Atelier Sophie is the 17th game of the Atelier games. But every few games they start a new story. Sophie is the start of what they call the mysterious trilogy. Many people know what to expect from the Atelier games. I enjoy playing them myself but they are more casual then many games although they do take a long time to finish. This one, without any sort of time limit, is likely one of the more causal games. in the Atelier games.
Story
Our main protagonist Sophie Neuenmuller is a young and inexperienced alchemist. She currently runs her grandma’s old atelier at the town called Kirchen Bell. One day Sophie discovers a mystical talking book who is named Plachta. Plachta seem to be a blank reference book but knows little about Alchemy. Now it’s up to Sophie to help her recover those memories by writing down alchemy recipes into the blank pages.
Helping Sophia is a number of friends both new and old. Sophia both help her new found friends as well as get help from them as she start an adventure together with them. This game is dialog heavy. If you enjoy Anime Video games then your likely used to it. Many times the dialog is more cute then game play related. Each of the side people in the game has there own story you can explore. Although they mostly have one outcome.
The Story give an Fantasy Slice of Life feel to it. Many times they talk about non pressing issues. Although they do have a boss that build up and appear for our group of ‘heros’ to fight I found the story behind the boss and such to be quite interesting.
Game Mechanics
Most of the time your trying to craft items to help with issues around town or with people lives. Collecting things you need, fighting monsters, creating items and repeat. If you like exploring and playing around with combining things then this game is clearly what your after.
Exploring is somewhat open, allowing you to wonder to different areas. Buying Rumors allow you to activate boss fights in areas which is interesting. Your main goal is to collect the items you need to make items. Many times finding things with the right traits can make all the difference. This is even more so when your making the items needed to be crafted into Weapons and Armors as well as usable items like Bombs and Recovery items.
They change up a few things. Such as how you do alchemy is somewhat more of a puzzle game then a random try, which I found to be nice. Also other members of your team can use items now. Used to only the Alchemists could. Although they still do a better job of such then the others but I somewhat like this change.
Overall
This isn’t the game for you if your looking for action or a world effecting story. But if you like causal gaming, cute stories, and exploring a small world then you may find yourself to really enjoy this game.
For PlayStation PS4 and Vita, Vita being digital only.
You can find this game for PC: Here
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