A sea of Atelier games

[Arhat]

Which Atelier series/game is considered the very best? Which is considered the magnum opus? i.e. the FFVII of Atelier games

[Legendary Mr. Tiddles]

Sophie 2.

[Unrealtairo]

Ryza wins the popular vote clearly. Although, I'd probably avoid 3. 2 was prob the best of them.

[Jeffer'son Airship]

The Dusk trilogy starting with Ayesha are my favorites.

Lydie and Suelle is probably my favorite individual game though.

[REAPER]

this is kinda a tricky one to answer given how long the series has been around and how far you want to go back since there are several good ones spread out from old to new like out of the newer ones the dusk games are quite nice my fav one being out of those ones most likely being Escha & Logy since it reminds me of the older ones in the sense it has more of a duel protagonist feel rather then just 1 in the newer ones matching more of the several older games in the series besides that i kinda have to agree with the above most of the newer ones are not bad they each kinda have there strong points out of the older ones i would say the atelier iris games the second one being my fav of the 3 followed by the first one then 3rd and Mana Khemia games the first one being my fav overall the characters in the second one just never clicked for me but still a very solid game those stood out the most for me also on the topic of good games i will say it would be nice if they brought a few of the older ones to steam as well as a few other games that stand out like the Ar tonelico series for example i feel like most people now and days don,t even know that series unless they played it back in the day same prob goes for some of the older atelier games

[mal_kav]

I would second the Atelier Iris and Mana Khemia being some of the better Atelier games especially from a story point of view. I am curious as to how much of the darker themes will be preserved when they are updated alla Atelier Marie. I did enjoy Atelier Meruru for the crafting/kingdom building combo.

[jclosed]

Originally posted by mal_kav:

I would second the Atelier Iris and Mana Khemia being some of the better Atelier games especially from a story point of view. I am curious as to how much of the darker themes will be preserved when they are updated alla Atelier Marie. I did enjoy Atelier Meruru for the crafting/kingdom building combo.

Sadly - If you want to play those games on the PC, you need to use a emulator like PCSX2 to play those games. Granted - That emulator is easy to set up, and the resolution, screen size and frame rate is a lot better than the original. You still need to get a hand on those games though, and they are not that easy to find and buy for acceptable prices.

I would love to see these games remastered, but I wont have high hopes. However, never say never.

To answer the questons of the OP. I should say - It depends. In general I advise to play the games in their series. There are 4 series so far. These are The Arland series, Dusk series, Mysterious series and Secret series.

If you don't like games with a (sometimes brutal, I am looking at you Totori) time limit, than the oldest PC series (Arland) is not for you. Those include Atelier Rorona, Totori and Meruru. There is another Arland game Atelier Lulua, that has no time limits at all and is much more modern.

The Dusk series have a far more lenient time limit and are fun to play. They are showing their age though. Atelier Ayesha is seen as a good one, followed by Esha & Logy. Atelier Shallie is probably the weakest of them.

The Mysterious series is the most modern Atelier series that still have a turn based game play. Atelier Sophie is nice, but I personally liked Atelier Firis and Atelier Lydie & Suelle better. The absolute top is Atelier Sophie 2. That one is playable as stand alone, because you can get a short resume of what happened in Atelier Sophie. Sophie 2 takes place before Atelier Firis and Atelier Lydie & Suelle, so if you like you can play these games afterwards.

And lastly the Secret series (also the Ryza series) This is, apart from Sophie, the only other series that have the same protagonist in a row. This series departed from the turn-based combat to go into a real-time combat version. Not everybody liked that change, but I personally had no problems with adapting to it. The Ryza games are without any doubt the most popular games of these series.

And there you have it. There are no real "very best" games. Some like that time limit, and will tell you the Arland series are the best. Some swear by turn based and do not like time limits and will say the Mysterious series are the best. Others like turn based and do not care too much about time limits and will say the Dusk series are the best. Others like a more action based game, and will say the Secret (Ryza) series are the best.

At the end it's your choice, but I hope I have given enough information to make your choice at least a bit more easy.

[ingosupercute]

I would say my favorite is Atelier Shallie due to its unique setting. It has by far the most memorable storyline and locations in my opinion. And it is very clear in how the alchemy in this game works. The combat had a nice active button component to it, but it wasn't overdone like in Ryza.

Only downsides of that game are its lenght because you're reaching the end in under 30 hours, and the age showing on the technical side. One has to toy around with Nvidia system settings to make it work acceptably since Koei included almost no option settings. And everything is on a smaller scale, like the individual maps are not very large and feel very old videogame like.

Originally posted by Jeffer'son Airship:

Lydie and Suelle is probably my favorite individual game though.

Yeah Lydie & Suelle got my vote as well. It's long but quality time spent, not boring time. It has nice coloring and because you enter painting worlds the look of this game is very diverse and unique in the series. It also got probably the most touching story of all these games.

[BK-BERKE]

Atelier Dusk arc was the pinnacle of this series. Every game was great. Story, Music, Atmosphere, Gameplay, Worldbuilding, Characters. All of them were great.

They could have made a fourth game with some of the material they had. In fact, I think there should have been a fourth game, but I don't think the current KTG can do that. Maybe it's good that it ended on peak...

I'm so sad that we won't see a series like that again...

I really don't like where this series is evolving with Ryza...

[Jeffer'son Airship]

Originally posted by mal_kav:

I would second the Atelier Iris and Mana Khemia being some of the better Atelier games especially from a story point of view. I am curious as to how much of the darker themes will be preserved when they are updated alla Atelier Marie. I did enjoy Atelier Meruru for the crafting/kingdom building combo.

Iris and Mana Khemia are great but also far more typical JRPGs than the series usually skews towards.

[Arhat]

I want to thank all for replying, I choosed Sophie 2. Seems like a good starting point, I don't have time to play through every single sequel. Usually I do it with other series but Atelier is so many, it makes me dizzy.

[Jeffer'son Airship]

Sophie 2 is a good one. You'll miss some references to Sophie 1 but it should be okay.

[jclosed]

Originally posted by Arhat:

I want to thank all for replying, I choosed Sophie 2. Seems like a good starting point, I don't have time to play through every single sequel. Usually I do it with other series but Atelier is so many, it makes me dizzy.

Heh - Did you ever looked at the Trails series from Nihom Falcom? Another one that will make you dizzy, and not without reason. I am really hooked on this series, but this series has already 11 games, and the next one (number 12) will be released at the start of next year.

And contrary to the Atelier series, the Trails series are all sequels to each other, starting with Trails In The Sky First Chapter (FC) until Trails Through Daybreak. And yeah, while I still have to play Trails Through Daybreak, I have really played through all of them and had tons of fun doing so!

Anyway - Sophie 2 is a good start, and I really think you will have a good time.

[Arhat]

Originally posted by jclosed:

Originally posted by Arhat:

I want to thank all for replying, I choosed Sophie 2. Seems like a good starting point, I don't have time to play through every single sequel. Usually I do it with other series but Atelier is so many, it makes me dizzy.

Heh - Did you ever looked at the Trails series from Nihom Falcom? Another one that will make you dizzy, and not without reason. I am really hooked on this series, but this series has already 11 games, and the next one (number 12) will be released at the start of next year.

And contrary to the Atelier series, the Trails series are all sequels to each other, starting with Trails In The Sky First Chapter (FC) until Trails Through Daybreak. And yeah, while I still have to play Trails Through Daybreak, I have really played through all of them and had tons of fun doing so!

Anyway - Sophie 2 is a good start, and I really think you will have a good time.

Yes I'm a JRPG junkie and I bought them all on the steam sale, I agree that the Trails series are not numbered in a convoluted way. It's crystal clear which Trails game I should start with and end with. In my opinion Kingdom Hearts and Atelier games are the worst franchise when it comes to naming sequels. Remasters doesn't make it any easier, because they change the title again.

If Sophie 2 clicks hard for me, I might buy and play them all. I love grounded experiences and not "tryhards" masquerading as an JRPG like the newest Final Fantasy. I would've preferred to see it as a CGI movie, zero depth. Metaphor Refantazio was fantastic!

[jclosed]

Originally posted by Arhat:

Originally posted by jclosed:

Heh - Did you ever looked at the Trails series from Nihom Falcom? Another one that will make you dizzy, and not without reason. I am really hooked on this series, but this series has already 11 games, and the next one (number 12) will be released at the start of next year.

And contrary to the Atelier series, the Trails series are all sequels to each other, starting with Trails In The Sky First Chapter (FC) until Trails Through Daybreak. And yeah, while I still have to play Trails Through Daybreak, I have really played through all of them and had tons of fun doing so!

Anyway - Sophie 2 is a good start, and I really think you will have a good time.

Yes I'm a JRPG junkie and I bought them all on the steam sale, I agree that the Trails series are not numbered in a convoluted way. It's crystal clear which Trails game I should start with and end with. In my opinion Kingdom Hearts and Atelier games are the worst franchise when it comes to naming sequels. Remasters doesn't make it any easier, because they change the title again.

If Sophie 2 clicks hard for me, I might buy and play them all. I love grounded experiences and not "tryhards" masquerading as an JRPG like the newest Final Fantasy. I would've preferred to see it as a CGI movie, zero depth. Metaphor Refantazio was fantastic!

As I said before. I hope you have a LOT of fun with this game, and if it's a "trigger" to play the other games it's even better. These games are a bit of a niche games, so not many people know about then, what is a shame. GUST even has games that are even more niche, like the both Blue Reflection games.

Personally I think it would be a good move to sell these games on another platform. The perfect candidate would be GOG. I will (re)buy this whole series again (not in one time obviously) to get a set of DRM-Free off-line installers.

That last thing is a small dream and wish from me. Not that I expect KOEI TECMO would ever be so smart to do that (even if it would generate sales). But Nihom Falcom sells all their games on GOG (yep - bought all of them, even the Zwei series and Xanadu Next), and if even the Fallout and Elder Scroll series are on GOG, then why not?

[Jeffer'son Airship]

KT has patched in DRM before. I get the feeling they're old school piracy adverse.

GoG also just hasn't got the same kind of dlc delivery systems because they go against their goal.