Atelier Ayesha...... -sigh- where do I begin with this game?
See, I thought about doing a review for this game, but I scraped that idea 2 minutes into the project. It just doesn't seem right for this kind of game. It's not a love-it-or-hate-it kind of game, but it's one where there isn't a whole lot of point in describing it to somebody in detail.... but obviously if you don't, it comes off as worthless. If you've played the series (well, the Arland series), then a review would work for you.... but if you haven't, the game is a bunch of quirky concepts that you pretty much have to try to base your opinion on it.
I could go on and on about how I wound up a fan of the series, but it's not needed here. Not a lot to it, but I'll save that for another day if anybody cares.
But Ayesha..... I question many decisions behind this game's production.
And I don't always question them with a negative mindset; there are many logical reasons why stuff is the way it is. I just seriously question some reasons behind the madness.
The first one that comes to my mind is the gameplay. (It's first because gameplay ALWAYS comes first. Always, always.) Mechanically, Ayesha follows the Arland (Atelier Rorona, Atelier Totori, and Atelier Meruru) mold where you're put on a "timer" and progression is usually made through synthesis. They do add new tidbits, but I kind of wonder why they don't make great use of them ... or really explain them.
Ayesha has skills she can use during synthesis. She can raise the quality of some items, force properties out, delete added properties, etc etc... but you don't ever need to do it. Why? It's an interesting concept, plus it's not like they didn't make you get specific properties before. Why put it here and not give me just cause to use it? It's happened before (hell, I think it happened back in Iris days... Iris is kinda a blur to me), but in this game you're not forced to make anything specific. It just seems.... irrelevant.
After you mess with it, and actually figure out what all you can do with it, it becomes very useful. Too bad they don't care to give you a good explanation for it.... which honestly, is fine in my books. I like experimenting around and figuring stuff out. Hell, I miss the days before Arland where you found new items just by trying random ingredients. But if I look at the game as a stand-alone product that I'd expect a person to buy fresh into the series, it's very misleading.
Almost as misleading as "the main draw" to the game, the plot. Lemme tell you this if you haven't played an Arland game, you're basically playing an interactive slice-of-life anime. What that means to me is that you shouldn't expect a coherent plot. There'll be a lot of fluff and many times where you get blindsided by something seemingly random. That's how slice-of-lifes are. The problem, however, is that Gust did a good job undermining the main conflict.
Without spoiling the plot, understand that the moment you start the game you are on a timer. Your limit is given to you at the beginning and if you do not complete your task by the end of the limit you're going to get the "bad ending" (you could argue this is a gameover, but it's literally a bad end as you cannot gameover in this game). You can actually find the foundations of this mechanic in Iris 3.
But unless you've played Atelier Iris 3, the Mana Khemias, or an Arland game, then you have to literally catch ONE line and believe the threat. I've had a few people ask me if these games normally end like this and why theirs ended as so, and I asked them all the same question. "Did you know there was a time limit? Did you catch it in the beginning?" "No". ... it's not horribly uncommon.
Thing is, I don't fault Gust for doing it. The problem isn't that it was done; they've done this for 3, arguably 6 games now. The problem is how they presented it. The way this plot is, the problem doesn't really stand out as urgent in this one, especially since you technically come in during the middle. That's not the same as any of the other games with a similar system. Iris Frontier (Iris 3) did guild work, Mana Khemia 1 and 2 are about school kids, Rorona had to save her workshop (her atelier, if you ever wondered wtf that word actually meant. (It's French)), Meruru had to save her kingdom, they're all clearly defined. I leave Totori out because, even though she's close to Ayesha, it's still set up better. Regardless, they all have some notable urgency where as Ayesha doesn't really have that sense.
There were good things that come from the plot in spite of which I just said. In fact, I actually liked where the game went in relation to what Ayesha has to do (I, again, and keeping this vague as to not spoil anything). But again, this all comes from me knowing what was (probably) going to happen. If you go into the game fresh, everything is going to feel like a mesh.
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*I added this in the middle because it crossed my mind near the end and I feel the need to point it out. It's out of place* Yeah, hold on. I did forget something about the plot. The big "obvious" question that you think you'll answer in the game. You actually don't. You kind of touch on it, but you're not even concerned with it throughout the game. Now, if they explain it later on down the road it'll actually be fine. In fact, I have a hunch on how they could do it and make it pretty solid. But the fact that it's there just makes me thing "um.... I feel like I'm missing something big." Which I was. But it's not my fault.
Carrying on.
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........ *very minute spoiler* I say "knowing what'll probably happen" because there was one thing that I wouldn't have guessed was in the game. A boss, two of them. And you actually have to fight them. To the average person, you'll read that section and say "Um... duh?", but that hasn't been the norm in the PS3 Ateliers. I think Meruru is the only game with a boss you have to beat (I can't remember if you're forced to.) I was actually upset when I ran up on the first one, even though I just-so-happened to be prepared for it due to my default strategy. But .... it kinda sucks that your entire game can get blown up by something randomly placed like that. There's no warning. Hell, the first one doesn't make much sense plot wise, but it happens. It's another one of the things that I'm not mad at them having, I just question why they did it.
What's funny about all of these things is that I still enjoyed the game. In fact, everything that I've mentioned so far have been things that made the game enjoyable, because they were different to some degree. Everything else was either the same or subpar.....
.... ok maybe not the battle system, but they just did some "wtf" level stuff in there. They added the Grandia move mechanic to the game and replaced cards with the Grandia bar (which they could say "We made a variation of our Iris 2 system), but they never cared to explain stuff again. "But Dogy, you said you like figuring stuff out." I DO, BUT I GET MAD AS HELL WHEN YOU GIVE ME STUFF THAT WOULD MAKE ME WANT TO DEFEND, BUT YOU TOOK THE DEFEND COMMAND OUT OF THE F'N GAME. Seriously. There are items in the game that give you buffs and benefits for defending, but there is no defend command. It's been there before, where did it go? It makes no sense that if I want to pass my turn, I have to either chuck an item (If it's Ayesha), or move.
But seriously, beyond that, the game is standard-to-meh.
The characters are ... not horribly special imo. They're not Meruru tier where I'll often forget the new characters, but they're hardly any sort of amazing. I think the only one that even grew on me was Wilbell, and I wonder if that's due to her already being announced in the next game of the series (I forget the name of the next one).
Sidebar, and spoiler smaller than the one above: Speaking of characters, I question why they moved away from the series characters. (Read: There's no Hagel nor Pamela in this game). They picked a good time to do it because it's a new series... but those two transcended series, so I wonder why. Especially Pamela since, well, she's a damn ghost.
The graphics are standa~~ wait, no, there was something that bugged me. If it happened in Arland it never bothered me, but it bugged me how many centered 1/3rd shots they had in this game. It was like they had a lower-than-normal budget and couldn't have a lot of variety. Aside from that, everything was standard affair. Some of Bell's animations make me smile, though.
Music's fine. There aren't many tracks I like couple of yet-to-be-mentioned characters themes (three of them), final boss theme, and a few random themes. Actually, when I think about it, the game has more likable music than Rorona ( I think I only like Rorona's workshop theme ). It just sucks that music I like isn't played for long periods of time. EXCEPT THE F'N LAST BOSS THEME. D:
That's.... most of what I have to get off my chest about this game. It's an interesting start to a new series, and there's a lot of potential. They just have to make good use on the seeds they've sown, whether they've noticed them or not. In my mind, they actually have a couple of good bridging points into the next game without having to do some bs "this takes place a few years later for a seemingly random reason."
Again, I don't fault or hate much of what Gust decided to do with the game, I just question it. Aside from a few plot points and a few battle system mechanics (which, ironically, are small things in the grand scheme of things), I was pretty much o.k. with everything else.
I'm gunna try to stay as blind as I can to the next one and hope for the best, because I know I'm going to get it regardless.
I'm too much of a fan of this series.
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