Atelier Lydie & Suelle ~The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings~

Quite sad that there was no english option for this game otherwise its a great game

great game, it´s all the good things from sophie and firis and improved combat. Also a few things to change up the alchemy a bit.
If nothing else you can just hang out at the blacksmith and dig the tune.

Oh yeah and Suelle is the best girl.

The combination of 10 ~ 20 FPS + being unable to fast travel to individual instances is just too jarring and slow for me. If you have all the time in the world and enough patience for a walking simulator, then this is the game for you.

Great game. The alchemy/synthesis is as fun as always. Its been further optimised from Sophie and Firis. Blocks are actually important now and are how colour strength is now measured. Adjacency bonuses and percentage bonuses have been replaced with tile bonuses which take a little getting used to but are a great new system. There are now enhancers which help you to achieve your goals too.

Weapon crafting has changed again. Weapons no longer have their own abilities. Instead they have core and sub attachments so you can reuse old stats in new weapons. (Weapons and armour are no longer used in any synthesis).

For the game world, it is back to being like Sophie rather than Firis. Not an open world anymore, but individual stages instead.

The game also has quite a number of tweaks and optimizations. Stamina is gone, map exploration is gone and when there are events with characters, there is now a notification ("!?" means an ongoing main quest)

Story-wise, it moves along at a nice pace. Great to have returning characters and some of their interactions are great callbacks to earlier games, my favorite was seeing Sophie drinking at a bar (Compared to the opening quest in Atelier Sophie, where she was still too young to drink and wanted to know what it tasted like)

The worlds and landscapes were interesting, but I didn't really like any of the new characters, and it relied heavily on the reappearance of past characters. Also, I don't know why they decided they needed to make the alchemy mechanics so convoluted. It was alright, but I preferred the past two games over this one. At least I got to see the end of Corneria and the Weissberg's stories. I missed Kald though. He was my favorite. Too bad he didn't appear in this one.

During my play through in Atelier Lulua, I've come to realize how much I like Atelier Lydie & Suelle. I know it is a poorly optimized port and it is expensive as hell, but I much prefer the crafting system here, and the combination arts let me truly enjoy the combat (but i wish we are given the choice to skip the combination art's animation tho...), and the characters... oh the characters...

instantly bought both character DLC, i regret nothing

This is a very laid back, casual kind of jrpg. As an experience, it basically boils down to...hanging out with your friends everyday, and completing jobs of varying kinds (combat and crafting mostly) to make a living (and build up your shop). The characters are all done entirely in 3D in this installment, unlike some older ones, where they relied a lot on actual 2d art, which I'm not nearly as fond of. In this game, all dialogue is voiced. So you won't have to rely on text if you don't want to, although this game DOES NOT have an English dub. Just a forewarning....

Overall, I loved this game. I like crafting, and I love hanging out with my friends...and that's basically what this entire game consists of! I've never played a game before, where I felt like the characters were actual friends of mine, but in this game, I really do feel like the characters are my friends. Admittedly I don't have any choice in the dialogue, but it's still fun nonetheless.

Combat in this game is excellent as well. It's not as in-depth as Final Fantasy, but it's still very well thought out. You won't find too many epic fights either. But would you have expected otherwise based on the casual theme of the game?

Hands down the BEST Atelier game to date. Hands down, one of the best games I've ever played. Paid full price. No regrets.

No issues running the game at 60FPS on a 1920x1080 resolution.

Atelier Lydie & Suelle is, far and above, the most satisfying Atelier title to date. I've completed every Atelier released in the West, and as far as I'm concerned, Gust deserve praise for what they have accomplished here.

Atelier titles are character-focused, crafting-heavy, comfy adventures. This has been well-established over the years. L&S improves upon these core traits by introducing a hefty helping of humor that has been scarce until now. I'm fairly difficult to please on that front, but found myself regularly entertained by the interactions between the sisters and the supporting cast. Speaking of which, the secondary and tertiary characters were all an absolute pleasure—from Roger to Lucia. Returning characters like Ilmeria, Sophie, and Firis have really come into their own, and we're fortunate enough to witness the evolution of their relationships. Oh, it is worth mentioning that the legendary Hagel is back.

The protagonists, Lydie and Suelle, are a pair of striking, endearing personalities, each unique in her own right, who are oftentimes the centerpiece of a great skit. Firecracker Suelle with her straight-shooting (sometimes scathing) honesty, amusing phobias, and aversion to studying. Assiduous Lydie with her quiet rage, romance novels, and hands-on-cheeks goofiness. Both manage a formidable deadpan, and are delightfully flippant.

What's more, L&S has the trappings of a slightly more bleak narrative. It is still very much a light-hearted game. However, the journey of Lydie and Suelle is underscored by a sort of grief the likes of which we haven't seen since Totori, and with a far greater presence in the story. This never struck me as heavy-handed, but lent to the sincerity of the sisters' ambitions. It is bittersweet at times, uplifting at others.

Sometimes, a new title will attempt to innovate or improve upon series mechanics and fall dreadfully flat. This is not the case with L&S. Mechanically, it is the culmination of those that came before. It seems to me that Gust tossed out problem ideas (such as Firis' recipe unlocking) while introducting interesting and player-friendly advancements. Synthesizing, which naturally makes up much of the game, is as smooth as ever, and has finally found the sweet spot for the grid system. The Battle Mix mechanic, a sort of simple mid-battle synthesis that augments existing items or uses materials to create impromptu items, works swimmingly.

Typically, the areas in an Atelier game aren't worth mentioning. L&S approaches them a bit differently by inserting the more fantastical zones into paintings and keeping the more mundane in the overworld. I think this makes those zones stand out all the more, and the zone design for paintings is better than I'm accustomed to besides. The animated brush stroke frame was a nice touch, too.

Gust is going to have a hard time topping this one.

I've been playing Atelier games since A11, but this one is hard to recommend in its current state.

Performance:

Atelier Firis is already a very graphics card taxing game, but at least I can manage 60fps at 4K with a 1080TI. For Lydie&Suelle it's another step up: in the introduction map my framerate dropped to 40-ish fps with a highly overclocked 1080Ti. Just to be sure I've also overclocked my CPU and memory to no avail. For me this has moved from borderline acceptable to unacceptable. It's true the graphics are slightly better than its predecessor but they also ditched the large open-world maps for smaller ones. No way should an anime JRPG be this demaning for processing power, we are talking about FFXV levels here. Also you can't adjust the graphics settings, so I wonder how a consumer-grade PC would perform in this. It's time to seriously optimise your game, KOEI TECMO/GUST.

DLC:

Another let down is the DLC. Usually DLC are just optional costumes and map expansions, but since Firis they've introduced paid characters, and this time they introduced new recipes which will significantly facillitate gameplay: Adventurers' Tales DLC which allows you to craft items that give you ~30% faster movement speed and send gathered items to your container directly. Even though it's just £1.69, those things should not be sold separately, the movement speed item used to be a part of the base game! I paid £49.99 for this game and I don't care about spending an extra pound or so, but it's about the fundamental ethic and discipline I have problems with. KOEI TECMO has been an awful influence and I hope the upcoming A20 (Update: Confirmed to be Lulua)- the 20th anniversary game- does not turn into a DLC sh*tfest

Update:

Took me 60 hours to finish the story, the longest of all Atelier games; and an extra 10 hours for all achievents and ultimate gear. The story is rather weak, instead of one main storyline you are introduced to chapters, but most are just fillers with no significant meaning.

It's nice to see Sophie, Firis and Ilmeria making a return, which leads to problem of why there is only 6 permanent party members in this game: The fewest ever and a large reduction from Firis’s 10. Not because of the cast is smaller, they did it just so they can sell Ilmeria and Lucia as DLC characters. Unlike the previous DLC characters, Ilmeria and Lucia actually play a big role in the story and I totally expected them to join the party at any moment had I not known beforehand. Want the other DLCs too? The season pass is £62.99

Ended up writing a 1500+ word review that was waaaaaaaay too long and boring that noone would ever want to read so I'm just going to do this.

Relaxing atmoshpere, lighthearted story mostly told through interactions with a great cast.
Great music. Like wowee.
Very interesting combat and alchemy systems, building upon everything from the previous games. Both systems proved an incredible blend and are the best in the trilogy by a landslide.
The paintings are a really fun way of providing a highly needed variety to the maps.
Seems there's more content than any other game in the trilogy, judging by the fact that I've put as much time into it as the others, yet I've only discovered the normal ending and barely done anything post-game. I'd have a much higher playtime, but with a bunch of free updates(!!!) having come out since I last played and more Atelier games coming out fairly soon, I've decided to wait and replay the game at a later date.
Sophie became a badass.

While the character events being explicitly told and unmissable is very welcome, I wish the last game in the trilogy would've had more "secret" content instead of being so beginner friendly, if that makes any sense.
Wish there were more unique boss tracks. The combat OST is phenomenal and most of the tracks are very memorable, and this game's not as big of an offender as Firis, but I strongly dislike hearing the same tracks during several different fights. It just loses its effect.

This trilogy is probably the best modern intro to the Atelier series. There's no real time limit, only a short, easy test later in the game that gives you more than enough time to easily pass it, so if those rumors scare you the Mysterious trilogy is a good pick.
Lydie & Suelle is the last game in the trilogy. Atelier games are generally designed to be self-contained enough to allow you to jump into them out of order with no problem, but I highly recommend at least playing Atelier Sophie before this as there are many returning characters, and the majority of the story is focused on them.
Overall it's easily my favorite game in the trilogy, and a fantastic conclusion.

Audience

[ X ] Beginner
[ O ] Casual
[ X ] Normal
[ X ] Expert

Story

[ X ] There is none
[ X ] Bad
[ O ] Alright
[ X ] Good

Gameplay

[ X ] Frustrating
[ X ] Boring
[ O ] Fun
[ X ] Challenging

Difficulty

[ X ] Just press a bunch of buttons
[ O ] Average
[ X ] Hard
[ X ] Unfair

Graphics

[ X ] Paint.exe
[ X ] Alright
[ O ] Good
[ X ] Beautiful

Music

[ X ] Earrape
[ X ] Alright
[ X ] Good
[ O ] Beautiful

Bugs

[ X ] Game itself is one big BUG
[ X ] Can get annoying
[ X ] Few Bugs
[ O ] Nothing encountered

Game Length

[ X ] Really short (0 - 3 hours)
[ X ] Short (4 - 7 hours)
[ X ] Few hours (8 - 20 hours)
[ X ] Long (21-50 hours)
[ O ] Very Long (51-100 hours)
[ X ] Extremely Long (101+ hours)
[ X ] Endless...

Price to Quality

[ X ] Full price
[ O ] Wait for Sale
[ X ] Wait for Deep Sale
[ X ] Nope

Accessories

[ O ] Xbox Controller
[ X ] PS Controller

Overall

8/10

Current System Specs

• Windows 10
  
• Zotac 980ti Amp Extreme!
  
• i5 6600K
  
[*] Asus Maximus Hero VII

Comments

If you like anime and cute shit, you'll like this. The game is pretty easy but its a nice way to relax with something that doesn't make you feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. The game series still continues to have the best crafting system in any game, in my opinion. The fact that this much control is available for equipment creation is amazing.

50+ Hours in and gotta say was worth the $60, I didn't think I would have so much fun. Only issue is a few drops in FPS but im sure that is because of my rig. At least for me i'm giving this game a 9/10.
The $60 price tag might be hard to jump on, but you should just wait for a sale. Sue is best girl.

100+ hours into this game and yes i love everything in this game.
i love how A19 telling about old experience in A17,A18 if you played those before you gonna enjoy reading them
because it give good old memory.

if you ask do you think is game worth to spend 40-50$
i do say "yes it worth spend for ending of this series"

also this game make happy and cry a lot.

Now that im near the end of this game, well i think i am, who knows, I decided to write a review for this game.

Now i am a simple man, i see lolis, i buy.

But boy oh boy, i got more than what i expected.

Overall the story is fantastic, honestly they have a way of making weak characters. Instead of everything being rosy, this game has some really impactful story. At times you will laugh, other times you will get angry, and in many instances you will be on the verge of tears. I dont rally want to talk much about the story since i feel that it might give a bit of a spoil overall the whole game, so you can nitpick what you can find through the store page pictures and video and description.

Gameplay is advancing. By this I mean, compare to atelier sophie where all you ever did was gather and avoid monsters like a big puss even on easy mode, in atelier twins you can start the game out on normal and advance throughout the whole story with relative ease. Its not super easy, yet it is not super hard, the game knows how to keep you engage and in most instances you have to defeat monsters for the drop, so why not do it early on? Now be forewarned that there is not really THAT MUCH gameplay, there is a lot of side interactions that basically encompasses the whole game, sometimes there is just so much dialogue that i just start feeling sleepy. However with each new interaction you have, you end up learning new things and receiving new recipes, which overall keeps you engaged, unlike sophie (as far as i can tell) speaking to characters will not allow you to unlock new areas. By areas i mean new places to gather, sometimes you can revisit old places and open up a secret location.


The music is great. Honestly i bump to the music while i am gathering and fighting monsters, sometimes i revisit places just for the music.

Art is fantastic. There is a high difference when you explore an area on the outskirt map than exploring a painting, you can tell a lot of effort went into the "go inside paintings" aspect, they went completely all out.

Now midway through the game the dialogue gets all funky, you can see some grammar errors here and there, sometimes you have to put your thinking cap to guess what is the true structure of the sentence. I stilll have my thinking cap on because i keep confusing promise 5 and promise one altogether, im not sure if they are the same promises or if they are different and theres a grammar error. The dialogue is feasible though, theres an error in like every 1/ 10,000 sentence, or some stretch like that, i barely even care except for that promise thing. plus the errors are not tied to the actual main story, just side information.

I think this will be the "con" aspect of what i believe to be the game. The 3d Models. Honestly i hate it, but not so much that i get mad over it or anything, i just dont like it. At points throughout the game, you can see the polygonal model of certain things like the clothes or hair, just pass through things. like hair penetrating through clothes, or a hand warping itself inside the clothing of the person. It is probably just me, it doesnt cause any errors or anything but i think thats poor designing or something. Sometimes theres a cute scene i want a screenshot of, but then i dont want to because one model would just overlay itself over another, and i dont want to go to potoshop or anything to fix it to be honest fam. Then theres the models expression. It is completely stale. The voice acting shows a lot of passion in the action they are trying to invoke, but the model is just there doing the minimal amount of expression it can possibly can for five different emotions that are in the same sentences. It lacks that drive that is crucial for their expression, and it feels like they recycled the same movement for different emotions, I.E. Suelles fright motion and her shocked emotion.


And that is all, i still really enjoy this game and hope to 100% complete it, i love the voice acting and everything but i hope they do fix some of that minor detail, like i said i dont really much care for it, but some people might be completely grossed out by it or whatever, and just never finish it, like how most people never finish atelier sophie or even got through the halfway point.

So...already at Chapter 7 and judging from the recipe list i'm kinda 1/3 of the way through? so i think i know well enough for a review. Pretty bias tho since i'm a long time fan of the series.

*A pretty good port . Better than Firis.
*We're finally back to the town hub like Sophie was instead of it being open world like Firis.
*Battle system and progression feels a lot better than before. You dont get to be too OP too quickly. Enemies always feel scaled to yours as long as you're up to date on your crafting even on hard difficulty.
*6 party member in battles instead of just 4.
*Character events and sidestories are more easily found . And feels like theres a lot more than there was in FIris.
*No more having most events occur in your tent lol
*Alchemy and weapon crafting in general is a bit more complex than before
* Story is also more focused imo with a clear goal in each new dungeon/area you visit instead of just to farm ingredients.

And... thats all i think. Yeah... cant really think of any negatives since i like this game so much XD. Oh probably the price but ehh i saved up for this anyways >.<. Come to think of it lets add that we dont get the previous titles bgm's until its available later as a DLC which kinda sucks. Oh well thats it i guess.

I must admit, compared to previous series like Arland series and Dusk series, I don't like the new Mysterious series (which you can find all of them on steam) that much. Maybe mainly becsause the story arc and characters are "too light-hearted" for me.
Don't get me wrong, Atelier series had always taken the light-hearted route of story telling. However, Dusk series have the near apocalypes setting, which lead to some depressing (yet awsome) side of story. While Arland series while not take themselves too seriously, they have kind of story arc and plenty emotional moments so you can identified with the characters.
However, they purposely tone down a lot of seriousness in the new Mysterious series (acording to the developer) in story, character, and even game mechanics. It may be good for some player, but it makes the story and character kind of bland...... they are fun, but bland. Yet, Lydie and Suelle has more interesting story compared to other two, so that's a plus, right?
Being the third entry of the Mysterious series, it's a fun game, and maybe the better one among the Mysterious trilogy (Sophie is Okey, but I really dislike Firis).
Overall, Atelier series are kind of niche series, if you are looking for a light-hearted story to occupy your time, you may want to pick this up.

By the way, GUST, why you make Sophie such a badass in the game? She's the fan favorite among the four main protagonist I get it, but the gap of her image between her own game and other entries is just too large...

For fans of the previous games, if you, like myself, liked Sophie (the main hub being one town, no time limits) you'll most likely like this game.

If you've never heard of the Atelier games, a lot of these reviews on all of the games sum it up pretty well. Relaxing gameplay and fun storytelling. If you, however, don't want to pay 60 euros for this then I'll recommend Atelier Sophie, it's only 30 euros but still a very very good game (it also was my first Atelier game).

If you liked the other Atelier games on steam, this one is good as well.

As people have already said, no english dub this time though. And no time limit on the main quest line unlike Firis (at least from what I have seen....)

Little bit of a framerate drop too on my older PC, but in this kind of game it's not particularly noticable (ie turn based combat).

So, if you're a fan of the series, or this is the first one, you'll be good to go with Lydie & Suelle.

Get this game if you happen to enjoy slowpaced JRPG franchises//Or if you have played the previous Mysterious series Atelier games

-A Huge improvement to gameplay compared to Firis and Sophie,
-A more indepth story (It's actually gotten really sad as of my current stage in the game)
-Very well-designed main characters, both lydie and suelle along with other Side-characters (i'm pretty fond of Alt)
-A very good bunch of VA's (We have the voice actor for Kenpachi zaraki (from bleach) doing the voice for Hagel the smithing store shop owner)
-6 person combat is very enjoyable compared to the previous Mysterious 3 person combat
-They're not using the same exact enemies from Firis/Sophie, They have quite a few new mobs which is great to see!

The only thing i have to be honest about is £45 Seems "Slightly" overpriced for the game, But if you happen to be a true fan of the atelier franchise that much is fine for what you get, i personally would continue to buy every atelier game for £45 so it's not big deal to me

There is also one bug currently which i encountered once which makes the game run in 50% speed But it's easily fixed by restarting the game


So yeah... i highly recommend this on my own personal notice BUT as there are many references to Firis/Sophie including both being able to join your party i do highly recommend you play through Atelier sophie first, then Atelier firis

Note:
Most of my playtime has been on the PS4 version, but I double dipped to support the developer. (and so that I can replay it with g-sync later)

This is easy the best game in the Mysterious series, and a huge step up from the disappointing Atelier Firis. The game returns to the zone style of exploration found in Atelier Sophie and is considerably more attractive as a result. The combat is also greatly improved and the overall flow and story are excellent.

I certainly do not agree with people saying it is overpriced, considering that most "AAA" games are over in 8 to 12 hours. You will easy get 3 to 4 times that here. It is absolutely worth every penny. (unless we're talking about non-US pricing, which I'm told is out of whack in many countries)

As always, you do need to be a fan of anime style RPGs for the price of admission to make sense. But if you are, then know that this is among the very best titles in the genre you can get on Steam.

Highly recommended!

You're always going to enjoy a game like Atelier Lydie & Suelle if you're a turn-based jrpg fan. So far, its been a wonderful experience and the plus points I see in the game are:

-Cute characters and beautifully drawn cel shaded graphics.
-Alchemy and turn based system is pretty engaging and fun.
-Game runs fine except a few frame drops but they are negligible especially in a turn based game where quick actions are not necessary.
-Some people say gameplay has not improved from Atelier Firis but since I have not played that game, it does not concern me much.