My final save file reads 36:17:40 and I reckon about 10 of those hours were actually fun. The rest was dreck. Atelier Ayesha seems to divide people into those who think it’s the best thing ever and a great introduction to the Atelier series and those who think it’s disappointing and the beginning of the end for the series. I thought for sure I would be in the former camp, but having finished it, I find myself firmly in the latter. I don’t even feel like writing about it, but maybe scribbling down a few thoughts will help me get my feelings in order.
First off, the Atelier games have always had varying ratios of story : combat : character interactions : alchemy, so it’s normal to prefer some games to others depending on which way your tastes incline. In Ayesha it’s combat >= character stuff > story >>>>>>>>> alchemy, a.k.a. that thing you do in between exploring and chatting and hoping some event occurs to bring you closer to your sister.
Fair enough. Although the focus wasn’t much on alchemy this time, I did get to make a lot of new things. I made every single item on the list probably for the first time ever, and it wasn’t hard to get the ingredients either. Alchemy is so irrelevant I might as well not have bothered, but I was doing it for my own satisfaction and I was pretty durn satisfied by the end so it’s all good.
Okay, what about the story? Wait, what story? At the beginning they mention something about “Dusk” and crops not growing, though you wouldn’t know it with how comfy and happy everyone is and with all the food Ayesha picks up just by running around outside. Alchemist of Dusk, schmalchemist of dusk, you’re never getting that explanation in this game.
More importantly, you’d think the issue of who kidnapped Nio and why would be a serious matter worthy of exploration in the game, wouldn’t you? I thought for sure Gust let me rescue her so early so they could fit some more story in there, but nope, you get Nio back and that’s it.
You have to watch Keith’s ending on YouTube to find out that Nio she was taken by some seed repository left behind by a more advanced civilization that destroyed itself with alchemy… or maybe not, dunno. And the repository was accidentally awakened by…someone. And maybe you shouldn’t have killed the gatekeeper… or maybe you should have, I dunno. Either way it’s not explored or explained within the game itself so it might as well not have happened for all the attention Ayesha gives it. Lots of other things aren’t explained either, like apothecaries or the Altugle family, what exactly happened to people who weren’t rescued, or the nature of Marion’s organization, etc etc.
In the end the story boils down to “Your sister has been kidnapped by ninjas weird plants. Are you a bad enough alchemist to rescue your sister?” Once you’ve proved you are, you can end the game right there. And actually even if you’re not, apparenly Keith will rescue Nio for you anyway in the “Bad” end. I regret every millisecond I spent worrying about Nio’s fate, not knowing Mr. Know-It-All-But-Won’t-Share would have bailed me out at the end anyway. Feminine wiles, man. Respect.
So there isn’t much story to speak of, and what there is doesn’t go anywhere, and what you do doesn’t matter in the long run. You can see why I’m unhappy already. But that’s still only one element. What about combat?
Hmm… Y’know, if they hadn’t made it so you had to jump through hoops to skip animations, I wouldn’t say anything negative about the combat. I mean it’s pretty boring, but it’s not the worst I’ve ever experienced. Ayesha and her pals feel really weak most of the game, but I’m playing on Hard mode so that’s normal. It’s just that I got tired of the animations after an hour, and learning that Gust could have made them skippable all along but just wanted me to suffer… feels bad man.
Everyone in my party hit the level cap very quickly so I thought there would be a cap raise later, like in Meruru. Nope, nothing. There were a lot of optional bosses available to fight after saving Nio, but with my level capped and no story relevance and no good loot to look forward to except dupe weapon/armor drops, I skipped most of them. Every time I made a new bomb I’d test it out, but that’s about it. Ayesha doesn’t learn any battle skills, everyone else only has 4 skills, it takes forever to save up for a special move, there’s very little variety in equipment, there’s a ton of palette swaps. Etc, etc, it’s just no fun.
Unless we’re counting Mana Khemia, I haven’t found the battle system in any Atelier game very exciting, but hitting the cap so quickly in Ayesha and having so few battle/equipment options makes this the least interesting game from a fighting perspective. I hope they can at least make the process faster and more rewarding in Escha & Logy and Shallie. And I’ve learned my lesson: no more Hard mode in Atelier games!
Last but not least, let’s talk about characters, character interactions, events, that sort of thing. I don’t hate Ayesha but I heavily dislike her high-pitched voice and forced-cute mannerisms. Who even says “Kyaaah” out loud? In English? But I believed I’ve talked about this before so I’ll let it drop. It’s just a personal preference where I don’t like super-girly or super-cute stuff. Ayesha fans, think of it as one less gamer competing for your idol’s affections.
Eat your hearts out ladies/
Hands off the merchandise
Instead let’s talk about other characters… Can’t believe Juris friendzoned me after getting my hopes up with that “feelings” line… Why even tease if you’re not gonna follow through? Apart from that I liked everyone, but nothing really stood out for me, good or bad.
It would have been more interesting to have more towns and more characters. I’d always accepted it as a technical limitation in the smaller games, but in the PS3/4 era I’d like it if the scale of Atelier games got a little grander. Instead of the Salt Desert being a giant waste with only one character to meet. No named characters in Homonculus Town and only one screen. Only Kyle in Hornheim. You can’t even talk to townspeople unless they have a quest to give you. Such an empty world.
But no seriously, I’ve gotta find something to say about the characters and stuff. Umm… Gee… I like Willbell’s hat. GAAAH, what do you want me to say? I used Linca and Juris for 90% of the game, hardly touched Marion, Odelia and Keith at all. I wanted to like Willbell but her events are so childish. And Regina’s events are all “Get back in the kitchen woman” like, I dunno. Why does she have to go home just because her brothers are grown up? Translation error? Anyway, nobody was interesting but nobody was bad either. It’s very much a Your Mileage May Vary thing.
Final roundup of Atelier Ayesha Plus
It was meh. Nowhere near as meaty or exciting or atmospheric as I’d been expecting. If you’re doing to reduce alchemy’s importance then I’ll judge the game like any other JRPG, and Ayesha doesn’t hold up well in that respect. Vague hints of a story that goes nowhere, sluggish combat with tedious animations, friendly but bland characters. If this weren’t an Atelier game, I would be even more scathing in my review but hey, at least I got to fuse stuff for a while so that was good.
In summary Atelier Ayesha wasn’t a very good game and I didn’t enjoy it that much. If it’s true that it’s all downhill from here, then I am in despair. But there’s nowhere else I can go for my crafting game fix so now I’m really in despair. Story fragments, event upon event with characters I don’t care about… I want to cry now 🙁 But I’ll get over it in a couple of months and be back to play Atelier Escha & Logy. Until then, phew, I’m glad to be done!
The friendzoning thing seems to be a pattern in Ayesha. My own run was full of sweet little moments of intimacy between Ayesha and Ernie, and I fully expected their relationship to blossom into full-blown love from there; but by the end of the three years, it was back to business as usual between them. I wouldn’t say I was disappointed, but… I kinda expected more.
Yeah see, I’m fine with nothing happening, as long as the game doesn’t tease anything. But here you get all kinds of scenes and blatant hints between Ayesha and Ranun, Ernie and Juris and then… nothing. So what was the point? We know from past Atelier games that we can have male-female friendships with no subtext or conclusion, so why bother teasing?
But on the balance of things that really bothered me in Ayesha, this was near the bottom. I don’t care about the characters that much.
You assessment of Ayesha sounds a lot like I feel about the DS Rune Factory games. I mostly play the series for the farming, so that part being almost useless and optional is already kinda meh to me, but then the JRPG-stuff they put the focus on isn’t even that well made and I’m just ‘what’s even the point then?’
That is close to how I feel. It’s the alchemy that sets Atelier games apart from the rest so when you downplay that, the rest of the game has to really step up to the plate to make the game worth playing.
That said, I haven’t played Rune Factory for the farming in years. When RF1 came out I was scared of ARPGs but I wanted to farm so badly I forced myself to play it. And I loved the fighting and smithing! Over the years farming has become less and less important and dungeon crawling more and more fun to me, so they’re pretty close to my ideal games now. Combat, crafting, waifus, great atmosphere. RF5 when?!
I have complete Ayesha game, it is far from your description, I love this game!
I’m glad you like it. Sometimes I also like games other people put down, or dislike games that are highly rated. That’s life!