Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & The Secret Hideout - Nintendo Switch

I have never played an Atelier game before or heard the series be talked about. I saw the game on sale in the eShop one day, picked it up (the digital deluxe version), and my only regret is not buying it sooner.I went in completely blind and had no idea what I was getting into. I was honestly expecting a cute little anime game that I would finish in 5-10 hours, shelve, and move on. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a 60+ hour game.I was hooked! Partway through my playthrough, I did buy physical copies of the whole Ryza trilogy (which is why I'm writing this here) and the Dusk trilogy because I think I'm addicted to this series, collecting games, or both.Now that that intro is out of the way, let's get on with the actual review where I tell you about the game itself. When reviewing and rating games, I focus on 4 categories: gameplay, plot, characters, and music. So let's break down each one.Gameplay (5 / 5):The alchemy / synthesis system is the core of this game.Basically, you start by going out into the field and use tools like a staff or an axe to gather items and resources. Once you fill up your basket, you take the goods back to your base and start the synthesis process.This involves a crafting minigame where you put a limited number of items in an alchemy pot and end up with a new item. Each input item has a quality value and an element associated with it. During the crafting process, if you use high quality items and match the elements, you get a better end result.It's a little daunting at first, especially once recipe morphing and transfer traits get involved, but it's a lot of fun once you understand it.It's a self-satisfying gameplay loop where you craft better tools so you can get higher quality resources to create improved weapons and armor so you can explore new areas to get more resources.The only fault here is that some of the important items for story progression are locked behind recipe morphs which can make it a little grindy at times especially if you don't where to look. (Getting the holy drop to purify the key caused me some pain.)So that's the crafting system, now what about the battle system?Enemies show up in the overworld and battle starts when you smack them with a tool or they run into you. You get a team of 3 and have to defeat all the enemies before they beat you (which... is pretty standard.)The combat is a mix of turned based and real time. If you've played Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasies 4-9 (I haven't played 10 or after), or any game where you get a turn once your action bar fills up, you'll be at home.There's a point system called AP that's worth also mentioning. Every regular attack by you or your allies will increase your AP by 1. To use skills, or magic, you spend AP. You can use the D-Pad to instruct your teammates to focus on gathering AP for you in support mode or switch to aggressive mode where they'll use skills and the built up AP.How the synthesis and battle systems interact with each other is another thing I really like. If you go all in the synthesis and create the best weapons and armor, battles will be easy. If crafting isn't so much for you, then you'll get a more challenging battle experience. You get to pick which aspect of the game you want to have be more challenging.I think the last thing to note here is that as an RPG, you have the option to partake in a lot of side-quests for world-building lore and funny character interactions.Plot (4.5 / 5):The story starts really simple with Ryza and her friends sneaking off into the nearby forest looking for an adventure.In general, it remains light hearted and simple for the first half (which gives you enough time to learn the synthesis system if you're brand new). Shortly before you reach Hidden Cove about 20 or so hours into the game, the the plot starts to escalate quite rapidly.This being my first game in the series, I don't know if this progression is typical or not. Overall though, I'd say once the plot picks up, it's better than Dragon Quest XI but not as good as Xenoblade 1.Those of you looking for immersion, this game does not have English voice acting that I'm aware of. Personally, this doesn't bother me any, but for others this could be something worth mentioning.Characters (5 / 5):There are 6 party member characters and a handful of important NPCs you'll interact with throughout the game.Nobody in the game had a personality that made me roll my eyes or stop enjoying the game whenever they were around. I liked everyone's physical appearance / design too.I don't know if this is a thing exclusive to the Atelier series, or if I've just never noticed until now, but the characters seemed to have a lot of unique expressions and animations. Rather than a single happy or confused expression, there'd be multiple foreach.Considering that the title screen and the menu screen change to reflect your progress throughout the game, I think it's likely that I'm not crazy and the developers put a lot of work into the small details like that.And while I'm mentioning the small details, the game's graphics as a whole are beautiful. I love the anime artsytle they used and vibrant colors seen throughout the world.Music (5 / 5):And for our last category, this game passes easily. Other than there's a day version and night version for each major area song, there's not a whole lot else to say here other than I really enjoyed a lot of the music in this one.Overall (5 / 5):It's a very high quality game that I highly recommend if you like long RPGs. It took me about 60 hours to complete. The gameplay primarily focuses on resource gathering and crafting, but some of the battles can be somewhat challenging and the plot does pick up after a while.And who knows, you might find yourself addicted to the series after just one game like I did.

Been looking for a good JRPG game for a long time. I’m not a fan at all of the real time battle systems that have taken over Final Fantasy games. And Octopath just didn’t do it for me.Now comes Ryza. Gorgeous scenes and the sound effects are amazing (like crickets and cicadas). The console wars have people trying to act like the switch graphics suck but absolutely not true.Battle system. Fast turned based and if you time your attacks with team mates more damage. I thought I would be disappointed not controlling all the team members but the system works very well considering you can do special command attacks.Alchemy. Not much of a crafter in games so I like this system. It’s simple enough to do basics but I think it’s deep enough for other who like this stuff.You can open world run around or speed travel. I love this!! So when I want to walk and gather and mingle I can but if I’m limited and just wanna advance the story a little I can do that! Awesome!!Love the characters! Typical weeb style story with even a little bit of heaviness (Lent has a saddening story). 10 hours into the game and I love playing still.If you like manga style characters and stories and JRPG games BUY THIS NOW!!

This was my first Atelier game. I remember seeing one of the Atelier games years ago on Amazon when I was looking at Tales games. I clicked on it and noticed there were so many that I just clicked off. I seen a review for Atelier Sophie 2 earlier this year and it got me interested again. I finally looked them up and found out they're not all connected. So I watched more YouTube videos to see where I wanted to start. I picked Atelier Ryza! I'm so glad I started with this one. It's a really beautiful game and I enjoyed every second of it. Very relaxing and I love the alchemy and the battle system. A little different then JRPGs I usually play (Tales, Persona, Xenoblade, Trails) but a nice change! After playing Ryza for 10 hours I went ahead and bought Ryza 2, Sophie, Sophie 2, and the Dusk Trilogy. Very excited to start some more and I'll definitely be purchasing any new releases in the Atelier series.P.S. Looks like Ryza 3 was teased the other day in Koei Tecmo's new trailer!

I’m a big fan of Gust Atelier games, started from the very first one! This one is definitely different than the other ones - the synthesis and fight system are complex than before, but more flexibilities to explore the atelier world for no time limit. So far, I spent 30 hours on it and not sure I’m even close to the end, and finished it around 80 hours with finding all the recipes and hidden bosses. What I don’t like is the singular end, which is different from the previous Atelier games in a very bad way. I stay the same point from my previous review: The design of color is nice work. However, the characters lack of personalities and the animation is awkward (feels like low budget work.) Overall, on a scale of 10, I give it 7.

Game arrived just as described, and in great condition. The game is awesome as well.

Gameplay is fairly straightforward and newcomer friendly yet still challenging enough for veterans of the Atelier series. The character models are absolutely stunning, the level designs are beautiful, combat system is faster paced but still fairly easy to adapt to once you’ve gotten used to the various mechanics. Overall this game was worth every penny!