After 14 hours of alchemic deeds, I'm done with Atelier Rorona Plus. Although I managed to clear all assignments with three-star rankings—bar the last one, which reaped only two stars—the fact that I totally neglected to build up my popularity during my playthrough meant that I could only pretend to the Normal Ending and its rather uneventful outcome. I have to admit that for the time being, I really can't fathom how I could have cranked up my popularity to the sky-high levels required for the better endings. I mean, I hardly had enough time to fulfill the assignments, let alone run errands for the townspeople! I guess this is manageable with more experience, and I'm pretty sure seasoned Atelier players can get all the endings with their hands tied behind their backs. What I'm also pretty sure of is that I won't ever become one of them.
At some point in the game, Rorona's mercurial master Astrid asks her if she loves alchemy, and I couldn't help but take that question personally. Do I love alchemy? Well, not quite. I obviously like it to some extent, given that I cleared the whole game without having to force myself too much; but my feelings for virtual alchemy are pitifully tepid when compared to my burning love for all things grinding, roaming and crawling. To put it simply, there are at least half a dozen RPG subgenres that I love more than alchemic RPGs à la Atelier. I certainly didn't expect that; as I mentioned in my last post about Rorona, I expected to adore the series and enjoy it deeply. Alas, a blast this was not. Although I finally managed to relax and get used to the gameplay, I was never really enthralled by the game. I plodded through the whole thing, doing only what was strictly necessary to progress and never feeling compelled to accomplish more. Not that I could really have, anyway; I don't have the knack for multi-tasking, neither in real-life nor in videogames—and the game didn't really accommodate me with its somewhat unclear interface and messy gameplay. (For instance, the fact that recipes sometimes require a specific trait rather than a specific ingredient was too complicated for my taste; I would have preferred to deal solely with clear-cut base ingredients.)
All in all, my biggest issue with Rorona's gameplay lies in the degree of freedom alloted by the game, which I would describe as too large to be reassuring yet too narrow to be exhilarating. Rorona offers neither the compelling and fulfilling freedom of dungeon-crawlers—a favourite gaming subgenre of mine—nor the stimulating and challenging constriction of puzzle and adventure games—another favourite subgenre of mine. The former allow a seemingly limitless number of ways to play while the latter tolerate only a single one; they are standing at opposite ends of the freedom spectrum and are riveting because of their extreme nature. Rorona, on the other end, lounges somewhere in the middle of the spectrum—with the lack of intensity to match. This is a game that requires the player to do their best in a given time and with a limited amount of resources; in practice, this means that there is neither a single suitable way nor thousands of them to play your way out of an assignment, but rather a general course of action allowing a limited number of variations. Deviate too much from that stringent course of action and you'll get a Game Over as a punishment for your wayward ways. The same kind of limited freedom can be found in Fates, and I'm starting to think that this is actually the essence of strategy as a gaming genre. "Do your best with what you're given, and try again if you're not happy with the result" could be the motto of such strategy-flavoured games. While I'm adamant that I can never come to love these games as much as I adore dungeon crawlers and puzzle/adventure games, I'm pretty sure that I can learn to genuinely like and enjoy them on the long run.
When all is said and done, I'm definitely not swearing off Atelier games. Although my playthrough of Rorona was not the most enrapturing run of my gaming life, it was still pleasant enough to make me want to play the other Atelier games I own. I will just play them my way, accepting my limitations and focusing on what I feel capable of accomplishing without fretting over what I'm missing out. On the other hand, I don't think I will invest in any more Atelier games from now on, and I highly doubt I will ever replay Rorona in particular. My only hope now is that the other Atelier games I own will somehow prove more interesting and gripping than Rorona. Hope springs eternal in the heart of the gamer who wants to recoup their investment, indeed! Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!
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