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[Suikoguy]

Quick summary from about 2 hours of play.

+The graphics continue to improve over each game
+The world feels decidedly different from the last trilogy.
+Battle system feels a bit faster.
+Item management is no longer such a chore.
+Voice acting of all sub characters is pretty well done.
+More about exploring then previous Trilogy.

-Framerate issues (I personally blame SquareEnix)
-No tracking of delivery requests.
-Main character's voice is kinda iffy.
-Memory point system seems a bit tacked on (It's basically this game adventure points).

Also, I personally love earlier access to harder areas. It will be especially nice on new game +.

 

[Rarutos]

sigh, I was supposed to get my copy today but UPS messed up the shipping and sent it to the wrong facility, so now I have to wait an extra day. Just my luck I guess.

 

[Jinko]

So I guess you guys are keeping track of request and deliveries by pen and paper ?

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

How's the music in this? I loved Meruru's OST.

 

[Lucentto]

So I guess you guys are keeping track of request and deliveries by pen and paper ?

No, by memory. Not too difficult for me.

How's the music in this? I loved Meruru's OST.

It's on par if not better than Meruru's OST imo.

 

[LuuKyK]

So I guess you guys are keeping track of request and deliveries by pen and paper ?

I just keep rechecking them. Lol

How's the music in this? I loved Meruru's OST.

Better than Meruru imo. It reminds me of Ar Tonelico a lot.

 

[Talaysen]

So I guess you guys are keeping track of request and deliveries by pen and paper ?

I'm not really keeping track of it right now. Just deliver if I happen to have the items and otherwise ignore it.

Of course this will change if I ever run into money troubles I guess...

How's the music in this? I loved Meruru's OST.

Amazing. I didn't really like Meruru's as much as Totori's, so I think it's a lot better.

 

[Eusis]

For anyone that's curious: Yes, it comes with a manual, a bilingual one of decent size (about 24 pages for each language). Disappointed it's not in color like KT apparently has a habit of doing, but I get the impression NISA designed the packaging on a whole as the spine font matches the prior Atelier games (unlike when Nintendo took over DQ.) Which also makes me sorta wonder if NISA not publishing was a very late call, and as such if the lack of dual language was a deeper problem from earlier in localization. Or KT just wanted to publish but has no qualms letting NISA do all the actual work, whichever.

 

[Esura]

What does registering an item do? Scared to register items.

Also, what does an L means next to an item?

 

[RurouniZel]

What does registering an item do? Scared to register items.

Also, what does an L means next to an item?

I haven't done it in this one, but when you register an item they make more of it for you and you can buy them. Basically, it saves you the time (days) of synthesizing the item at the cost of money instead.

The "L" I'm guessing is either "limited" or "last". Either way, once you buy it, that's it and it's never restocked.

 

[Eusis]

Man, with their lips constantly flapping until you advance dialogue I can't see any good technical reason to not have put in dual audio. Not that it's ever as simple as how it looks to the end player, but ah well.

So far the visuals remind me of how even if you don't push for very high end visuals you can still benefit a lot JUST from higher end hardware, and that it's kind of a shame more games don't just settle for less and specialize in important areas like character visuals in order to make a game more reasonably priced to produce, given this is probably a success at far less than a million. But perhaps an RPG works better for this than, say, a shooter.

 

[Coxy]

For anyone that's curious: Yes, it comes with a manual, a bilingual one of decent size (about 24 pages for each language). Disappointed it's not in color like KT apparently has a habit of doing, but I get the impression NISA designed the packaging on a whole as the spine font matches the prior Atelier games (unlike when Nintendo took over DQ.) Which also makes me sorta wonder if NISA not publishing was a very late call, and as such if the lack of dual language was a deeper problem from earlier in localization. Or KT just wanted to publish but has no qualms letting NISA do all the actual work, whichever.

there's no way the decision on dual audio was made earlier by nisa, they would have definitely been planning on putting it in

 

[Talaysen]

Man, with their lips constantly flapping until you advance dialogue I can't see any good technical reason to not have put in dual audio. Not that it's ever as simple as how it looks to the end player, but ah well.

I don't think the lips follow the Japanese voice either. They just move in predetermined sequences without any regard to what's being said.

 

[LuuKyK]

Wow. This Ranun guy. "You dont really understand that looking at the sky while standing up doesnt quite give your neck the perfect angle!" LMAO how random

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Without spoiler, can anyone confirm whether this game is kawaii?

 

[Kyleripman]

Never played a game in the Atelier series and have virtually no JRPG experience...but for some reason this is catching my eye. I like how whimsical and lighthearted it looks. Is that a fair appraisal of it? Looking for something not terribly difficult, to kind of relax and enjoy and wondering if this would be up my alley in any way.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Never played a game in the Atelier series and have virtually no JRPG experience...but for some reason this is catching my eye. I like how whimsical and lighthearted it looks. Is that a fair appraisal of it? Looking for something not terribly difficult, to kind of relax and enjoy and wondering if this would be up my alley in any way.

This is my take as well, from what I've seen. I want to try it out, but I don't know whether I need to play previous games to understand what goes on in this one.

 

[LuuKyK]

Never played a game in the Atelier series and have virtually no JRPG experience...but for some reason this is catching my eye. I like how whimsical and lighthearted it looks. Is that a fair appraisal of it? Looking for something not terribly difficult, to kind of relax and enjoy and wondering if this would be up my alley in any way.

Well, its definitely lighthearted. I wouldn't really call it a game to enjoy and relax as great part of the game is to time-manage your actions as you have to deal with delivering items you synthesize for the person that asked you and have to always take care of what you do to not miss events and things like that as the days pass. But if you are not a completionist or don't really care about missable events you are good to go (of course you have to expect/consider the kinda cliche JRPG characters and story, etc). And it also has some really hard battles if you are unprepared/careless (produce and use a lot of items! ), but they are not that common, if you follow the path the game kinda tells you to go you will be fine.

This is my take as well, from what I've seen. I want to try it out, but I don't know whether I need to play previous games to understand what goes on in this one.

The Arland Trilogy (Rorona, Totori and Meruru) is finished. This (Ayesha) is totally unrelated plot-wise. There is a reference here and there but nothing important, really.

 

[Kyleripman]

Well, its definitely lighthearted. I wouldn't really call it a game to enjoy and relax as great part of the game is to time-manage your actions as you have to deal with delivering items you synthesize for the person that asked you and have to always take care of what you do to not miss events and things like that as the days pass. But if you are not a completionist or don't really care about missable events you are good to go (of course you have to expect/consider the kinda cliche JRPG characters and story, etc). And it also has some really hard battle if you are not prepared, but they are not that common, if you follow the path the game kinda tells you to go you will be fine.



The Arland Trilogy (Rorona, Totori and Meruru) is finished. This (Ayesha) is totally unrelated plot-wise.

Cool, thanks. Definitely not a completionist (with the exception of Mario/DK platformers for some reason), so that sounds good.

Do you spend a ton of time in the menus making/managing items?

 

[LuuKyK]

Cool, thanks. Definitely not a completionist (with the exception of Mario/DK platformers for some reason), so that sounds good.

Do you spend a ton of time in the menus making/managing items?

I spend more time battling/gathering items and looking for events around town/map then producing items. I dont know if thats just me though. Probably because its really fast to synthesize them since you can do a lot at once (for example doing 7 bombs takes away two days from you only). Honestly it ends up being up to you. There are some items that are essential (bombs, and attack items in general since its pretty much the only damage Ayesha can do besides the other party members), you can also produce accessories, and some other random things that people request you to do around town (side quests) but its optional. You can also register the items you have in all the shops so that you can buy them later and dont need to spend time producing them. It really is a time saver. As I said you are the one that will deal with the time mostly.

 

[Esura]

I haven't done it in this one, but when you register an item they make more of it for you and you can buy them. Basically, it saves you the time (days) of synthesizing the item at the cost of money instead.

The "L" I'm guessing is either "limited" or "last". Either way, once you buy it, that's it and it's never restocked.

Ohhh, that's freaking neat.

Three years to save my sis seems like a generous amount of time.

 

[Kyleripman]

I spend more time battling/gathering items and looking for events around town/map then producing items. I dont know if thats just me though. Probably because its really fast to synthesize them since you can do a lot at once (for example doing 7 bombs takes away two days from you only). Honestly it ends up being up to you. There are some items that are essential (bombs, and attack items in general since its pretty much the only damage Ayesha can do besides the other party members), you can also produce accessories, and some other random things that people request you to do around town (side quests) but its optional. You can also register the items you have in all the shops so that you can buy them later and dont need to spend time producing them. It really is a time saver. As I said you are the one that will deal with the time mostly.

Sounds good, thanks for explaining so much.

 

[Eusis]

there's no way the decision on dual audio was made earlier by nisa, they would have definitely been planning on putting it in

Well, I wonder when exactly such a call is made. If it's late in development I could see it, working it in probably IS a low priority relative to getting the English put in. But yeah, if NISA had full control beyond publishing itself they would've probably got it in, though every so often they seem to forget. Phantom Brave Wii nearly left it out, but that got DELAYED to put it back in.

I don't think the lips follow the Japanese voice either. They just move in predetermined sequences without any regard to what's being said.

Yeah, I let the dialogue box hang for a bit but saw the lips keep flapping, and I'd see no reason to be sloppy with English if it wasn't already like that in Japanese.

Without spoiler, can anyone confirm whether this game is kawaii?

Look at the cover. The answer is yes.

But I get the impression it won't be the kind of thing that spawns loli threads or anything except by the most prudish of people, and they probably couldn't stand to play 90% of JRPGs anyway.

 

[Axelstream]

How's the music in this? I loved Meruru's OST.

If it's any indication, my interest in this game started when I first heard the OST, and I'm definitely sure it's in the running for my personal OST OTY. The tracks by newcomer Kazuki Yanagawa are fantastic and really add a lot to the lovely, whimsical atmosphere of the game.

 

[Talaysen]

If it's any indication, my interest in this game started when I first heard the OST, and I'm definitely sure it's in the running for my personal OST OTY. The tracks by newcomer Kazuki Yanagawa are fantastic and really add a lot to the lovely, whimsical atmosphere of the game.

Kazuki Yanagawa isn't really that new. He's been doing stuff since Atelier Totori (and Ar tonelico III). He even did the two normal battle themes there (Yellow Zone and Red Zone) which are AMAZING in my opinion.

Looking at what he did for Atelier Ayesha... yeah, he does a lot of the good tracks here too.

 

[Stuart444]

A day later than expected but my copy has come

edit: And now my PS3 is having issues "Cannot start. The appropriate system storage was not found." and being unable to build database so it asks me to format. Said no and it won't start now. Going to put it into safe mode and try some options there (Rebuild database is the first one I'm trying)

This is going to take a while when all I want to do is sit back and play Ayesha

edit: My PS3 HDD is dead so I need to go out and buy a new HDD

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

Thanks for the responses on the music, there were a couple tracks in Meruru that were just so damn catchy, kind of reminded me of Dew Prism.

Without spoiler, can anyone confirm whether this game is kawaii?

Well, I laughed anwyay

 

[RurouniZel]

The cowgirl is so cute! Lanaca, was it?

I also love how the 0 in the calendar is a smiley face. :3

 

[Dinosur]

Had the game lockup half an hour into a level after the cutscene before a boss fight. No better way to put an abrupt end to the night's gaming session.

There's also zero sense of urgency so far like the previous games (at least in the first few months). Really hope it doesn't come back around to bite me that I've been wasting 4+ days on every map harvesting, hehe.

 

[Esura]

Did I waste days by going to a new spot I unlocked and encountered an event (some dude name Ranis) but the monsters there was too strong so I bailed and wasted 4 days getting back to Harry's Room?

This is worrysome....

 

[Stuart444]

Okay so I've finally started it...

Despite being originally disappointed with her voice (As I said, based on her design, I thought she would sound more mature), I have gotten used to Ayesha's voice quite quickly. I don't mind it as much now.

Other voices seem okay to me from what I've heard.

The music is fantastic as is the art and character models/backgrounds. I'm really liking the look of it so far.

 

[Suikoguy]

Pro Tip: Don't underestimate using back attack instead of follow up. It moves your character to the other end of the battlefield, and allows you to juggle mobs. (Juggle in this case, meaning getting the mob to turn around)

And yes, the music is the best in the ps3 entries so far, in particular the newest battle theme I ran into is fantastic.

 

[RurouniZel]

Did I waste days by going to a new spot I unlocked and encountered an event (some dude name Ranis) but the monsters there was too strong so I bailed and wasted 4 days getting back to Harry's Room?

This is worrysome....

It's all part of the learning curve. You'll get used to how time works in these games.

 

[iRAWRasaurus]

Is gamestop carrying this game in their stores?

 

[Sonicbug]

I've put about 3 hours into the game so far and have a question for people paying better attention than I: Did they get rid of the item degradation over time thing? At first glance it looked that way to me.

Ayesha's voice isn't the worst thing in the world, but having the close friend end up being (what sounds like) Wendee Lee again was distracting.

I like how it doesn't take so many days to synthesize things now. Phew.

 

[RurouniZel]

About a year through the game. Keith is still a dickwad.

 

[Eusis]

Is gamestop carrying this game in their stores?

Inventory checker shows plenty within range carrying it.

 

[Rarutos]

Lol, what. They kept the Japanese voice actor credits in the opening after you start the game... That's a bit grating.

 

[Eusis]

Lol, what. They kept the Japanese voice actor credits in the opening after you start the game... That's a bit grating.

It's probable they DID intend to keep the Japanese VA in earlier in localization, but when Tecmo Koei asserted more control/ownership they ended up deciding to be cheap/ignorant of consumer desires and skipped on getting Japanese VA implanted.

 

[Rarutos]

It's probable they DID intend to keep the Japanese VA in earlier in localization, but when Tecmo Koei asserted more control/ownership they ended up deciding to be cheap/ignorant of consumer desires and skipped on getting Japanese VA implanted.

Yeah, I bet NISA was expecting the Japanese voices to be in to begin with. They probably weren't happy about the decision to keep them out. :/ It's still kind of annoying to see in game though, since it's like, "Hey look! Credits for the Japanese voice actors that you can't listen to~"

 

[TriAceJP]

Heh.

This game is interesting. It has kept me interested longer than Rorona did, although that isn't saying much.

These forced time limits are off putting, even though these games are generally generous with their time.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I bet JP voice track will be DLC or something. I was actually going to buy this but removal of the JP voice track grates too much on a title was only kind of interested in, so no sale for Tecmo-Koei.

 

[Suikoguy]

So yeah, that giant boss that comes out of nowhere just kicked my ass...

Apparently I have to beat it too, lol.

I need to take a break and work on a paper anyways.

 

[Jinko]

Bleh order has been delayed for me on EU Amazon

 

[Saiyar]

Bleh order has been delayed for me on EU Amazon

Amazon UK has no stock left. They were selling it at £44.99 as well.

 

[Skyfireblaze]

So my copy from Amazon Germany finally arrived and I played a little bit up until the point I arrived at

Spoiler

Vierzeberg

. And well since I still haven't finished Rorona yet Totori and Meruru are still in my backlog though since Ayesha is unrelated to them I didn't feel bad with starting it Here are a few impressions I wanted to share before I go doing my daily chores:

- I love the feeling and atmosphere of the dusky world
- The art is very well done along with the music
- Ayesha's voice isn't that bad and kind of fitting after you got used to it
- Marietta and Wibell seem great and funny so far
- The world seems interesting in the way its set up with

Spoiler

ruins and a seemingly older civilization that build everything

- The memory system seems like a interesting way to level your characters up
- Random NPCs make towns more lively

Also the only negatives I encountered so far are:

- The framerate can be somewhat jerky at places but it's not to the point where it would become annoying
- The mouth animation seem a bit "weird" at times :/

Other than that I had fun so far and look forward to play more!

 

[RurouniZel]

Lol, what. They kept the Japanese voice actor credits in the opening after you start the game... That's a bit grating.

Yeah, I did a double-take then too. I'm guessing NISA translated that as is, but after the movie was re-rendered it would cost too much money to redo it. >>;

I will take DLC, but I'd prefer it be free DLC... >>; (Yeah right, *sob*)

 

[vall03]

I couldn't go further than one and a half hour at the start of the game so I don't know whats new or what systems where changed. I kinda liked that you can change the music right away with a pretty small yet good selection of music from each game in the Arland trilogy. The game looks really colorful and good, if not better than Meruru/Totori graphically. I miss the 2D portraits during conversations though.

Also, Im surprisingly liking the voices in the game. I actually never tried to play the Arland games in English so I dont know how to compare them, so I'll take what I can get this. But I really wouldn't mind the JP tracks to be DLC.

 

[Eusis]

I thought what little I played of Rorona in English was actually reasonably decent, I just switched because of the omission of "Barrel!" dubbing.

Though this one not only doesn't let you inspect barrels but gleefully throws them around anyway, so it's a moot point.

 

[Prinny]

Linca is awesome. That Monster Hunter sword <3