Review: Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land (PS5) – Relentlessly Charming JRPG Is a Must Play

Whereas the Atelier sequence has been steadily evolving and tweaking its successful JRPG/craft-’em-up components throughout 30 years and 20-plus video games, Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land maybe represents the most radical shift but. However that does not imply current followers ought to be apprehensive: for all of the adjustments, Yumia remains to be an Atelier sport at coronary heart, solely larger, extra motion-targeted, and a little darker than earlier than.

Atelier Yumia takes place in a land ravaged by a previous cataclysm. The world was practically ended a few years in the past by the powers of alchemy, and so now the follow is deemed taboo, reviled by many, and outright outlawed in some locations. Yumia is a candy younger alchemist sporting killer — actually — excessive heels and wielding a magical workers that doubles up as a rifle. She realized alchemy from her late mom, and lives in seclusion atop a hill with solely her floating, speaking lamp Flammi for firm.

When she’s approached by a analysis crew to assist examine the ruins of the Aladissian Empire she sees a chance to be taught extra about why the empire fell, whether or not alchemy was actually answerable for the calamity way back, and to maybe rehabilitate the picture of her craft. Initially, she’s met with scepticism by some of her new comrades and the folks she meets, however over time hearts are warmed, classes are realized, and the energy of friendship trumps prejudice.

It is a darker story, and has increased stakes than is typical for an Atelier sport. However you should not go into this anticipating one thing like Metaphor: ReFantazio. There’s a little bit of title calling and facet-eyeing in direction of Yumia and her craft, but it surely does not get a lot nastier than that. The tone of the sport is usually charming and optimistic, with the darker parts of the story performing as seasoning for the narrative somewhat than the dominating flavour of it.

All through the journey you may discover an expansive open world. There are 4 giant areas in the sport which might be unlocked by following the primary questline, however every locale is filled with a plethora of facet quests, treasures to seek out, monsters to slay, and gadgets to gather. Aspect quests are largely throwaway fare: go over there, kill a factor, come again, and many others. However the open world is enjoyable to discover, with secrets and techniques lurking in each nook and cranny of the map.

We steadily took day without work between story beats to peruse the map, heading to every query mark in flip simply to see what was there and largely felt rewarded by what we discovered. It helps that Yumia is an agile protagonist with the potential to triple leap up partitions making getting over obstacles simpler than it has any proper to be. Later she will get a swish bike to additional velocity up the proceedings. There’s additionally an array of ziplines strewn all through the world that after discovered and repaired could make getting throughout the map a breeze.

Whereas traversing the world of Atelier Yumia you may run afoul of all method of nasty beasties to do battle with. Fight is extra motion-targeted than in earlier Atelier titles, and whereas it is maybe a little on the straightforward facet, some good design choices cease it from turning into tedious throughout the 40 or 50 hours it will take to complete the primary storyline of the sport.

Throughout battle you management one character — Yumia by default — and her assaults are mapped to the 4 face buttons. Every assault has a set quantity of makes use of and a cooldown connected to it and so the concept is to make use of a talent after which as soon as it is recharging use completely different ones. You can even freely strafe Yumia from proper-to-left throughout fight, and when an enemy telegraphs an upcoming assault you may modify your place to remain out of the highlighted space on the floor to keep away from injury.

Tapping down on the d-pad strikes Yumia away from her opponent, and as soon as at vary all of her assaults change to lengthy distance magical expertise. Enemies are weak to both magical or bodily assaults, and so you might want to transfer between the entrance and the again rows to take advantage of that weak spot, stun your foe, after which unleash huge injury. As you progress by the sport you may unlock dodges, tag-crew assaults with a squad-mate, and the extremely highly effective Mana Surge talents that may flip the tide of battle straight away.

On regular issue fight in opposition to the rank and file enemies is mostly straightforward and battles are sometimes over in a heartbeat with simply a few faucets of a face button so it by no means turns into irritating battling monsters both for expertise or when farming for assets. Boss encounters are the place the fight shines, with extra sophisticated assault patterns out of your enemies, and a few mid-battle lower-scenes so as to add to the drama. Plus, one of the bosses is voiced by Takaya Kuroda, well-known for voicing the biggest man that ever lived Kiryu Kazuma from the Yakuza sequence. In order that’s good.

You may farm as a lot expertise as you want in fight however that’ll solely get you up to now. Even if you happen to’ve hit the stage cap of 100 you may shortly end up outmatched by decrease stage foes in case your tools is lower than snuff and that is the place alchemy is available in. At Yumia’s workshop you may unlock the recipes you have came upon in your adventures so long as you have obtained the requisite gadgets to take action, and then you definitely’ll synthesize a recipe utilizing collected assets in your backpack.

Higher high quality assets in the pot yield higher rewards, usually, however when you get the hold of the course of you may alter the recipe to supply gadgets that may be of increased high quality, or ones that include extra results. So you might make a sword that is obtained increased base stats, or one which specialises in elevating one stat specifically, or one which does extra injury in opposition to a particular sort of enemy. It is a little daunting at first however pretty straight ahead as soon as you have performed it a few occasions, and you’ll at all times automate the complete course of if recipe micromanagement is simply not your factor.

You can even create constructing supplies equivalent to partitions, rooves, flooring, and decorations. When you’re exploring the world of Atelier Yumia you’ll find constructing websites to arrange secondary bases of operations and design them the way you see match. It is a pretty rudimentary set of constructing choices, however welcome nonetheless. A pair of tents and a sleeping bag simply will not lower the mustard when you may knock up a small cottage with cherry blossom timber in the backyard for a pit-cease between missions.

Conclusion

Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land is a splendidly charming addition to the lengthy-operating JRPG sequence. It is a improbable leaping in level to the franchise for brand new gamers, and has sufficient tweaks to the established components to supply a breath of contemporary air for current followers. The story is a little slight, however the interesting characters, streamlined but sturdy crafting system, and rewarding exploration make this a recipe for a good time.