atelier Archives - Samantha Lienhard

Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian Confirmed to Be Offline & Non-Gacha

Nov 272024

It seems like we completely forgot to talk about this one, so let’s start at the beginning.

Back near the end of September, Gust and Koei Tecmo announced Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian for Switch, PS4, PS5, and PC.

(That name is a mouthful, but it looks like the official account shortens it to RW, so that’s what I’ve done in the tags.)

It will be released in 2025, which means we not only have Atelier Yumia coming next year, but this new game as well.

If the title “Resleriana” sounds familiar, it’s because this is an offline game with an original story set in the same universe as the gacha game Atelier Resleriana: Forgotten Alchemy and the Polar Night Liberator, which we discussed when its localization was announced.

I’m not especially interested in that one because of its nature, but an offline game? Now that has my attention.

A short teaser trailer shown at the time of the new game’s announcement revealed a bit of the world, but not much else.

Although it was widely assumed at the time due to it being an offline game, Koei Tecmo has now confirmed this game has no gacha system. They also said it can be enjoyed without knowledge of the other Atelier Resleriana.

It’s interesting that they have two Atelier games in development at once, and even more interesting that one is set in the same world as the gacha game, which is itself considered a mainline entry.

They still haven’t said anything about the combat system, which is what I’m most curious about. Atelier Ryza opted for a very fast-paced ATB system and Atelier Yumia is taking a step even beyond that into action combat, but Atelier Sophie 2 was turn-based (and so is the gacha game). A lot of fans think Atelier Resleriana RW might also be turn-based, and that’s why they’re working on both it and Yumia.

2025 is already shaping up to be a good year for JRPGs, although I’ve still got a backlog of Atelier games to play. What do you expect from Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian?

Atelier Yumia Live Stream Reveals Party Members, Combat, and More

Video games 2 Responses » Tagged with: atelier, atelier yumia, rpg

Sep 022024

Heads-up: if you’re a blog subscriber, it may be a few days before you get email notifications again, as the service I was using shut down.

All right, now let’s get into today’s topic – Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land and the unanswered questions we had about it after its announcement trailer.

This morning, Gust and Koei Tecmo held a live stream at which they revealed new information about Atelier Yumia, followed by a 10-minute English trailer.

Now, the stream wasn’t translated, so I had to pick up what I could just by watching it and then fill in some details with the English trailer later. Fortunately, it wasn’t hard to see that the next trailer they showed was featuring party members. I don’t know if they saw fans jumping to conclusions that there wouldn’t be party members or if they always intended to introduce them during this live stream, but they showed off five party members.

Their next focus was on field exploration. It looks like you can shoot enemies and materials in the environment. They showed some crafting after that and then moved onto combat.

Combat was the other big question from the announcement, and I watched the combat section over and over to try to figure out if it’s action combat or very fast-paced ATB. They show the character moving right at the start, but for the most of it they stay more or less in one place aside from movement related to the attacks, and there’s a “range” button that changes what range you’re attacking at, so right now I’m leaning toward it being a highly fast-paced ATB system like in the Ryza games. You can also switch characters on the fly.

Base-building also looks like it’s going to be a big deal, as you not only can create and arrange furniture, but also construct entire buildings?? I’m really curious about how much that’s going to play into it.

The story does seem darker than usual for the series, but it also looks like a beautiful game. The environments they’ve shown so far have been breathtaking!

(Oh, and they’re definitely aiming for fanservice again with some of those designs. They know it worked with Ryza and want to keep that momentum.)

Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land will be out on March 21, 2025. I still have not played most of the Atelier games in my backlog. I promise to get on that! In the meantime, are you looking forward to Atelier Yumia?

Atelier Resleriana is Coming West

Video games 1 Response » Tagged with: atelier

Nov 222023

Remember back in August when I was excited for the upcoming announcement of a new Atelier game and then never said anything about it ever again?

(Well, not entirely. I mentioned it briefly when making TGS predictions.)

I woke up early that morning to watch the live stream, and they did indeed announce the next mainline entry… which turned out to be a gacha game for mobile and PC, Atelier Resleriana: Forgotten Alchemy and the Polar Night.

A mobile gacha game being the next mainline entry was not well-received by fans, and many assumed it would never come west anyway. Well, it’s still a mobile gacha game, but it was recently announced that it will be coming west after all, in 2024.

It’s a shame it’s a gacha game, because it looks beautiful.

But you know how I am with this type of game. Even when it’s something that interests me quite a bit, like Tears of Themis or Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis, I find it a difficult format to stick with. Reception to Resleriana’s Japanese release doesn’t seem too great, either.

Nevertheless, if you were hoping for a western release of Atelier Resleriana, you’ll get your wish next year.

I doubt the backlash to Resleriana would be as strong if it had been announced as a spin-off title. Being a main entry, however, has fans worried that it could define the series going forward if it’s successful. On the other hand, the optimistic view is that a successful mobile game could provide Gust with enough funding for future console Atelier games to have higher quality. Time will tell.

For me personally, I just see it as a break in their normally-rapid release schedule for me to make progress with the previous games… as I have more Atelier games in my backlog than any other series.

How do you feel about Atelier Resleriana? Do you intend to try it when it comes out in the west next year?

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