by
Thomas Froehlicher
, posted 55 minutes ago / 184 Views
Atelier Resleriana didn’t find much success, especially in the West where the game came to a brutal end just one year after its release. So Gust and KoeiTecmo are now back to square one, returning the Atelier series to consoles with the latest release, Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land. Atelier’s RPG formula has changed a lot in five years, and this 2025 installment continues the transformation of the series. Let’s see if the new changes are for the better this time.
The biggest change in Atelier Yumia is its sprawling open world. True, Atelier Ryza 3 did extend the map with a certain degree of success, but it gave the impression of larger areas that weren’t really connected. Atelier Yumia scraps that and offers a seamless world with every inch of the surface being reachable. Yumia, alongside her best mates Viktor and Isla, are part of an exploration team looking to survey the ruins of an ancient civilisation called Aladiss. This means the world is wild and derelict; nature has taken over in the middle of the remnants of a once thriving empire.
This gives Atelier Yumia a couple of impressive landscapes. The natural and architectural structures are often magnificent sights, and I found myself using the convenient photo mode more than once. The last region is a fitting climax, with its ethereal aura crowning off terrific work in terms of world building and design. Another major addition compared to the Ryza trilogy is the introduction of verticality. Hills and buildings are quite elevated and complex, with floors, basements, or natural cliffs. The path isn’t always simple, which makes the exploration engaging and fun. Regular players of Genshin Impact might be unsettled to see its two core exploration mechanics – gliding and climbing – not available here. But that makes it only even more interesting. Yumia has a trick of her own, since she can triple jump thanks to some sort of little boosters on her heels.
So, the world is big, but what do you do in it? Apart from story objectives, you’ll see the world map filled with little question marks that are a multitude of secondary objectives. There are ruins scattered across the land where you can loot treasures, and keys for even bigger treasures. Yumia gets requests from fellow explorers or the rare inhabitants, for whom she has to deliver more or less complex alchemy products. Shrines are hidden in the environment and can either be lit with Yumia’s rifle or reactivated by solving puzzles. You might also witness special scenes between the alchemist and her teammates. In short, Aladiss is quite a rich world in terms of content.
And it’s not just for show, because every exploration task grants skill points that are required to progress through the skill tree and perform better in alchemy, gathering, and combat. The more you explore, the stronger you’ll be for the game’s toughest challenges, which is great motivation for exploring the four great regions of Aladiss as much as possible. Unfortunately it’s true that the objectives aren’t very varied, and I was disappointed by the lack of unique side quests or little sub-stories in particular. Exploration challenges are organized in a kafkaesque “Pioneering“ task list, which feels unreasonably long and tedious. Even now I struggle to understand this mechanic and how to unlock the (nonetheless essential) rewards.
Ingredients used for alchemy are scattered throughout the entire world, and add to the enjoyment when traveling; there’s an irresistible appeal in rummaging through every corner of the map to find each material and unlock every recipe. There are so many that it seems to never end. Materials also become rarer in the second half of the game, which makes the hunt for resources increasingly rewarding.
Still, I reckon there could be more challenge from the alchemy quests in particular, so that players have to really outdo themselves, show their alchemy or exploration skills, and feel more satisfied with their play as a result. For example, there’s no mandatory level of quality in the resquests, whereas it was very common in Atelier Totori some 14 years ago. That could be have been a way to liven up the sense of challenge, although getting decent quality in alchemy is excruciatingly hard in this game.
That leads us to the alchemy system. I remind readers that the point of the Atelier series is for the player to craft everything they use, from weapons to healing items. There’s no cauldron this time, instead Yumia controls mana from the palm of her hand to mix the materials. The process is represented by geometrical figures with two or three cores that receive ingredients. Each ingredient you collect or make is tied to a natural element (fire, ice, wind, and lightning) and has a resonance value. The resonance power of an item is shown by the circle around it. The larger the circle, the higher the resonance, and the more cores it overlaps. Resonating with a maximum number of cores boosts the efficiency of what you create.
The synthesizing occurs in three distinct parts: one that governs the properties of the item, one that sets its quality, and finally one that decides the number of external traits (passive skills) you can add. You repeat the above process two or three times depending on the output. Unlocking recipes requires what are called “particles“ of different rarity, which you can find in the open world. The very bad news is that the same particles are also required to strengthen the recipes. So unless you have a near endless stock of particles (which you won’t in the first playthrough), you have to stick with the basic level of every recipe. It doesn’t affect your playthrough, because the battle difficulty is set accordingly, but it’s a bit frustrating to be unable to upgrade your gear to maximum potential.
Yet I wholeheartedly approve of this new alchemy system. There are lots of fascinating recipes and curious objects, and the resonance system is very complex. It’s really delightful and addictive to choose between the various elements, the countless ingredients properties, and find your own way to maximize resonance. Alchemic skills acquired by Yumia also help you to optimize your creations: you can create more of the same item, and boost quality or statistics depending on whether you prioritize attack or defense. It’s extremely efficient in terms of your time, but doesn’t lack the depth or fun of past alchemy systems. I also found the new design of the alchemy in Yumia to be truly elegant.
Crafting also involves buildings and decorations. You can build your own atelier on building sites present in every region, and can then decorate it as you like, with multiple paintings, carpets, furniture, and such to choose from. If the interior items are mostly for show, the various buildings seem to hold a particular importance. After setting up an expensive-looking estate, I realized it came with a forge that can improve weapons further, which wasn’t written anywhere in the tutorial. There are about 20 different constructions in total to pick from. The whole crafting aspect is fairly rich and contains a lot of pleasant surprises. It’s just a shame that many of the larger buildings only fit in a few of the construction sites.
Being a huge fan of the turn-based Atelier titles, I was almost sure I would hate Atelier Yumia’s even more action-oriented battle system. Now that I’ve played the game extensively, however, I don’t find it to be too objectionable. Far from going back to the series’ roots, like Atelier Sophie 2 did three years ago, this latest entry pursues Atelier Ryza’s logic of more action and less strategy. For instance, you can bring only eight alchemy items to help you in battle, compared to dozens before. And since the combat happens fully in real time, there’s a lot more acting and less thinking (you can only slow down the fighting when using healing items).
However, the battle system not being what I personally prefer certainly doesn’t mean it isn’t good. In fact, I actually had fun with Atelier Yumia’s battles because, unlike Atelier Ryza 2 or 3, it perfectly assumes the action bias and doesn’t attempt to mix both styles into something that ends up being a lukewarm mix. In Atelier Yumia, your playable characters uses skills and attack items in rapid succession, but can also guard, evade, or grow a bit of distance in order to strike from afar. The set of skills also changes when attacking from a distance, which adds some welcome variety.
Indeed, I was pleasantly surprised by how lively and entertaining the fights actually are. You’re warned of incoming enemy attacks by a red sign, which gives hints for guarding and evading, and it’s certainly not easy to perform all possible actions while monitoring your skill cooldowns, your characters’ HP, mana level, and your opponent’s behavior. But the formula works because the action becomes really complex and intense; you need to keep your eyes on everything and decide in less than a second, which gives the combat a frenetic pace. If I had to voice one regret, it’s that things get too busy to fully appreciate the characters’ creative and detailed animations in battle.
Some other battle mechanics do seem to lack polish. The Friend Action system makes two characters cooperate to attack together at the same time, but actually the second ally barely mimics your current use of an alchemic weapon. This isn’t impressive at all, and well below the effort poured into the same aspect of Atelier Sophie 2 back in 2022. Mana Surge, the characters’ ultimate attack, is another feature that fell short of my expectations. The conditions to use it are very restrictive: the mana level must be at 100%, which takes such a long time to happen that you don’t often reach the threshold before winning the fight. Besides, Lenja uses mana to create mana daggers and increase her attacks, which further delays her potential use of Mana Surge. The ultimate skills also lack visual impact, and Isla’s overly goofy Mana Surge really doesn’t suit her character.
The narrative is Atelier Yumia’s clear weak point. This is partly because of the open world orientation it takes, since long hours of exploration inevitably disturb the pace of the scenario. But the story doesn’t have that many cutscenes to begin with, especially in the very dull first half. It barely goes beyond some timid questioning of the role of alchemy, and holds next to no surprises or serious plot twists. Little emphasis is placed on your party members’ personal stories, which means their personalities remain insufficiently developed to create a connection. I played version 3.1 of Honkai Star Rail concurrently with Atelier Yumia and it stunned me to see a lot more time, effects, art, movies, text, and context in miHoYo’s title, and how it made it more emotionally potent. The whole “alchemy is a forbidden art” narrative does seem more like a marketing catch phrase than anything else given the barebones storyline.
Another thing long-time Atelier players might notice is that Atelier Yumia has little-to-no room for humor. Yumia herself is older than all of the other Atelier protagonists so far, and as a result conveys a more serious and mature tone. So you won’t (or in very small doses) find the type of character interactions that made the series so amusing. Flammi, Yumia’s specter-like assistant droid, makes a few good jokes, but that’s about it. Atelier has changed a lot in how it’s meant to entertain – far too much in my book. I was also seriously disappointed, if not revolted, by how few boss fights the game contains. In more than 45 hours I saw only 3 main bosses, which is terrible in terms of pacing. They could have at least have thrown some unique super monsters to block your path here and there, but there’s not even that. As for the villains, they frankly aren’t very evil or charismatic, and don’t lift the narrative either.
Visually, Atelier Yumia is satisfying enough but could do with more polishing. As mentioned earlier, the scenery is beautiful and deserves praise, and the same can be said for the great battle animations. Still, the texture quality is low even for the PS4, let alone the PS5, and the character models don’t look as detailed as in competing JRPGs like the recent Trails in the Daybreak II (which in fact is already two years old). The faces in particular do look a bit rough, despite the commendable effort in inserting rich facial expressions. Their gestures feel natural also, so some conversation cut scenes are genuinely fun to watch.
I appreciate the new user interface quite a lot. The main and equipment menus show animated models of the characters in a variety of poses, which is cool to see. The menu for quick crafting, which you can use outside the atelier, is quite user-friendly and helps to keep the exploration feeling very smooth. The crafting inside building zones is pleasant too. The shortcuts used to save your most used items and devices, and the links to skill detail, are well thought as usual for the series. Musically, Atelier Yumia has welcome soothing world themes, but I fail to recall any remarkable battle themes. Having so few major fights probably doesn’t help in that respect. While writing this, I listened to Atelier Meruru’s soundtrack again and, believe me, the battle music was really something else in that entry.
While Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land further moves the series away from its roots, it adds some welcome novelties in return. The depth of the alchemy system is quite compelling, but the subsequent level of challenge is lessened. The impressive open world comes at a cost in terms of pacing. Fortunately the entertaining battles, addictive exploration, rich crafting, and visual charms carry things so that you’ll always wanting more of Yumia’s adventure. Atelier Yumia is a contrasting entry, but it does bring a better and fresher experience than the (far too lengthy) Ryza era.
This review is based on a digital copy of Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land for the PS5, provided by the publisher.
