Atelier Lilie ~ Alchemist of Salburg 3 ~
Since we know from the sequels that the academy did get built you might think it’s a foregone conclusion that Lilie and co. succeed in their endeavor. But no, it’s entirely possible to fail to gather enough funds (150,000 cole) in 5 years and get an ending that I haven’t seen but that is almost certainly rotten. There are at least two other endings, maybe more, where the academy doesn’t get built in game-time but is probably established sometime in the future.
While I didn’t get the ‘worst’ ending, I got something very close to it when I saved up the 150,000 in two years, built the academy and got what basically amounted to a “Thanks for playing. Bye!” ending. It lasted all of one screen without any movies or CGs and then the credits began to roll. I know for sure this can’t be a good end because there was so much left undone.
For one thing I was in the middle of two different subplots, one involving a fake alchemist, another involving a dried up well. I also had a lot of items left to create. It’s not unusual to finish an Atelier game with several items left unsynthesized, but over 50%? Not normal. I was only on my second year, and even the shortest Atelier games last at least 3 years. What’s more, I had been given the topic for Year 3’s exhibition, so there’s no way it was supposed to end so soon. tl;dr I wuz robbed! But at least I get to save clear data and maybe carry some stuff over to make subsequent playthroughs easier. I’m a little miffed right now because I was having such a good time before I was cruelly cut off. But I’ll be back later, I guess.
When it comes to gameplay, Atelier Lilie is quite similar to the other games in the Salburg series, but with a few key differences. You still buy alchemy books and tools and go foraging for items. You hire adventurers and fight in the fields, you take requests from the pub and fulfill them, etc. etc. The main differences I noted are:
– The 150,000g savings requirement to build the academy (although as I noted you can get other endings without it)
– The yearly national exhibition through which you try to prove the worth of alchemy to the King and score yourself some building funds in the process (not only optional, but you can deliberately choose not to participate as a way of sticking it to the man)
– You can sell antiques and rare items to nobles. Comes with its own haggling mini-game, and the nobles have their own mini-stories that develop as you keep talking to them. I think I’ve seen this mechanic in one of the other games, but I can’t remember which one. Or maybe it was this one but my memory is fuzzy.
– You can forage all over the map, not just at specific locales. For example, Stodel Falls is 12 days away, but there are mini forage points every 2 days along the way that you can visit instead.
– You can hire fairies much earlier on than in the other games.
– Blend alchemy and rough alchemy are also available quite early.
– There are quite a few items that I don’t remember seeing in other games. Foods, especially.
– You can pick either Hermina or Ingrid as your apprentice. They’re even more skilled than Lilie because they synthesize at the same speed but never fail. And if they run out of an ingredient and it can be synthesized they’ll switch to synthesizing that instead. They’re more intelligent than fairies in that regard.
And some other stuff that isn’t coming to mind immediately. It will take me a while to come back for a second playthrough because, as I said, I’m quite annoyed that the game gave me an objective and then punished me for fulfilling it as soon as possible. Once I do, I hope to be able to report on a much better ending and to give my thoughts on Atelier Lilie as a whole. See you then.
“Since we know from the sequels that the academy did get built you might think it’s a foregone conclusion that Lilie and co. succeed in their endeavor. But no, it’s entirely possible to fail to gather enough funds (150,000) in 5 years and get an ending that I haven’t seen but that is almost certainly rotten.”
You’ve created a time paradox?
Outside of anything past the PS3 era, which Atelier games haven’t you played? Just curious.
I feel kind of ashamed that I never finished playing any of the older Atelier games. In my defense, a lot of items didn’t have a picture to go along with the item names especially when you’re buying tools so it always kind of felt like I was buying tools at random.
Also somehow my memory card got corrupted and wiped my Elie save that I started last year. Ouch.
Oh well, I’ll get back to either the GBA game or Viorate one day.
Lilie takes place over 5 years, so the assumption is that she didn’t build the school in 5 years, but maybe it took her 10 years to do it or 20 or whatever. If I can find a bad end video on Youtube I’ll watch it and tell you what it says.
Apart from the PS3 games, the only Ateliers I have left to tackle are the spin-offs Hermina and Culus, which I will play soon, and Atelier Elkrone, which I hear is just a normal visual novel with barely any alchemy and so I am not interested in playing.
Now I just have to wish for Santa to bring me a PS3 and I’ll see about tackling the rest of those games.
Yeah Elkrone disappointed me a lot because of that. I probably should have did my research but oh well. Didn’t even bother completing it.
Interested in what you’d think of post PS3 era Atelier when that time ever comes. Some design decisions made, especially involving endings requirements, still bother me today.
Now that I’m all out of Atelier games to play, I’ll probably try the PS3 games sooner rather than later. The reason I haven’t played them so far, (apart from not wanting to buy a PS3) is simply because I didn’t like the color palette and character designs. Petty, I know. They’ll probably grow on me once I’ve played a few hours.
Well there are soon going to be two full trilogies on PS3 featuring different world and characters so this year should be a good time to pick up a PS3 if you’re an Atelier fan. I kind of don’t like the fact they keep releasing “plus” version for PSVita with extra content though. It’s part of the reason why I haven’t started on the Dusk series.
I just heard about A16 yesterday AND about all the extra content for Ayesha Plus. What’s more a new Vita is quite a bit cheaper than a new PS3, and the Vita is getting Ore no Shikabane 2 soon, which I do want to play. I have more pressing things to do with my money right now, but I’ll give more thought to the matter later in the year.