I actually finished Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout over three weeks ago, but kinda just brushed it under the carpet and moved on. The ending was a bit anti-climatic, so it made me feel lazy and blah. Basically the party discovered a problem, solved the problem without letting most people know, and rejoiced quietly in their own way. It’s because gamers call that kind of ending “anti-climatic” that you get Necrons and Giant Space Fleas coming out of nowhere right after the final battle, but a simple small-scale game like this actually isn’t bad once in a while.

…Or so I say, trying to convince myself. Because Ryza and her team solved everything quietly behind the scenes, I feel a little bit like the game went nowhere, even though it obviously did and there was a lot of character development as well. The story tells us that the island and indeed the whole world are in danger, but nobody ever gets threatened by anything, so we only have their word for it. They talk about a coming drought, but the reservoirs in town remain full until the end of the game. They mention earthquakes, but we never experience one. Moreover, the allegedly dangerous Philusca were never much of a challenge to fight, and the super bosses on the map were harder to beat than the final boss, so it’s like… yeah? The Ryza team remind me of toddlers who feel very brave because they killed an ant, or survived a visit to the dentist. Well done, kids!

While we’re on the topic of “well done,” it’s good that Ryza happened to be talented at alchemist and could fix everything, but didn’t things come a little too easily to her? It made all the tricky situations in the game much less tense, because Ryza would always magic up something in a few minutes to solve the problem. Giant esoteric power generator? Prosthetic arm indistinguishable from the real deal? A whole doggone house? Nothing’s too difficult for Wonder Girl! Empel and Lila should have just told her everything in the first hour of the game and she would have wrapped it all up in 15 more minutes.

Knowing now that Gust/Koei Tecmo went on to create two more Ryza games, I can see that the spirit of “That’s it?” you’re left with was deliberate. I’ve played lots of Atelier games, and the older ones in particular have very small scales and goals which is not a problem. Marie just wants to pass her exams, Viorate just wants to run a store and eat carrots, Annie just wants to marry a rich man, and so on. And on the other hand you have the Dusk games where there’s a larger (invisible, alleged) problem that somehow can’t be solved unless you buy and play the sequels. Ryza is kind of in the middle there: the first game is quite self-contained, but you can still imagine a larger world and more adventures out there. I’ll definitely play the sequels, interspersed with the other Atelier games I haven’t played yet (Lulua, Lydie & Scumbag, maybe Nelke, replay of Marie, definitely not gonna play Sophie 2, etc.)

When I do play the others, I want them to fix four things for me: first, make it easier to switch tools in the field. The idea of gathering different items with different tools is a good one. And I’ve played games like Rune Factory where you switch tools on the fly, so it’s not an alien concept to me either. But the controls here were very clunky and took all the fun out of trying to gather stuff in the field. There should be one button press to switch tools, like for example they could map each tool to a button. My preference would be one upgradable tool instead. Either way they need to do something about that, because it’s annoying.

Second thing: make using items in battle more fun. I.e., scrap the useless core charges, I hate them. In fact, overhaul the whole battle system. I see what they were trying to do in letting you use, refine and re-use your favorite items instead of making new ones from scratch all the time. And I suppose they were trying to add an element of strategy so you don’t spam overpowered items constantly like you do in other Atelier games. But the number of charges were too limited, and you could only take a few items into battle with you. That, coupled with the AP and Tactics system, made combat as a whole very restricted because it stopped you from using the items and skills that you want to use. What’s the point of even being an alchemist, then? You bust your @$$ to make the perfect bomb and then you can barely use it unless you take junk items along with you to sacrifice for more core charges. PITA.

The Tactics level up system was also largely wasted on me because it took so long to get higher levels. It might as well not have existed for all I used it. At least there should have been ways to refill core charges (or increase the limit with equipment/levels) and vastly speed up AP generation so you’re not just sitting around waiting to use one skill. I didn’t like the combat in this game one bit.

Third thing: Make the character development more humane. Yes, more humane. Get better writers who don’t think it’s the bullied or abused person’s fault for what they’re going through. I’ll illustrate my point with two screenshots. This first one has Lent stating that it’s his fault that his alcoholic dad physically abused him for years while everyone around him turned a blind eye. The implication is that weak people deserve to be abused. It’s not strange that as a young character Lent would internalize the abuse and find a way to absolve his father of the blame, but the writers and editors who wrote that scene in without correction and thought, “Yup, that’s the way it is,” need counselling urgently.

This second one is a conversation between Bos (bully) and Tao (bullied) that implies that Bos’s bullying would have been justified if Tao’s research hadn’t turned out to be useful. In other words, nerds and smart kids deserve to be bullied because they’re “show offs.” These writers have issues.

Number four: Relatively minor, but although I loved the alchemy in this game, I felt like it could have been easier to use in some ways. Sorting the recipes and finding the one you wanted to use was a pain. There should have been more sorting options, obviously alphabetical order, but also filter out ones you can’t make right now, or show ones you’ve never made, that kind of thing. The extra things you could do like the forge and the lamp thing that gave you gathering grounds and the duplicator all felt unnecessary as well, so it would be nice to have more reasons to use those thing, like maybe make gems not so crazy expensive and the worlds not so boring and the weapon bonuses not so minor.

Fifth thing… Yeah I said four, but I felt like giving them a bonus because I really want Atelier Ryza 2 to be much better. I want them to improve navigation because I had a really hard time making my way around and figuring out the town and other maps when I first started. Navigation remained a pain in the **** ****** all the way to the end, because you couldn’t warp straight to a lot of useful places like the Valentz manor but rather had to go to the Old Town signboard, then to another signboard and finally run to the manor. Massive waste of time. And speaking of wastes of time, next time there should be fewer “Go to your room and think about what to do next” scenes, because I never get the point of such scenes.

So that’s my opinion about Atelier Ryza. In a nutshell, I loved the alchemy system, it’s a nice short game, I didn’t mind the characters or the story, and I liked the sidequest series. However the game needed better combat and some serious quality of life adjustments (and sensible writers) to make it more enjoyable. Also it ends just when things are about to get interesting, to get you to buy the sequels. You didn’t have to, Gust. I would have played them anyway.

BTW, I also finished the Atelier Ryza collab in Another Eden that I mentioned last time. It was great, honestly. Nobody really did anything except Ryza, but it was very well put together with a bittersweet ending (unnecessarily so IMO: they didn’t even try to save the people in the past). I wouldn’t start Another Eden just for this collab, but if you’re already playing it, do the collab right now, it’s good stuff. And Ryza’s really strong in battle too!

And with that, it’s time to move on to the next game! Which is not Triangle Strategy, because Triangle Strategy is a movie disguised as a game. I’m really enjoying it, but with a bag of popcorn in my hand instead of a controller. More on that next time, or the time after that. I tried to get back into Tokimeki Memorial GS4, but I’m just not feeling it, so I’ll save it for when I want an otome game and have time to spare. I still have a month to kill before Xenoblade Chronicles X comes out, so I’ll give Monster Hunter Rise a try like I said I would. Welp, until next time!