I apologize for the long delay between posts. It’s because Atelier Shallie Plus was so boring I couldn’t bring myself to play it, but at the same time I was too busy to start something new. Finally I just sat in front of the TV and forced myself to finish it, marveling that the day had finally come when I would have to force myself to finish an Atelier game. The people who said the Dusk trilogy was the beginning of the end for the series weren’t wrong at all.
But this isn’t an Atelier Shallie bashing post. I’m too relieved to be done to have time for that. First let me start by spoiling the cause of the Dusk: turns out a water purification machine undernearth Stellard was malfunctioning. We turned it off and restarted it, so in a couple of centuries everything should be back to normal.
It’s not a bad resolution by any means. It’s just a bit anti-climatic. It’s like when you spend hours trying to fix an error on a computer or device and you finally call tech support and they tell you to to restart the machine and presto, it works. On one hand you’re happy it’s fine, but on the other hand… aghh, why didn’t I think of that earlier before I wasted so much time?
Yes, that’s right. That’s my problem. The whole Dusk saga was a waste of time. Especially this Atelier Shallie Plus game. There was no reason for the game to even exist, or for the Shallies to be present, or for them to be alchemists. In the end the same Ayesha and Keithgriff from Atelier Ayesha showed up and presented all the solutions. “Hey we’ve been researching everything and we found the answer right here and you didn’t have anything to do with it but we’ll let you tag along to kill the boss anyway,” the end. If anyone else contributed, it would be Wilbell, who was also present in Ayesha, so really, the other games weren’t necessary.
After all, we didn’t learn much in Escha & Logy except how someone else tried to solve the Dusk and failed. And we didn’t really learn anything in Atelier Shallie until said Ayesha and Keithgriff showed up. Gust could have just added 10 hours to Ayesha and resolved the whole plot in one game. Then they could tackle a different issue in the other games, or maybe make the next two games a prequel and a sequel, etc. No need to take a leaf from Falcom’s book and stretch a very simple story across three games.
Focusing on Shallie, I must say the “no time limit” system didn’t play out the way I had expected. I was expecting something like Atelier Judie where you’re given your objective in the first 10 minutes and then set free to fulfill it at your own pace. Having objectives every chapter that forcefully progress the story… isn’t that just like an ordinary JRPG? And they lock locations and recipes and everything interesting behind the chapters, so at some point in each chapter you run out of stuff to do and have to move on. That means it’s even more restrictive than most JRPGs, where you just keep exploring and traveling and getting stronger without any cumbersome chapter objectives.
What’s worse is, none of those objectives are goals of your own making. There’s always someone telling the Shallies what to do, when and how. I don’t play the Atelier games looking for any “Girl Power⭐!” kind of scenario, but this time their powerlessness really stood out.
Looking back, Shallotte and Shallistera were just lackeys. It’s the men like Raoul, Solle, Perriend and Keithgriff who make all the major decisions from start to finish. Keith is the one who finds the truth behind the Dusk, Raoul belittles us and orders us around like dogs, Solle sits on his behind and barks orders from Central, and at the end of the game Perriend deigns to lend a little water aid to Lugion Village, oh thank you sahib, thank you! It’s all a little humiliating, to be honest.
Well anyway, I’m not too bothered about it. I’ve already moved on and started Atelier Sophie, which isn’t too bad but a bit worrying because each alchemy recipe is locked behind a trigger. What I really want is to spend a lot of time just making stuff. Ayesha and Escha & Logy were pretty good in that respect, Shallie just failed, as it did with everything else. And right until the end I never figured out how the Chain system was supposed to work…? Oh well, no biggie.
I wanted to end with a few positive points about Atelier Shallie Plus, but nothing is coming to mind. Umm, bright happy colors? I especially liked the flashy combat effects and how much damage you could do in Burst Mode. And we finally solved the mystery of the Dusk (? if the main device is in Stellard then what about the patches of green all over the world? Why the uneven spread of the Dusk?) so I can sleep well at night. And um… that’s it! It was a lousy game and I’m glad to be done. Next please!
SO RELATABLE
I finish Shallie a few month ago and frankly I have to agree with you in many points, like Shallistera and Shallotte being very diminished by the work of men. I find the alchemy system very fun though, specially when you reach MAX LVL. Now the Life Task system… man, why can I just do my thing? Why GUST are so obssesed with making us do some BS in order to move forward. I mean, why can we just lvl up as we want and do alchemy as we want?
Those plot holes are pretty messy btw, maybe they were just tired at that point. And it seems to be quite the GUST’s trademark not being able to balance alchemy and plot. Nowadays it seems like it is more important to have waifus y pretty colors (as a i’ve said before) than just craft items.
Did I tell that I love your Atelier’s entries? Since I don’t know anyone in my country who play them, reading these reviews amuse me a lot. My gratitude to you.
Thanks for the compliment. I’ve loved Atelier games for many years, so I’m sad to see it going in a more “regular RPG-ish” direction. BTW I ignored all the Life Tasks in Shallie except those I had to do to progress. It was the only way to stay sane.
It’s so nice to come across an honest opinion about Shallie (unlike Reddit, where people are unable to manage a critical evaluation of any of the games, and prefer to make post after post drooling over Ryza’s thighs)! The Dusk trilogy has become such a disappointment to me after beginning so well. I was blown away by the sadness of Ayesha after the bright colors and joyful atmosphere of the Arland series, but hated Escha and Logy.
The interesting setting, pretty colors and lovely music of Shallie immediately seemed like a return to form, but now I feel like I’m just floundering around. Shallie seems to get involved in a lot of small drama with other characters, and I find myself blasting through dialogue because it’s doing nothing to get to the bottom of the water crisis thus far. I think I’m in chapter 6 currently, and, is there an end to this anywhere? Revisiting different locations to fulfill life tasks gets boring quickly. There seems to be no real reward to it.
Maybe I was mistaken in choosing “Enjoy the story” mode, after having had my ass kicked in combat in previous games, because it just seems so easy to score dragon scales and other such things that would’ve been prized possessions in a game like Rorona! Before starting Rorona a few years back, I’d only played Atelier games here and there, and their offshoots, but when I started Rorona, I swore I would complete every Atelier game I played from then on, no matter what. Even in Escha and Logy I managed to slog through until I got the boring ending and was finally done with it, but here? It just seems like an endless game of fetch!
I guess I was wrong in thinking a game without a time limit would allow for so many more possibilities. I think Stera is adorable, but I want off this train already! Such a shame…I really hope Sophie is better. Did you enjoy it? I hope to start it in time for my winter break. Thanks again for the honest review!
Thank you very much for stopping by and taking the time to comment. IIRC I played Shallie on the hardest mode available, but even there it’s pretty easy. And fun, TBH. I enjoyed the flashy battles quite a bit. I also liked the desert world of Shallie since it’s not a common setting for a full game.
However it’s not exciting enough to want to visit each map over and over again. Doing the life tasks is pointless unless you’re aiming for the true ending, so I ignored them as much as possible. You get a situation where 90% of the game is time-wasting, and once you push through all that, the pay-off to the whole saga is anti-climatic (IMHO). So your choices are
a) Waste a ton of time and be disappointed, or
b) dash straight to the ending and still be disappointed.
TBH if you don’t find the two Shallies so cute you want to follow their adventures, Atelier Shallie doesn’t have much to offer. Though it’s still better than Sophie… Sophie has tedious battles, stressful exploration and an alchemy system where you have to do pointless tasks to unlock recipes. There’s also ONE tiny town in the entire game. But I won’t prejudice you against it too much. Some people enjoy the simplified format Sophie offers.