Review for Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist Of The Mysterious Book. Game for PC, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 19/11/2015 The version for PC came out on 07/02/2017
With Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist Of The Mysterious Book, the new chapter of the Atelier series, Gust brings to the West one of the best JRPGs in circulation, a title without flaws, consolidated by a now strong gameplay due to the many years of experience that have elevated it to one of the cornerstones of the genre and that we immerses you in fairy worlds full of places to explore and stories to tell.
Alchemists
In the small town of Kirchen Bell, with lush trees moved by the rustle of the wind and with the light that moves between the leaves and creates a play of shadows, lives a young alchemist. In her atelier, Sophie, she wants to become an expert in the ancient alchemical art. Certainly not an easy task for those who do not master the synthesis processes. But one day an enchanted book arrives, Plachta, to help Sophie and opens the doors to a great adventure. With the help of Plachta, whom Sophie discovers to be the very knowledge of alchemy contained in a book, the young alchemist learns to use magical art to master the rarest alchemical ingredients and formulate the most difficult syntheses.
As he has accustomed us in the other chapters, the script is treated in every detail, with always varied dialogues, and a detailed characterization of the characters, not only in the main protagonists but also in the supporting characters we will meet during our adventure and who will join our team. During our explorations we will meet not only new characters, such as friends Monika and Oskar, but we will also find protagonists of other chapters, such as the blacksmith Logy. They will also be joined by diverse characters such as Harol, a watchmaker with a passion for guns, Julio, a knight, Fritz a doll maker, and many others. To reinforce the script, it comes along with it an excellent soundtrack, made of music in full oriental style.
Each character has different characteristics and abilities, Sophie being a skilled alchemist masters the magical arts while Oskar, for example, has a very high defensive value but lacks in the magical arts, or we find Julio who has both great physical strength and defense equally strong. In creating the party, which in Atelier Sophie consists of four elements, we will have to try to balance the skills of each character to create the ideal formation. Each character will obviously be able to wear specific equipment, which can be forged and reinforced in the armory, such as stronger weapons, more armored armor, necklaces that increase magical powers or pendants that increase a certain skill such as defense or attack. At the same time with the use of our alchemy, these objects can be further improved by adding certain characteristics, for example we could create an armor that increases the strength of the spells as much as a sword that increases the physical strength of the character.
Each member of our team has three main characteristics: health points, which we will need to suffer a greater amount of damage during battles, magic points, which will be used to cast attack and defense spells, and stamina, which it will be used to explore more places and to fight more battles. Leaving the city to explore other areas, in fact, will consume stamina, which going down will weaken our characters. In addition to exploration, fighting monsters will also affect the stamina, which can still be restored with magical items created in the atelier, with objects found in the various areas, or simply by returning to Kirchen Bell. Each time we leave the city to explore the various areas, in search of alchemical materials or to complete the various quests, time will pass and this will lead to changes in the game world. In fact, the day-night cycle not only has an aesthetic function but also affects the gameplay, the objects scattered in the various areas will change as well as the monsters, which at night will be more daring and more difficult to beat.
We talked about the quests, which can vary from hunting a certain type of monster to finding a certain object, and which will be assigned to us by the town's host. Completing the various missions will earn us the money we will need to buy new resources, forge new weapons and buy rumors, gossip that the host will tell us and that will temporarily modify the areas to be explored. For example, we will be able to learn that in a certain place there will be fewer enemies and therefore we will be able to explore it freely in search of objects, rather than knowing that in an area there is a rare material, or even a monster that, even if defeated, continues to tick. The areas that we will explore, once we have collected all the objects and defeated all the monsters, will level up making us find new and increasingly rare objects and obviously new stronger enemies.
Crafting and synthesis
The combat system, strictly turn-based, allows us to build certain strategies. In fact, every turn we will have the opportunity to perform different actions: we can attack the enemy with a physical or magical attack, defend ourselves, use magic for offensive attacks or to reinforce our party and still use objects, such as bombs to attack enemies or objects. healing to restore the energy or magic of our characters. Each attack brought to our enemies will increase the hit bar, which as we level up will allow us to make increasingly powerful attacks or erect impenetrable defenses, depending on whether we have opted for an offensive strategy or a defensive strategy. The series of attacks of each turn will be established by our action and not simply by the speed of our character, according to an order of initiative that varies according to whether you use a physical attack, a defensive position, rather than an offensive or defensive ability. . At the end of the battle we will get the experience points with which to level up, grow our skills and learn more and more powerful special attacks. Sometimes the enemies will also drop money or chests containing rare items.
Like every chapter of the Atelier series, whenever we are not busy completing side missions or looking for objects, we will spend a lot of time in create alchemical objects. These items, as mentioned, can be used to reinforce weapons and armor rather than to attack enemies or restore the energy or stamina of our team. Creating alchemical objects perhaps represents the best characterized and most fun element of the gameplay, when we have in fact obtained all the objects that will be used for creation, we can mix them in the cauldron to make the requested object. Each element we use in our alchemy has special abilities as well as a certain weight: combined together they will shape the alchemical object which will be stronger the better we have combined the various elements, and used the bonuses. In fact, in the cauldron, there will be bonuses that will increase the effectiveness of alchemy and the power of the objects created, which we will unlock by chaining the various elements.
The new chapter of the Atelier series demonstrates once again the great work done by Gust. With an inspired script, an excellent soundtrack, an established gameplay and a refined alchemical system, Atelier Sophie manages to surprise again, standing once again as one of the best JRPG sagas and giving many hours of adventure.
► Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist Of The Mysterious Book is a JRPG type game developed by Gust Co. Ltd. and published by Koei Tecmo for PC, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 19/11/2015 The version for PC came out on 07/02/2017
