Atelier Ryza 3 Alchemist of the end and the Secret Key - Review

 Genre: RPG.

Developer/publisher: Gust/Koei
Platform: PC/PS4/5/Switch.
Official Site: https://www.koeitecmoeurope.com/ryza3/welcome.html
Release date: 24/03/2023

 

Okay so after a year break from atelier and skipping Sophie 2 i've decided to get Ryza 3.

Mostly because I wanted to see the hints the characters left in the prequel

plus the fact Ryza 2 left me unsatisfied! so I went into 3 with the hope of a proper ending.

and well in short it did just that and it was nice to see everyone again! 

I don't really recommend starting with this game since the Ryza games

are all direct-sequels of each other.  Also because Ryza ended up sitting on her ass

at the end of the second game her proportions have been uh thickened or so to speak.

 

 Sadly they seemed to have upped the amount of playable characters in this game

which is probably the only thing I wasn't looking forward to since the more members there are

the more likely characters end up getting benched. I'm usually fine with 6 or 7 but Ryza 3 has 11.

Yea I guess I should be used to this becuase of kiseki/trails but man... its kinda hell

to try and manage the equipment of so many characters.😅

I played on normal from start to finish, and my party ended up being Ryza,Klaudia 

and Bos for a good while till I switched the two of them out for Kala and Dian

 

Opening Movie.

Pro's

- Story and characters gets fleshed out and overall was a decent finish.

-  Plenty of optional content such as chara event, sub and world quest.

 

Con's

- Terrible Depth of Field making my eyes hurt.

- World's so big now its actually exhausting.

- For the love of Fi get rid of the core item system, it barely feels like an atelier game.

- RNG infested key system, want rare monsters? want to get past a barrier

or more quantity for synthing? go get a key with an effect that allows it!

My eyes...............

Also when I started playing there was a really bad depth of field and the motion blur

was pretty awful too that I had to turn off. They will fix this with a patch but man...

did it hurt my eyes and not even make me want to play. Graphics are on par with the

other games in the series though its just that why oh why is there so much blur???

The music was well okay? it made me nostalgic of Ryza 1 but at times it sounded like 

the type you'd hear in some old movie with no talking which just makes everything so ambitious

and it kinda is Ryza's last big adventure? atleast I think so I guess its okay.

Edit: I kind of want to add that in terms of music, gust hasn't really been the same

and I don't even remember what the final boss theme sounded like. While I still

remember how kick ass they used to be in like eschatology. Oh well time's change huh?

 

More rambles after the jump.

 

 

 Characters well you know em by now and not much has changed!

but it was so nice to see them again for one last adventure.

I do think it is time to accept Ryza is a ditz and forgetful, she isn't perfect and well

she doesn't have to be. I didn't like the end of 2 but yea sometimes things are

beyond your control and you simply can't do much.

Bos is playable this time and I'm loving it... this guy is like someone who used

to be a bully but grew the hell up and actually became friends with Ryza, its beautiful.

I know most people have yuri goggles on and are shipping Ryza and Klaudia

and I can sorta see why since.  the way those two were looking at each other

was really embarrassing and made me cringe a little. Like Klaudia is staring

so lovingly and meanwhile Ryza is just doing whatever being dense.

So I was like omfg just talk?!  The story doesn't even do much for those two... which is sad

and the only real obvious romance was Tao&&Patty as well as Bos&Kilo since there was

a scene that made me scream were Bos like literally made a promise.

 There were also a few nudges towards Empel/Lila but nothing concrete for our heroine Ryza.

You know its sad that I kind of shipped Ryza with Bos as well even though you know... Kilo.

We've known Bos since the first game and it makes sense he's playable now

since he had like so much development for it to happen and he is one of my fav's. 

Also if it wasn't for the Bos/Kilo thing i'd probably have shipped Bos/Ryza even harder

and well it wasn't like the game didn't give a few nudges towards it...

New characters especially Federica could feel a bit like an NPC, I also found her

to be the most boring and outside of the story she didn't do much to stand out other than

help Ryza learn a new type of crafting, she has her cute sides I guess?

Dian is well whatever felt more like he was used for comedic relief.

There was one hilarious scene of him with his sister Deidre, I can't seriously believe it was real.😂

Kala is Kala, her sub events were atleast funny which helped me like her more I guess

enough to make her a permanent member of the party! her super is literally indignation.

 

Story wise, I think its better than Ryza 2 since Ryza is actually learning about alchemy again

and isn't sitting on her bum waiting for that mysterious voice to give her the recipies.

They did a really good job at tying up loose ends and fleshing everything out!

I did think the craftsman arc was less interesting than nemed. Overall I did think the story 

was good but it gave me strong FFXIV vibess, sadly it drags a little when Frederica got introduced

I just was pretty bored by the plotline at the time they even had the nerve to go back to it

later but atleast it made sense since Ryza was actually learning. Shocker I know!

You can pet dogs and cats!

 Character events were a plenty but like all atelier games they will stack or overwhelm you at times...

when I got to the the fourth area and went back to kurken there they were.😩😩😩

 Only some of them were interesting/funny to me while others had me wishing they would end

atleast most of them were short so whenever I booted up my game i'd try to do a bunch

of them before proceeding to do literally anything else. A big theme of this game is to

try to appreciate the little things, even the most basic interactions! since nothing lasts forever

but the memories of those times and the journey remain even after parting ways.

Something about it is too real, like meeting up with friends but eventually they all have

to go their own ways and it gets harder to meet up as they deal with their own lives.

Of course some will stay in touch or even meetup but others... drift apart but only if you let it.

I think I get the message of the Ryza games clearly now.

 

Gameplay: As much as I loved exploring, Gust went pretty overboard with the open-world this time so...  its almost as if they took a look at genshin and said we'll try something like that!

They did add little fun things like dolphins you can mount while swimming so that's nice.

They also have memoirs scattered around either lying around or from an NPC or quest

they give hints to treasures and such. If a memoir is from an NPC they always have a name

so you can easily spot them from the map screen. Speaking of the map the quick travel one is alright

however the minimap by holding the touchpas was awful and you can't scroll its just

stuck on your screen till you hold the touch pad again. This was a little annoying. :(

Anyway the world is so big now it could get a little tiresome and I miss it when atelier had

smaller but more memorable areas that served their purpose, whether for story or mats.

One very good thing is that there are markers for everything like story, sub events and ALL quests.

This QoL automatically makes this game better than Star Ocean 6, yea no matter if I liked that game

its also one of those games that needed it. So gust did a good job.  It seems Gust really took note

of genshin impact huh? while there are plenty of treasure chests they are mostly always filled

with mats you can already find elsewhere just better quality. I found one bomb in a chest but

the rest were all gathering mats, no weapons/accesories at all. So the wow sugoi wore off quickly.

Atleast there are plenty of quests and I  I absolutely recommend to do world quest, these help

flesh out the lore for the location the quest is in and ofcourse more time with the characters.

The character events and the tend to stack up like usual so be sure to take some time

to do them as they appear or you'll probably get overwhelmed at the end of the game.

You also get two additional mounts if you do some quests some of which

are helpful for exploring but the carbuncle will always have a special place in my heart.

Battle system is mostly the same but more refined, gust has kept the yucky

core item system. Alchemy is the same but the skill tree system where you get your perks

and recipies was the absolute worst since if you have no idea where things are it will be hell

to simply make better weapons or armor and at some point you'll need this to progress the story.

My advice? slap Stat charge++ Atk&spd+= and a good atk/defense boosting trait on

all of your gear and you're good to go! the last may vary per gear but yes all that on everything.

Definitely do make an armanoir and elixer/hourglass of origin for the last boss

it hits like a truck without the best armor which you'll really need so you need the stats.

If you're really stuck, google is your friend and thanks to people pointing out were

useful items are its not that hard at all as long as you're willing to look or ask for help.

Spinel forest was probably the only visually memorable area for me.

Ryza 3 also introduces the key system which seemed nice but it never really got anywhere?

you have to draw them from enemies or landmarks and what you get is all random; there seems

to be no rhyme or reason to it atleast from what I have tried. I guess it depends on enemy type but

most just gaveme trash keys while  only bosses or rare mobs gave me something slightly better.

Sadly getting keys with a specific trait is so RNG that I gave up on platting it

since atm there are no good guides and everything is scattered on gfaqs or reddit.

Do try to make keys with rare up since these will help opening up barriers

if common ones didn't work or spawn rare enemes. The latter is a big of a wtf to me

cuz rare enemies have always roamed about and I don't understand why this has to be locked now.

Honestly I never really liked the Ryza battles system, it feels too much like its some regular rpg

and the thing about the keys is just icing on the cake, its a gimmick that isn't even that useful in battle.

I prefer ateliers having more simple combat and Ryza really takes away from things that made it atelier

items can still be OP of course but half the time I am just mashing skills and whoop enemy die.

We still have to remake our gathering tools every now and then till we have the best one

which is kind of annoying. The game is even more open-world than the previous games but it

feels more alive due to random quests and world quests though I tended to ignore the randoms.

So there's always something going on as you progress the story which is good.

Bos knows he's lit.

Sadly I find Ryza 3 to be twice as grindy as its predecessors, due to the skill tree system

while it is nice you can't max this thing out too early they made everything too expensive

so here I was in the fourth area still unlocking tier 3 weapons and crimeas.

Better late than never eh? there's also no rhyme or reason as to how Ryza learns or rather

relearns her skills. The progression of Ryza as an alchemist is just all over the place.

Its like she remembers the basics but forgets the rest everytime lmao I miss it

when every atelier had a new protag then it would feel better having to like relearn everything.

I mean its okay Ryza doesn't have to be perfect and I forget things too but yea I suppose

this is what happens when you focus on the thicc too much eh? lol.

Also the key's being so RNG it actually made me not want to 100% since to get

all roles you need to find rare monsters which drop keys that give special roles.

You have to make so many keys with rare up and then go to all the landmarks

and pray to god you get something that unlocks a barrier or give the special role on the key.

You can't even get all the recipies unless you use rare or ultra rare keys, i've tried

to get radiant plate which is from a supply point in orim but I went through an entire

ultra rare key with 10 usage. What is this a gacha game?????😠😠😠

Turns out if you no longer get recipies with an ultra rare key from supply points

in any region you'll have to go somewhere else. There's 25 recipies btw.

Also there is no optional boss some other games had, instead we get some lame trophies like 

manifest all roles or make 3 weapons with some weird swordsman icon to give to some rando npc.

 

I know you can't always get what you want but this is a video game

and this is so backwards for an atelier game, i'm so disappointed by this approach.

Its more fun to potentially find a rare mob and/or get your ass whooped

so you can go try and beat it later when you made better gear. Knowing this

I can't get excited exploring anymore... cuz I gotta pray to rngjesus and hope they'll

grace me with a key that helps me in whatever i'm looking for.

Since its all RNG it can get frustrating, I ended up nearly rage quitting 100%

but I guess its really bye-bye atelier Ryza for me now.

 

You can also raise a puni and send it out and it may bring make something

nice like furniture for the atelier but I always forgot about it so

here I sat at the end of the game feeding it -> resting till it was max lvl.

I'm sure it was ready to burst too.... 😅

I guess that's nice content? if you remember it exists... I even forgot to write about this

when I first posted, so this is a ninja puni edit so I can purge all my thought of this game.

 

 Final thoughts?

 Let's be real I think the only really good thing and what I liked about this game

was the story and wrapping up any remaining threads/finishing off the characters stories.

I didn't enjoy exploring as much as in the first two games due to the godawfull DoF

making everything blurry and the RNG infested keys system it was giving me a headache.

Yeah I could have just waited but I didn't really want to play anything else so I grit my teeth

to just enjoy the story while taking breaks here and there if it got too much.

This game also felt more grindy due to the skill tree making everything cost so much SP

 I remember the skill tree being barebones in Ryza 2 but they made this one too big

and don't get me started again on the key system.... locking anything fun behind it.

Of course by the end of the game its too easy to get SP but it was hell in the beginning.

I guess gust really wants Ryza to be a complete ditz with big thicc brain energy huh?

well its okay I can't remember everything either.😅 There were some pacing issues

with the story every now and then and parts of the cleria storyline made me fall asleep

but I liked how Ryza actually learned things and did try to use her brain

to figure out why something reached out to her but she still is a ditz.

All in all a good conclusion to the Ryza  series, of course they could make another game

and I think that they ended it the way they did exactly for that reason, however

they did make it clear that Ryza probably won't be the main character next time.

I do hope gust will try better next time in regards to the combat and such

it is still atelier at its core, yet Ryza series is really gust trying to make an RPG

with atelier elements since the focus of the combat is different than other entries.

I mean mounts that destroy boulders are nice but what happened to making a good bomb 

to blast them away? I guess you could also say that in the case of doors/gates.

Also before I forget, the localization of Ryza 3 was like okay at best...

there was an instance of a role called mighty load but i'm pretty sure that was supposed

to be might lord, like did they run that through google translate and called it a day? 

some things might read awkward too so maybe they should have done more Q&A.

7.5/10

Yea it was an eight but all the rng made me drop it a few points.

Honestly if Ryza 3 never existed I'd be pretty upset with the way they ended 2

so I am glad Ryza and co got the proper conclusion to the story they deserved...

I am really actually quite happy with Ryza 3 from a story/character perspective

its just that I have some gripes with some of the gameplay elements.

 

So if you liked Ryza 1 and want to see where the story goes from were 2 left off

then Ryza 3 gets my recommendation but if you haven't played those games yet...

or just don't care for Ryza and co it may be better to pass on this one for now.

If you want to 100% and feel overwhelmed wait for/use a guide.

What's next? idk i'm thinking of taking a breather till something else interests me.

Tsuitsui is a maybe... as is atelier marie remake, I don't want to burn myself out on atelier

so I think i'll wait a while before I touch another one!