Atelier Rorona

[Raydeus]

I stumbled upon this game and I'm wondering if there's anyone familiar with the Atelier series because I've never played them before.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp4czd7lBFo"]YouTube - Atelier Rorona Teaser[/ame]

I'm reading good stuff about it so I'm probably going to order it soon (still need to finish RGG3 though) but want to see if anyone can give me some opinions about it.

[Tickmeoff]

Re: Atelier Rorona

It's a Gust game.

Graphics will be 2D sprites like this, the game will revolve heavily around using alchemy to create items, and the English dubs will be absolutely terrible. The story will be meh, not terrible but definitely not something you've never seen before and the game play will be standard turn based combat. It will get mediocre ratings and go largely unnoticed by most as all Gust games do, but Gust basically recycles the same engines and designs in every game they make so the small amount it will sell will still be more than enough for them to make a sequel 2 months later.

I like item creation in RPGs so I enjoy Gust games, but if you're expecting something new and exciting you're only going to get it once. If you've already played Mana Khemia or any of the Atelier Iris games you already know what you'll be playing the next time you pick up a game from Gust.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Atelier Rorona

I've only rather briefly playd one of the games, however, I would swear that this is one of those RPG "franchises" that gets spammed for quantity and not for quality. As Tickmeoff said, there's a new title to this series almost every few months and they appear to reuse a lot of the same assets.

There wasn't anything impressive about what I played other than the character art, which doesn't get a game very far with me anymore (I learned from that mistake with Magna Carta).

[Raydeus]

Re: Atelier Rorona

Thanks for the info.

It's looking like I'll wait until it's cheaper before buying it. Been watching some videos, and while interesting graphics are still very PS2-ish. It doesn't surprise me since this is supposed the first game in the series to use 3D models.

At least the voices wont be a problem since I'll order the japanese version of it, and I'll keep my expectations fairly low for this one.

[Tickmeoff]

Re: Atelier Rorona

Well, in my experience all Gust games keep both voice tracks and let you choose which one to use, so you don't need to import the original JP version for that.

[Raydeus]

Re: Atelier Rorona

That's good to know and one of the things I like the most about PS3 games, most actually keep both voice tracks on NA versions.

But I'll still import the japanese version of the game (and pretty much every japanese game I buy in the future), because playing it that way really helps me study and practice kanjis.