And yeah, I've finished this game. Not... completely yet, but enough to talk about it. So, let's begin! :D
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Gameplay:
For the most part, Ayesha follows the same gameplay mechanics as the Arland series. However, in this game, they tweaked a few things.
When it comes to battles, they haven't swerved from the turn based mechanics. But instead of the neat and organised card-based turn battles, they took a linear stick with character icons. The more placement of the icons determine when their turns will happen. Is this bad or good? Well, for the most part, yes. You can usually distinguish when certain enemies will take their turn, but at times, it is a bit unclear yes. As for the battles mechanics themselves:
They've integrated new things, such as positioning, back attacks, and special assists. Depending where your character is, their attacks will do more damage (basically behind them). Moving uses a bit of your turn order, and assist schemes cost more based on their effectiveness. The assist bar can now go up to 9 though, so that's pretty good. Furthermore, enemies are now placed in a less symmetrical fashion. They are dispersed randomly, meaning it's a bit more "real" feeling.
Moving on to the alchemy system. Since we're in a new land, some of the items are completely new. Hell, there are completely new ingredients too. They've integrated new things in this game however, other than the new items. As Ayesha's alchemy gets better, you can do more things with the alchemy system. She doesn't just add the ingredients, she can also tweak the recipe, add them in different orders, so long as she has enough CP for the object. And all of this can change how the object will turn out. And there are color bars that also effect the items abilities. Certain items are different affinities, and those colors match them. It became overall more fun to do, other than just to synthesize. Sadly, you can't really craft your own weapons/armor. Hell, it's so hard to get weapons/armor in general. The better ones come from monster drops, and you can make improvements to the item, but I find the fact that you can't make your own weapon just like that is a bit of a shame. Can't choose the traits either. Sad life. Sad. Life.
As for the world map, it works like any Totori and Meruru, where you choose a location, and she'll move along it. You can hover over the place to see what you can collect or what monsters are in that area, and sometimes, certain characters appear on the world map, and you can buy stuff from them. There are also area-events, which CAN BE MISSED. While not completely essential to attend them, sometimes you can't get all the endings by missing them, and at times, it wasn't fair, as you didn't even know when the even was going to happen.
As for gathering, I was fine and not fine with it. In the old Atelier games (or just the ones I've played), you can choose what to pick up, and it'd take the same amount of time regardless. Here, when you get to a gathering area, you can't choose what you get, so you might end up with a bunch of useless ingredients. Furthermore, every time you pick something, you use time, meaning, you will stop if you find you use too much time. But at times, you just have to keep harvesting until you find what you want.
As for areas, you there are so many sub-areas to enter that the whole thing is just so fun to explore.
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Graphics:
As usual, the visuals are beautiful. The anime art is cute and the colors are more vibrant. WHEN THEY TALK TO EACH OTHER HOWEVER.
I don't mind that they use the in-game character models to interact with each other, however at times (most of the time actually), the lips don't stop moving EVEN THOUGH IT WAS SUPPOSED TO STOP. IT JUST IRKS ME.
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Music:
I don't know how many times I have to say this, but I really like Atelier music. Like, really.
'Cept for one song *coughcoughthefinalbossmusiccough*. But other than that, it really reflects Ayesha's atmosphere. Extremely laid-back, and at times badass. I have a few favorites, but not too much. It's good music in general, but... probably not in my TOP MUSICS OF ALL TIME, you hear me? :)
This should redirect you to a playlist of that music.
I personally like "Guidance", "Recollection Hill", "Yesterday's enemies are today's ingredients", and possibly a bit more, but see, I don't really... I'm not attached to it.
It's personal though, but... yeah.
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Voice-acting:
Oh... boyohboyohboyohboyohboyohboyohboyohboyohboyohboyohboy.
Voice-acting. To be honest... TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH. I WAS ABOUT NOT TO BUY THIS GAME. WHY?
No dual-audio. YES, THAT'S A STUPID REASON TO NOT BUY A GAME, WHEN I CAN MUTE THE VOICES, BUT IN THIS GAME IT'LL JUST MAKE THINGS AWKWARD. Imagine this, the dialogues shows, the lips move, BUT THERE'S NO VOICE. You could have done it in the past games, due to character sprites, and it worked. Since the English dub was a partial dub, at times, there were no voices, but it wasn't awkward. In here though...
So yeah, English voices HERE WE GO.
And yes, I have my complains. This game's localization has little to no effort when it comes to the dubs. They don't direct the voice-actors well enough, and so they sound bored at times, or have no emotions, or not the right emotions. Some sound too Asian, some just don't have the right voices. I don't know why Wilbell HAD TO SOUND SO ANNOYING SINCE IN JAPANESE SHE DOESN'T BUT HEY, WHATEVER FLOATS YOUR BOAT.
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Story:
I don't know if I'm the only one who thinks this way, considering that I only spoke to my friend about this game, and didn't read ANY REVIEWS BUT.
I actually didn't like it. I didn't hate it either, BUT I DIDN'T LIKE IT.
Why? Well...
The story starts in "The Land of Dusk", and you follow Ayesha Altugle in her quest to save her sister using alchemy. On her way, she meets people, and they help her on her quest.
I actually... okay. Let me just try to explain. While saving her sister is a GREAT CAUSE AND ALL, I didn't really care for Nio. Nio was, in my opinion, just a standby unit. What I mean, is that, I never grew attached to her, and didn't really care about saving her. While she may be the protagonist's sister, and she's cute and all, I don't really... know about her. So, this may be sad for Ayesha and all, but I DON'T CARE FOR NIO. It really just feels forced upon, like trying to make a Totori story 2.0, and yet I actually care for Gisela (Totori's mother). Totori didn't start alchemy to find her mother, but she did end up on an adventure to find her. Also, Gisela's character was developed even without her presence being there, though characters memories, so you were like: "Oh, SHE'S A PERSON WITH A PERSONALITY."
In Ayesha however, it's more like: "NIO. I LOVE YOU NIO. NIO, I MISS YOU." Which is somewhat heart-breaking, but there's no depth. You might find yourself loving the side characters a lot more, which is kind of sad. Backstory is important kids.
You learn about Nio later on, when you find her, so you might think she's pretty chill. But...
I'm sorry. Just for the core story, it wasn't enough.
The ending system though. Loved it. Basically, you don't have to save at different locations to have access the different endings, you can access it all though ONE SAVE. Hallelujah.
Didn't get all of them though, but the endings I've gotten so far are pretty good.
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Difficulty:
Thank you Ayesha, for doing this so goddamn well. The battles were actually a bit more difficult in this game. The final boss proved to be a bit suckier than it's own dungeon bosses though LOL. But yes, even without the DLC, some fights were pretty tough, which gave challenge that was fair, but difficult to deal with. And there's such a low HP cap, and the character's don't become OP on their own, you HAVE TO rely on alchemy, like how it should be. And I don't mean only Ayesha can be OP, I mean, you have to craft good equipment for your allies as well, or you're done for.
There's no difficulty jump either, it's just generally a bit of a challenge.
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Little extras:
THEY'VE FINALLY DONE IT GUYS. THERE'S A MINI-GAME WE CAN ENJOY NOW.
K, not really. There's an in-game event that you can attend that's a contest of who can make the better item, but it's not that fun. *sigh* Am I being picky? I don't know. ._.
You can access all the OSTs and the CGs like in the past games, which is nice as usual though.
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Overall:
I don't know actually. 6? 7? 8?
The voice-acting really ruined the experience for me, and some game elements were a step forward, and some were a step back.
*sigh*
I'll give it a 6.5. I mean, the things they've done to improve it are great, they really put in effort into it, but the localization didn't. Music was okay, storyline was okay, battles were more fun, in-game events were enjoyable, VOICES WERE MEDIOCRE (okay, they weren't that bad, I've heard Arc Rise Fantasia, but I shouldn't have to like bad voices just 'cause there were worse ones)... and yeah.
Didn't try "Escha and Logy", but I've seen gameplay and I'm looking forward to trying it!
Alice Lieberg
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