Saying Atelier Shallie Plus was “lousy at first” implies that it’s no longer lousy. But actually it’s still kind of lousy as of chapter 6. It’s just that the game has improved a lot compared to the first few hours so I don’t mind as much.
My final post about Shallie will most likely be positive (depending on how they resolve the whole Dusk thing), so I’m going to use this post to cover the stuff I don’t like, leaving more space for fawning and flattery next time.
– Way too much time was wasted in the first few chapters. I get the whole Japanese fetish with “working together” and “building bonds” and stuff, but this is the third game of the Dusk trilogy. The past two games were sufficient for that kind of stuff. I expected a hard-hitting, straight to the story kind of game.
What is the Dusk and how are we going to solve it? We still aren’t any closer to finding an answer than we were in Atelier Ayesha. In fact, nobody in Shallie has made a serious attempt at solving it. Since the game started, I’ve been running around doing meaningless trust-building exercises like killing rats and rabbits. If anything, Ayesha was the most focused of the three games on the issue, mostly due to the presence of Keithgriff and Odelia. Shallie feels like a serious regression, though there’s still time for things to pick up. They have to pick up because this is the last game, I just wish they would do so from the start. The game is too vague and all over the place.
And I should mention that we STILL aren’t seeing people suffering from the so-called effects of the Dusk yet. Shallie tells us that water sources are drying up and her people are in a pinch, but we haven’t seen any of them yet. Instead she’s chilling out in Stellard, a city with plenty of (allegedly drying up) food and water and the rare monster attack. Instead of the game world getting darker and more serious as the Dusk progresses, it’s getting lighter and fluffier and more inconsequentional.
– Too many jerks. Raoul and Gerard Perriend were introduced as rude, mean and selfish purely so Gust could soften them over the course of the game. As a result, they start out unnecessarily prickly and unfriendly, barking and snarling at poor Shallie over things they could explain kindly and politely. Then later on they’re supposed to be friendly, caring and supportive…? Either they’re buttering her up so they can better exploit her, i.e. they’re jerks, or the writers forced them to be mean at first and nice later, i.e. Gust are jerks. Either way I remain unmoved.
Now to send it in a care package to Raoul…
Their presence just makes things unpleasant because every bit of story progression is controlled by the Cooperative or the Corporation so I can’t avoid them. I’ve come all this way just to be a lackey to two <bleeps>. I never thought I’d say this, but I really miss the freedom and self-determination of Atelier Ayesha. Without a time limit I thought for sure Atelier Shallie Plus would be a fun, free-wheeling, go where you want and do what you want kind of game, but instead you’re so tied to the whims and orders of Central AND the Cooperative AND the Corporation that you don’t get to progress anything on your own. Boooring.
Still on the subject of massive jerks, I should mention that Katla recently sank to new lows by planning to hoard and sell water in a crisis. There’s a huge gap between “cute and mischevious” and “ISIS wants to recruit you” but our little Katla is doing her best to straddle both points. Kefka would be so proud. Wait… Kefka… Katla… they’re practically identical! I see!
I don’t care, just get on with the story!
– Too many unnecessary events. Especially between the two Shallies. Was there even a need to have a second Shallie? We already did the two protagonists thing in Atelier Escha & Logy, that was enough. Shallie 2 doesn’t add anything. She’s just there so we can have scene after scene of Shallistera and Shallotte patting each other on the back. “Oh you’re so wonderful.” “No you.” “No, you.” “No you, tee hee.” And that’s just those two, not even getting in the multitude of pointless events involving Solle, Homura, Escha, Logy… As I said, I wouldn’t mind so much if this wasn’t the third and final game of the series. FOCUS, PEOPLE!
This witch again? She’s everywhere.
– Minor inconsistencies create confusion. From memory, there was an event where Kortes and Shallie speak about the Water Festival in their village, then later on the subject of a Water Festival in Stellard comes up and Shallie is like “What’s a Water Festival?” What’s amnesia, Shallie? There’s also the issue of the Eastern Continent, where they can’t seem to decide whether it’s unexplored territory that was recently discovered or whether they used to trade regularly until the sand dragon showed up. Which is it?
– A little earlier, I would added “The game world is too small” and “There isn’t enough alchemy” to the list of complaints, but the world recently opened up and I just got a few new books to play around with, so I’m busy as a bee. It’s a bit annoying that you aren’t told when stores restock with new books/Miruca gets new weapons (alchemy level maybe?) so you have to stalk them all the time. I’m playing on Hardcore so the various area bosses are a good workout too. When I finish this post I’m heading right back to Crystal Valley to kill a few more of them for phat loot.
Anyway, that’s it for a brief overview of the stuff that bothered me when I started Atelier Shallie Plus. The time-wasting was and still is extremely frustrating, but now that there are more places to go and the story “seems” to be picking up, I’m fairly optimistic about how things will turn out.
I find it odd that of all the games to start dropping the time limit, it is in the Dusk trilogy, which by all means should have one due to the alleged Dusk spreading.
—
I ended up buying Atelier Lydie & Whatsherface, since it was the cheapest, and honestly took a break for now, being in chapter… 4 or 5 I think? It’s just so damn boring.
I actually like the lack of a time limit on the third game in the trilogy. It gives a Do-or-Die impression. Like, “Nobody’s going home until we get this thing sorted!” which is cool. I just wish the actual game was more focused and serious to match.
I still have Sophie and Firis to play before I get to Lydie & Suelle, Nelke and Lulua. I hope Lydie just starts out boring and improves.
Nelke is strange and kinda not what I expected – it kind of reminds me of an old simulation game called Capitalism rather than any of the Atelier games (even Tristia) with its focus on managing country-level scale goods production -> wares in shop cycle and balancing them so you don’t have a chokehold somewhere (e.g not enough raw materials or too little shops to sell all your goods). Alchemists basically only exist to change raw materials into products and Alchemy doesn’t get a lot of focus as a mechanic and even considering that it’s supposed to be a “spin-off” that’s really odd for a game that’s supposed to be in the Atelier Cinematic Universe.
Not a big fan of the cross-over aspects either, in that I was expecting it to be an alternate universe where all the characters exist in the same timeline, but instead it was a kinda lazy “oh uh random portals opened up and dumped them here from their original games”, meh. Also a bunch of the less important crossover characters like the bartenders all use their original portraits from their original games which is lol.
Gathering’s pretty lame too, it’s like an automatic thing where you watch your characters walk and fight some battles (which you can control) but what the heck – I don’t even get to explore dungeons and stuff?
It’s on pause while I move on to Lulua and I don’t know whether I’ll come back to it.
Thanks for the head’s up. I noticed the bit about the gathering from the trailers and realized this wasn’t going to be your regular Atelier game. I’ve always been into the Atelier series for the alchemy, foraging and battling parts and less for the characters and story, but it looks like Nelke doesn’t deliver on any of those fronts? Hmm, I might put it in the “might try someday when I’m bored” folder along with Elkrone no Atelier.