Review - Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea (PS3)
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Review - Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea (PS3)
Atelier Shallie Alchemists of the Dusk Sea cover art
The Atelier series unlike other JRPG’s doesn’t focus on combat. Instead the games are about gathering items and synthesizing them using magic. Another unique aspect to the franchise was the clock. If you let it run down before completing all your tasks it was game over. Atelier Shallie removes the time aspect entirely giving you as long as you want to finish objectives, which must off put some hardcore fans of the series. In Atelier Shallie you can play as either Shallotte, or Shalliesta. No seriously there is a playable character named after a type of onion. Shallotte is the obvious choice since Shallistera has about as much character as a plank of wood. So if you picked best girl your story will revolve around learning the basics of alchemy, gathering items, synthesizing them and some typical RPG battling and exploration although I assume it isn’t much different with Shallistera. Shallotte has a lot of scenes where we get to hear her thoughts which is actually adds a little bit of depth to an otherwise fun yet predominately one-note character. Otherwise the narrative won’t surprise you, it’s very much by the numbers for a Japanese role playing game.
The soundtrack in Atelier Shallie is terrific. You’ll hear some of the same tracks dozens of times as you explore the hub that connects everything in town or explore the World map. The last atelier game I played was Rorona plus on the Vita and I found the English dub to be pretty poor so far Shallie I just stuck to the original Japanese language for the whole game and found it to be good Shallotte especially so. Like with every other Atelier game on the PlayStation 3 way more attention is payed to the character designs then to the environment. The series didn’t even embrace full 3 dimensional graphics until 2009 so this is hardly a surprise. That said Atelier Shallie has some definite improvements over past games in this series. Whilst the environments are still under-detailed there is some half decent lighting and shadowing. This is put to especially good use in the mid ground and background, giving us a pretty clear delineation of space. Instead of having the playable area just sort of disappear into a fog like it did in some of the earlier games. Battle animations are also better than they have ever been. The animation for lip synching could be a whole lot better, mouths just kind of open and close without a variety of different movements to express particular sounds. I wasn’t expecting anything realistic and I have seen worse but you can’t help but notice this during the cutscenes.
Atelier Shallie Alechemists of the Dusk Sea gameplay screenshot
The in-game environments are still under-detailed but there is some half decent lighting and shadowing. This is put to especially good use in the mid ground and background, giving us a pretty clear delineation of space. Instead of having the playable area just sort of disappear into a fog like it did in some of the earlier games. Battle animations are also better than they have ever been. The animation for lip synching could be a whole lot better, mouths just kind of open and close without a variety of different movements to express particular sounds. I wasn’t expecting anything realistic and I have seen worse but you can’t help but notice this during the cutscenes. The battle system is paired down in this game compared to other JRPG’s. You can’t customize your parties’ attacks and spells in anyway whatsoever, you just have to rely on what abilities you get given when you level up. To mix things up a little you have a burst meter which builds up for every attack you make. This can give you the edge in longer battles by increasing your damage when the meter is filled. You also have some quick time style events in battles where you can swap the character about to receive a hit from the enemy by using an on screen button prompt. Basically this comes down to allowing one of your party members to tank more damage. The battling is completely turn based, there is no movement so the burst and QTE mechanics are extremely important for strategizing.
Atelier Shallie Alchemists of the Dusk Sea - synthesis
The meat of the game is synthesizing. For every item you pick up in the game World the item meter fills. Once this meter is full you can choose what special item you receive such as a relic from the past, increase the number of a particular item and so on. It cuts down on the item collecting and adds a bit of a random element to which is much needed since you will collect many hundreds of similar items. Atelier Shallie does a good job of explaining all the nuances of synthesis through its in-game tutorials and you’re never expected to learn too much at once. Even so a lot of synthesis is basically tedious grinding to increase your alchemy level, and there will be times when you’re number-blind from going through the same steps ad-nauseum. Even so by removing the time aspect and including in-depth synthesize tutorials, Atelier Shallie sets itself up as a good entry point to newcomers who may have been intimidated by the difficulty of the previous games in this franchise.
Dodd, R. (2015). ComicConReviews: Review - Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea (PS3). [online] Comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/atelier-shallie-alchemists-of-dusk-sea.html [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016].
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