The last area released before I dropped Atelier Online

I hear “that garbage Atelier Online game” finally got released in English this week. It doesn’t mean much to me because I dropped it already, but I figure some people might make their way here wondering whether it’s worth playing or not. To them I say yeah… it’s worth a try, but don’t spend any money on it.

Normally I hate to do this because I know “free to play” games aren’t really free. Both Koei/Gust and the localizers Boltrend put a lot of money into it, and it’s the small paying population that makes a game free for the rest of us. But in Atelier Online‘s case, any money you put in is going to be wasted, because game content will dry up almost completely after roughly 15 months.

I know that because even though I threatened to quit the game in May 2020, I actually kept playing almost daily until October 2020 and then sporadically until I finally dropped it for good in January 2021. Atelier Online is DEAD in Japan. Very little new story content, what little appeared was just marking time with no real seriousness. One new area released in all that time. If you’re interested in the story or lore or the world of Bressisle and want to explore new continents and stuff… yeah, forget it. Not gonna happen. Same old events repeated and recycled, same rewards, same old battle strategies. No new gacha characters after March 2020, so if you’re interested in a particular Atelier character, it’s best to Google it and check if they ever came. Dead means dead.

I hung in there till October 2020 because that’s when the game’s anniversary is. If the developers were going to make any grand announcements about updates or new features, that would have been the time. Instead they just gave a lot of free rolls and a small update to the Mirror World arc IIRC, and that was it. The writing was on the wall.

Despite all that, however, I wouldn’t discourage anyone from playing Atelier Online. It was a very pretty game, I liked the soundtrack, it scratched my crafting itch somewhat, the crashing issues improved after a while. I also enjoyed getting stronger with better equipment all the time, and the people on the Atelier Online discord were very nice and helpful. It wasn’t all bad.

So if you are able to go in with your eyes open, fully aware that this game will go nowhere, then who am I to stop you? It’s much the same logic as watching or reading a series that was cancelled or dropped without a proper ending. As long as you know from the start and can manage your expectations, there’s no problem.

So you can ignore my advice about not spending money as well. If you want to spend money, knowing you’re not going to get much in the long run, go for it. If you must spend on the gacha, focus on characters. New gear comes out all the time, but because of the nature of the Atelier series, the character pool is pretty limited. The free characters like the MC and Sorrel etc. are all completely crap. They have to be crap, otherwise no one would pull characters from the gacha. Don’t be like me and waste time and EXP and food levelling them up.

Besides, you can only have a party of 4 characters anyway, so don’t bother with more than four or five. IIRC the best characters when I quit Atelier Online were Escha and Vervain? Verbena? (the pirate girl, forget her name). Totori was best for spamming items. And there were one or two others. I think Willbell was the best magic user, but magic is mostly meh in this game. You should probably consult a proper tier list and not take my word for it. Pick your party as soon as you can and use dupes from other characters to unlock their levels. It’s what I wish I’d done instead of stupidly trying to raise everyone naturally. Heaven forbid you’d want to use a lot of Atelier characters in an Atelier game, grumble grumble…

Back on topic, though, I think newbies starting out will have a pretty good time. When I joined the game had already been out for a while, so a lot of the events were permanently available. Summer events, Valentine, Christmas, etc etc. Experiencing all those in real time with a group of friends (IRL or discord because the game’s co-op options are junk) would be fun. It wasn’t for me because I had my eyes on the garbage story with its garbage roadblocks (since the game was almost dead when I started and events weren’t really a thing), but you don’t have to make the same mistake. And remember to focus on getting candy and cole above all else.

Also don’t worry too much about combat. It’s not that hard, most of the time. Forget about using items like bombs and unis to deal any meaningful damage. They’re just there to boost your skill gauge. Every battle was just spam items to boost skill gauge, get off huge skill chain, end battle. Either you have enough strength for that burst damage or you don’t. But that’s a problem for you to worry about. I got out while I could.

So if you want to play Atelier Online, go ahead. I got about 2 months of fun out of it. Sure, I played for much longer than that, but got only two months’ worth of fun out of it. But when it was fun, it was really fun. And I’d probably still be playing if it wasn’t so obviously dead. Go for it and try to have fun!

Update: Koei-Tecmo finally announced that the Japanese version of Atelier Online is shutting down on March 31st, 2022. They’re just burying the corpse at this point.

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I tried Atelier Online: Alchemists of Braceir but it’s not for me (an unfair review) Update on Atelier Online – It’s growing on me, however… Last word on that garbage Atelier Online game Nothing to update for now