In 2018, the Atelier Arland Series Deluxe Pack was published. This collection, while expensive, brought three now decade-old Atelier games from the PS3 to modern consoles. One year later, they released the Atelier Dusk Series Deluxe Pack, repeating this for the slightly younger Dusk series. This year, it’s time for the Mysterious series to get its time in the sun with the Atelier Mysterious Trilogy Deluxe Pack, marking the debut of Atelier Sophie and Atelier Firis on the Nintendo Switch.
For the purposes of this review, we’re going to be taking a look at each game’s overall plot, crafting, combat and exploration. We will also briefly touch on the DX additions and their impact on each game. With the Mysterious series only being a recent addition to the Atelier franchise, what’s been added to these games now that they have been ported to the Nintendo Switch and is Atelier Mysterious Trilogy Deluxe Pack worth the £73.99 price of admission? Let’s find out.
A Packed Pack
Firstly, and mostly importantly, Atelier Mysterious Trilogy includes the three games from Mysterious series, Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book, Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey and Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings. Each game carries on the traditions of the Atelier franchise and its alchemical crafting system, while also bringing some new elements to the series that makes each stand out from one another.
With standard playthroughs clocking in at 20-30+ hours per game, you’ll lose yourself in just how much there is to do in one game, let alone three. Not only that, but each game comes with all their respective DLC as well as new DX-exclusive content. With all this new content, however, there is a notable absence of any additional English voice overs, with Atelier Sophie remaining the only one of Atelier Mysterious Trilogy Deluxe Pack to receive a dub.
Finally, each game comes with a digital artbook, showing off the concept art for everything you’ll see throughout the game. These collections are rammed with content, new and old, and you’re certain to have a lot on your plate with this Atelier Mysterious Trilogy Deluxe Pack.
Atelier Sophie
Starting us off is Atelier Sophie: Alchemist of the Mysterious Book, the first entry in this series. Sophie is a young alchemist, seeking to hone her skills and follow in the footsteps of late grandmother. During this journey, she comes across her grandmother’s reference book, Plachta, who somehow is able to speak and, eventually, acquire a human form. Journey with Sophie and Plachta as you seek to improve Sophie’s alchemy skills and unlock Plachta’s memories, which hold the key to Sophie realising her true potential as an alchemist.
Unlike most JRPGs, Atelier Sophie (and all of Atelier Mysterious Trilogy) get you into the gameplay very quickly. In less than twenty minutes, you’ll have already had a crack at the crafting and been introduced to the talking reference book. This can be good for those who like to get straight into the game, but it felt a lot like the game was rushing around trying to establish its plot from the get-go so the player felt invested immediately, which was a bit much without warning. What’s not fast, however, is the alchemy itself.
Brew ‘Em Up
As ever, the alchemy mechanics of the Atelier franchise are present and predominant throughout the game as in integral part of the story and overall game progression. To become an alchemist like her grandmother, Sophie fulfills the requests of the townsfolk of Kirchen Bell.
Not only does this help our budding alchemist gain experience and grow into a more competent crafter, it also helps patch Plachta’s memory back together. As far as the story goes, it’s rather linear and predictable in its progression. Characters are introduced in a revolving door kind of way, with them visiting Sophie first before their services are unlocked for you later on. It made the characters feel less like actual parts of a story and more mechanics the game needed to give some degree of personality.
Hoard ‘Em Up
When you’re not crafting, you’ll be out in the field gathering materials from the land and monsters and this is where Sophie will be struck by inspiration, making sure to note a recipe in Plachta’s pages for later to help work towards her goals. Atelier Sophie is good at providing direction for what you need to craft to advance the story, but that takes away from the creative side of the crafting and simplifies your needs if all you’re wanting is to progress the story.
As is the case with all the Atelier games, however, further exploration of the crafting system can reveal various levels of complexity. With the material placement system, you’re granted more control over your creations and their overall quality. Different ingredients take up differing amounts of tiles and, as a result, you end up having to put together a rather impromptu jigsaw of what you want to create. The crafting system is very much a ‘the more you put in, the more you get out’ kind of system that is, sometimes annoyingly so, simple on the surface, but with a lot to offer the more you invest in it.
Fighting Fit
The turn-based combat system that is familiar to those who’ve played the Atelier franchise before is back and as familiar as ever. Plan your turns accordingly with the knowledge of when your enemies will be acting, using your abilities to lower their stats and push back their turns.
By taking advantage of the game’s offensive and defensive stances, you can optimize how effective each member is in battle and use their unique abilities to manage any situation, however it is still important to remember to block attacks and manage your party’s HP. The battle system is nothing spectacular or groundbreaking, but intricate enough that some thought should go into teambuilding and combat to ensure you actually survive.
Exploration
As previously mentioned, the town of Kirchen Bell is the main hub of the game. Here, you’ll find the various townsfolk who will commission Sophie and her alchemical skills. Completing these tasks will help further the story and reawaken Plachta’s memories.
Requests often come in one of two forms: collecting items, or slaying monsters. While initially fun, the repetitiveness of this cycle can start to wear on your experience, especially when you’re going to sectioned-off areas that offer little in terms of exploration, with the only reason for staying around being the potential of finding rare items. With the passage of time, these areas will become repopulated with enemies and new items, meaning there is a good reason to revisit, but it’s still more of the same that can be far too repetitive.
Finally, the contents of the DX edition itself. With this edition of the game comes a collection of items, costumes and BGM packs. Not only that, but the game also brings a dash function to the table, helping reduce time spent on travel to help with the overall experience.
Tailor
However, the main part of the experience is the new quests tied to one of the costumes. After finding an old outfit belonging to her grandmother, a new coming-of-age story begins to unfold, where Sophie must face the challenges of filling the shoes her grandmother left. This new tale runs in conjunction with the main story, and is a welcome addition to the plot that, honestly, makes the story more enjoyable as a whole.
Unfortunately, Atelier Sophie: Alchemist of the Mysterious Book is a rather bare bones experience in comparison to the others in this pack. It certainly shows how the series grew from this point. As with any most of the Atelier franchise, the storyline and combat seem to play second fiddle to the alchemy system and causes the rest of the game to suffer in its stead. The addition of the DX storyline is a welcome one, but not enough to entirely salvage this game.
Atelier Firis
Coming up second is the one many consider to be the most influential game of the Mysterious series, Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey. Young Firis and her older sister, Liane, have spent their entire lives in the town of Ertona, isolated from the rest of the world. Here, Firis uses her unique ability to see where crystals are buried, so that her village can mine and collect them. Soon, she learns of the Alchemy Exam in the outside world and convinces her parents to let her leave the town and explore the outside world to take this exam, but with one catch. Firis has one year to gain the recommendation of three renowned alchemists and pass the exam.
Should she fail, she must return home for good. The plot of Firis is rather simple and straightforward, which is nice in this case as it means you can focus on the game and the crafting without having to remember a thousand different plot points. Atelier Firis takes what is considered to be the biggest step for the franchise in that this entry is the first one to have an open world.
Hello, Open World
This breathes new life into the exploration aspects of the series, though that is arguably countered by the return of a rather controversial feature; the time limit. At first glance, a year may seem like a long time to reach your goal, but the ever-constant ticking clock can force you to rush through the game and impact your playstyle. With the DX edition, several additions have been brought to the game to help improve exploration in the form of four new vehicles and several exploration items to help expedite and improve the process.
Crafting is, as ever, a well-polished element of this game. Align items correctly on the grid to maximise the potential of each item you craft, as previous players will be familiar with. Along with that, the grid features different coloured lines, each of which grant their own bonuses when filled with components and, later on, you’ll acquire Catalysts that allow you to change the bonuses the lines give you yourself. As is the case with every Atelier game, the crafting is fairly simple on the surface, but can reward the effort put into exploring its deeper intricacies.
Combat
The combat is the same as it ever was and will be familiar to returning players. A turn-based combat system in which you can see the approaching enemy’s turn and plan accordingly. Use of certain skills will push back their turns, and breaking your opponent’s guard with moves they’re weak to will cause their turns to be skipped entirely.
As is often the case with Atelier combat, the system is fairly deep and filled with strategic potential, however, the absence of the frontline/backline layout takes away a level of strategy and control that was previously present, and the time limit means you will be less willing to spend time in combat and experiment with the system.
Filled to the Brim
With the addition of the open world, gathering the materials also means exploring new areas and seeing what lies in this fresh expanse. For the series’ first open world, it in no way feels empty. When you explore, it doesn’t feel like you’re wandering around for hours in an empty field and this helps keep the exploration engaging.
However, the previously mentioned time limit causes you to have to keep your exploration to a minimum at this stage and focus more on getting what you need. Thankfully, the addition of the vehicles in the DX edition mitigate some of that issue, while also providing buffs and benefits such as stamina regeneration, automatic gathering and fast movement. These benefits make the process much less time consuming and open up the world to further exploration before you finish the game.
Atelier Firis took great steps for the franchise and delivered in spades. Everything is as solid as before and the expansive world is a welcome and well-refined addition to the series. On top of that, the DX edition brings benefits that make the exploration and crafting processes much easier and engaging. However, the story is rather simple and lacking in much depth and while that isn’t a bad thing, it certainly detracts from the uniqueness of this game alongside the other entries.
Atelier Lydie & Suelle
The third and final game in the Atelier Mysterious Trilogy, the journey of Lydie and Suelle is arguably the most engaging of the three. Striving to run the greatest atelier in the kingdom, the titular twins work their way up as rookie alchemists, hoping to make a name for themselves and put their far-from-popular business on the map. With the announcement of a kingdom-wide atelier ranking system, promising financial aid based on your rank, the twins are driven to achieve the ‘S’ rank, and establish themselves as the best.
Not only that, but the mysteries of a strange painting the twins can enter lingering in their basement is ever on their mind, leading them to explore it and find a number of useful materials for their alchemy. With the DX edition, another painting is added to the game, complete with its own set of quests and story.
The game gets off to a very quick start and throws you straight into the alchemy, which is thankfully just as fun and fine-tuned as ever. Various recipes can be unlocked, be it through story progression, copious amounts of reading, or performing specific actions throughout the game. Thankfully, the game’s recipe book has a number of clues for the recipes, so finding out what you need to do isn’t all that difficult.
Alchemy
The difficulty comes to the actual crafting itself, with the game not exactly doing its best to explain the mechanics of alchemy to you; it seems to expect you to learn on the fly and, as a result, can be rather daunting to new players. Thankfully, however, pushing through the awkward learning curve can lead to a deep and, as you begin to master it, incredibly rewarding experience.
Combat is what you can expect of a JRPG; turn-based where usage of skills and items will help you defeat the enemies and, much the same with the alchemy system, mastery of combat will help make even the most difficult of encounters much easier. As the game progresses, you’ll gain more party members and can plan your battles accordingly, with the front row being the offensive and the back row resting and recovering, though with certain actions it’s possible to get your back line to perform follow-up attacks.
Learning to utilize these abilities and conditions to increase your overall capability in battle is both challenging and rewarding. As you battle monsters and spend hours crafting and growing your reputation, you’ll also have the aforementioned paintings to explore. Progressing through the game will open up more of these for the twins to journey through, gathering new materials for their alchemy.
Non-Contiguous
These worlds, plus the various areas outside of the city, are all pleasant and fun to explore and interact with, however they are a step back from the series’ jump to an open world, which is admittedly disappointing to see.
Atelier Lydie & Suelle is a gripping adventure that can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. The mechanics are as sturdy and enjoyable as ever, though the step back in layout makes the experience feel somewhat lacking. However, this entry into the Atelier franchise was a welcome addition and one that helps make this pack worth your money.
Packed Up
For almost twenty five years, the Atelier franchise has delivered pleasant and engaging games. With its alchemy as the main focus, every experience will happily scratch that RPG crafting itch. However, the three games of the Atelier Mysterious Trilogy are far from the most engaging the series has to offer, whether it be due to lacklustre story elements or a lack of refinement in certain areas.
The crafting in all three games is solid and as enjoyable as ever, but the parts that separate the three games aren’t perfect and make it difficult to recommend this entire package for £73.99/€84.99.
The Atelier Mysterious Trilogy Deluxe Pack is packed with content, though. If you’re a fan of the series and looking to relive old memories with additional content then the Deluxe Pack is certainly for you. However, if you’re someone who is looking to get into the Atelier franchise, then you might want to start somewhere less pricey.