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Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube798kAtelier has always been one of the more niche JRPG franchises out there, but it started to gain much more widespread appeal with the significant success of the Ryza trilogy over the past few years. Now that Gust has closed the book on Ryzas adventures (for now, anyway), its come time to see if they can maintain that momentum and successfully pass the baton to a new leading lady to act as the face of the franchise. Wed say that its been largely successful in that endeavour. Beyond the title, Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & The Envisioned Land may not be immediately recognisable as an Atelier entry, but its a really good JRPG that justifies the liberties it takes in playing with series conventions.Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)Eschewing the low-stakes, slice-of-life approach of past releases, Atelier Yumia goes for a somewhat grittier and more grounded approach to its storytelling. In this world, alchemy is a forbidden and mostly forgotten art blamed for the catastrophic downfall of the Aladissian Empire centuries ago. Now, only the ruins of that once powerful and advanced civilization remain, and lone alchemist Yumia joins with the Order of Eustella to assist the organisation on a research expedition to uncover answers about the empire's history and mysterious destruction.Though there are still plenty of cute and chipper interactions among cast members that fit in with the series cheery identity, its interesting how Atelier Yumia generally goes for a modestly, but not insignificantly, darker tone. This is evident in the thinly veiled scepticism most characters initially harbour towards Yumia and alchemy, and how much of her characterisation is influenced by her mothers violent death in an accident three years prior.Its an interesting tale, one that keeps your interest by tantalisingly teasing the answers to bigger questions, and were curious to see where Gust goes with this as it works on the inevitable sequels.Given the premise of Yumia being a key part of a research squad, a substantial amount of the gameplay loop is focused on exploration, to the extent that we were reminded of many recent open-world releases. Each region features an extensive, fog-covered map rife with points of interest while there are various ruins and Ubitowers that act as Zelda-lite dungeons packed with puzzles and secrets.Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)We appreciated the freeform approach, as you can't go far without finding something to collect or get caught up in. And though theres a main quest you can always follow and oodles of side quests to knock out, youre encouraged to set many of your own goals via the use of the Pioneering Effort.These are smaller regional objectives, such as finding a specific number of shrines or bringing down a tough mini-boss enemy, that give you points for special unlocks upon hitting various thresholds. Not only does this mean that exploration is constantly given a secondary, extrinsic reward, but these goal lists are often constructed in such a way that they intentionally nudge you to step off the beaten path and get the most out of each region by ferreting out secrets.Naturally, the land is crawling with all sorts of foes, and combat follows an action approach that smartly mixes both turn-based and live-action elements. Though you can fight alongside party members, you can only control one character at a time, each of which has a small slate of available skills (and, of course, item uses) that are governed by cooldowns. You can string blows into flashy combos, while enemies can interrupt at any time with a poke attack or a bigger MMO-style AoE attack that gives you a few seconds to get out of the hot zone.Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)You can freely run in a circle around your foe, and there are two rings to jump between to dodge incoming strikes or set yourself up for dropping attacks that hit an enemys weakness. It's like a livelier and more involved version of FF's famous Active Time Battle systemeven though there are combat elements where rapid timing and proper positioning are necessary to succeed, a lot of your wins come down to managing cooldowns and carefully planning out how you break a foe down.Some may be disappointed that Atelier is pretty clearly leaving behind turn-based combat, but Yumias system feels like a satisfying evolution of the work Gust did on the Ryza trilogy while still feeling unique.Naturally, it wouldnt be an Atelier game without a robust item synthesis system. The main idea here is that you have a central core of an item surrounded by a few nodes, a bit like subatomic particles orbiting a nucleus. You place ingredients on each node, ideally in a way that allows their energy levels to overlap with other nodes and the core. Depending on the type, quality, and placement of the ingredients, the item itself will level up its various passive effects.Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)Its a quality crafting system that goes way beyond the tired and minimal efforts of most games with obligatory crafting elements these days. Creativity, skill, and knowledge of the components is richly rewarded here. Naturally, this careful system would be laborious if you had to go through the entire process every time you wanted to make something; thankfully, theres always an auto-build feature you can activate and direct with goals like quality or bare minimum. It, of course, can never make things quite as nice as you could if you put the time in, but its nice to have features like this when youre crafting things in bulk.As an extension of the synthesis system, theres now a base building system for those who like to give their surroundings a personal touch. Whether youre in the atelier or out uncovering yet another campground as part of your ongoing survey, you can now craft all kinds of decorations and furniture to be arranged as you see fit in designated areas. Those who dont care for this sort of thing can pick from a growing list of pre-selected builds if you just want to drop a basic camp down and move on, but we appreciated the ability to customise hang-out spots.Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)Visually, Atelier Yumia is well, middling. On one hand, we loved how streamlined and slick the UI looks, and the instant transitions in and out of combat right there on the field are quite impressive. On the other hand, texture quality is poor, pop-in is frequent, and the relatively low resolution gives everything a rather fuzzy and messy appearance. The world and character design itself is beautiful we were particularly in favour of the inventiveness of many of the ruins you encounter but the issue is that the old Switch just isnt very up to the task with this one.Sure, this game runs on the Switch, but its abundantly clear that the humble hardware struggles mightily to even achieve the disappointing performance here. In either docked or handheld, the frame rate typically hovers around 20fps during the best of times, dipping even lower when theres a lot going on.You can recover a few frames if you go into settings, enable the performance mode, and disable the more advanced video effects, but this then leaves you with an even poorer image quality which admittedly doesnt feel like it performs that much better.Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)Unfortunately, the Nintendo Switch is clearly not the ideal place to play Atelier Yumia, unless portability is an absolute must. If youre a series fan and theres no other hardware available to you, this port is certainly passable, but wed highly suggest you consider picking it up for another platform (if you have that option) to get the full intended experience of this release.Another point that bears discussion, neither positive nor negative, is that Atelier Yumia feels like a much more significant departure from the traditional format the series has slowly been moving away from over the years. Gust producer Junzo Hosoi described this latest release as a completely new JRPG series that has Atelier features, and we couldnt agree more.Things like the diminished focus on a slice-of-life plot and the heavier focus on things like action combat and extensive exploration are certainly welcome, but leave us wondering if this means that future entries will continue to distance itself from the series hallmarks that once gave it that 'humble and cosy' vibe. Suffice it to say, its clear the series has come a long way from the days of Atelier Marie or even Atelier Sophie, and there are increasingly more pronounced differences between modern and retro Atelier.
