuals - and as you said - mood, which the story creates.
So for example if you say that E&L soundtrack isn't that good, you have to take the whole thing into consideration. How it works with the world, mood, story
Your last link is a pretty good example. I loved it when I visited this map the first time and Awin's story plays out. But if I listen to this track without any of that...hmm it's just okay.
Yeah, the vocal tracks are indeed pretty niche. It's almost like either you love it or you hate it :D
Btw mentioning Blue Reflection is kinda funny, since I am playing it right now :D
In the first hours I thought it has an amazing soundtrack, but the more you play, the more you notice the lack of variety. It's still good though
Ps: yeah Gust's Sound Team ist really amazing. I think E&L's Soundtrack fits on 3 cds
To be fair, its probably better to enjoy the tracks without thinking too much about that. I loved Ys VIII sound track a lot more before I started (attempting) to use them in my playlists outside of the game, haha. Doesnt make them less amazing in the game!
I remember after I played Ar nosurge I can still hear Ion's laughter when I listen to one of its battle themes. Without that it just doesnt sound as good.
Some of the games have comments from the sound team about writing/creating the tracks. Those are pretty interesting to read. Dunno aside from Ar nosurge which games have that.
On the upside, vocal tracks are often easy to listen to outside of the game as well. I often love them just for that, but I do enjoy vocal tracks lot as well in general. Especially in ending cutscenes, or other emotional scenes.
ps: I love Blue Reflections 3D art. Probably the best ive seen so far.
Not only the 3D art is amazing, but also the general sound quality and menu transitions (they are very smooth).
Especially the voices are so crisp and clear
Obviously, I was referring to the success of the original tiles of the games which is when Koei said that in an interview not long after Shallie was released. The trilogy DX of Arland was not even confirmed yet by then nor the Plus version even though when they said they were probably already planning to release Lulua by then before the official announcement.
Anyway, I haven't played the Plus version of Shallie because of the huge letdown that Shallie was. I know that some of the things that I didn't like like Ayesha not even appearing at all in the game except for a brief moment in the ending were corrected in the Plus version, I'm sure because a lot of japanese players complained about it, but you can't blame E&L for that because there's a lot of characters they could have put not only from E&L to expand the lore, and they still didn't do it. With E&L, they could have easily put Threia being the "female Keith" character in E&L, Micie was also somewhat relevant since he was from Central City and they could have used him in this game to explain more things in regards to Central City and not let things end with that cliffhanger, and obviously even though you can excuse Marion not appearing since one would expect she's either still working in the Corseit Branch or she returned to Central City, not even putting the original Linca or Linca 001 again, and instead they just decided to introduce a new Linca (Linca number 007 I think it was?) with zero relevance to the plot in regards to the sisters, goes to show that Shallie became what it is because they decided to be lazy making this new entry without putting any real effort with making the game, there isn't really more about it than that. Heck, you didn't even consider putting certain characters from E&L like the ones I mentioned that would have been interesting to see, but you do put an annoying and fanservice character that serves no purpose to the plot like Reyfer?
Finally, Shallie sufferring for being the third entry in the series doesn't really mean much. In the Arland trilogy, while personally I didn't like Meruru as much as Rorona and Totori, it was the most successful entry of the Arland trilogy actually, and Totori being the second also sold even more than Rorona, so no, Shallie sold bad because the game was bad, and it's when they removed the time limit on top of that, so it was to be expected. The previous series like Iris that also didn't have a time limit as a result they also were a lot less successful, although those games at the very least had an actual reason for not having a time limit unlike Shallie, so they were still enjoyable nonetheless. The only game so far in the series that has been successful despite of the lack of time limit has been Ryza because of everyone going literally crazy thanks to the thighs free bait effect.
PD: I wish Steam would notify me when someone quotes me, it gets annoying that I don't even know if someone replied to me or not unless I check every single forum all the time -_-
That would be a nice feature to have. Lacking that, you can subscribe to the thread (top right)
and you'll get notifications of new posts in that thread.
That wasnt obvious at all. In fact its the opposite as most people talk about the enhanced versions and the Plus version was released a long time ago now.
Shallie Plus was released in early 2016 thats long before Lulua was announced. If you havent played the Plus version you should clarify that you havent, because most people will be talking about the revised versions of the games. In case of Rorona or Shallie the differences are significant after all.
Ofcourse we can blame E&L for that. It only became an issue because the Atelier games had tons of recurring characters (even playable ones) in EACH game. E&L only had 2 characters, and they werent even the most important side character (Keith) the favorite (Odelia) or the previous Alchemist (Ayesha). What we did get was the second favorite (Willbell) and those werent available for party use untill DLC/Plus version respectively.
If E&L had more recurring characters too Japanese players (and western ones btw) wouldnt have complained as much about that in Shallie. After one game lacking that, they really didnt want another game lacking it. Shallie had higher expectations because E&L was so lacking in so many areas. So the disappointment was also bigger.
When an Atelier game fails in an area people will just shrug and hope the next one does better. When the second one does as well they tend to care more. That's why Firis tends to get more flak then Sophie, even tho Sophie was the one that set the low standard for the Mysterious games.
Yeah, they should totally use 2 of the worst characters in a game that has one, if not the, weakest cast lineups in the Atelier series. Threia was a terrible bootleg Keith version. Its a good example that genderswapping a character does nothing good if you get all the defining traits wrong. Micie did basically nothing in the game. I still have no idea why he was there. The bard from Ayesha had more of an impact on the game.
I would say all the sisters have relevance. Shallie is the only game of the 3 that actually does something with their origin, tho judging by your replace I guess they added that in the plus version too?
I dont disagree that Linca and Marion should have been in the game instead of Solle or the cowboy guy & harry. But thats no different from E&L. They just continued that poor trend of not giving the game the good recurring characters. Blame E&L for starting that trend.
The same goes for Threia and Micie. I guess you really liked their character or something, but they are just as worthless to the plot as Reyfer is. Micie didnt even have plot relevance in his own game. Threia was just there as bootleg version of Keith. Would have been better if they had found Keiths(&Ayesha's) journal without her and that would be a better ''Keith was here''
In the west maybe. Even then I know plenty of people that enjoyed Totori or Rorona and speak more highly of those games. As for it being financially succesfull: being the third part of a series means it will get high sales or low sales largely depedant on the success of previous games.
On top of that, Meruru was a good Atelier game that mechanically improved on its direct predecessor AND featured a lot of returning characters. Talk to most people and they will tell you its new characters are of much lower quality then the returning cast. Meruru didnt make the mistake that Shallie and E&L did and relied on the strength of older characters.
Arland is considered the best series for good reason. If people were excited about the previous game they are all the more likely to buy and enjoy the next one. Ayesha continued that, E&L did not. Because E&L is pretty mediocre across the board. It does have some good things, but its doesnt stand out as a ''very excited to play this game'' at all, unlike the 4 games before it.
Shallie did much to improve the failings of E&L so it has much greater hights, but it also has greater failings and it didnt fix some things untill the Plus versions (recurring characters, wrapping up the plot more).
I cant fault the game for having most of its issues the same as the game before it, but atleast it tried to fix those.
Anyway, again. If you arent talking about the Plus/DX version youll want to say that right away. At this point most people will have played the enhanced version. I only know about the differences because I've done lots of research before.
When I started playing Atelier games (before any were on PC) Shallie already had its Plus version.
Okay so we can tell there's biased reasons why you dislike Shallie as well. The Life Tasks werent great. Lacking a time limit was great. E&L the game you praise so highly also practically lacked a Time Limit, so you can say that was really a trend started in that game too.
Unfortunately some things like good character design, and good characters were something that werent featured in E&L and didnt come back untill Shallie.
Meruru could only get away from having its new characters designed like that because the old characters carried the game anyway. Making a game like E&L with practically only designs like that without any old characters (till DLC) to carry it was a very bad move. Shallie while lacking recurring characters as well, did atleast have good character designs and good characters in the base game. (ignoring Shallote's personality for a moment, I'd say all the new characters were interesting. Both in design and personality)
So is it great designs or popularity baits that make the games successfull? Pick one.
Sophie was pretty succesful in terms of sales as well, actually. That's despite its myraid of questional game designs. Dunno about the other 2 games.
Anyway, most of the biggest and more contriversial flaws of Shallie (recurring cast & timelimit & Plot connects) can indeed be traced back to E&L so its pretty hard to take you serious if you are calling E&L an amazing game and Shallie a terrible one.