Atelier (franchise)/YMMV: Difference between revisions

* [[Seinfeld Is Unfunny]] (AKA, Alchemy Is Unoriginal): Quite a few prospective fans and consumers have pooh-poohed the games that have crossed over for being unoriginal in story and for crafting and alchemy being "nothing really special". While the story criticisms for the ''Iris'' games are probably not unwarranted, the early games were the games which introduced robust crafting systems into JRPGs in the first place and were also the first ones to use alchemy as a world-framing concept in Japanese pop culture. Thanks to [[No Export for You|the sluggishness of the series]] in crossing the Pacific, however, everything influenced by the series got here first and made ''Atelier'' look like the unoriginal one.

* [[Sequelitis]]: Even the most die-hard Gust fanboy has to admit that, with no less than one release every year, the franchise is starting to hurt for all of its sequels; even attempts to legitimately mix up the franchise such as ''Mana Khemia'' or ''Atelier Annie'' (which added a little [[Simulation Game]] to the mix, with its focus on helping to develop an island) come off as a bit stale, and quality assurance have taken a dip recently, as evidenced by ''Atelier Liese'' and ''Mana Khemia 2'' and their '''evisceration''' in the Japanese gaming press (to say nothing of [https://shop.salburg.com/lise_switch/index.htm Liese's terrifyingly massive published bug list and gamecard-swap program].)

** The first was between the first two games, ''Marie'' and ''Elie''. ''Marie'' was a very simple game produced on a tiny budget, and it showed in how relatively simple and light the content was. ''Elie'' was produced [[Cash Cow Franchise|after the money from Marie rolled in]], and not only features a ton of engine improvements but features approximately ''three to four times'' the story content of the previous game, making it probably the fan favorite of the series in Japan.

** Another was ''Judie'' to ''Violet'': ''Judie'' was a fairly disappointing game that took away some of the elements of previous games in an apparent attempt to broaden franchise appeal (and failed badly); ''Violet'' took the few good things from Judie, wedded them to the systems of the older games, and is generally seen as the best [[PlayStation 2]] Atelier game.

** ''Liese'' to ''Annie''. ''Liese'' was [[Game Breaking Bug|infamously buggy]], had a somewhat annoying combat system and didn't really have enough story content, leading to it getting ripped to shreds in Japan. ''Annie'', on the other hand, not only launched bug-free but addressed every single gameplay issue in ''Liese and'' features a lot more story content, to the point where it's even receiving positive press [http://www.rpgamer.com/games/atelier/aa/aa-imp.html in the West].

* [[Surprise Difficulty]]: If you look at the art of Atelier Annie, it's a little bit cute compared to the Iris games. There's more than a few bishounen characters in the cast. And the cover has an E10+ rating. But this is also a game where if the player rushes into battle without bringing healing items or changing the heroine's equipment, then a single Puni can kill her.

** Most of the early Ateliers were like this; if you were too lax in recruiting some party members, didn't upgrade equipment or went too far from town too quickly, you could quickly find yourself overwhelmed. This is part of what made ''Atelier Lilie'' [[Nintendo Hard]], since your starting party options consist of your twentysomething alchemist heroine and her ''two ten-year-old hangers-on''. They can easily go out into the woods and get mauled to death by wolves at the start of the game.