as i understand, people familiar with this series regard this game as "the weakest" of its respective trio ( the alchemist of arland games ), but, this being my first atelier game at all, i have to say i really enjoyed this. it wasn't without its faults, but i found the concept of the game to be refreshingly unique, as well as uniquely attractive to me.

i LOVE the idea of an RPG that centers on non-adventurers. as an alchemist in atelier rorona, you're a part of this fantasy world just as your typical RPG heroes, but instead of defeating grand villains & saving the world, your primary place is at home, creating the important tools that traditional adventurers seek for their journeys. while the game does encourage you to travese outside the city's limits & grow strong, the greater purpose of these excursions is to gather resources for your alchemy.

naturally, the alchemy system is pretty involved. ingredients have tiers, levels, traits, & rarities, which you can combine in a ton of different ways to create more & more elaborate creations. the day system lends a certain level of reality to the act, although its main purpose is forcing the player to really think about what they're making & whether the time lost is worth the end result. however ... while crafting goodies & experimenting with combinations is fun on its own, i wish there was even more emphasis placed on you being an alchemist in the plot; all you really do is fulfill requests for townsfolk or build yourself & your team stronger equipment while the greater plot unfurls around you. i want your alchemizing to be the star -- & perhaps, in the very first atelier games, that was the plot; after all, atelier rorona is the eleventh title in the franchise, & you can only make so many titles where the alchemy is the point before it gets old.

to speak on the plot & characters a bit more, though ... this is the main thing that's keeping me from giving this a higher score. the plot & character writing & subplots are all pretty good; they're homey, small in scope, & wrap themselves up with meaningful conclusions ( for the most part ); the big thing for me, though, is the frankly obnoxious reliance on character tropes. pushy perverted older mentor, overly dramatic tsundere girl, pitifully clutzy main girl who can't seem to recognize her own worth ... so on & so forth. i am not really a big anime person, so perhaps i just have a worse tolerance to such things, but i found these tropes to really dampen some of the emotional payoffs for certain scenes -- at best, it's annoying or distracting, but at worst, it's uncomfortable or downright upsetting.

and relatedly, this game feels like many of its women are somewhat ... fetishistic of femininity, for lack of a better descriptor ... they feel like stripped down fantasies for you to pick & choose your favorite, which is perhaps heightened by the tropes they've used to create them. the tragedy, as mentioned above, is that the deeper stories being told are sweet, & characters themselves do have a veneer of depth to them. they're likeable people with interesting lives & stories to tell. they're just being held down by their adherence to their archetypes & the game's insistence on fanservice.

i have a lot of interest in the general concept of the atelier series. the wonderfully realized art direction, creative concept, & fun gameplay really makes me want to go poke around & check out some of the others. but if they're all going to be games that are presented through the same flavored lens as this one, i'm unsure if i'll like them. tropes are not an issue in & of themselves, of course -- it's the tropes that they've selected here, & the way that they push them, that really makes me hesitate.