Atelier Meruru ~The Apprentice of Arland~ DX Reviews

I imagine this is what Animal Crossing is like except this game has people in it.

[h2] If you enjoyed Rorona and Totori then you will enjoy this one [/h2] This game according to release date came 3 years after Rorona and nothing really has changed. It's just Rorona and Totori with a different coat of paint. I criticised both Rorona and Totori for the lack of story elements coupled with the game being a giant fetch quest simulator. For the most part same complaints hold true for Meruru but they at least tried to improve upon it. Meruru does try to incorporate more story beats into the development quest as the purpose of doing them makes sense from the perspective of growing your kingdom. There is a lot more incentives for doing the development quest (points to create buildings to grow population and permanent buffs) compared to past arland games. When you are growing your town, you will see more people in town but they just stand there for the most part. It would be nice if the town had more areas open up compared to just the picture of the town on the minimap getting bigger. Request board quest aren't as mandatory in this game unless you want a specific ending.

Playing through the Atelier games (minus Lulua since these jerks chose not to dub it for whatever stupid reason) and I finally took the time to complete Meruru. It's interesting - Meruru feels like a "mature" version of the game. Very close in maturity to Firis which was much further in the future. Rorona and Totori felt clunky, half-baked and (at least with Totori) needlessly spread thin with questionable graphics. [H1] What I Liked[/H1] ✅ Meruru had excellent music almost all the way through (though Hagel's theme was completely butchered). ✅ Not sure if it was the controls or just the recipes, but alchemy felt more intuitive and natural than Totori. ✅ The town development and population growth mechanics added a bit more spice to a series that was generally dry (some people just like doing the alchemy. If that's all there is, it can't be asking $60). ✅ Unlike with Totori, you get two Homs about a third the way through the game, and they are of great help, doing simple synthesis and/or gathering of stuff at a very high pace. ✅ Hanna. One of the greatest characters who really did deserve her own game. [H1]What I DIDN'T Like[/H1] ❌The Population mechanic adds too much unnecessary tedium. It's not hard to avert it (it basically is there to force you to do the Tavern quests), it's the principle. Many of the quests are the exact same and it gets old fast. There should have been a way to delegate a Hom to clearing these (the idea is, if they don't see Meruru every now and then, she loses popularity) ❌IF there was a warp mechanic, we didn't find it, and it certainly needed it. Way too much backtracking (Although this is common for the series). ❌The interruptions felt way too frequent; you'll be doing ingredients for a certain alchemy only to get disrupted by a pointless scene with Rorona or something. ❌The menu for alchemy is terrible (better than Totori, but that's not saying much - desperately needing SORT BY NAME as an option. ❌Totori's map was more appealing than Meruru's. A LOT more. Meruru's "comic book" layout was annoying on the eyes. The town being built out was too cluttered. ❌The ending. While yes, it was told what would happen, we expected something a little more exciting. While there were a lot of negatives, they were more pet-peeves than dealbreakers. Meruru is arguably the best of the Arland trilogy; and enough was given in exposition that you don't even really need to play Rorona or Totori to enjoy it. (it's too bad that Gust/KOEI started declining the series after this, since Lulua was basically a stepchild that's not worth even trying.)