Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky DX

Genre: Turn-Based JRPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Note: This game is included in the Atelier Dusk Trilogy Deluxe Pack bundle along with Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemists of Dusk DX and Atelier Shallie: Alchemist of the Dusk Sea DX.

For those unfamiliar with the Atelier franchise, an atelier (it’s a French word that’s normally pronounced “uh-tell-ee-yay”, but the characters in these games pronounce the word “at-lee-ur”) is a workshop or studio used by a craftsman or artisan… or in these games, by an alchemist. The Atelier games are a franchise of JRPGs that focuses on young, almost exclusively female adventurers who seek ingredients they can combine and use to enhance their items, with these crafting mechanics forming a central part of the game.

These games have each been released in a subset series that ties them together with a few of the other games in the franchise both in terms of mechanics, but also in terms of the storyline. I know that for many, the Atelier series can seem somewhat intimidating, but BarrelWisdom.com thankfully has a helpful guide to introduce players to the series. However, for the purposes of this review I’ll try to address where this game fits both into the Atelier franchise as a whole, as well as within its individual sub-series.

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Atelier Primer: Dusk Series

Atelier Escha & Logy, originally released on PlayStation 3 in 2014, is the first game of the Dusk series, the sixth series of games in the Atelier franchise, which also contains Atelier Ayesha, first released on PlayStation 3 in 2013, and Atelier Shallie, first released on PlayStation 3 in 2015, with all of these games getting improved remakes on the PlayStation Vita in 2015, 2016, and 2017 respectively, with new difficulty modes, new party-switching options, new enemies and costumes, as well as all additional content originally released as DLC. These improved versions were all ported to the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC in 2018, with all platforms getting an Atelier Dusk Trilogy Deluxe Pack Compilation containing all three.

The Dusk series gradually gets away from the overarching time limits the Atelier games are known for, with each successive game in the series having a more casual overall time limit compared to earlier entries in the series, and Shallie removing this limit entirely. They’re also slightly darker in tone than the Arland series.

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Escha and You Will Receive?

Yes, I’m going to keep making these bad puns. Would you prefer I just randomly shout “Barrel!”?

Atelier Escha & Logy continues this series’ trend of giving players deadlines for tasks to be completed by, but is extremely relaxed in this regard compared to its predecessors, giving players plenty of time to take care of these tasks, so long as they don’t dawdle. This reasonable timeframe is despite that this game continues the trend of making every significant in-game action like fighting enemies or grabbing up spell components spend time, requiring players to carefully consider where to invest that time to ensure that goals are completed before their deadline.

The gameplay mechanics this time around are similar to previous installments, but feel fairly well streamlined, and once again this game manages to keep things moving at a decent pace with good pacing and a healthy amount of structure, meaning you’re rarely uncertain where to go and what to do (in fact, you’ll often have multiple goals to pursue at once). And while this game lacks the town-building and journal progression of prior games, the way this game streamlines everything else and makes it all fairly user-friendly makes for a good tradeoff. This results in a game that makes for a decent entry point into the series, especially if you want to dip your toe into the era where these games still gave players deadlines for tasks.

The combat this time is not too different from what was seen in Ayesha, meaning it’s slightly deeper than many prior games in the series, but still not especially deep compared to other JRPGs, and once again the areas you’ll wander through are still segmented and relatively small compared to other games in the genre, not providing any truly satisfying feeling of exploring a world, instead of simply going to a new nook of that world to plunder it for resources.

Where I found Atelier Ayesha’s story to be disappointing, poorly-written and poorly-localized, Atelier Escha and Logy’s story is much better-handled – the writing is better, even if the story has much lower stakes than Ayesha’s story did. Expect to see plenty of slightly-older versions of Ayesha’s characters pop up throughout the story, but don’t worry if you haven’t played Ayesha – knowledge of that game’s story is not necessary to enjoy the story in this game, though it might give you a bit more background on many of this game’s characters.

The story this time actually features two protagonists, and while the majority of their tale is identical, selecting one character or the other at the game’s outset will give players a different perspective on that story. Escha is a young girl aspiring to put her alchemy skills to work for her local town government, while Logy is a young man who has traveled from the busy city to work as an alchemist for this rural town’s government after an incident in his former home forced him to leave. Regardless of which one you pick, both will end up working together as partners, and while neither of their stories is especially noteworthy, it’s still compelling due to some good writing and characterization.

Perhaps it’s due to the quality writing, but the voice acting in this game is excellent. The music, on the other hand, is nothing special – some decent typical JRPG fare, but very little that I felt was all that memorable.

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Are the Visuals a High Point, or Logy?

Unfortunately, the graphics this time around aren’t especially impressive either. They’re not bad, but they’re not up to par with either of the previous two installments in the Atelier series. At the very least this game doesn’t seem to have the horrible framerate issues that were present in Atelier Ayesha, and this game doesn’t use the more difficult-to-read font of Ayesha. But once again this game refuses to let players do much to move the camera, meaning that players once again will find themselves occasionally frustrated by encounters with enemies they couldn’t see.

Oh, and for players hoping for features making use of the Nintendo Switch hardware, like gyroscopic motion controls or the touchscreen… by this point, you can probably guess what I’ll say – no, this game doesn’t have any of that.

On balance, Atelier Escha & Logy isn’t as flashy as Atelier Ayesha, but its more relaxed approach to the series’ deadline mechanic, more streamlined game design, and greatly-improved writing quality makes it far more playable. And while this game brings back many of Ayesha’s characters, you don’t need any knowledge from the prior game to enjoy this game’s story. As a result, if you’re looking for an early game in the series to jump into, Atelier Escha & Logy makes for a solid choice.

tl;dr – Atelier Escha & Logy is the second game in the sixth series of Atelier games (the Dusk series), a franchise of JRPGs with a focus on crafting. Escha & Logy isn’t as visually impressive as Atelier Ayesha was, nor is its soundtrack all that memorable, but its relaxed approach to the series’ quest deadlines, more streamlined game design, and improved writing make this a better game overall, and a good entry point for players looking to try a “time limit”-era entry in the Atelier franchise.

Grade: B-

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