Time Limit Question

[Kappa Omicron]

I just recently finished playing Sophie, and it being my first experience in the Atelier series, I absolutely loved it!

I'm definitely picking this up as soon as I can afford it, but one thing that's worried me is the return of a countdown timer that were from what I gather included in previous games of the series.

I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of these timers in games, because I don't enjoy the pressure of feeling rushed to focus on the main story/quest stuff and less on the side content and exploring, because doing so can waste too much time and you'll find yourself ending up in a bad ending or missing content like character development scenes, which are my favourite part in games like these.

Luckily, I read that in order to appease both types of fans, the forced timer is actually only for the first half of the game, and once you progress far enough in the story and pass some sort of exam (not reading too much into it to avoid spoilers), the timer will stop and you're free to explore and do whatever you want.

My question is this:

If I focus 100% on the story for the first half of the game and ignore exploring (which is my favourite thing to do, but I don't want to waste time), once I reach the point where the timer is disabled, can I then explore and get all of the different endings?

I like to talk to all the different characters and complete all of their story quests, and honestly, that's the kind of thing I like to focus on BEFORE doing the main stuff, but I don't want to feel like I've wasted too much time only to be met with a bad ending at the end of it.

That's the kind of thing that greatly puts me off a game, I don't like spending hours happily exploring every nook and cranny of a game for side content and character development scenes, only to end up having to start the game over because I spent too much time doing the things I enjoyed doing the most and end up getting a bad ending.

I believe you should be rewarded for taking the time to diverge from the "main path" and seek out and finish side content and get to know characters better, not be punished for it.

Thanks for reading!

[Kiru]

The idea of the timer is basically just that you don't grind too much. You can explore, do quests and whatnot quite a bit. However what you can't do is just randomly grind levels, synthesize way more than you need, gather tons of additional stuff and so on.

It's not working well with an open world like this game has, but alas, changes and such. In the older games you could do everything you want in the time-limit, provided you use the time well. Gust kinda messed that up in this game, but.. they messed up quite a bit anyway. For the first true ps4 lead game, this is still alright. Vanilla Rorona (first ps3 title from them) in comparison.. oh boy.


Anyway, aside of that, as far as I know character quests are meant for past the main-story anyway. It's actually a good idea to have the story end early in these games. I'd like them to keep that. It's always silly that the final story content is rarely worth doing, as it's going to be too easy and not particularily interesting anyway if you did everything else before. Most of the older time-limit games ended the story when you "ended" it. Meaning you could do plenty of other things after it, no problem. For example Atelier Totori has ~6 years, but anywhere from year 4 onwards you can finish the main-quest.

[Jackkel Dragon]

Not sure it works for the earlier games, since I haven't gone back to play them yet, but in this game the timer is mostly for the first segment of the game. While the credits roll after the main quests that lead to removing the timer, most of the character events and all of the endings are in what would normally be considered a postgame. So, in a sense, the "real" game doesn't begin until you lose the time limit.

Breaking down each segment of the game to make it a bit easier to read:

Tutorial (30 day time limit)
- Required to complete in order to reach the main game
- (Not sure what happens if failed--really hard to lose this part)

First Segment (365 day time limit)
- Takes about 150-200 days minimum to finish main quest
- Initial character events available
- Land travel available
- Failure leads to a bad ending that can be loaded for NG+ bonuses

Second Segment (no time limit)
- All character events available
- New minor questlines available
- Airship unlocked after a certain quest chain; can gain ability to go underwater and hover to get to new areas
- Completing a character's questline unlocks their ending; finishing most/all questlines unlocks "true" ending
- Completing an ending creats a save that can be loaded for NG+ bonuses

That's getting a bit long, so I'll hold off on adding more for now. I hope that helps explain a bit.

P.S: I didn't know this until it was too late for it to help me, but supposedly if you intentionally get the bad end by wasting time (sleeping days away), you can still get the NG+ bonus that gives you all special outfit effects at all times. The special outfits include ones that reduce time spent making items and increase movement speed, so this can be a huge bonus for the time limit.

[Kappa Omicron]

Thanks a bunch for the information guys, I really appreciate it. You answered my question and more!

I can't wait to be able to play