Wasted 26 hours, 17 minutes and 40 seconds on Atelier Ayesha Plus (spoilers)

My final save file reads 36:17:40 and I reckon about 10 of those hours were actually fun. The rest was dreck. Atelier Ayesha seems to divide people into those who think it’s the best thing ever and a great introduction to the Atelier series and those who think it’s disappointing and the beginning of the end for the series. I thought for sure I would be in the former camp, but having finished it, I find myself firmly in the latter. I don’t even feel like writing about it, but maybe scribbling down a few thoughts will help me get my feelings in order.

First off, the Atelier games have always had varying ratios of story : combat : character interactions : alchemy, so it’s normal to prefer some games to others depending on which way your tastes incline. In Ayesha it’s combat >= character stuff > story >>>>>>>>> alchemy, a.k.a. that thing you do in between exploring and chatting and hoping some event occurs to bring you closer to your sister.

Fair enough. Although the focus wasn’t much on alchemy this time, I did get to make a lot of new things. I made every single item on the list probably for the first time ever, and it wasn’t hard to get the ingredients either. Alchemy is so irrelevant I might as well not have bothered, but I was doing it for my own satisfaction and I was pretty durn satisfied by the end so it’s all good.

Okay, what about the story? Wait, what story? At the beginning they mention something about “Dusk” and crops not growing, though you wouldn’t know it with how comfy and happy everyone is and with all the food Ayesha picks up just by running around outside. Alchemist of Dusk, schmalchemist of dusk, you’re never getting that explanation in this game.

More importantly, you’d think the issue of who kidnapped Nio and why would be a serious matter worthy of exploration in the game, wouldn’t you? I thought for sure Gust let me rescue her so early so they could fit some more story in there, but nope, you get Nio back and that’s it.

You have to watch Keith’s ending on YouTube to find out that Nio she was taken by some seed repository left behind by a more advanced civilization that destroyed itself with alchemy… or maybe not, dunno. And the repository was accidentally awakened by…someone. And maybe you shouldn’t have killed the gatekeeper… or maybe you should have, I dunno. Either way it’s not explored or explained within the game itself so it might as well not have happened for all the attention Ayesha gives it. Lots of other things aren’t explained either, like apothecaries or the Altugle family, what exactly happened to people who weren’t rescued, or the nature of Marion’s organization, etc etc.

In the end the story boils down to “Your sister has been kidnapped by ninjas weird plants. Are you a bad enough alchemist to rescue your sister?” Once you’ve proved you are, you can end the game right there. And actually even if you’re not, apparenly Keith will rescue Nio for you anyway in the “Bad” end. I regret every millisecond I spent worrying about Nio’s fate, not knowing Mr. Know-It-All-But-Won’t-Share would have bailed me out at the end anyway. Feminine wiles, man. Respect.

So there isn’t much story to speak of, and what there is doesn’t go anywhere, and what you do doesn’t matter in the long run. You can see why I’m unhappy already. But that’s still only one element. What about combat?

Hmm… Y’know, if they hadn’t made it so you had to jump through hoops to skip animations, I wouldn’t say anything negative about the combat. I mean it’s pretty boring, but it’s not the worst I’ve ever experienced. Ayesha and her pals feel really weak most of the game, but I’m playing on Hard mode so that’s normal. It’s just that I got tired of the animations after an hour, and learning that Gust could have made them skippable all along but just wanted me to suffer… feels bad man.

Everyone in my party hit the level cap very quickly so I thought there would be a cap raise later, like in Meruru. Nope, nothing. There were a lot of optional bosses available to fight after saving Nio, but with my level capped and no story relevance and no good loot to look forward to except dupe weapon/armor drops, I skipped most of them. Every time I made a new bomb I’d test it out, but that’s about it. Ayesha doesn’t learn any battle skills, everyone else only has 4 skills, it takes forever to save up for a special move, there’s very little variety in equipment, there’s a ton of palette swaps. Etc, etc, it’s just no fun.

Unless we’re counting Mana Khemia, I haven’t found the battle system in any Atelier game very exciting, but hitting the cap so quickly in Ayesha and having so few battle/equipment options makes this the least interesting game from a fighting perspective. I hope they can at least make the process faster and more rewarding in Escha & Logy and Shallie. And I’ve learned my lesson: no more Hard mode in Atelier games!

Last but not least, let’s talk about characters, character interactions, events, that sort of thing. I don’t hate Ayesha but I heavily dislike her high-pitched voice and forced-cute mannerisms. Who even says “Kyaaah” out loud? In English? But I believed I’ve talked about this before so I’ll let it drop. It’s just a personal preference where I don’t like super-girly or super-cute stuff. Ayesha fans, think of it as one less gamer competing for your idol’s affections.

Eat your hearts out ladies/
Hands off the merchandise

Instead let’s talk about other characters… Can’t believe Juris friendzoned me after getting my hopes up with that “feelings” line… Why even tease if you’re not gonna follow through? Apart from that I liked everyone, but nothing really stood out for me, good or bad.

It would have been more interesting to have more towns and more characters. I’d always accepted it as a technical limitation in the smaller games, but in the PS3/4 era I’d like it if the scale of Atelier games got a little grander. Instead of the Salt Desert being a giant waste with only one character to meet. No named characters in Homonculus Town and only one screen. Only Kyle in Hornheim. You can’t even talk to townspeople unless they have a quest to give you. Such an empty world.

But no seriously, I’ve gotta find something to say about the characters and stuff. Umm… Gee… I like Willbell’s hat. GAAAH, what do you want me to say? I used Linca and Juris for 90% of the game, hardly touched Marion, Odelia and Keith at all. I wanted to like Willbell but her events are so childish. And Regina’s events are all “Get back in the kitchen woman” like, I dunno. Why does she have to go home just because her brothers are grown up? Translation error? Anyway, nobody was interesting but nobody was bad either. It’s very much a Your Mileage May Vary thing.

Final roundup of Atelier Ayesha Plus

It was meh. Nowhere near as meaty or exciting or atmospheric as I’d been expecting. If you’re doing to reduce alchemy’s importance then I’ll judge the game like any other JRPG, and Ayesha doesn’t hold up well in that respect. Vague hints of a story that goes nowhere, sluggish combat with tedious animations, friendly but bland characters. If this weren’t an Atelier game, I would be even more scathing in my review but hey, at least I got to fuse stuff for a while so that was good.

In summary Atelier Ayesha wasn’t a very good game and I didn’t enjoy it that much. If it’s true that it’s all downhill from here, then I am in despair. But there’s nowhere else I can go for my crafting game fix so now I’m really in despair. Story fragments, event upon event with characters I don’t care about… I want to cry now 🙁 But I’ll get over it in a couple of months and be back to play Atelier Escha & Logy. Until then, phew, I’m glad to be done!

Atelier Ayesha Plus – Midgame report (spoilers)

As promised, I’m back at the end of Year 2 of Atelier Ayesha Plus for an update of my progress. Actually I’m a little beyond that and into Year 3, July 7th IIRC. Just finished saving Ayesha’s sister Nio.

But somehow the game is still continuing, barreling forward without any motivation on my part. The whole game has been “Save Nio, Save Nio, Save Nio” so far, so now that I’ve saved her, I don’t know what they want me to keep playing for. Especially since I’ve made almost everything on the alchemy list. Could the deadline for the game be only 3 years or will they come up with some new story premise soon? Anyway, a few things to note since I posted last:

I have mixed feelings about the whole “Searching for the Truth” theme of Atelier Ayesha. On one hand it’s great to have a game where the main character isn’t just a puppet doing whatever the village elders/some mysterious girl with a pendant/the Great Spirits tell them to do. In theory Ayesha does her own investigations, tracks down her sister and saves her largely by herself.

In practice though, her steps are heavily guided by the gruff and annoying Keithgriff who refuses to share what he knows purely so Gust can drag the game out Falcom-style, which pisses me off because if you’re not going to help then don’t even be in my game.

The game is supposed to depict a process where Ayesha breaks down his defences and worms her way into his good graces through her hard work and determination, but really she just whines and stalks him and simpers at him until he caves in. Never underestimate the power of feminine wiles and a low-cut dress.

One thing I do like about the story: all the progress Ayesha makes in the course of her search for Nio. Losing her sister mysteriously isn’t something she would have chosen, but without that, she might have lived her whole life in that little workshop and never experienced so many things. Meeting new friends, visiting Viezerburg and Hornheim, riding a hot air balloon, becoming an alchemist, going as far afield as the Salt Desert. I felt a real sense of adventure and accomplishment after rescuing Nio and comparing her stagnant development to all the things Ayesha had seen and done. I had a good feeling! This is the way!

Of course, this is another reason why I feel like I’m done with the game now that I’ve rescued Nio. It’s been a wild ride, I’ve done a lot of stuff, now I’m ready to finish and move on. If Ayesha isn’t curious about who/what Yggdrasil is and whether it was a good idea or not to destroy the guardian, then neither am I. It’s not like Keithgriff is prepared to tell me anyway. My next objective is to save 20,000 cole for a hot air balloon and visit the Floating Island. Then I’ll just kill time till the game ends and come back for a final report.

Before I go, though: another thing I really like: alchemy! Lots and lots of alchemy! I.E. the whole reason why I’m playing this game! It takes a while to get all the useful Alchemy Skills and even longer to learn to use them efficiently, but now I’m starting to have fun. You can do some really useful things with Power Transfer and Power Pour to get the best even out of mediocre ingredients, which is great.

And I’m really happy that there are sooo many new items to make that I’ve never seen before in an Atelier game, even though the actual useful ones aren’t that many. Make first, find use for later. After so many games in the series, I’m pleased that Gust can introduce so much new stuff even now.

The only change I really dislike is the weapon/armor thing. Wading through tons of useless armor and weapon drops gives me Xenoblade Chronicles flashbacks. And you don’t just rely on drops but you have to synthesize and apply dyes and whetstones to every single one. It’s very boring. Especially in an alchemy game where I would enjoy making the weapons themselves, or at least the ingredients. I hope this will be fixed in the sequels, which I am quite eager to play now. I hope they’ll let me explore more of the world at that point.

Okay, that’s enough for a mid-term report. See you when I finish the game!

Put Tokyo Xanadu eX+ on hold and started Atelier Ayesha Plus

…but I don’t like Atelier Ayesha Plus so far. Even though it’s only December of year 1, it’s quite boring. In this game, Ayesha’s sole reason for doing alchemy is to track down her sister, so the joy of doing alchemy for its own sake is non-existent. My great joy in Atelier games, reduced to a pointless preliminary. Oh, the shame!

The alchemy itself isn’t bad, though. They went with all-new designs for most of the items and there are a lot of new items I’ve never made before in all my years of playing, so that’s good. It’s also good that your basket has much more capacity now because of the way items stack, so you can forage much more with less stress. I haven’t gotten the hang of the Ayesha’s alchemy skills yet, i.e. when to use what and why, but I’ll pick it up eventually. Same with the whetstones and dyes, though TBH having to tweak and re-tweak equips to get all the right bonuses and resistances is my least favorite aspect of the games.

I started this game on Hard, but so far it’s just normal. I got too much done in one playthrough in Rorona, Totori and Meruru. The latter two especially left me twiddling my thumbs after a while, so I wanted a slightly more panicked pace this time. Unfortunately Hard mode in Atelier Ayesha Plus seems like they just jacked up some prices (?) and increased the HP of the enemies (?) but they’re not even that hard and stuff isn’t that expensive. I can’t imagine what Normal mode would be like.

Do your best not to be hated by me.

Back to the complaints about the story, I don’t like Ayesha. She’s too faux-cute and ditzy. And I’m not saying they have to give her a carrot or pie or mushroom addiction, but can’t they make her personality stand out somehow? She’s supposed to be chasing this sister of hers, but the sister disappeared before the game even started. I haven’t met her, I’ve barely seen any flashbacks. How am I supposed to get excited about helping someone I don’t care about (Ayesha) look for someone I don’t know (Nio)? Especially when the main character doesn’t care about the stuff I do care about?

Also the playable cast is crap. Too many skinny little twig-like girls. When the game intro started with two grown men instead of little kids, I thought “Yay! No more moe!” but I was so wrong. I want more testosterone! Or at least some different physiques.

Current progress: Average party level of 19, Ayesha’s alchemy level around 20. Nothing much happened for the longest time, but now I’ve been told that if I go south beyond Hallos village I can find someone who will give me the next story trigger, so I’ll work on that now. Need to spend a bit of time grinding up/buying bombs first though. And better whetstones and dyes.

It’s a bit early to be writing this post, but after 6 in-game months I’ve earned the right to complain a little bit. I’m not enjoying Atelier Ayesha Plus. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to enjoy about it. The albums and achievements at every step? They just stress me out. The quests you can’t do half the time because they’re asking for items you don’t have? Items that regular townspeople shouldn’t even know about because alchemy is so arcane?

Or am I supposed to be enjoying the “cute” characters? They’re not cute, they’re not funny, they’re not even that useful in battle. But this could be another Atelier Lina situation where I was playing it all wrong and later have to eat crow while proclaiming my love for the game. I’ll finish the first in-game year and come back for a re-evaluation.

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ isn’t dropped either. I’ve put in at least 10 game hours since I last posted and made a little bit of progress with the story, which is normal for Falcom RPGs. IMO the game is getting kind of stupid right now, but if it ends in the next 10 hours or so, it won’t be so bad. Loving the combat as usual, though the dungeon gimmicks are gradually getting more annoying. Will update once I hit 30 hours, as previously agreed upon. See ya!

Dropped Chaos Rings III and continued Tokyo Xanadu eX+

Chaos Rings III is a nice, colorful game with a simple story and pleasant characters. I have high hopes that it will be a great game once I get some better Genes and a higher MP cap. Right now, though, I just don’t feel like dealing with the magic restrictions and the resulting slow battles, so I’m shelving it for now. It’s not dropped-dropped, but don’t expect to see it here for a while.

Instead I’ve been continuing Tokyo Xanadu eX+, which I started late last year but only recently got serious about. As I said in my initial post on the game, it’s a lot of fun but not the action RPG I was looking for. Instead it’s definitely a Majin-like, the criteria for which are the following:
– Ratio of 90% visual novel to 10% gameplay (Tokyo Xanadu eX+ only goes up to 80-20 if you include optional sidequests).
– Heavy focus on the occult/supernatural.
– Cast skewed heavily towards high school students who do typical anime high schooler stuff. We haven’t had a school festival or a beach/hot spring episode yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

Since I have now accepted that Tokyo Xanadu eX+ is not an ARPG but a visual novel with action combat, this is the last time I will comment on the issue. I will just take the game as it comes. After all, I am enjoying the parts where I roam around town talking to people. Every once in a while you learn something new about a character and get an updated entry in the glossary, which is fun in its own way.

It’s just that if you treat the game as a VN then you start evaluating it by story, characters, dialogue instead of by gameplay, controls, challenge, etc. How does Tokyo Xanadu hold up?

Story: Reminds me a lot of Persona 4, where you have this alternate dimension that people get thrown/drawn into and if you don’t save them quickly they’ll die. But this time our team always gets there in the nick of time – no matter how long we dilly-dally we’ll always get there juuust before the boss attacks the victim. I don’t know how we do it ^_~.

But that’s more like the flow of the game. The real story, i.e. why those dimensions/Eclipses are appearing and what we can do to get at the root of the issue, well after 16 hours and 30 minutes of playing I haven’t gotten one whit closer to an answer. That’s normal for Falcom games though. Waste the first two-thirds of the game with fetchquests and “world building” and then shove the story in hurriedly in the last third of the game.

I wouldn’t be annoyed if it wasn’t for the fact that a lot of characters seem to know what’s going on, or at least have a better idea than the main character does but they’re not sharing anything. Kou Tokisaka is not making much effort to get answers either, but the others are definitely blocking him – and by the extension, the player – from getting to the meat of the story until Falcom is good and ready.

That’s why Kou never asks about the history of Nemesis or of the Eclipses from any of the many shopkeepers who somehow handle Eclipse goods. That’s why he’s stupid enough to actively ignore heavy hints from people like Mitsuki and the antique shop owner. Actively and energetically ignore – often the evidence is right in front of his face and he’s like “Nah, it couldn’t be!” It could be! It IS! You numbskull! Oh Kou, Kou, what am I going to do with you? *shakes head*

Characters: Harmless enough. The high school students are good kids to the point of ridiculousness. Like they’ll beat each other to a pulp one day and the next day they’re the closest buddies ever. Yeah, okay. Even the usual “girl-crazy friend of the protagonist who envies his luck with girls” is more wholesome than such characters usually are and hasn’t once tried to peek in the girls’ locker room. That’s real progress.

The only issue with all this fluffy wholesomeness, if you can call it an issue, is that there’s zero room for doubt about how things will turn out in the end. You know every conflict and problem is going to end well, lots of hugs and tears and “Believe in me who believes in you” talk. Everyone lives happily ever after and repercussions are kept to a minimum. Tension is zero so the story isn’t that interesting. Or maybe it’s just the evil side of me talking. And knowing Falcom, something horrible is bound to happen to Morimiya City towards the end of the game so there’s hope yet!

Everything else that comes to mind: The loading times are a bit long. Probably just my laptop being weaksauce, but it makes exploration suck when you have to wait 15-20 seconds every time you enter or leave a room, a shop or a floor. Note to self: do all future PC gaming on more powerful desktop.

I have 5 playable characters so far, but no one’s as fun to control as Kou and Asuka. What I don’t get is why they can’t both go into battle at the same time. Where is the other one hiding? And why? I don’t know when I’ll ever get used to the “I’m here, but I’m not gonna help” nature of party members in most RPGs, but usually it doesn’t stand out as badly as it does in Tokyo Xanadu eX+ because you have a whole team of party members. Here it’s only one (visible) person doing everything so it feels really weird.

Other comments on the battle system will have to wait until I’m doing with the game, seeing as it isn’t really an ARPG and all. That will be enough time for me to get used to certain things and for others to improve. For example, right now I’m not pleased by how little equipment there is in the game or how there are so many accessories with little to distinguish them from each other. But that might change. The same goes for the useless(?) grid system with its hopelessly weak power-ups. I might get super rare jewels later on that will turn the whole game around.

That’s enough for an early-stage comment on Tokyo Xanadu eX+. Falcom’s games are usually 40-60 hours long, so 16 hours isn’t even halfway through. I’ll be back with an update at the 30-hour mark and maybe 45 hours if I make it in that far. I’m starting to crave something new, though. Might revisit DQ7 or something, we’ll see.

Dropped Luminous Arc Infinity and started Chaos Rings III

I did say Luminous Arc Infinity wasn’t that bad, but it’s not that good either. With my new “It is enough to play a little bit” motto, I don’t see the need to force myself to play the whole thing when I’m not really enjoying it. Everything it does has been done better by Stella Glow, Ar Tonelico, the other Luminous Arc games and basically any other harem RPG in existence. “There’s this guy and all these girls are gonna fall in love with him and then they’re going to save the world.” Aight, I get it. If the battles weren’t so sluggish and the music was actually good like you’d expect of a music-based SRPG I might stick around, but LAI doesn’t have any of that so it’s time to bail.

Currently playing: Chaos Rings III. Normally I like to play games in release order, but I’ve heard very mixed things about the earlier Chaos Rings games so I’m starting from the end and working my way backwards. Except not really because CRIII isn’t impressing me so I’m not motivated to play the others.

When I say “not impressing me,” I don’t mean it sucks. I really like the super-generic “Boy wants to go adventuring” story, and the idea of teaming up with like-minded buddies to explore an unchartered planet is right up my alley. There’s just one small problem – Chaos Rings III was originally a mobile game, so it has some unpleasant mobile game characteristics left over that make it a chore to play.

Chief among them is the fact that MP only recovers at a rate of 1 MP per minute. MINUTE. There are a few MP refilling items but they can’t be bought in stores (yet?) and I have no money anyway. Seems like originally you were supposed to pay real-life money or grind for in-game coins to get around that but 1) You can’t pay money in the offline VITA version and 2) Grind? Me? Don’t you know 2019 is my Year of No Grinding?

I’ve heard of workarounds like resetting your VITA clock for coins and stuff, but I’m not into the game enough to bother with all that. And of course, since MP is majorly time gated, they made the game so magic attacks and hitting enemy weaknesses does much more damage and ends battles much faster than trying to auto-attack your way out. Even more cleverly, instead of your MP cap rising as you level up, it only rises once your party unlocks a certain number of “Genes” (summon cards) – i.e. either spend money or grind, there’s no way around it.

Chances are high that this is the first and last post I’ll make about Chaos Rings III, so I’ll say everything I have to say once and for all. It’s a very charming, by-the-book RPG and they’ve got some good combat ideas like chaining combos and joint-casting magic and stuff. The stages are very colorful in an anime kind of way and all the characters I’ve met so far have been very nice. Even the music and voice-acting is above-average.

It’s just that the MP thing is a near deal-breaker. I understand that this game came out in the early days of mobile game development when developers were still fumbling around for a monetization method. This is better than gacha for sure. But the result is still an awkward mix of regular RPG and irritating time-gating for time-gating’s sake which interferes with the simple fun I’m trying to have. You get all these cool Genes and abilities but can’t use them freely because you’re conserving MP. Or you shoot everything off in the first two or three battles and do scratch damage for the rest of the stage. Either way it sucks.

All that said, there’s the definite possibility that things might improve once I get more powerful Genes and a higher MP cap. Or if I can get enough money to buy some good equipment so I can do real damage with regular attacks. Though, this being a mobile game, the way to get good stuff is clearly to earn it through daily login bonuses, grind for it in the Coliseum (no, please, no) or grind it out in quests. I don’t know if I want to do all that for a nice but very ordinary RPG. Which is why I say I’m most likely done with Chaos Rings III and the rest of the Chaos Rings series. As long as there are other RPGs in my VITA, 3DS and PS2 backlog, I’d rather focus on those and leave the mediocre games for later. Or never, never sounds good.