Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout review for PlayStation 4

Going to start by saying that I am not huge into the Atelier series. I like the artwork with them and think they are interesting but for whatever reason, they could never hook me into them. Atelier Ryza had a lot of attention on it from fans and people who weren’t too familiar with the series, all thanks to the charm of the game’s protagonist, Ryza. Watching the trailers, I became curious myself if maybe this time, I’ll be more invested. Next thing I knew, the days are passing by and all I want to do is play more and more, forgetting that I should write. Because Atelier Ryza is so much fun.

The game is about Ryza and her desire to have adventures with her friends. Unfortunately, they live on an island and while limited to where they can go, Ryza also has her mother wanting her to stay home. Of course, Ryza is a renegade and adventure beckons.

At the start of the game, there’s a limitation of things you can do that start to open up as the story progresses. Due to citizens of the island being so closed within their town, exploring out is a big deal for Ryza and her friends. Along the way, you gain new tools through alchemy to open up additional areas but also finding new materials. While hitting a tree with your rod provides one item, hitting it with an ax gives different items. It can make item collecting turn into hours with interest in what will you discover in the next area or with different tools.

There’s only one town of main business and residents where you will take on side quests, buy or sell goods, and spend a good chunk of story development. Normally with the Atelier series, the dialog can be a bit too much cheese and I get a bit bored of it but this time it felt a lot different. Maybe I didn’t give enough chance to previous games and just wanted to button mash through but this time, I adore seeing Ryza’s smug reactions and comments with her friends Tao not wanting any part of her plans, though still tagging along.

When going out for materials, enemies appear on the world map and you have the option of attacking them not only to start up a fight but gain an advantage. Using basic attacks, you build up a gauge that has multiple benefits. You can increase tactics levels within that fight once the gauge is filled, which gives you multiple attack abilities or you can use the points for skill attacks. During the battle, you control 1 character with the option to switch to the other 2. You can also set it so they use no points at all or go hammy with them.

Atelier series have had timers before in previous games, a feature that I didn’t like though I have seen mixed opinions on that. Some fans are okay with it and like it, but I felt a high amount of pressure from it. Even if it is a very forgiving amount of time, I felt like that means not enjoying things at my own pace. Atelier Ryza thankfully does not have any timers and you are free to do alchemy or level grind all you want without having to keep a note of time needed for everything.

At times, there was a bit of a frame drop and the animation would get choppy for a moment. Thankfully it’s not a shooter game or one with crazy action, so the drop doesn’t impact the gameplay. But it is worth noting due to how often it does seem to happen. What does impact the gameplay though is how often I would need to have a certain ingredient to make something. Looking for a particular item would be a bit tedious having to run all over the place to pull plants or chop trees, trying to find a single item. This is why it’s important to just constantly grab items when you’re out. Stock like a mad lad, unload at your atelier, and stock more. Build yourself a massive horde of random junk, just to never run out of items to alchemize.

Atelier Ryza surpassed my expectations. While not a deep game, it hooks that interest in collecting overloads of material to make things. You could spend all day doing alchemy and not advancing the story because it’s so satisfying to make things. There’s the freedom of no timers either, so feel free to gather as much and make as much as you want to your heart’s content. The characters and how they continue to grow throughout the game is the strong push you’ll have to want to see the ending. This is easily my favorite Atelier game and can only hope that there are more in the future with this much fun.

*This Review Code was so generously provided by the publisher for review*

Developer: Koei Tecmo Games, Gust Co. Ltd. Publisher: Koei Tecmo Games, Koei Tecmo
Release date: September 26, 2019
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows
Platform Reviewed on: PlayStation 4 PRO