Merry Christmas, everyone!

It’s a bit belated, but I guess I was waiting to feel the Christmas spirit first. I don’t think it’s coming this time, so I might as well post. December 2024 is probably the blandest Christmas I’ve experienced in living memory, largely by choice. IIRC I came back from church and zonked out till like 6pm then ate breakfast for dinner and slept again a few hours later. I may or may not have done my gacha dailies, but that’s about it. Five days later and my holiday still looks largely like that because I don’t have the energy for much more. I’ve been working like a maniac since January on both personal and professional projects, so it’s nice to relax a bit to prevent burnout. I hope you guys are having a more exciting Christmas with all the snowball fights and eggnog and whatever else you young people like to do. 👍

Now, on to Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness and the Secret Hideout. I’ve been playing it for about a month, currently about 30 hours of game time, everyone’s level 45 and the game is muttering something about the final battle. Already?! The game flew by in a flash. I usually post updates on my progress in a game every ten hours or so, but in the case of Atelier Ryza I was having so much fun with the alchemy that I never got round to it, and now the game is almost over. In fact, the only reason I’m taking a break now is that I finally synthesized shoes that let me fly, so I’m going around the maps grabbing the chests I had missed last time, and that has slowed my momentum a bit.

Still, it’s a good thing I didn’t make an early post, because a lot of the things I would have complained about were fixed sooner or later, usually sooner. Early on, traveling was a pain because you had to take a boat every time, but very quickly a warp option was unlocked that lets you return to places you have been to before. The maps are also quite small once you get used to them, so navigation quickly stopped being a pain. The tiny size of my inventory was irritating, but then I got a knapsack recipe that fixed my inventory issues. The secret hideout was super ugly, but later you get upgrades to make it less hideous. Ryza’s running speed was sluggish, but now with the Wind Shoes, she zooms everywhere. Wish I had gotten those sooner.

And so on, and so forth. The ability to fix things that are bothering you with alchemy is a big plus in the game, though IMO it would be better if those issues weren’t there in the first place. Fixing issues also applies to the sidequests, which were tedious to do (and I say this as someone who likes sidequests) but which had permanent consequences by the end of the game. Too bad Ryza didn’t use her alchemy skills to help her parents on their farm, eh?

My favorite part of the game, and the reason why I’ve been playing it so avidly, is the alchemy system. Unlike previous games like Atelier Sophie and Atelier Shallie, it didn’t take me long to get the hang of the alchemy system. The system is super flexible so you can use a lot of different items to achieve the same result, and you can keep improving an item even further until it’s super top quality, as long as you have the gems. And then you can even duplicate that item if you want more copies, though this can be super expensive and IMO not really worth it. It’s nice to play an Atelier game where I can get the effects and traits I want on an item without struggling too much, and even if I can’t, the number of quests that require a particular trait is vanishingly small, so there’s no pressure there. For the alchemy alone, I give Ryza top marks.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to finish the game, though.😅 The alchemy may be nice, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have fun, but after 32 hours, the shine has worn off while the annoying parts are even more annoying than ever. Firstly, the story is like, “That’s it?!” Maybe there’s more after what I think is the final dungeon, and that would be okay. Otherwise it’s reminding me a lot of Genso Suikoden: Tsumugareshi Hyakunen no Toki where the whole game was spent talking up this massive threat that was going to overrun the world, but then in the end… It made sense in the end but… I was very fond of the story in that game because the stakes appeared to be so high, but that end was a bit…

Back on topic. Another reason I doubt I’ll finish Atelier Ryza is the last (?) dungeon. Sure, the dungeons were never exciting to begin with, but the violent fuschia last dungeon is both hideous and hard to navigate. Plus it’s packed with annoying enemies to fight. And speaking of fights, I never really liked the battle system or the limits on item use. Huh, it just occurred to me that I could switch to Easy mode and finish this quickly, and then I can write a proper review with both the good (plenty of that) and the bad about Atelier Ryza. Okay, that’s what I’ll do. See you guys next year, then!