Beautiful visuals, a mellow time limit and a deep crafting system, Atelier Ayesha Plus: The Alchemist of Dusk is a marvelous experience that is only slightly bogged down by a finicky frame rate.
Atelier Ayesha Plus is a very laidback game. The crux of the game revolves around Ayesha's quest to save her sister Nio, which must be done before three years have passed. Moving around theBeautiful visuals, a mellow time limit and a deep crafting system, Atelier Ayesha Plus: The Alchemist of Dusk is a marvelous experience that is only slightly bogged down by a finicky frame rate.
Atelier Ayesha Plus is a very laidback game. The crux of the game revolves around Ayesha's quest to save her sister Nio, which must be done before three years have passed. Moving around the overworld, gathering ingredients and crafting take time and you'll always have a countdown looming over you. While the in game time limit might initially make its players feel rushed they'll soon realize that they have ample time to complete everything the game has to offer. Even the story progression is relaxed, allowing the player to complete different parts of the main thread in different order. I feel that the time limit doesn't rush the player as much as it reminds them to not lose focus .
The art of Atelier Ayesha Plus is fantastic. All of the colors of the game are muted but still paint a beautiful world. Ruins are dark, yet dazzling . Forests and fields are lush and seem much bigger than just the small parts that the characters trek though. However, there is a price for all its beauty; the game has a finicky frame rate and long loading times. As other reviews have mentioned, the frame rate can drop significantly in areas with a lot of movement, such as towns, or during transitions, like going into combat. Long load times are common and have caused me more than once to double check to ensure my Vita had not run out of power. Other small gripes I have about the game include the very small text and the default background music volume being too loud to hear dialogue (which can be turned down in the options menu).
Most of your time in Atelier Ayesha Plus will be spent gathering ingredients and crafting them into new items. Almost all of the stock of the shops are ingredients and other raw materials, so you'll be crafting your own healing items, offensive items and most of your equipment. This isn't a problem because crafting is so engrossing. Craftable items list general categories for their ingredients, such as oil, animal part or paper, rather than specific items. This allows multiple combinations of ingredients to make the same item. Furthermore each ingredient has different traits which can add new effects and properties to the resulting item. This means that every batch of crafted items has the potential to be unique. I've sunk hours trying simply to find out what new properties I can find for my potions and poisons, even going so far as to use high quality ingredients to craft inferior items just to see if I can unlock something new.
The combat of Atelier Ayesha Plus is simple as it is not meant to overshadow the exploration or crafting portions of the game. Like Personas 3 and 4, enemies show up on the map and having Ayesha hit them with her staff will allow her to attack first in the coming battle. Fights play out similar to other JRPGs, with characters either attacking or using special abilities on their respective turn however it also incorporates the Active Command System; each character has a Support Gage that fills up whenever they perform an action and can be spent in order to execute an action on another character's -or an enemy's- turn if you enter the correct prompt during that character's attacking animation.
Also worth noting is the importance of items in combat. Only alchemists are allowed to use items and while the potions, bombs and poisons would seem meager in any other game, in the Atelier series they surpass even the most powerful magic. A single item can turn an unwinnable fight into an easy victory and a well stocked party can venture both further and for much longer than those with few items. While the Active Command System and emphasis on items are unique, they're not especially groundbreaking. But, again, the combat takes a backseat to the other elements of this game, meaning you don't have to min/max every character, grind for experience or craft the absolute best weapons in order to get by.
As my first venture into the Atelier series, I really enjoyed Atelier Ayesha Plus. I always found something that I wanted to complete, not for the reward, but just to see what new property I can add to an item. Or to discover what new ingredients there were. Or to find what happens next in the story. The game is full of stuff you WANT to do, not simply "can do" or are "forced to do." And even with the overhanging time limit, the game gives you enough time to do it all. With its annoying frame rate as the only problem that really bothered me, I have to strongly recommend Atelier Ayesha Plus: The Alchemist of Dusk.… Expand
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