Aight, so I mentioned a while ago that I wanted to try Atelier Lydie & Suelle ~The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings~ because I pulled Suelle in Atelier Online and she looked cute. BIG MISTAKE. Don’t judge a character by her cutesy design. What the hell is wrong with this girl’s head, and what is wrong with the Gust writers who put this insanity on my screen and expected me to like it?

I only played one hour, as previously agreed upon. An hour doesn’t seem like very long, but it was more than enough time to meet some major characters, see the town, get an idea of the story, go through tutorials about gathering and synthesis and even fight my first battle.

Up till right before I quit, I thought it was an okay-ish game. It still runs sluggishly on my desktop so I’ll have to Google some fixes, but I’ll get round to that sometime. The tiny town reminds me uncomfortably of Atelier Sophie, that garbage game, and I’ve already heard that the scale of the game is much smaller than Atelier Firis. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as long as it’s not too small. And really, as long as there’s enough alchemy and the story isn’t too annoying I don’t mind the size of the world map much.

The problem came right before the hour expired. All along I’d been bothered by how rude Suelle was towards her father, even calling him “dummy-daddy” like it’s funny or something. But I figured the writers were just trying to create a “livelier” and “spunkier” heroine in contrast to the bland Sophie and cutesy Firis. And some people do have this casual, faux-adversarial relationship with their parents, I don’t get it myself but whatever.

So far so bad, but then right after Lydie and Suelle got back from the world of the painting, the game went crazy. There was a scene where their father Roger spent all their money – a measly 300 cole – on paint and then Suelle… I couldn’t believe it… that crazy cow KICKED HER OWN FATHER!

No “poked,” not “picked,” not “tricked.” K I C K E D! Kicked her own father. When did fathers turn into footballs for any brat to kick them around left right and center anyhow?

What kind of no-good, low-level low-life do you have to be to kick another human being?

What kind of ill-bred, disrespectful, putrid piece of garbage do you have to be to raise your foot against your own father?

And not for any good reason but over 300 cole?!! I thought I was hallucinating or something, maybe I sniffed too many paint fumes from the game. I mean, HOW????? I can’t stop shaking my head. Haa…🤦

So that soured me on the game in a major way. You can’t just kick people like that. I wouldn’t even kick my neighbor’s dog, and he’s a bad dog. Bark bark bark from morning to evening, bark bark bark even at 2am. But the night a burglar stole my laptop, it slept like a baby, zzzz. Even then, I wouldn’t kick that hellhound. How much more my own family member, the father who raised me from birth. This is nuts…

From now on, this game is no longer called Atelier Lydie & Suelle; it’s called Lydie & Scumbag. As for whether I’ll continue to play it or not… ugh, I don’t wanna. I’m probably going to, eventually, but I’ve moved it to the back of the queue automatically. I’ll play the more sensible ones with heroines with an actual moral compass first, then I’ll circle back to Lydie & Scumbag in the future. See ya!