Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea

 PlayStation 3
Metascore
76

Generally favorable reviews - based on 26 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 26
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 26
  3. Negative: 1 out of 26
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  1. 4P.de
    Mar 18, 2015
    39
    In theory this is the best Atelier in a rather bleak PS3-apperance of the series. Even visuals and level design are above the rest of the franchise. But with serious frame rate issues and a game-stopping freeze bug that can damage the console data system I suggest you wait until Gust releases a patch.

Awards & Rankings

5
#5 Best PS3 Game of 2015
3
#3 Most Discussed PS3 Game of 2015
8
#8 Most Shared PS3 Game of 2015

User Reviews

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User Score
7.6

Generally favorable reviews- based on 53 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 35 out of 53
  2. Mixed: 11 out of 53
  3. Negative: 7 out of 53
  1. ryuzaki57
    Mar 10, 2015
    6
    Atelier Shallie is the 3rd (and last?) episode of the Dusk trilogy started with Atlier Ayesha and Atelier Escha&Logy. That's the first problemAtelier Shallie is the 3rd (and last?) episode of the Dusk trilogy started with Atlier Ayesha and Atelier Escha&Logy. That's the first problem of this game, because it ends the trilogy in a rather awkward manner. None of the questions raised in the past two games finds a definitive answer : Linca's story is barely hinted at, the truth behind the drought that plagues the world is hardly explainded, we are still waiting for an clear illustration of Alchemy's past mistakes, and Ayesha and Logy are MIA.

    Story-telling its faulty too. This sequel looks more like a spin-off that borrows some characters from before. It's composed of two separate stories : Shalistella's and Shalotte's (both called Shallie). Shalistella is your average Atelier heroine whereas Shalotte, more dynamic and lively, introduces a more moe approach. Unfortunately, neither side has been well executed, and the slim differences between the two adventures doesn't make replay value very valuable. Generally speaking, the story never takes off and stays as a series of events half-serious, half-humoristic. The tone seems mainly light in the end, because any attempt of the game to get more serious sounds really off.

    Because of low stakes and an astonishing lack of intensity, but also surprisingly shallow characters. Of all the newcomers, Miruca is the only one that shows a bit of work : only her has a solid backstory and thus the only one you sympathize with. The others feel almost invisible given the low interest of the events they're in.

    In its gameplay, Atelier Shallie changes radically. First thing, it drops the limited time frame to go for a classic progression system in chapters in which you have all the time you want. To make it further accessible, Gust opted for the Xillia method and now difficulty settings can be changed any time. Wise decision, because even though most of the game felt easy, difficulty surges at the very end. This episode adds a morale gauge, but after 70h and 2 playthrough, I'm still wondering what it is for and how it works...

    You no longer get experience points in battles (or very few). XP should be gained by doing Lifetasks, objectives comparable to Atelier Ayesha's. Some of those challenges are immediate (make a specific object, do a specific action, get some alchemy trait, beat X monsters, explore maps, etc.), but others are to be achieved on the long term. Even without the time parameter, management is still there because you'll often have 10, 20, 30... tasks available at the same time, an varied enough. The ones you complete constantly trigger others, so it's a never-ending managerial frenzy, let alone the fact that you still have to manufacture your gear from scratch. That said, there's no denying that gameplay has grown poorer. Just one example that thunderstruck me : the characters decide to hold a cake contest at some point. So I do expect to spend some hours in my atelier making the ultimate sweet. Far from that, the event launches right away and a get the free trophy without doing any action... I realised that clearly the Atelier I knew was no more. The exploration of the world map is also made boring by the infinite time, the rigidity of the progression system and the bland level-design. Exploring doesn't have the thrill it used to.

    Atelier Shallie introduces a combat system called Burst : every time you hit an enemy, a burst jauge is getting filled. When this one reaches 100%, you can deal a lot more damage. It brings nothing but wasted time between Burst sequences. Worse still, the enemy can slower your Bust jauge if you are hit too often, which in some cases (fortunately rare) is horribly irritating. Despite that little blunder, let's stress that if you meet certain conditions, you can trigger the Field Burst, kind of magical circle that boost your stats for the time of the Burst : a nice idea to further vitalize combat. The rest of the fighting is directly inherited from Dusk, that is to say equally tactic and nervous to keep interest until the end. Be warned though, the game is fairly easy until the very end, even in hard. This being due to the multiplication of super-powerful healing spell that makes the manufacturing of healing items almost useless.

    The good news is that the game has been further polished visually, as it has been the case for 4 years. Although backgrounds are still mostly bland, the battles show artistic and technical mastery : modeling is refined to the extreme, the level of detail is more than satisfying and the animation wonderful! The various moves of the 8 characters are varied, and spectacular. On design, Hidari's illustrations are as good as ever and the OST quality stays high, especially on battle themes.

    Alchemy still has the skills divided into the 4 elements, save that they are even clearer and intuitive, which makes the system extremely precise and enjoyable without any loss in complexity.    … Full Review »
  2. deadlysilentbob
    Mar 20, 2015
    10
    Finaly the atelier games have found perfection.

    let me explain for those of you who now want my blood. The atelier games originally were    Finaly the atelier games have found perfection.

    let me explain for those of you who now want my blood. The atelier games originally were designed to be clean, simple and light rpg games. meaning they are not weighed down with too much story, too much lore, too many characters, too many bosses etc ad nausium. Unfortunately in the last 5 games (rorona, totori, meruru, ayesha and esha & logy) they artificially tried to push in some difficulty with the time mechanic to appease a select few hard core Japanese gamers who wanted something hard.

    To any of you who are in the know (or are capable of reading between the lines) you could see that this move hurt the series overall. I am NOT saying that the aforementioned games are bad. I did enjoy them. and i would have loved to enjoy them for longer than the forces 20 hours of play i had.

    shallie fixes that. I can play for as looooong as i want and advance the story as leisurely as i want to. this is how rpg's should be.

    Possitives: graphics are good, 360 camera is a nice addition, music is realy nice, i love the character shalotte as i always found the series could use a punky/mildly alt heroine to balance the mostly girly ones, the search and gather system is awesome (think manakhemia inspired battles with sleek visuals) and the usable items replenish when you return to town (not too necessary a feature without a time limit to restrict synthesis but hey, ill take it)

    Negatives: the areas you visit seem a little bland (never did like desert scapes too much), the quests seem a little repatative and the layout of the quest menu is a bit of a step back from the ease of the one in ayesha.

    overall i recomend this to alllll rpg fans    … Full Review »
  3. LadyAshe
    Apr 4, 2015
    10
    The best RPG game I've ever played in years. a true RPG game. real RPG. hard core RPG. this game is soooo addicting! I've been playing it forThe best RPG game I've ever played in years. a true RPG game. real RPG. hard core RPG. this game is soooo addicting! I've been playing it for days now none stop! the moment you start the game it's too late! it's so hard to put down the controller! goodbye my social life!
    thank you Gust for listening to your fans and remove the frustraiting time system from the game. finally an atelier that is wide OPEN since atelier landed on PS3, yey!    … Full Review »
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