Atelier Lydie & Suelle: My time has come

My time to enjoy Atelier games, that is.

Just like famous bands, long-running video game series evolve and go through phases, losing and earning fans along the way. The Atelier series has been through two such phases lately: first the Dusk subseries, which seems to be considered by Atelier veterans as the beginning of the end for the venerable series; and then the Mysterious subseries, which those same veterans seem to brand as a complete travesty of what Atelier games are supposed to stand for. Being the farther thing from an Atelier veteran myself, I'll wisely abstain from any judgement on the series' evolution; all I can say is that I kinda disliked the Arland games, loved Ayesha, and absolutely adore Lydie & Suelle.

L & S totally fits my early dreams of what an alchemic RPG should be like: tons and tons of foraging, no time limit whatsoever, adorkable characters and lovely little areas choke-full of materials. And those bright, vivid colours! Oh, what a pure eye-candy! I thought the land of Dusk in Ayesha was gorgeous, but it pales — in every sense of the word — when compared to the twin's dazzling homeland. As for alchemy, it has never been simpler, easy to figure out and intuitive to a noob like me. I so love the grid system, which makes things deliciously obvious and clear! Ayesha's Trait system always remained a bit of a mystery to me, even after two full playthroughs; on the other hand, I already have a good grip on the L&S grid after a mere 5 hours of play. Hooray!

For all intents and purposes, L&S is actually a regular RPG with some alchemy spread on top, whereas older Atelier games tended to be time management games sprinkled with RPG features. Alchemy is nearly treated as an afterthough in L&S: not only is the number of recipes really tiny, but they must be unlocked by doing things you naturally do in RPGs — such as fighting, crawling, foraging and the like. So far, my own run has been 90% crawling, foraging and questing and 10% alchemy; an unbalance that can be blamed partly on L&S' diminished focus on alchemy and massively on my uncanny passion for all things grinding and crawling. My only beefs with the game so far are minor ones that only serves to highlight how much I love doing what I do in L&S: there's just not enough room in the basket, and enemies don't respawn! Heck, I'd spend even impossibly more time roaming zones if that were the case.

Long story short, I love L&S like no other Atelier game before it, which totally puts me in the cohort of new fans that were brought into the fold by the Mysterious subseries — and, to a lesser extent, by the Dusk subseries. This raises interesting questions such as "Should I purchase the rest of the Mysterious entries despite the fact that they are digital-only games, which I hate?" and "Should I blindly purchase all Atelier games from now on, or remain vigilant and check them individually to make sure they fit me?" I'll ponder the answers in due time; for now, back to da grind!