As a huge fan of the Atelier franchise, I was beyond excited to see not just one, but two new games hit the shelves in the first half of 2019. Unfortunately although this news was good for my soul, it didn’t bode so well for the quality of the games themselves. I’ll preface my review by saying I don’t regret purchasing or playing these games, but there are certainly aspects which may be disappointing to fans of the series, or anticlimactic for newcomers.

Let’s start with Nelke and the Legendary Alchemists. This game is unlike any that have been part of the Atelier lineup to date – it takes a whole cast of characters from across literal decades of games, and uses a time-travel mishap to unite them in the same time and place, where they then have to combine their skills to build a city. Now i’m not going to lie, I started this game with a healthy dose of skepticism, and at first I was definitely questioning Gust’s decision to take its games in a new direction (See: Hey Gust, where’s the item synthesizing at?”), but it turns out they were onto something good. Yes Nelke lacks the traditional mechanics of an Atelier game, like roaming different areas and crafting the perfect item at your cauldron, but it’s a trade-off for something fresh and exciting.

In Nelke the player still has some scope to explore and craft items, however there’s no option to physically walk through areas, or to select ingredients in synthesis and transfer traits. Instead you assign people to craft, grow, collect and sell items for you, and then use these materials and funds to build the foundations and facilities of your city. As you progress through the story you’ll unlock more recipes, blueprints and characters which make the game progressively more interesting. I found the amount of skits to be overkill, but I absolutely loved how building relationships with each character consistently unlocked new and unique things for me to build around town.

Be warned, Nelke does set you up to fail on the first playthrough, and it’s difficult to achieve the optimum ending without some practice and some patience. However, for me the town building was entertaining and novel enough that I didn’t mind, and the second playthrough was more enjoyable once I had become more accustomed to the gameplay and knew what strategies would work best. For a game with an entirely new concept and playstyle it doesn’t always explain things very well. For instance, on my first playthrough my success was very limited by not knowing about, and therefore not utilising, the dispatch function, which is probably one of the most important inclusions in the game. In short, pay attention to all the little features available to you, take the time to create a good strategy and stick to it, and you’ll see the payoff.

Both Nelke and Lulua are available on Nintendo Switch and PS4, but visually there’s not really a noticeable difference from earlier titles on PS4. If you’ve been an Atelier player for a while, the cast of Lulua will be pleasantly familiar. Like in Nelke, the story relies on classic characters, except their personas show the passage of time. This is especially true of Rorona, who has become the adoptive mother of Lulua. This is a little strange as they basically look the same age, but it’s nice to see Rorona grow over time.

While Nelke had me wanting to pick up the controller again and put the hours in, Lulua had the opposite effect. The storyline was almost non-existent, the usual time constraints and sense of urgency were missing and the synthesis was simpler. Battles were unnervingly easy, until a weird dramatic spike in difficulty for the final boss battle. This meant there wasn’t much incentive to improve along the way and surmount hurdles, because they were lacking. Nelke was enjoyable because it set challenges, and you had to have both strategy and growth to succeed, but the biggest challenge in Lulua was figuring out what the game wanted you to do next. Earlier games like Atelier Sophie had some great in-game mechanics that gradually revealed new recipes and tasks, but Lulua seemed much more haphazard. My biggest frustration was trying to decipher Alchemy Riddle – there’s such limited information that sometimes it’s really time consuming just to move forward at all.

Lulua’s perk was that it was a reunion with some of my old favourite characters, like Totori, and it extended their stories into the present day of Atelier games. I’ll be curious to see what the next Atelier game has to offer and how it compares. See you in November Atelier Ryza!