Lost Legends and the Secret Fairy

Summer in the city

Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout it was my long-term introduction Workshop series. And while I definitely enjoyed it, it didn’t leave me with enough impact to run with it and check out the rest of the millions of other games in the series. This is a big commitment, and this kind of thing terrifies me.

However, it left me thirsty enough for a sequel that has now come in the form of Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends and the Secret Fairy. It’s time to touch the cauldron again and provoke a bit of adventure and find out if anyone has gained a sense of fashion since the last game. Spoiler: They haven’t.

Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout (PC, Switch [reviewed], PS4, PS5)
Developer: Gust Co. Ltd.
Editor: Koei Tecmo
Release: January 26, 2021
PVP: $ 59.99

It has been 3 years since the events of the first Atelier Ryza, and the loot of Reisalin “Ryza” Stout will not yet be left. She has spent the last three years practicing her alchemy on her own, as her friends abandoned her to go to the capital. The rich boy has asked her to research some gemstone and she is not sure that her experience is enough to find out, so she decides to go to the city to join her friends.

Atelier Ryza 2 it is a little more immediate than its predecessor. Your first battle is at the end of the road and you have your workshop before the prologue ends. Then you can prepare some bombs in your apartment.

Like the first game, though, the narration is a bit slow. You want adventure, so go on an adventure that pretty much sums up the character’s motivation. Things develop from here. There are a number of ruins in the capital and they seem like the perfect place to kill yourself, so it’s time to look for their secrets and find out how your flying hamster, Fi, connects to everything.

If you’re new to the series, you’re probably wondering if you should play the first one Atelier Ryza to enjoy the second, and the answer is: yes, probably. Much of the game is about meeting old friends and a lot of dialogue is about how much everyone has changed in recent years. I’m not saying you couldn’t figure it out from context, it might not have had the same impact.

If you are unfamiliar, the Workshop the games are JRPG with in-depth crafting mechanics. They call it alchemy, which is apparently the art of throwing specific ingredients into a pot to create a bridge. While it may seem like an excessive complication of your typical computer system, it actually adds a layer of progression to the game. As you travel, you will access more ingredients that can be used to make better weapons and equipment. It’s important because while you can buy things in stores, nothing compares to what you do in the workshop.

I had a problem with the progression of the previous game; it looked like there were a lot of starts and stops as you traveled up to touch a wall and then back to the studio to upgrade your equipment or make a key item. That hasn’t changed exactly, but I think the progression of the game is a little more involved. You still go out on adventures and then make a nicer shirt again, but there is a firmer split between the two activities and it looks like it will work better.

The ruins are not necessarily unlocked in a linear fashion. If you focus on side missions and simply beat unpretentious wildlife, you may gain access to new areas without having to complete the previous one. This will allow you to access new sources of ingredients that will allow you to improve your alchemy along with your adventure. It makes the discovery of new areas even more captivating as you not only progress in the narration, but also in your skills.

There is a dizzying amount of depth Atelier Ryza 2, some of them completely disposable. For some reason, you can decorate your workshop, but I don’t know why you would. You can also grow ingredients and improve stores by selling items, but making supplies piles up on the ground and can be found in the butt of all monsters. They provide alternative methods so that you can access some items that you wouldn’t otherwise get until later, but it’s up to you whether it’s worth the extra effort.

The elaboration itself may take a while to grasp the small niches. Some of this is due to the fact that it is not well explained. For example, it has several terms to cure, and for the longest time, I thought the only healing element I had access to was the grass beans. Near the end of the game, they were no longer doing the work and I had to experiment to discover that the “healing taste” was analogous. Then I created the most amazing dessert ever designed by man and came to the end by often feeding the donuts of my teammates.

The advantage of this is that you get out of alchemy what you put into it. If you take the time to find the right ingredients, learn the mechanics, and discover new recipes, you can turn your party into an unstoppable force very quickly. If you ignore them, however, you may find it difficult.

While Atelier Ryza I had some difficulty getting caught, I didn’t have the same problem with the sequel. I would spend hours cleaning up side missions and stirring my cauldron, sometimes neglecting the critical path. Still, he broke down towards the end of the game because I got seriously tired of his absolutely useless dialogue.

Like its predecessor, Atelier Ryza 2 it’s irrepressibly cheerful, which is usually a breath of fresh air in an industry full of shady protagonists with dark pasts battling unequivocal evil. Optimism helped Atelier Ryza stand out in my mind, but here I got absolutely sick to death.

There are so many wasteful dialogues, it’s dizzying. Many of them revolve around Fi and what everyone loves and loves everyone. I don’t need a deeper insight into why someone’s head is spinning. For each scenario that includes a narrative development or a significant character, there are about a dozen characters chatting about the coffee food. Even the parts that go into the characters ’heads play shyly too long before delivering anything of value. It tends to circulate in circles, reviewing information that is already obvious or has already been provided.

It goes crazy. I went from listening carefully to the dialogue to going through it to get some important little news. When the text of the game’s last gameplay scenes became unavoidable, I was actually upset because I had to see each member of the group say how important this fight was to them. Save me.

As much as I may regret the inescapable vortex of dialogue that will ambush you in every scene transition, I’ll still admit that I enjoyed the actual game a little more than the first one when I wasn’t speaking. Maybe not for narrative reasons, but the progression and mechanics made me click a lot more solid this time. I finished the clock around 50 hours past the match, but I probably could have reduced it if I hadn’t spent so much time refining the tastiest donut. Still, I probably would have liked it a lot less too.

I’m in the same position as last time: I enjoyed the experience, but I’m in no hurry to go out and pick up the rest of the series. If anything, I’ll wait for the next opportunity I have to slip into Ryza’s incredibly tight shorts. Given the typical pace of the series, it will probably be in a year or so.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends and the Secret Fairy reviewed by Adzuken