Atelier Ryza Ever Darkness and the Secret Hideout - review

The title menu changes as you progress.

 Genre: RPG.
Developer/publisher: Gust/KOEI.
Platform: PS4/Switch/PC.
Official Site: https://www.koeitecmoeurope.com/ryza/ 

Release date: 09/26/19 (jp), 11/01/19 (eng).

After getting fatigued with the series in 2018 with Lydie and Suelle

and gust releasing not one but three atelier games in 2019 I decided

to take a break from this series untill now that is.

Three new atelier games had come and gone, one a sequel to the arland saga; Lulua.

Another being a fanservice spin-off bringing together every protagonist; Nelke

and finally this game; Ryza which will also be getting a sequel soon-ish.

 

Pro's

- Well-rounded story and characters that take part in it.

- Beautifully designed areas and nice music, photo mode is a blessing.

- Its not too easy or too hard, depending how well you alchemize your item/gear.

 

Con's

- Short, lack of character events(for some is dlc...).

- Lack of variety in enemy design, hard to tell miniboss apart from normal enemy.

(There is a compass item that can show mobs but this isn't available till later...)

- Battle system can be confusing.

 

 

Story: This game's story is a little different from the usual atelier as its a coming of age

type of story but it still manages to be what we all know it to be.

Its about Ryza and her two friends Lent and Tao who have seen it all on their little island

and want to adventure beyond it which leads to them meeting a merchants daugther Klaudia

but meeting Empel an alchemist and his sidekick Lila lights a fire in Ryza's heart...

the islanders aren't fond of outsiders and what is it that Empel and Lila seek? Without spoiling

I found the story to be pretty good, while short its paced well and gives drive to continue

imo the story was pretty well rounded and I liked it more than the dusk series in its entirety.

In Ryza, the main cast all are relevant & contribute to the story in some way.

I do noticed there was room for two more characters

in the formation menu but they never did anything with it.

Having Agatha, Bos or Kilo would be nice as DLC but alas. 

Overall I liked the story, there's definitely some sentimental value? to it.

 

I'd call her a slave driver for this line but she's more of a leader.😅

Characters: I like the main group they got good chemistry, since they're still kids

they can be brats at times and the game isn't afraid to show that or how snarky the adults can be.

Ryza herself is likable enough, Lent is the reliable big bro of the group he does have some

daddy issues though. Tao is a whiny bookworm who wants to be able to read

his grandfathers bookcollection which is in a old language.

Klaudia is rather timid who has to deal with her overprotective dad though having met

Ryza has expanded her world and has given her more courage to play her instrument.

I liked Empel a lot too, as was Lila though the story helped with that I guess Empel is like

a slightly younger and more moe version of keith also doNUT! his chemistry with Lila

is also great kinda makes me wish we saw some of their earlier (mis)adventures.😂😂😂

Of the Npc's I think Jonna was the most memorable and rather funny questline

the rest kind of varied in terms of enjoyment but they all made the island more lively. 

 There are no character events though... which is a shame but i'll take it since

all the main cast was so involved in the story. No romance either but just like gust's

other games if you put yuri goggles on, one could probably see some subtext between

Klaudia and Ryza. Lila and Empel seemed pretty into each other too... but that's it.

Truth

 

Gameplay: Atelier Ryza is sorta like Firis the areas are big but not too big

the pacing of the story also keeps you from adventuring too far which is good

for progression because if everything was open from the get go we'd be OP in 10 hours.😂

I always thought that while Firis's world was nice it was a little too big at times.

I do like the world design a lot this entry though, lots of memorable places and bright colours

other than that, the atmosphere of kurken island and nearby areas are pretty relaxing but later areas

 the music is appropiate as well, a place invested with dragons still makes me tense.

Thank god quick travel became a thing when it did! because in the first few hours

I actually got tired of running so much.

The camp menu will also change as you progress.

 

The side quests are decent and give the islanders more personality, I think its best to do them

as you go through the game having them stack up till endgame might make it become a chore.

Sidequests I hated were once were they had you find 3 npcs then go back....

other than that the rest were fine its good to do them since they reward accesories or recipies.

Treasure hunt system is nice, besides kurken island most can't be completed

till later but i'm fine with that as it gives a reason to go out there

as well as finding any missed landmarks. Also not having wind shoes early

is a tease since there's many spots you can't reach early.

The alchemy system is okay... little room for error and you can improve existing items further...

We are also back to getting recipies from books, story and recipies within a recipe! neat.

I like all this more than the idea system from the mysterious series, which was something

that worked better on paper but not in practice.

Though my one problem with the alch system... is how weird the wpn/armor

synthing is, like start at tier 1 and make way to the final tier then fill out and spam ingot/etc.

then rebuild to unlock/add your traits, i'm just not sure about all this. :/ 

 

The battle system this time is action based, everyone still has turns but time only stops when

using a quick action? also kind of like ff7 remake but no need to be in control

of everyone and AI isn't useless, each character has a role ATK,DEF or Support. DEF gets

more aggro, ATK well attacks and supporters heal but only the controlled chara can use items.

The formation system is a bit weird, characters like Tao, Empel and Klaudia

are backrow only while Ryza,Lila and Lent are frontliners. Atleast they made it

possible to remove anyone from the party and free-form it with whoever you like.

I don't quite understand the combat but I didn't have that much difficulty till the dragon

who did kick my ass once😅 I already had a good weapon on Lent and got good accesories

from treasure chests along with a decent ice bomb, all I had to do was upgrade Ryza's and Klaudia's

weapons and for some reason it went down in 1 try. Funny how a slight boost in stats

made a difference. By the time of last boss I had even better wpns/armor, which made the fight comfy.

 

 Lvling was not a problem, just following the story got me to lvl 30

and the last dungeon to 45 at best then it was a bunch of optional bosses.

LVL doesn't matter that much in this game but a few extra stat points is always nice.

pre-final boss my alch lvl was 60 the real problem was getting that to 99

doing all recipies will get you to 80~ at best... then you have to make red stones......😩😩😩

The special attacks unlock at lvl 40, felt like I should already have them by 30

but nope they made it an endgame thing 10 lvls before the lvl cap/trophy(not counting dlc)

atleast I got to use it on the last boss, Empel is pretty cool.😅

I managed to see the rest in some lvl 90 travel bottle...

Speaking of bottles, these are nice when you need a lot of a specific ingredient like dunkelheit

when you can't be arsed to go out there so you can make a miniature map to quickly farm them.

But like rebuilding it costs gems, which aren't a problem I just farmed the first two trees

from maple delta and then turn that loot into gems.

There were also minibosses but I ran right past most them because they had

a normal enemy design, when i did find them some are bigger or had a different animation

but I didn't realize those were minibosses till post game except for the shiny puni

and at that point thanks to my gear, they were all pretty easy, their names are a lie too...

they don't live up to their names. Even the elementals were not much of a challenge.😦

I guess I really did over did it, because only the last optional boss (in the bottle) was a little difficult

thank you healing ball and elixer, I appreciate you.

 

The only other problem I have is how many trips to the atelier I'd have to make

to unload my bag(yes I know there was an upgrade but by then I was almost done) and also

recharge CC(ew) so I can use items again... speaking of CC I don't like the core

system, atelier had never a system in place that would prevent

you from using your items they'd either you run out or you duplicate good ones.

In Ryza items cost CC points to use, you can recharge an item in battle but

that would cost you another item the plus side is both items are infinite and never run out.

Recharging in battle is a bit annoying though.

 

Most of the trophies were random and for things that were easy to accomplish

like making a harvest scyth, hammer or a random mob that's slightly stronger

thus it did feel like they were padding out the list. :/

Worth mentioning there's no trophy related to the puni that you can feed

it'll change colour and depend on its mood it can bring back item

unfortunately I almost forgot that feature existed.

 

That aside the other feature that I did like was the photomode

and I messed around with it for a bit in two of my fav areas.

TL;DR I liked atelier Ryza, the gameplay was addicting, from the story events to gathering

a few mats to doing alchemy! where did the hours go?! either way it was mostly a good time.

Its also perfect for newcomers to the series, no need to know anything about its history.

The story was a bit on the short side but had it been any longer i'd probably get annoyed

since the alchemy/gathering was gated behind the plot thus preventing to make a lot

of useful items too early. Though I can see why its like that, after getting winds shoes and bomb hammer you can finally find the remaining landmarks and treasures while also gathering mats.

That was not a deal breaker for me though there was plenty of items to work with early game

I kept wondering where I can find that item to make that item... but its best to not worry

do what you can to proceed the story with what you do have on hand which was enough for me.

Not a big fan of the action-oriented combat though but I got used to it by the end

of the game, the CC system was awful and if you got your gear right you basically

don't even need to use items, gust what is this please?! minus the few nitpicks

this was still a good game. I even felt motivated to get the platinum trophy which for rpgs

has been rare for me lately. Though if I see a philosopher stone one more time.....

The only downside is that despite every main character being involved in the plot

is that they don't have that many side event, for some it even paid dlc......

I can't fully blame gust for this because they did make 3 games in a year aaand

 once you're done with the game you're probably really done and not much else to do.

Almost as if this game was made for photomode...

 

Glad I did finally play another atelier game, I know from when Ryza was announced

this was meant to be a single game but apparently it was so succesful that they decided

to do another game, either way i'll look forward to another adventure in the world of Ryza.

8.3/10

Not sure if I will play Lulua anytime soon or Nelke for that matter, i'm just

gonna chill with piofiore FD when that comes out and also try to finish the sakura wars anime

which is okay, the animation style did take some getting used too but everything else is ok.