(Repost of a review posted on June 16, 2022. Played on Switch for about 100 hours.)
She's gonna take you Plachta the past, to kill everything dead with a blast.
I've been into this series for a pretty long time now. Played most of the ones they've made in the past 10+ years. I don't often talk about it because it's pretty "nobody cares" tier among most of my pals, but since I'm reviewing every game I play now, here it is! The short of this whole review is that this is the best Atelier game and if you only play one, let it be this one. You don't need to have played the first Atelier Sophie - the game has a "story so far" thing on the title screen that gives you a couple minutes or so of backstory to catch you up.
Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Long Title is a game where you spend 20% of your time in cutscenes, 20% of your time out in the world fighting or gathering materials, and 60% of your time doing alchemy. Of course, your mileage may vary, but that's about how it went for me. I should note that I started playing on Hard, and later switched to Very Hard, so I needed to put a lot more time into making good items than someone who plays on Normal or Easy.
In Atelier Sophie 2, Sophie and her friend Plachta get sucked into a portal and end up in a dream world. Then stuff happens. The story is nothing super special, but it's pretty well done for what it is. The ending in particular is something I thought was well done, which isn't something I find myself saying about RPGs very often! The characters are also pretty likable overall. There's nobody I found annoying or dreaded seeing in a cutscene. Atelier has always been kind of a slice-of-life kind of story, and it's no different here. There are lots of cutscenes with random stuff, and they can feel excessive at times. Usually after any main story event, a bunch of new cutscenes become available that trigger whenever you walk (or fast travel) to the map they take place on. I think they are all skippable, but I only ever skipped cutscenes that I had already seen when retrying boss fights. If this sounds at least bearable to you, then keep reading, because everything else about this game is outstanding.
The battle system in this game is great, and certainly better than you'd expect from a game where combat's main purpose is to make sure your alchemy is up to snuff. You have six party members and you get to use them all. Three are on the front row at any given time, and you can spend one TP (points you get for doing basic stuff in battle like attacking, defending, using items, etc.) to do a team attack where you use a skill or item and then switch with someone on the back row who then also uses a skill or item. Back row characters can also jump in to guard attacks for front row characters. Some enemies also have "auras" that give them super high defense until you break them - basically the same thing as Octopath Traveler. There's plenty of other stuff going on - buffs and debuffs actually matter, for example - but basically that's what you've got. It's a lot like Final Fantasy X, with some splashes of other stuff.
The whole thing comes together brilliantly at times. It's got that nice balance where you need to think about every move but you won't get totally blown out if you make one mistake. This all comes with a caveat though - it's contingent on your alchemy being at around the level it should be for the point in the game and diffculty setting you've chosen. If you're playing on Normal, then this will likely be the case if you don't put too much effort into making powerful items. But Atelier is willing to reward those who put in the extra effort.
Let's talk about the meat of Atelier's gameplay: the alchemy. In most games with crafting systems, it's just a throwaway inclusion so the designers have an excuse to put more random loot in the game. A lot of people say they hate crafting systems, and it's pretty obvious why. But what happens when crafting is the primary system in the game, with combat taking a back seat? Every Atelier game has its own crafting system. Some are better than others. Sophie 2 has my favorite one in the series. It builds on the grid system established by the first Sophie game (and refined by the two other games in the "Mysterious" trilogy). Every item you find or make has elemental "components" and you link them together on the grid to power up the effects on the item you make. It gets more complicated, of course, as there are different abilities that come into play as the game goes on (the grids start as 5x5 for one thing). This ends up turning every crafting session into a brain teaser where you try to make the most of what you have.
I mentioned earlier that I started playing on Hard. Let's talk about what got me to switch to Very Hard. There's this boss a good way through the game who shall remain unnamed. After a long time of being in the zone, fighting exciting battles and barely winning, I hit a wall. This boss kicked my ass. Again and again and again. Higher difficulties boost enemy stats, including speed, and also let some bosses have extra actions each time their turn comes up. This boss had it all - speed buffs for them, and a party-wide sleep spell for us. It was never long before the super meter filled and a special move wiped an entire row of my party at once. Long story short, it was time to hit the lab. But I got to thinking - this is my favorite alchemy system in the series. Since I clearly needed to rework my inventory, I took it as an opportunity to go ham. I wasn't just going to fight this boss - I was going to kick their ass. So I jacked the difficulty up to Very Hard, lost once more to see what I was up against, and got to work.
In possibly the longest and most involved "grinding session" I have ever done in a video game, I started crafting. I needed armor. I needed heals. I needed buffs and debuffs. And I needed a bomb. The pen and paper came out. I started digging through the game's very useful Guide section that details all the effects and traits on items you've collected. I mixed and matched traits to see what I could make. I filled out my recipe book and built different bombs to see what they do. I learned how to change gases to gunpowder, gunpowder to fuel, fuel to water, water to poisons, and poisons to a disgusting bomb that sticks its target with all status effects and debuffs in one big blast. I made a party-wide healing item that automatically copies itself twice shortly after using it. I made armor and accessories with very big numbers. And I made the bomb - a bomb that drains all the MP of its user and has its power scaled accordingly. I suited Plachta up in all the MP-buffing equipment I could make. The time had come - I had a statement to make.
Needless to say, that boss got outright deleted. Maybe with some slight tweaks and strategy changes and a bit of luck, I could have won in a fair fight. But in true high-level Atelier fashion, this fight wasn't won by picking skills carefully during battle. This fight was won by spending hours standing over a cauldron in my little shack in the woods making WMDs. It turns out that this setup was enough to make the rest of the game a breeze. By my good graces alone were any monsters permitted to continue living on this planet.
The final boss has two forms. Combined, they got a grand total of one attack in on me. I don't know what any of the second form's moves are.
This game certainly isn't for everyone. But if you're buying what it's selling, I think it's easily one of the best RPGs available on Switch. And if you're still not sure, ask me to gush about it some more and maybe I'll do that. By the way, there's a bunch of DLC with this game, but it's mostly just overpriced costumes that you can ignore if you want to. I played through the whole game with only the free DLC (which is just some cosmetic accessories and a BGM pack). I hear the "Atelier Plachta" mini-story DLC is pretty good though - I haven't played it yet but I will give it a try eventually.
She's gonna take you Plachta the past, to kill everything dead with a blast.
I've been into this series for a pretty long time now. Played most of the ones they've made in the past 10+ years. I don't often talk about it because it's pretty "nobody cares" tier among most of my pals, but since I'm reviewing every game I play now, here it is! The short of this whole review is that this is the best Atelier game and if you only play one, let it be this one. You don't need to have played the first Atelier Sophie - the game has a "story so far" thing on the title screen that gives you a couple minutes or so of backstory to catch you up.
Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Long Title is a game where you spend 20% of your time in cutscenes, 20% of your time out in the world fighting or gathering materials, and 60% of your time doing alchemy. Of course, your mileage may vary, but that's about how it went for me. I should note that I started playing on Hard, and later switched to Very Hard, so I needed to put a lot more time into making good items than someone who plays on Normal or Easy.
...of what? Fun? Monkeys? The game never tells us. What a plot hole!
In Atelier Sophie 2, Sophie and her friend Plachta get sucked into a portal and end up in a dream world. Then stuff happens. The story is nothing super special, but it's pretty well done for what it is. The ending in particular is something I thought was well done, which isn't something I find myself saying about RPGs very often! The characters are also pretty likable overall. There's nobody I found annoying or dreaded seeing in a cutscene. Atelier has always been kind of a slice-of-life kind of story, and it's no different here. There are lots of cutscenes with random stuff, and they can feel excessive at times. Usually after any main story event, a bunch of new cutscenes become available that trigger whenever you walk (or fast travel) to the map they take place on. I think they are all skippable, but I only ever skipped cutscenes that I had already seen when retrying boss fights. If this sounds at least bearable to you, then keep reading, because everything else about this game is outstanding.
Justrun-Foryourlife? Tough talk from something that isn't carrying an inventory full of bombs.
The battle system in this game is great, and certainly better than you'd expect from a game where combat's main purpose is to make sure your alchemy is up to snuff. You have six party members and you get to use them all. Three are on the front row at any given time, and you can spend one TP (points you get for doing basic stuff in battle like attacking, defending, using items, etc.) to do a team attack where you use a skill or item and then switch with someone on the back row who then also uses a skill or item. Back row characters can also jump in to guard attacks for front row characters. Some enemies also have "auras" that give them super high defense until you break them - basically the same thing as Octopath Traveler. There's plenty of other stuff going on - buffs and debuffs actually matter, for example - but basically that's what you've got. It's a lot like Final Fantasy X, with some splashes of other stuff.
The whole thing comes together brilliantly at times. It's got that nice balance where you need to think about every move but you won't get totally blown out if you make one mistake. This all comes with a caveat though - it's contingent on your alchemy being at around the level it should be for the point in the game and diffculty setting you've chosen. If you're playing on Normal, then this will likely be the case if you don't put too much effort into making powerful items. But Atelier is willing to reward those who put in the extra effort.
This game's really just a puzzle game in disguise as an RPG.
Let's talk about the meat of Atelier's gameplay: the alchemy. In most games with crafting systems, it's just a throwaway inclusion so the designers have an excuse to put more random loot in the game. A lot of people say they hate crafting systems, and it's pretty obvious why. But what happens when crafting is the primary system in the game, with combat taking a back seat? Every Atelier game has its own crafting system. Some are better than others. Sophie 2 has my favorite one in the series. It builds on the grid system established by the first Sophie game (and refined by the two other games in the "Mysterious" trilogy). Every item you find or make has elemental "components" and you link them together on the grid to power up the effects on the item you make. It gets more complicated, of course, as there are different abilities that come into play as the game goes on (the grids start as 5x5 for one thing). This ends up turning every crafting session into a brain teaser where you try to make the most of what you have.
I mentioned earlier that I started playing on Hard. Let's talk about what got me to switch to Very Hard. There's this boss a good way through the game who shall remain unnamed. After a long time of being in the zone, fighting exciting battles and barely winning, I hit a wall. This boss kicked my ass. Again and again and again. Higher difficulties boost enemy stats, including speed, and also let some bosses have extra actions each time their turn comes up. This boss had it all - speed buffs for them, and a party-wide sleep spell for us. It was never long before the super meter filled and a special move wiped an entire row of my party at once. Long story short, it was time to hit the lab. But I got to thinking - this is my favorite alchemy system in the series. Since I clearly needed to rework my inventory, I took it as an opportunity to go ham. I wasn't just going to fight this boss - I was going to kick their ass. So I jacked the difficulty up to Very Hard, lost once more to see what I was up against, and got to work.
In possibly the longest and most involved "grinding session" I have ever done in a video game, I started crafting. I needed armor. I needed heals. I needed buffs and debuffs. And I needed a bomb. The pen and paper came out. I started digging through the game's very useful Guide section that details all the effects and traits on items you've collected. I mixed and matched traits to see what I could make. I filled out my recipe book and built different bombs to see what they do. I learned how to change gases to gunpowder, gunpowder to fuel, fuel to water, water to poisons, and poisons to a disgusting bomb that sticks its target with all status effects and debuffs in one big blast. I made a party-wide healing item that automatically copies itself twice shortly after using it. I made armor and accessories with very big numbers. And I made the bomb - a bomb that drains all the MP of its user and has its power scaled accordingly. I suited Plachta up in all the MP-buffing equipment I could make. The time had come - I had a statement to make.
Omae wa mou shindeiru.
Needless to say, that boss got outright deleted. Maybe with some slight tweaks and strategy changes and a bit of luck, I could have won in a fair fight. But in true high-level Atelier fashion, this fight wasn't won by picking skills carefully during battle. This fight was won by spending hours standing over a cauldron in my little shack in the woods making WMDs. It turns out that this setup was enough to make the rest of the game a breeze. By my good graces alone were any monsters permitted to continue living on this planet.
The final boss has two forms. Combined, they got a grand total of one attack in on me. I don't know what any of the second form's moves are.
This game certainly isn't for everyone. But if you're buying what it's selling, I think it's easily one of the best RPGs available on Switch. And if you're still not sure, ask me to gush about it some more and maybe I'll do that. By the way, there's a bunch of DLC with this game, but it's mostly just overpriced costumes that you can ignore if you want to. I played through the whole game with only the free DLC (which is just some cosmetic accessories and a BGM pack). I hear the "Atelier Plachta" mini-story DLC is pretty good though - I haven't played it yet but I will give it a try eventually.
