Atelier Lulua ~The Scion of Arland~ Reviews

If you enjoyed Arland story and characters this is a good game and will recommend for that case. Sadly as an standalone Atelier game, it is just medicore. Early game, common enemies have way overinflated HP, and bombs and equipment is weak. This makes early fights a chore, leading to strategy of pickup runs when you try to avoid any and every combat and just harvest materials. You also don't unlock restock until 1/3 into the game so you have to contantly remake consumables. Eventually it does get better, but that's when second issue starts to appear. Awakening and counter-elements make alchemy system overly complex, frustrating to work with and impossible to predict without stupid amounts of time documenting it. Its simply not as fun as it used to been in older games. If you want to make a good item you have to spend an hour planning every element, awakening path and traits interactions, and then you will find out that because devs put a single ice element on one item it all goes to $&^%!/.

[h2] Big step up from previous arland games [/h2] Previous arland games the story was pretty much non existent for most of the game, Lulua on the other hand has a more engaging story that is prominent throughout the whole game. The need to do request board has been drastically reduced as enemy drops provide more money and the overall reward from request board has been increased. The alchemy system has been improved from past arland games, more mechanics are introduced creating more depth to the system. [b] What I didn't like about the game [/b] [list] [*]Most of the recipes are hidden behind a 2 riddle system, similiar to sophie and lydie & suelle. If you solve both riddles for that 1 recipe you unlock the recipe. The problem is the riddles are vague so you end up just looking up online on what the requirement is because it doesn't feel good wasting materials on synthesising something that doesn't end up matching the riddle. [*]Story is kind of bad. Relative to atelier games its ok but relative to other jrps the story is terrible but its better then barely any story like past arland games. [*]Probably most grindy atelier game to date. Balancing is kind of off. The very first boss is way too hard and you have to grind exp/money (to buy accessories) to beat it. Prior to the final boss, the game doesn't really challenge you. It's only in the last chapter where the difficulty spikes through the roof and you have to lock in and build the best gear possible. If you are just killing enemies for bounties only, you will be 40lvl under the final boss, and at that point grinding mobs isn't viable so you have to craft the best gear to compensate. [/list] Overall if you enjoyed the past arland games you will enjoy this one(and you don't mind some grind), if you are not a fan of the riddle system to unlock recipe I recommend you stay away from this game. If you play atelier games for the synthesis system and the power fantasy of being op like modern atelier games then i recommend you stay away from this game too. If your new to atelier series I redirect you to more modern atelier games or other jrps that have better story.