Atelier Mysterious Trilogy DX Review
The Atelier series has been around for a long time now and somehow, they have managed to fly under my radar despite my love of RPGs. Thankfully, this trilogy is the perfect starting point for anyone on the fence and there’s a ton of content to sink your teeth into here.
The Atelier Mysterious Trilogy DX contains the three games, Atelier Sophie, Firis and Lydie & Suelle which were all previously released on PS4 are now all together in a single package and have been given the ‘DX’ treatment, adding additional outfits, difficulty settings, music, photo modes and other quality of life improvements. Not only that but also bundled is all previous DLC and even a little more story content to help connect some of the games together.
(You’ll also get three really nice digital art books with the trilogy!)
As the title suggests, each of these games is connected by the theme of mystery, Sophie has a mysterious talking book called Platcha, Firis goes on a mysterious adventure to become a full-fledged Alchemist and finally, Lydie and Suelle have them delving into mysterious paintings (with an additional one added here in this collection).
Each of the three games is your typical RPG fare, there’s levelling, challenging battles, and story progression to keep you busy. Where the Atelier series set’s itself apart is the Alchemy mechanics, this is used in each game to produce items as well as for some story progression. The games are linked somewhat but can be enjoyed in any order. No game demands prior knowledge but it does help with world-building. A great example of this being in Atelier Firis where the adventure starts with Sophie and Platcha teaching Firis the basics of Alchemy.
Throughout each game you’ll find items that can be collected around the map which regenerate over time, these can be used to aid you as ingredients for Alchemy. This gives the series a pseudo MMO feeling and I spent a fair amount of time wondering about the maps of each game collecting items and it was quite a relaxing experience, especially in handheld mode.
Combat is turned based and uses a system almost similar to Final Fantasy X with a clear indication of which party members turn it is in the bar on the side of the screen. This bar will also show you what enemy is about to attack and will allow you to prioritize accordingly. Atelier Sophie is the most basic out of the three games featuring a competent, yet bare-bones battle system. Firis adds quite a few new mechanics including chain attacks and Lydie and Suelle take this even further by adding combo and support attacks.
The games run a time-based system with each action taking a certain amount of time. For example, producing each alchemical creation will take a set amount of in-game time. This is very important to keep track of as some quests that are given will expire after a set amount of days. In Atelier Firis, you have a strict time limit of one in-game year to become a certified alchemist and if she fails her mysterious adventure will come to an end.
Speaking of time, I should discuss the length of each game. Each game here is a full 40+ hour RPG and that’s just to complete the main story, side quests and optional content could easily push each game into the 80-hour mark. 240 hours’ worth on content is not something to take lightly and I still have a lot to do in each game! Luckily, pushing down the left analogue stick allows you to put the game into 1.5x or 2x Speed during battles which is a big help when grinding enemies.
The Art style is fantastic across all three games, although Atelier Sophie DX looks slightly less impressive in my opinion this may be due to the limitations in place when the original game was designed as this game was also on the PS3. Firis + Lydie and Suelle are a little more colourful in their presentation but all games in the trilogy look great. Music is another thing to touch on and is pretty good across each game and never got overly repetitive which is what usually happens to me with these larger RPGs. Added for these DX editions is an option to change what background music plays, I didn’t really use the feature, but I am sure it will be a feature very useful for returning players.
So, how does the Atelier Mysterious Trilogy run on the Nintendo Switch? Well, I’m pleased to say that during my time with the trilogy I found each game ran flawlessly, sometimes these larger RPGs have a little issue with performance on the Switch in particular but be it in handheld, or docked, I didn’t notice any framerate issues and found the gameplay to be very smooth, however, as to be expected from the Switch version, run’s a lower resolution than other versions.
Conclusion
As someone who has never played an Atelier game before, I have to say, I am quite taken with the series and the Nintendo Switch feels like the perfect home for it. I still have an awful lot of content to get through, especially in Lydie and Suelle and I can wholeheartedly recommend the Atelier Mysterious Trilogy DX for newcomers to the series. For people who already have played the non-DX versions on other systems like the PS4, I don’t think the additional content merits a second purchase unless you are a diehard fan of the series.
The value here with Atelier Mysterious Trilogy DX cannot be denied, you get three 40+ hour, charming RPGs that are a little more light-hearted than the usual ‘Underdog teenagers must kill God’ plot line trope that a lot of other RPGs fall into. Personally, I really enjoy these games and once I’m finished with Lydie and Suelle I shall be checking out Atelier Ryza!
8
Nintendo Switch review code kindly provided by Koei Tecmo
