The Atelier games have been vaguely on my radar since the Escha & Logy Anime was released. More or less at random I decided to start with the most recent one, Atelier Ryza, without being aware it was the most recent one at the time.
It was a bit of a shock when halfway through I discovered it was released last year… because it definitely doesn’t look it. Maybe it’s because it was designed specifically for consoles, or maybe it’s because the PC version is incredibly half-assed (no mouse support, though to be fair it did recognize my Logitech controller instantly), but whatever the reason it does not feel anything like a modern game (for comparison, Dragon Quest XI and Cold Steel III blow it out of the water on a purely technical level). That doesn’t mean it’s not fun though.
It is absolutely fun and I ended up spending just under 50 hours beating it (Character Level 50, Alchemy Level 99 with everything crafted). Around 12 of which were spent pre-Tower crafting the best equipment… which resulted in hilariously wrecking the Great Elementals in ~5 seconds (the end boss took ~10 due to the second form). Combat aside, for the most part it’s a very laid-back slice of life type of game that unsurprisingly focuses on collecting, duplicating, and fabricating items. I even got some Recettear vibes occasionally from the various villager requests. Action-packed it is not and despite their dynamic nature (the only time the action pauses is during a Quick Action; otherwise everyone’s always attacking over one another) you’ll likely spend most of your time avoiding battles.
The question now is whether or not to try out some earlier games in the franchise, or just assume this is the current pinnacle mechanics-wise and do something else.
Bit of a tangent, but Wikipedia says, “Recette (in Recettear) adopts the catchphrase ‘Capitalism, ho!’ as the player continues on with the story.”
Had to say that Capitalism Ho would be a great real-life name. And his brother, Land.