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Atelier Ayesha gripped me from the opening video, which eschewed the frenetic snapshots
of its predecessors in favor of bright abstraction, combined with a folksy guitar melody. In my
opinion, only two games have featured more intriguing opening animations: Persona 3 and
Katamari Damacy. Atelier Ayesha is nothing like either of those games. While it represents
a departure from the Arland region made famous in the last three games, it�s still the
material-gathering, recipe-searching, bomb-making alchemy-fest you�re likely expecting, full
of cute girls, hackneyed vignettes, and mangled German. Only this time, the English is mangled
almost as badly! Do you have any idea how long I searched for giant killer bees, hoping
to find some item in the �Sting� category, only to realize I was laboring under a mistranslation
and what I really needed was a ball of yarn? C�mon get it together.
As has become standard, some hardship befalls a young (always female) Alchemist - in this
case, the mysterious disappearance of her sister - what sets off an adventure fueled
by science, material scarcity, and awkward social interactions. Much as I deride the
now-overused mechanics, the Atelier series has long been a bastion of non-linearity in
JRPGs: You have a starting point, and a general idea of where you need to end up, and you�re
given three years to get there. Along the way, there are friends to make and help to
recruit, as you�ve gotta fight your way through the harder parts using RPG battle
mechanics that I�m split on. Sure, there are attack-preempting defense commands and
follow-up strikes, there�s a gauge that fills and potentially allows your allies to
unleash big-�ol-super-moves... but it mostly just feels off, like no one bothered to check
the math. When I craft an item that says, right on its face, �KO Recovery XXL,�
and said item only restores 50 HP when used - less than half of the target�s max HP
- I have questions. Unfortunately, there aren�t really any answers to be had, as the game
provides little to no information on how exactly all this Alchemy is supposed to work. And,
of course, they change just enough between games so that my well-reasoned guesses still
come out wrong.
So what we�re left with is cute girls doing science, some rather poor voice acting - when
there is any - and an uphill struggle to understand just what the heck is going on at any given
time. Add in a couple genuinely unlikeable characters - like the bartender who reminds
you every third sentence or so that he can�t drink alcohol, or the gruff scholar whose
job is to be a colossal prick through half the game and Mr. Exposition through the other
- and you�re left with the kind of mathfest that appeals to only a certain type of gamer...
and speaking as that certain type of gamer, it�s still a bit hard to swallow. Also?
NO PAMELA. I�m going to curl up in my quarters with a copy of Mana Khemia and attempt to
fix this egregious error.